Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
Cut Clark and Hitchens (see if Hitchens will take a pay cut to come back).
Re-sign Nnadi. Re-sign Ward or Hughes; won't be able to keep them both and the rest of the season will decide who to retain. Their respective contract demands will make a difference as well.
Let every other pending FA walk. So that's Mathieu, Reed, Ward or Hughes, Sorensen, Niemann, Okafor, DoD and Watts.
As for specific moves I'd make - It's hard to say without knowing who's actually going to see FA, but a specific change in approach I would make is to just get away from big-money contracts for defensive players.
I don't want a single Frank Clark if I could have a couple of reliable veterans for the same price. What you'll really sacrifice with that approach is youth and upside, but I think they just have too many dead spaces on the roster right now and are too heavily 'stars and scrubs' already on the offense. Moreover, I think offensive productivity is more reliable and predictable so use your big money contracts on your offensive guys.
So go look for guys like Akiem Hicks, Jerry Hughes, and William Gholston in FA on shorter deals (3 years that are realistically 2 year deals you can get out of with a little discomfort after year 1 if need be).
In the secondary I'd continue to look for rehab candidates who Spags can get something out of. I'm still a fan of Ahkello Witherspoon, for instance. Kevin King has more ability than he's demonstrated in GB. Keanu Neal can be inconsistent at times but he's also been damn good at times when healthy. Sidney Jones is younger than you realize and is physical enough to excel in Spags system even though his injury out of college may have taken away his top-end athleticism.
At LB I'd see how the market develops for Jayon Brown. If it fails to come together for him again, another 2-3 year deal would be add a nice bit of athleticism. Nicholas Morrow would be a good fit as well but that's all somewhat dependent on cost. Rashaan Evans has really regressed but he's still a young veteran who's demonstrated ability in the past.
And with the draft I'd probably throw 70% of my draft capital at the defensive side of the ball with an emphasis on the DL (I could justify using 3 picks on D-Lineman) and maybe a 2nd round DB. If we went with 3 DL and a S with our first 4 picks, I wouldn't complain.
This defense needs to be detonated. And this would come with an understanding that the first 4-6 weeks will look pretty rough as everyone figures things out, but they can't just keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. Something's off with the mix here and in lieu of guessing one piece at a time (and risking being wrong), just fire the whole damn defense into the sun and start over.
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Cut Clark and Hitchens for sure.
Let all FA's that aren't low salary guys walk. Guys like Watts and DOD are special teamers that aren't expensive anyway keep a few of those types. I let Mathieu walk, too. As good as he's been, he's over 30 and Thornhill needs to play. Ward walks, he'll get big money as an experienced starting corner with length.
I'd keep Hughes, he won't get big money as a smallish guy and a reclamation project with one season under his belt. He's probably miscast as an outside receiver, but should be decent in the slot. Sneed, Baker outside mostly with Fenton and Hughes in the slot is a decent start along with Bootle (?).
We'll need a box safety that's better than Sorensen. Surely that can't be too hard to find, can it?
We'll need another cover LB to pair with Gay, Bolton is your Mike.
We need two starting DE's; I'd draft one early and sign one that's being undervalued (an Ingram type from this offseason). Danna's a rotational guy only. Kaindoh Kain't do yet but maybe down the road.
I re-sign Nnadi to pair with Jones and Wharton for your inside rotation.
So we draft two out of these 3: DE, SS, LB.
We sign a vet DE and whichever from the DE, SS, LB need list we can't draft.
And bargain shop depth.