Peppers says he wants to explore free agency

[The Goat]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

I agree with this scout (wow, I just wrote that?). Trading down, drafting for value, grabbing long term positions first, all good things, actual evaluation of said players: awful bordering on irresponsible.

It's clear that Vinny and co. know what they need to do to be successful. It seems like it might be more of a crapshoot for the current unit then the Gibbs-lead front office.

I'm pretty much basing this on 1) the selection of Devin Thomas, and 2) the lack of evidence to disprove this theory.

Small sample, I know, but that's what I'm getting. They do a lot of things better than the Gibbs-led front office, but tell a good prospect from a bad prospect at the same position does not appear to be one of those things.

Maybe I'm missing the crux of your argument GT but the selection of Rinehardt in the 3rd round seems better evidence of what you say than DT in the 2nd. I kept hearing a lot of teams had Thomas scouted as 2nd round talent, meanwhile CR was scouted i believe as a 5th or 6th rounder. Danny/Vinny tried to add talent to the o-line but just missed (badly) w/ their selection, as CR has shown nothing and evidently lacks the confidence to compete up to this point.

[SmootSmack]

The scout thought Thomas and Kelly were each fine choices for where they were selected in the draft, but that the Redskins didn't need to draft both of them. One or the other should have been fine

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Ruhskins

I just feel that in some games, if we had been just a little bit better offensively, we could have won those games. I feel that in the second half of the season, the offense was unable to take advantage of the few turnovers that we had. In other games, tough stops made by the defense did not result in points when the offense took over. Or the offense could not move the ball in order to run the clock out (although we won that game, this happened during the last Philly game).

Our defense was not great, and I agree with you on that. We did not have the type of defense that Baltimore or Tennessee had, which can carry a team to 11 or 12 wins. However, we did have a good defense that led to 8 wins, while I feel we had an offense bad enough to lose 8 games. Had our bad offense been a little bit better, maybe we could have topped 9 or 10 wins.

There are people here that focus on the defense as a reason for our 8-8 season. And yes, we were probably the worst 4th or 5th ranked defense. However, if it wasn't for this defense, we could have gone worst than 8-8. Yes our defense needs to be addressed and improvements could be made. But let us not forget that major things need to happen with our offense. Otherwise, I don't think the defense can carry this team any longer.

I agree with everything above, especially that the offense really struggled w/o Samuels and a running game.

I think a lot of people see an 11-win defense and a 5 win offense, when in reality, I think it's more like a 7-win offense, and 8-win defense, with poor special teams, and a little bit of luck.

[Ruhskins]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

I agree with everything above, especially that the offense really struggled w/o Samuels and a running game.

I think a lot of people see an 11-win defense and a 5 win offense, when in reality, I think it's more like a 7-win offense, and 8-win defense, with poor special teams, and a little bit of luck.

I also think a lot of people had very high expectations of our defense, and compared our defense with Baltimore's or Tennessee's D. And given the talent our defense has and age issues, you are right, we were an 8-win offense. I would hope that our defense would get to the level of Baltimore or Tennessee, but addressing the defense cannot overshadow the issues on offense.

[RedskinMike]

Originally Posted by Ruhskins

If our offense would have been average, we could have won more than 9 wins. Arizona didn't have a top 10 defense, yet they are in the SB. We had a very good defense, but did not have the offense to compliment it. AZ has a very good offense, and their defense got better and were able to beat all these teams during the playoffs.

could'nt have said it better myself

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by SmootSmack

The scout thought Thomas and Kelly were each fine choices for where they were selected in the draft, but that the Redskins didn't need to draft both of them. One or the other should have been fine

Well, I've been consistent on Thomas before the draft, during the draft, and now that he's a Redskin. And I think Kelly should (at least) work out like we expect him to.

I haven't been consistent on whether we needed multiple receivers out of this draft. I thought we could use veterans to fufill the need (which ultimately we didn't do) at WR, and use our picks elsewhere, but after the draft, I did some research and now I respect the strategy they used in the year they did (which is the point the scout made).

But, I will never accept the justification that it was okay to misvalue prospects because a lot of draft analysts made the same mistake. I do think Vinny needs to surround himself with the best possible people. And the people who looked at DT's profile (and, for that matter, Kelly's as well) and gave him a first round grade...I mean that's an elementary mistake in my opinion.

I might still be in the minority that thinks DT's rookie season was a draft mistake, and not a coaching/work ethic mistake, but the concerns that made me think he wasn't a top three round guy were noticed (and largely ignored) by most.

I think at this point I'm getting pretty far off topic (especially when you consider this is a Peppers thread), so I'll just say that I can't agree that we did our homework on all three of our second round picks and didn't rely on outside advice more than we should have.

[Dirtbag59]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

I think at this point I'm getting pretty far off topic (especially when you consider this is a Peppers thread), so I'll just say that I can't agree that we did our homework on all three of our second round picks and didn't rely on outside advice more than we should have.

