Shadow Free Agency

Move on to what? The Panthers are fucked for years to come because of Hurney's moves this off-season. This is precisely what Panthers fans should be talking about, and in fact, they should be pressuring Richardson for Hurney's head. Nothing changes with this franchise if you have the same people making the same mistakes over and over again.

Blocking tight ends are still capable of running routes and catching the ball, they just aren't targeted much. Also, they're blocking linebackers in space more often than not, which would be harder for slow linemen to do.

 

After watching a Bears game, Olsen is better than I thought. He's not "good" and I agree about the lack of a blocking TE potentially hurting us, but he doesn't get overwhelmed like I had imagined.

 

I did not realize that was the case. They should have let him play this season under that to see if his knee is going to hold up. The could have extended him during the season if he looked good.

 

I'd rather have Olsen over Boss any day. I could see no Shockey and Boss added but get why Shockey is here. Timing.

Kasay costs us a roster spot, rather have the spot. But don't see the money spent on Mare either.

Rather have Charles Johnson, and paid the 10 mil most everybody expected (even though it's high).

Agree with too much $ spent to retain DW, along with the length of the deal. But understand why they wanted to keep him. I don't trust Stewart's foot.

Am fine with Fiametta.

Don't believe Jenkins would come here given his bro's perspective, which I'm sure he heard plenty (never saw him in Denver for the same reason).

Hell yes we should have gone after Mebane and Wilson.

Hindsight on Edwards, yeah I'd have welcomed him.

 

If the Panthers pull another 2-14 then he will be gone. I wanted him gone along with Fox as he was as much if not more responsible IMO for the mess.

 

Olsen is obviously faster than Boss, so I was thinking he would be more of a downfield threat, but that's actually not true. Olsen has never averaged more than 10.6 yards per reception, while Boss topped out at 15.2 last season and has never been lower than 11.6. He's also a better red zone target along with being the much better blocker.

I don't think you would need a specialist with the new rules. Baker could handle it.

I recently heard Kris say some nice things about being here, but who knows.

 

I thought Hartsock was the blocking TE. Barnidge is probably better at blocking than Olsen and Shockey. I would move Shockey if I thought it would bring us anything.

 

Allright- I'll play.
It would be fun, and easy, to ignore this, or intentionally/unintentionally turn it into a big argument thread over plenty of arguments that have been had before - that this is yet another "I blame Hurney but don't necessarily understand the dynamics going on within the team", "2-14", any of various other arguments that could be had type thread. I think we get that this is at least partly rooted in trying to make a case about Hurney that, at best, seems futile, and that there's an extreme amount of hindsight involved. Again, all that aside.

But there's also no denying the shiny toy factor (which for some, locks them into specific players, and therefore disappointment without the same perspective), and that I wouldn't have gone in every direction the team did. Regardless of being at two ends of idealogies, given our own options anyone on this board would've followed divergent paths. I'll limit commentary on the work done above (Leach is a good contract, for instance, but largely useless here. I also don't want to make this about Fiammetta, etc) since this is going to be long enough as is.

Cullen Jenkins was offered more elsewhere but chose to stay for what he could get in Philly, where he wanted to go, per MMQB. No dice on that one. There's a rumor we offered Braylon for 1 year $3-4 million and he didn't take it. Santana Moss definitely was offered a good contract and he took it to the Redskins to match. I don't think this is quite as easy as saying "a little more". It also gets rid of whether the team that bid on this all-bargain team would've matched. In those cases, I don't know we would have a chance.

Those are just a couple contracts that we did miss on, or would've missed on. It's an obvious error to suggest we only offered to guys that accepted, when we were this active. Of course, we don't know much of anything on offers, overall, so it becomes almost impossible to say what we tried to do. But in some cases, we did above and beyond what you're suggesting and lost out.

So I'll put up some alternate groundrules. 35%+ on 'matching contracts'. Let's face it, hindsight just isn't that realistic. I don't honestly believe in the idea that every player was up for grabs in auction format. I'll address guys who got a one year deal with a second year, assuming that security is a reasonable reason to leave a deal with a 'better' team, but you could argue that one year deals are about opportunity not money and rule those off-limits.

For that end, I'm not touching guys who stayed with their teams, and will only use a veto-type override on our guys, most of which I was OK with keeping in the first place. That directly costs me Mebane, but I can't assume that players that stayed for decent contracts on decent teams are the most motivated to chase a money trail either, or that it would take a significant amount of money to do so.

*I said pre-FA I'd gladly put a mil extra into Johnson to keep him than let him walk. I'm going to keep that contract. Would it have been great to sleep on it? Absolutely. That's not the world we lived in. Could we have gotten him much more cheaply? Maybe a little, but probably not as much as is being suggested. $10 mil a year is possibly reasonable, but I never would've let it get as far in the timeline as Edwards' contract was eventually signed anyway. Johnson would never have lasted that long, before negotiations could start this team was worried about losing him, I was too, and Johnson was ready to move on. I'd have moved very quickly to get him done, too. Edwards took a significant discount, but I think that contract's more abnormal than Johnson's. I can't say what I did before FA and take a massive change on it now. I expected he'd get a lot of money either way.

