Chris Cooley/Fred Davis

I feel like this mind bottling thing is some pop culture reference I just don't get.

I feel like this mind bottling thing is some pop culture reference I just don't get.

Never saw Blades of Glory?

Does this philosophy work when your starring qb or left tackle or center goes down for the year?

Unless you have salary cap issues having two starters in one position is like having a full bag of Skittles and a full bag of Jumior Mints at the same time. You will find a way to use both and you will be damn glad you did.


In a perfect world (or Madden), you would want Chris Johnson as your starting RB and Adrian Peterson as your backup. Peyton Manning as your starting QB and Tom Brady coming off the bench. Trent Williams backing up Ryan Clady and so on.

However, in the real world, teams always have needs and holes to fill. To have two guys with starter skill sets is basically a waste. It's funny you ask about that philosophy if X person goes down. Let's look at some examples. Bill Bellicheat had Tom Brady go down. Matt Cassell comes in and tears it up. Did he keep that starting caliber QB on his team, even after a year where his starting QB went down with a injury? Nope. Traded for draft pick (even though he could have gotten a 1st for him) Andy Reid has now done it twice. Trading away starting caliber QBs when he already had one currently. In a perfect world we would, but again, there are generally other needs on teams to do this.

I challenge you both to find me one team (past or present) that has carried two pro-bowl caliber Tight Ends on their roster, or a team that has sent two TEs to the pro-bowl (or all pro) in the same season. No, teams normally have one blocking specialist and one pass catching specialist. (the great TEs do both well) I know fans keep saying, FIND A WAY TO USE BOTH, but it's not quite that simple and history shows you otherwise.

I will say this. You don't trade a person just to trade them. If you can't find value in the person you are trading, its more often better to keep them just for insurance purposes. That's the problem with the TE position. It more often or not will not net you good draft picks unless a team is in a desperate situation or feel that is a crucial piece in the remaining puzzle of theirs. In our situation, we should have traded Cooley the moment we saw what Davis could do. (providing we got value in return) That time has come and gone and better for us to just keep Cooley unless value can be met.

Kinda an offseason topic to talk about, but it was on my mind after looking at the players contracts so I figure I'd bring it up. Fred Davis's contract is up at season's end. Cooley has two more years left with a pretty sizeable cap number. I say we trade Cooley for whatever we can (4th/5th rounder probs considering he will be 30 next season) at seasons end and extend Davis. Davis has been a pretty shitty backup IMO, but when Cooley went down, Davis filled in great. I think its a mental thing where when he knows he's the guy he plays better. I believe Davis is a capable starting TE and I love the pats theory of trading players before they lose value. Always rebuilding leads to always having a strong team.

Rather keep Cooley then get a late pick but I would hope that Davis can take this job from Cooley this year and prove that he's worth resigning as the starter here.

you do realize there has been one game of PRESEASON football played thus far and you are saying cooley is done and davis is our starter and we must trade cooley and go with fred davis next year. as long as i haven't missed anything there was only one preseason game thus far, so let's take a second pump the breaks and relax. lets atleast wait until mid season before we have the cooley/davis bs going on yet again. if this happens to come up further down the road then lets talk about it but for christ sake we are dicussing trading cooley after one preseason game he didn't play in.

IMO how well they do this year is irreverent. Cooley is better than Davis now, and probably will be next year too. I'm saying that I do not believe we will be able to keep both, and even though he probably wont be AS good as Cooley in the short run, for longevity purposes keeping Davis over Cooley will be the right move. It's not really an "if" this happens question, its more of a "when" this happens question.

How is Davis a poor back-up?
You know he had the highest catch rate and 2nd highest YPC on the team?
By DVOA he's a top 5 TE.

But, overall I agree that Cooley should be traded and Davis extended, but they should have traded Cooley last year.

I'm not doubting your stats, but I am skeptical. I'd love to see your sources. Watching the games, Davis was drop city last year.

Just googled dvoa, found your stats from football outsiders. A little misleading IMO for various reasons. There's alot of crappy TE's with high DVOA ratings. Not to discredit this statistic, but take it with a big grain of salt. And as for 2nd highest YPC on the team. He had 21 catches. Having a high YPC with few catches isnt that hard. Maybe "poor" isn't the right word considering there are definitely worse backup TE's in the league, but I am unsatisfied with Fred Davis's play (and more importantly his reliability) as a whole in the 2010 season.

Why would we trade one of our only play makers for at best a late round pick that may not ever play for the team?

Why on earth would Davis resign here to play second fiddle to Cooley when he'd be starting on any other team?

ANY other team? Really? He has shown folks that he is THE BEST tight end in the NFL? [That is what it means to say he would start on ANY other team!]

:(

Why would we trade one of our only play makers for at best a late round pick that may not ever play for the team?

He's aging, we have a replacement that we lose if we keep him, and ask Bill Belicheck, I'm sure he'll have a better response as to why he releases his aging talent on the regular.