Quote:
Originally Posted by Paintrain
I agree that we could have moved more quickly on Lowery and/or Pool but I don't question the FO for not retaining Landry or Atogwe. Landry has missed far more games than he's played the past two seasons and has bucked team medical advice. Right or wrong, that would raise questions of loyalty and responsibility to me, not to mention long term durability.
For Atogwe, he was rarely healthy, coming off of a couple of seasons where he was less than 100% healthy as well. Also, when he played his performance was subpar.
If we were responsible for '2 of the 5 best safeties on the market' as you stated, that has a lot to say about the quality of the market and not much bad to say about us.
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I can say that the decision to not slap the Franchise Tag on Landry raised a LOT of eyebrows across the league. I mean, it's one thing to determine the safeties are the main reason we had poor pass defense (I don't disagree -- particularly when Landry was out), it's another thing to fear a player in the prime of his career so much you let him walk for nothing. He's damaged goods, so he's probably not going to get guaranteed money in excess of $8 million, but still. With all the options the Redskins had to keep Landry around, it's safe to say they would have released him even if he had a year left on his contract.
The way we as fans felt when Eric Winston got cut? That's how other teams felt when Landry didn't get the tag.
Atogwe was the kind of guy who you don't cut if you don't like the market, but move on from if you have a better option.
I do think they view Meriweather more of a Landry replacement than an Atogwe replacement.
A lot of the Landry issue comes down to who you trust to recommend the best interest of his future: Landry and his doctors, or the Redskins and their doctors. I know a lot of teams with medical staffs who would be very happy to get their hands on our 'problem' at a medical discount.