Andrew Son

Early Edwards

Juilio Jones once had an injury and now look at him! JMatt is well on his way!

Agreed

Good. The more the better for a new regime trying to build their team. I will trust that they have a plan. They seem well respected. This isn't Buddy and Chan.

I liked it. I absolutely loved Sammy coming out of Clemson. Thought he could be the best WR in football and had HOF talent. Still do. Also, still had hope for EJ. Made sense that Watkins could help EJ develop. And we were in "win now" mode with our D and the signing of Mario. In retrospect, the trade up obviously didn't work out.

Yes, but do they win? That's been my point. My point has nothing to do with Sammy. I love Sammy. He's an AMAZING talent. I just don't think it's smart to invest a large amount of the cap in a number one receiver without a franchise QB in place. Especially on a run first team. What if you could use the money saved on Sammy to sign a FA QB that comes available? Or use the acquired picks to move around and draft your guy? The more cap space you have, and the more draft picks you have, the more ammunition you have to land a guy in FA or the draft. It's a general philosophy. Position ourselves to have the flexibility to capitalize on opportunities to land our guy. It is all that really matters. We have been signing good players to big contracts for years. We extend Dareus, Glenn, and Hughes. We sign Mario, Shady and Clay. We give up draft assets to move up in the draft. And we don't win. How is NE able to let so many good players go instead of signing them to big contracts? Because, to an extent, it doesn't really matter. Find your QB and the rest is gravy. How do you improve your odds of finding a QB? Collect draft picks and carefully manage the cap to allow for maximum flexibility.

But are those teams with poor QB's and elite WR's competing for championships? I don't see it as the smartest way to allocate resources in building a team. My stance is to find your QB before paying a huge contract to an elite WR. Accumulating picks, and having maximum cap flexibility, is a good way to increase the odds of finding that guy. Then build around him.

And if we had a Jameis to target Watkins maybe we hold on to him. Lets acquire picks, and cap flexibility, and do everything we can to get our QB. This doesn't mean tanking, just being smart with our draft picks, and cap situation, allowing for maximum flexibility. I think this is the plan. Not spend huge money, if he even re-signs, on an immensely talented WR that will probably be underutilized. If this extra 2nd gives us the necessary ammunition to go up and get our guy in the draft, or if not having another giant contract on the books allows us to go after one of the FA QB's like Cousins, is this still a bad trade?

It's official. The tank is on

I think it's just his foreign accent

The dynasty has been disassembled!

You may want to check the drop statistics yourself. It's an interesting list

Question- would you rather play the Pats* with or without Chandler Jones? Team building is complex. Tough decisions need to be made.

I am confused as to where we are coming from, to head back to the dark days?

The Raiders would never move Cooper because they can actually use him. We have been in the business of adding and paying talented players for years. We do hand out big contracts. We go after Mario, McCoy, Clay, and extend Darius and Hughes. Our problem hasn't been an overall lack of talent, it's been a lack of organizational direction and QB. I am not arguing against Watkins' talent. My point is that from a team building standpoint, it may not have been the best move to hand out a huge contract to a WR. For this team right now. We seem to have a plan in place, beyond just throwing **** at the wall. It may or may not work, lets let it play out.

You are leaving out the giant investment that they are going to have to make in order to keep him beyond this year. It is far from a homerun at this point. What if Goff sucks?

I don't know yet, but he hasn't been good. I just see some similarities in the situation. Personally, I'd rather confirm that I have my guy before making this type of investment. Like the Falcons did. Otherwise Sammy may be wasted.

You may want to look within your home state for an example

If only we had tried to acquire an elite weapon to help develop our less than impressive first round QB. Yep, don't see any Whaley similarities here...

That might be true if they were confident that they could sign him, beyond just the tag

Like Watkins in LA?

For a guy with injury concerns that is a FA after this year?

Must happen in the first quarter then, based upon your outlook.

I think we are going to try to spread teams horizontally, not vertically

I'll be interested to see what this means for Shady. Both Jordan and Boldin are elite blockers. Zay should be a good blocker as well, but that has yet to be seen. Add that to an increased role in the passing game, and McCoy could be in for a MONSTER year.