Quote:
Originally Posted by Dirtbag359
While being a 'build through the O-Line' type of guy myself, the fact of the matter is that the guys on MNF were right. Part of the reason we can't compete in this division is we don't have a top 10 QB (Top 10 being a reference to talent not draft position).
The fact of the matter is we can get good tackles in the 2nd round and quality Centers in the 4th. On top of that we need to bring in real top tier Free Agents and I mean the type of guy that's at the same level Randy Thomas was when we brought him in. No more of these Jermey Bridges of the world. No I want a real quality Free Agent that's going to give us a run similar to Thomas.
Personally I would love to have a Dolphins type turnaround, where they choose to bring in Jake Long over Matt Ryan (a mistake in hindsight but still Long is no slouch in the blocking department) and spend the rest of the draft adding big guys. However part of the reason they were able to turn around so quickly was that Chad Pennington became available. Personally I don't see that happening this off season as it's a rare enough occurance as it is.
Of course if we draft a OL with our first pick instead of a QB you definitely won't see me complaing.
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Under the new system, Randy Thomas would have been 2 years away from free agency when we got him.
Everyone is discounting the new rules on RFA's, it's going to prevent a ton of guys from becoming free agents. Of the list Matty had:
Jahri Evans, Marcus McNeil, Daryn Colledge, Jared Gaither, Jeremy Trueblood, David Baas, Khalif Barnes, Alex Barron, Jeromey Clary, Ryan Cook, Richie Incognito, Charlie Johnson, Chris Kuper, Deuce Lutui, Rudy Niswanger, Donald Penn, Chris Spencer, Jason Spitz, Adam Terry and Marshal Yanda
will NOT qualify for Unrestricted Free Agency. Are we starting to get the picture yet? That leaves a bunch of 30+ year olds unless you're willing to give up draft picks. The NFL is going to change in a big way. Players are going to be closer to 30 when they hit free agency and it's going to be easier to keep young talent. Free agency will become very lean in the future with no cap.
This will leave the Skins to sift through guys who aren't living up to big contracts (maybe a Robert Gallery) and are cut to avoid cap ramifications. That's essentially taking a flier on a guy to live up to his draft status...that usually doesn't work.
We need to accept that it may take more than one offseason to fix the O LINE and probably more than one to fix the whole offense.