*After keeping Johnson I'm OK with letting DW go. I was before, I am now. In a vacuum I'd have kept him, or I'd have suggested a deal that was something like 3 years, $12 mil per year. A deal that keeps the bonus in line with what he received, is more now with less risk later. I'm OK with what we did, because DW's more potent than the others, but we could also live without. I was OK with him walking before now, I can still be OK without that. If another team signed both the top DE and RB, there'd have been a lot of buzz on that, as there was with us
keeping them (which, aside from some spending jokes the first couple days, wasn't that negative of buzz).

I don't think we could reasonably afford to let both DW and Johnson go, both from a standpoint of losing our own talent, but also from a perspective of fighting the cheap angle and then having to pay as much or more for players we don't know . Face it - if we let both of them go and don't go after anyone major, the franchise has the Bobcats stigma, even re-signing Kalil and Beason. Did they over-correct? Maybe, we've done that argument. PR move or not, they wanted him, I like having him here. It's a lot of money, hope it doesn't bite us, but in the short
term I'd have been happy to franchise him, even up to two years, to keep him short term. This contract's certainly lower than that.

*That leaves room for one major, impactive pluck from someone else. I'll grab Josh Wilson, but on my guidelines, and with him jumping a very short distance from where he was, I'm going at least $6 mil a year, adding at least a year for what becomes a 4 year, $21 mil deal with $9 mil up front. If we had done that, I'd be fine with that. Wilson is still worth that, and he's a guy I wanted before I saw a very low pricetag. Fallback option, Chris Carr . I didn't look at his contract, but he makes sense too.

*Todd Heap, instead of the Olsen trade. Mostly because I didn't anticipate there being a trade like that, so I can't claim to have known to do it. Olsen's essentially ideal for most of what we want - he's more explosive than any TE we could've gotten. It remains to be seen whether he can block well with us, and that 3rd is a valuable commodity. I wouldn't un-do that trade - I love that trade - but I can't say I'd have grabbed him. Heap falls within my want to go with a guy - just like Shockey, an older guy you can use to bring a younger guy along.
We have his old line coach, Matsko, so there's familiarity. Same offense so not risky for either side. He signed a two year deal, and I'm OK with that. Before I looked up his contract, I assumed about $4 mil a year - $3 mil bonus, $2 mil/$3 mil split salaries, and he went to AZ so it's not like he joined a contender. Realistic contract with a fairly easy out. He signed for total of $5.5 mil over two years.



*Hate to beatup on the Ravens' old players, but Kelly Gregg made sense once I heard of his release. He's a vet, he's a NT. The Ravens really play a 4-3 front now anyway, realistically, based on how they use Suggs and Johnson. Gregg's first step is still decent, and I assume that can translate well enough to a shade nose technique in our one-gap. Gregg got a one year deal, $3.5 million, 1 of which was to sign. I'm OK with two years, $2 mil to sign, $2 mil salary 2011, $3.5 mil 2012 for total 2y/$7.5 mil.

*We need some veteran OL depth. I'm fine with our starting 5, and the flexibility that Schwartz gives. Bernadeau seems OK enough for LG and C, but not RG, and we may as well give up on Robinson. So I'd pickup - it doesn't matter, random former starter $1 mil 1 year. Ideally someone who can snap but anyone with zone experience.

*I'm fine with the LBs. I knew Beason was going to cost, and I knew we needed to spend. This was, along with Kalil, a contract they easily would've done up to two years ago if not for the 30% thing. They paid more for that simple fact, but they were going to pay this. Davis, ideally, would get less. It has an out, an expensive one, but barring anything catastrophic you roll the other bonus. Anderson was reasonable. I wanted all three, gotta keep them IMO. If I did let either walk, I'm baffled that Matt Roth is still out there. Roth isn't Ware, but he's a good 3-4 OLB, and the Johnson defense has a habit of using the SLB right on the TE a lot. Roth gives you that blitz LB. He hasn't signed, and in this exercise it's not a guy I'd die to get as a backup, but he's an impactive guy that fits the hybrid stuff we'd be prone to use if we had more time to work on a pro multiple.

*Gaither is the perfect backup for us, so I'm OK with that. I'm also fine with Connor starting, but that Anderson contract was more than fine. While I think they're similar players, you end up with the same situation next year.

*Backup QB - I honestly don't know. I'm not sure I would've gone with Anderson and the team's almost insistence to not use him much in camp is bizarre. He was clearly Plan B. But Bulger wouldn't have come, Delhomme is complicated at best, Todd Collins is terrible, and so on. More good options turned down any and all money to even stay in the league than were available that I'd be comfortable with. I don't have a good answer here.

