Freeing up a roster spot

[Bill B]

Originally Posted by SouperMeister

I believe that unlike Archuleta, Lloyd has serious NFL skills. If he would just get his head on straight, I'm sure he would make plays to help the team. Campbell made a reference to Lloyd's recent hard work in practice, so perhaps he's making an honest effort to win back the trust of his coaches and teammates. I'm really hoping that the Skins can get some value out of the guy after giving up a 3rd and a 4th to get him. The big mistake was giving him a big bonus up front when he still had a year on his contract.

Soupmeister - I would hope the Skins learned their lesson from Llyod and not give out picks like its candy.

As far as bonuses go - I wish that teams could go more of the route of performance bounses instead of signing and roster bonuses, but unfortunately the agents (at least the good ones and not idiots like Ricky William's who was a rapper that signed Williams to a performance driven deal) will make sure their clients sign deals that are heavily dependent on signing bonuses and roster bonuses. Since contracts are not guranteed the agents demand that the player get signing and roster bonuses that are more easily achievable because history tells us most players never get to see the salaries in the later years as they will become cap casualities. Unless a player rengotiates his contract like many of the Skins players have the salaries in the outyears of the contract will almost never be achieved - it is rare and I thought Shawn Springs was pretty close to being cut because of this but the Redskins had no other alternatives so they kept him at his high salary but I would not be surprised to see them ask Springs again to take a pay cut and if he doesn't next offseason he may be a prime canidate to cut.

Hence this is why I like the draft outside of the 1st round - you can sign players to 4-5 year deals with relatively light signing bonuses - so if the player does not pan out you simply cut him and your cap hit is not that large. Just think with the 3rd and 4th round pick the Redskins gave the 49ers for Llyod they could have used on a couple of offensive lineman to provide some depth. If you don't think you can get a decent lineman in the 3rd or 4th round think again - we got Dockery in the 3rd round and he turned out to be a descent player for the Skins. How about the TJ Duckett trade - you think we could have gotten a couple of lineman from that one too? Just venting now - hopefully the lineman will come back and we roll off a ton of wins to reach the playoffs.