Mark Long Beach

I would be very, very surprised if he were to be cut. He's been a solid player that can play guard or center. Perfect backup.

Don't think so. Only by fans desperate for any possibility of improvement. He doesn't fit our profile, he's injured and has a bad attitude.

pretty please?

5: better than what ithought we'd get from Maybin and I had hopes for him. Merriman has speed & power. er, had. Hopefully still has.

Well, we don't give much credit; but we probably should more than we do. I HATE that we lost out on Clabo, but I LOVE that we went after him pretty hard. He's the type of guy we should go after and I didn't think that we would.

Not a great sign. But we're not necessarily just leverage for more bucks. IIRC Atl is his hometown team and family is all there... It's harder to move away from a dream job. Especially from a contender to... optimism?

bleah. But, we've stepped up to the plate and are swinging for the fences. Got to give the front office that.

Nope. Haven't seen that number anywhere until just a moment ago in this thread. Dunno where that came from. He would already have signed or his agent would have shot him if true. I bet is still around 8m. 9 if we overpay him.

heh. Thanks! Good job.

Ieeeeee! there goes the backup plan. Doesn't matter if we get Clabo. The good news is that if I was Colon's agent I'd for dang sure wait until Clabo was nailed down knowing that the Clabo loser could come in with a big bid... Fingers crossed.

My only concern is that we paid a lot for him. He clearly has some game-changing ability on a better team than us... Can he do it for us? I do like that we are on the cutting edge of taking advantage of the new 3rd QB rule. So, yes he's way better than our #3 QB. He'll contribute on the field.

My feelings too. Although it may be not so much anti-buffalo as he is pro-Atlanta. He's stated all along that he wanted to stay in ATL. I'm hoping the Falcons fear losing their two interior linemen is worse than losing one RT. Fingers crossed.

#ditto

I've seen a lot of complaints about how we've not addressed our OL well in the draft. Especially high picks. I was surprised to see that we are on the higher end of devoting high picks to the OL recently. Here's a chart since 2008 of 1-3 rounders devoted to the OL. We tie for 12th in the league. If you only count first or second rounders we tie for 5th. Hardly way out of line for an NFL team. Granted, we've not devoted high picks towards _tackles_ in quite a while. But we've not ignored the OL compared to league averages. http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/42274/colledges-addition-and-cards-ol-planning

It gives us competition for roles and good depth. Also may work well by taking advantage of the new rules for 3rd qb's by giving us a "free" roster spot. Now we have somebody who can really take advantage of that spot. We'll only see more of Spiller if he steps up his game. Now we're relying a little less on that happening.

Well we're definitely collecting some dynamic type players. Hey, If Chan can figure out how to use them all...! He does seem a little redundant, but he also looks like insurance. He can run the wildcat ala Fred, he can obviously KR well, and he can run okay. I think his best role will be 3rd QB which can now be active on gameday.

He sure had some nice plays in that highlight reel. He's got some wheels!

Stroud cut from the Pats*. Apparently he isn't healthy from the "minor" Surgery in January. We released him officially because of a failed physical. It looks like he may be done. http://www.necn.com/07/28/11/Report-Patriots-cut-Stroud/landing_sports.html?blockID=544283&feedID=3352

Jebus yes. He sure hasn't been just hanging around doing nothing! I hope the kid can play!

Ahhh... This brings a smile to my face. From your lips to God's ear.

John Wendling Detroit. Not sure what's going on with Nate as his camp is denying he's been released by the 49rs. He pretty much has to be cut with a $17.5m cap hit this year just by himself.

Yeah, he's only interested if he can make a baby.

Key word: Eventual. He knows his place and that's important. Not to mention he can work with our offensive system well. But Pickings were slim at backup QB. I think we got one of the better options.

LOL! Well we sure aren't a power running team yet. We need a few more OL pieces first. With Chan we have a shot with 5 wide, whereas the last couple of offenses we had essentially no shot.

We often don't share the same viewpoints but I'm with you 100% here. I'm not sure Bell needs to make a quantum leap, but he does need to continue his steady improvement. He's been a pleasant surprise for me. Don't get me wrong, he's no where near as good of a run-blocker as JPeters but isn't that far off as a pass-blocker. If he can get a little stronger and get better as a run-blocker it's a position he could hold down for many years. He's also better than most of the free agents that are out there. Better than Bushrod who many wanted. Gaither is probably better, but is even MORE injury prone and is a malcontent. Not sure how much of an upgrade he might be. At the very least it's not a position that's screaming for an upgrade like it has been so for much of the time. Now if he REGRESSES... All bets are off, and it becomes a screaming need for us. Especially since we have NO depth behind him. Unless by some miracle Ed Wang develops (haven't seen much out of him).