 

*I think Raheem Brock is still out there. He makes some sense here, even though Meeks apparently misused him. It's apparent he's a better fulltime end than inside rusher, and he gives you that veteran player who can do some run D and keep contain. It's tough to suggest what we'd have done there, and I'm more OK with Hardy, Brown as a tandem than most - you have to let these guys do something, sometime. Brock is good, though, and he's that other rusher that people would want. Brock is still likely better rotating, which gets the youth on the field, and I like the idea of using CJ as a 5-tech next to a more undersized end or standup LB. This is, IMO, more of a luxury - the second very good rusher - being as how we're a blitz team, but he's still out there. I'll earmark that as a fair sized one year deal, $5 mil. Which is messy at best given he hasn't signed.


*Tony Brown - I'd have given him a decent two year deal. He's not signed, if I'm reading right. Not the most explosive player but can give you good snaps. I can totally understand what they've done at DT - modest contract starting DT with experience (and I predicted a roleplayer), two young guys, let some players fight for the other spot or two. Right now without our roleplayer, we still have guys stepping up and we might be able to do without another player. But Brown can help us. Two year option deal gives him $4 mil, or something. Details aren't that important just yet if he's not signed, who knows.

*WR - I honestly wouldn't have made much of a move here - I wasn't 100% aware that Naanee was even out there. He's a perfect move. I wasn't that worried about getting a guy. Rivera wanted one for a little experience and to give a push to the depth we have. Even then, I worry about cutting a young player who has a good chance of being decent, just for numbers. I can understand the want/need for Pilares - he duplicates a potential bust in Edwards - and it's always good to push players, but I'm worried about having to move a good player. I imagine I would've stayed put. Even Naanee, who I think could start opening day, is otherwise duplicated by Wallace Wright if you want a special teams vet. Upgraded, but duplicated.

S: needed what we got there. We needed no greater and could do with no worse. Both players probably don't stay, if both remain healthy and everyone stays at S instead of moving to CB, but even if they do, we have good vet depth at a low cost and decent ST play. Which is what backup safety must be.

*kicker - I'm honestly a bit relieved we dropped Kasay. We did it unceremoniously, but it's tough to say we need to use less emotion with guys we've invested time and money, and then treat an important situation like this lightly. But, while Mare is good enough, that contract's stupid, and I've said that before. It's tough to come up with cheap alternatives without being cheap. Right now I don't have a good alternative, am fine with Kasay going, wouldn't have drafted a kicker, and don't have a good answer. I'm somewhat OK with Baker doing it, but in the time I do remember him doing it, he had booted a few out of bounds. I don't know that he has much control.

I'm fine with their reasoning for Mare. It makes sense. In this case it's just too much money. The idea of getting him for their reasoning is fine. The need to get him at a high priority isn't.

Based on that, I have a reluctant paper roster of:
QB: Clausen/Newton, vet I can't decide on
RB: Stewart, Goodson, Sutton, Vaughan
FB: Fiammetta
TE: Shockey/Heap, Barnidge
LT: Gross, Williams or Ziemba
LG: Wharton, Bernadeau
C: Kalil, CJ Davis
RG: Schwartz, Random FA vet
RT: Otah, Ziemba
WR: Smith, Edwards, Pilares (or Naanee if you prefer)
WR: Lafell/Gettis

DE: Johnson, Hardy
DT: Brown, Irvin, McClain
NT: Gregg, Fua, Neblett
DE: Brock, Brown, Norwood
W: Davis, Wilson
M: Beason, Connor
S: Anderson, Gaither (alternate universe: Roth, Connor, Gaither backing
MLB)
CB: Gamble, Munnerlyn;
CB: Wilson, Wilson.
S: Godfrey and Martin; Pugh, Payne and/or Considine.

After laying it out, I realize I feel pretty good without Brock, and with just one DT addition. Or maybe one of that pair could go. I mean, part of the idea of this team is still to get some youth to squeeze out, and while I wanted more at DT than we did, there's no growth if we start two DTs. Same with RDE. End might or might not be terrible on that side but putting three guys I like out that side and pushing them upfield in our blitz scheme is kinda neat. Might or might not happen at CB but seems to be underway at DT right now, probably would be at DE with more health. I don't feel the need to cut Norwood to fit Brock in for a short time. I can see the want to grow DT instead of throw money at it - delicate balance that I can understand both sides. That vet OL is needed, but does push someone out.

Outside of that, at the least, I have no real issue with what they did. I can want them to have done a little better about being patient and looking at alternatives, but for them and for me, most if not all of the returned players probably would've been extended a bit ago anyway.

PS, tl;dr

 

Great thoughts.