Chuck Wagon

I think Yeldon is hot garbage, Walford is dropping to 3rd round territory after a poor showing at the combine and you did nothing to address the loss of Hughes. You'd still have a bunch of cap space left over for no apparent reason.

He Gone

I don't know if that's necessarily true. It's not like we'll have a $20 mil QB next year. Kyle Williams is going to be 32 before this year and Mario is 30, the longer term heart of the defense would likely be Suh and Dareus with Mario and Kyle leaving. I think it's all a lot of hot air as I don't see us being high on his list.

Didn't Suggs successfully argue for the DE tag a few years back in the Ravens defense (which is basically Rex's defense)?

Can't stay healthy and can't block. At his pricetag? Easy pass.

Some people just don't get it. Cap space does not mean you can sign Andrew Luck, Calvin Johnson and Jimmy Graham. We have plenty of cap space and should pursue players of Revis (or in the other thread Suhs) caliber if they are interested in coming here.

I think signing Suh would be brilliant, as long as it doesn't cost us Dareus. We could have 100 mil of cap room and our offense is still going to be mediocre at best, if we signed Suh we'd still be able to upgrade at OG and sign one of the vet FA QBs. No amount of cap space is landing us Andrew Luck and you can't completely overhaul one side of the ball in FA period. FA should be approached as a chance to sign superstar players like Suh whose original team is too capped out to resign, or to plug some obvious holes. Adding Suh to our front 7 with Rex calling the defense would make us scary on that side. I don't think Suh would have much interest coming here though, sounds like he either wants a NY sized market or to go back home to the west coast.

There were a lot of rumors last year that the 49ers saw they were going nowhere and basically shut Stevie down/froze him out of the offense in order to not cross the statistical threshold with the conditional pick they owed us.

I mean "could" as in "has the ability" not "we definitely will".

I don't believe he was our plan A for a second. I think he was a vet our coaches knew who could be signed right now.

LOL. 3 years?! I really wonder if Pettine trying to stick it to Rex was a factor. All things considered we had coaches he was close with and more talent around him so they've gotta be paying him.

At this point I'm wondering if they are shuffling the deck for something big. Maybe Brandon Marshall sized big.

Just for some background color for those who may not know. He started his career at Oregon and transferred after losing the QB battle to Mariotta. He wouldn't be the first guy in that type of a situation to succeed (Flacco for instance left Pitt and everyone knows about Cam's journey).

No. Not everyone is Joe Flacco when it comes to throwing the deep ball. It's almost non existent in Peyton and Brady's games. To be a "franchise" QB you need to be able to read defenses like you were in their meetings and accurately get the ball quickly to guys in a position they can make something happen. EJ is a great kid, great head on his shoulders, prototypical size, nice arm, but the short accuracy simply isn't there. Not every completion is created equal and I worry this is what trips people up who only look at numbers. An NFL qb needs to not only complete passes, but put the ball in a window that positions your guy to run after the catch and not get killed when their head is turned. Watching the games last year, it looked like the receivers no longer trusted him to maximize their safety. You simply can't routinely get a guy killed or miss on the short throws. EJ doesn't have the short accuracy.

I think the biggest hang up is the "1st round pick" title. I absolutely believe there were very few (if any) other teams that graded EJ out as a 1st round pick. He played at a major college program that ran a pro style system for several years, this wasn't a Joe Flacco instance where he was playing against inferior competition and people struggled to accurately judge him. The book was out on EJ regarding his struggles with accuracy and his methodical (nice way of saying slow) approach. I think our braintrust fell in love with him in interviews and talked themselves into needing to take a QB prospect early. They moved down from 8 because they knew he'd still be on the board but weren't willing to risk it any further. EVERYONE in the business jumped all over us the second the pick was made and while EJ has looked competent at times, they've largely been right. You can't drastically change a guys accuracy. While EJ has shown flashes the necessary consistency hasn't been there. You can miss a deep pass, but you absolutely have to nail your short throws. He's routinely missed guys or placed the ball in bad spots on the short throws. One would believe Rex and Roman have spent many hours studying him and have talked to many people they trust regarding him. If they make the decision to release him, it's because they don't see it. Until they burn us, they at least deserve a bit of the benefit of the doubt if they decide he doesn't have it. If he didn't have the "1st round pick" label there would be nowhere near the same amount of people who believe he needs more chances and from every outside perspective he's a 1st round pick in name only. Kaep is Harbaughs boy.

I'm not saying one would, but it can't be dismissed out of hand. There are a whole lot of factors in play as to why someone would sign here or one of the other places they'll be able to compete for a job. Houston looks to have a wide open competition and there's likely to be playing time with the Jets just to name two. For all our love for our defense and Rex, those are clearly more desirable markets for guys making millions in the primes of their lives to live in. If Rex and Roman don't believe in EJ there's no real reason to keep him around other than "but we used a 1st round pick on him" and "but the dead cap room" and "I believe in him".

It can potentially cost a guy they actually want to sign here because he sees the 1st round pick from 2 years ago on the roster. People can say "well I don't want a guy that doesn't want competition" all they want but the simple truth is given the last 15 years of history and the geographical location we are already fighting an uphill battle. For some of these signings it'll come down to splitting hairs. If Rex & Roman are completely out on EJ, I can't blame them for removing a potential roadblock to a guy they do believe in.

'11 - 21st ranked tackle - slightly ahead of Demetrius Bell '12 - missed 8 games knocking his grade down, 27th at tackle, would have been ~17th with a full year '13 - 23rd ranked guard - slightly worse than Urbik In his prime he was an average starting lineman. He's no longer in his prime.

1. They aren't looking for a backup QB, they are looking for 2 guys who can compete to be the starter 2. There's a lot of smart, hard working, well liked people who can't play QB at a NFL level 3. The dead money is overblown. It likely doesn't affect what we'd do this FA period and it's either take the hit now or take it later.

Because there's another FA or trade option they believe will be better competition with McCown. The dead money is soo overblown. We can easily have $35-40 mil in cap space and unless Revis shakes free or a miracle trade for a guy like Rivers happens we likely won't use all of it. Why keep a guy on the roster when you've evaluated players to be better than him to save $2.5 mil of cap space?

It's really not that complicated. If he's going to be cut it's because they've evaluated 2 FA options to be better than him (McCown & Locker) and they like a couple of guys in the draft. Some people want anyone but him as QB but then turn around and act like he's Andrew Luck 2.0 when there's a rumor he'll be released.

Dumb list. Cutler over D'Brickashaw? Reggie Bush or Demeco Ryans over Nick Mangold? Dumb

My logical thought is: McCown is the only viable QB we can sign right now. He's got a working relationship with both Roman & Kromer There's a QB in FA they've evaluated to be better than EJ (Locker?, Bradford if released?). It's a lot easier to convince said FA target to come in if he's only battling with a career backup like McCown and a late round flier than if he's going to be in competition with the guy the GM took in the first round not even 2 years ago.

Exactly. He posted a -12.3 in just 7 games. Blow that out to 16 games and he might have been one of the worst guards in football. People really need to step up beyond the "I've actually heard of him, he can't be awful" analysis. There's enough data easily available now.

Most (or all) of the rest of the league never viewed EJ as a first round talent. We took him then because the FO had talked themselves into him and there was supposedly some "mystery" team that was going to take him late in the first. A lot of people believed in Gabbert and saw him as being in a no win situation in Jacksonville.