I still say they really wanted receivers so as a result they drafted 3 pass catchers with their second round picks and decided that the best player available approach was an easy way to get off the hook for not looking at players at other positions. Either way it comes down to one of two explanations for me.

1. They outright lied and claimed that Thomas, Davis, and Kelly were the highest rated players on their board to justify their actions.

2. Or as Gtripp alluded to their evaluation process is at the very least, incompetent, and they really did overvalue all three prospects.

What really happened will probably always be a mystery, but at the very least I'm scared that this years draft will have me feeling like all those past clips they show of Jet fans every year during the draft.

[GMScud]

Originally Posted by Dirtbag359

I still say they really wanted receivers so as a result they drafted 3 pass catchers with their second round picks and decided that the best player available approach was an easy way to get off the hook for not looking at players at other positions. Either way it comes down to one of two explanations for me.

1. They outright lied and claimed that Thomas, Davis, and Kelly were the highest rated players on their board to justify their actions.

2. Or as Gtripp alluded to their evaluation process is at the very least, incompetent, and they really did overvalue all three prospects.

What really happened will probably always be a mystery, but at the very least I'm scared that this years draft will have me feeling like all those past clips they show of Jet fans every year during the draft.

I think it's sort of a combination of the two. I think they had each prospect overvalued, and even if each player wasn't their "best available" at the time, Vinny is BS-ing and saying as much.

I love that we traded down and added extra picks, I just don't like what we did with those picks at this point (they could pan out well, who knows).

What pissed me off was how shy we were about cutting draft picks (having all 10 make the 53-man was a bit of a reach). To me, that had Vinny trying to save face for his draft written all over it. Further evidence was cutting Torrence mid-season and keeping Tryon. Dumb, stubborn, and counterproductive.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Dirtbag359

I still say they really wanted receivers so as a result they drafted 3 pass catchers with their second round picks and decided that the best player available approach was an easy way to get off the hook for not looking at players at other positions. Either way it comes down to one of two explanations for me.

1. They outright lied and claimed that Thomas, Davis, and Kelly were the highest rated players on their board to justify their actions.

2. Or as Gtripp alluded to their evaluation process is at the very least, incompetent, and they really did overvalue all three prospects.

What really happened will probably always be a mystery, but at the very least I'm scared that this years draft will have me feeling like all those past clips they show of Jet fans every year during the draft.

If you allow me to defend them for a second, I imagine that there's excruciating pressure to take players that the TV draft analysts like more highly than you have them rated. Because that's how most fans value their prospects. And, frankly, they are right more than someone in their position probably should be.

So it is not unforgivable, to me, if Vinny says "we heard DT was a top 20 talent, and we like his physical abilities, and thought we could take a stab on him at No. 35".

That's bad drafting, yes, but I'd be okay with it if he would just come out and say that. I understand the pressure that he's under, and you absolutely need to take some risks in the draft, albeit more calculated ones than this one. I don't expect them to pick 100% by any means.

Now that I've defended them, it is unforgivable if they don't learn from this and make a similar mistake again. I saw what the TV analysts were doing to DT, and I said, "wow, some team is going to get screwed by that pick." I don't feel good about calling that, because I happen to root for that team. But I'm also a realist, and I can't pretend I didn't say any of tha stuff pre-draft once this guy ends up on the Redskins.

I feel like the rest of the draft after Devin Thomas was uninspired, but I know we'll get our fair share of players out of it. But if they don't learn from what they did in the second round last year, history is bound to repeat itself.

[SmootSmack]

I think what's most likely the case is that they didn't contingency plan well enough so that they didn't properly evaluate all alternatives when the board (as it would always do) didn't go exactly as planned.

I think all three 2nd round choices will be just fine in the NFL, but at what cost?

As for Peppers, message boards around the interwebs are suggesting Colt Brennan be offered up in a deal for Peppers

[GTripp0012]

And I think Mark Sanchez is the trendy name this year that people in the know don't think will be successful, but Mel Kiper, Todd McShay, and Mike Mayock (among the internet guys) will "express concern about" him and put then put him in their Top 5 of all draft eligible players. Thousands upon thousands of prospects, and it's going to be the guy with the flawed statistical profile who gets propelled into the top ten.

Things are seriously messed up with the draft process, and for the last 4-5 years, it's been ripe for the great, brilliant NFL execs to just totally rape the other teams who go through the motions and believe the whole thing is a crap-shoot.

[GTripp0012]

I actually think Gregg Williams had the draft process figured out to a degree. Have a feeling he screwed up on McIntosh's knees, but Sean Taylor, Carlos Rogers, LaRon Landry, Anthony Montgomery, Kedric Golston, HB Blades, it sure looks like he had the process figured out.

I'll have to keep an eye on Derrick Harvey, though, he didn't do much this year.

[SmootSmack]

Apologies for steering this off of Peppers

[MTK]

Let's get back on that Colt for Peppers deal. I think that would fly what do you guys think?

[GTripp0012]

Julius Peppers is great, but is he really worth our backup QB of the future?