My personal opinion, based on what Saban's done already, is that we'll try to pick up some younger, impact FAs. Obviously signings like Carter, Holliday, Traylor and Spragan have filled in nicely and the team overachieved to 9-7 in 2005, but ironically most of their contracts were short-term, aside from Carter. Was this part of his master plan after all? This year, aside from Daunte, no one huge was brought in. I mean, is Will Allen a true #1 corner? L.J. Shelton couldn't fit the bill at left tackle, and Renaldo Hill appears to be the only big-time playmaker that we brought in, if you call it that.
I think with the abundance of cap money we'll go after guys like a Leonard Davis, an Eric Steinbach on the O-line, Briggs or Thomas at OLB, and take a look at some guys like Asante Samuel or Ken Hamlin in the secondary. Some of the money I feel should go to re-signing Bell and Welker, maybe Traylor if he wants to come back, but we can make due w/out Big Daddy, Zgonina and Holliday - that's too much dough tied up in too much age. I also feel that at some point, we've gotta draft a QB of our own to groom. Harrington is not a long-term answer, and right now, we don't know enough about what Daunte's future entails. Obviously if he recovers, in hindsight that 2nd round pick was a steal, if not, we got burned again, but that guy named Marino turned out pretty well when we drafted him. It's time to draft another.
For some reason, I can also see us trying to pick up a few extra draft picks and maybe move around a little on draft day. New England's gotten rid of big names for draft picks recently, and though I fear not seeing Zach in a Fins' uni - he may be let go unless he restructures big-time. But I definitely think we need to start accumulating picks and building a younger team that can around Saban's system for 4 and 5 years at a time instead of 1 and 2 - like most of the vets he's brought in. We may have to suffer another season like this year's, but that's the pric we may have to pay in order to build up a successful machine-like team like the Patriots. I know most Fin fans are loyal to most of the players, as am I, but the players on the roster now haven't gotten us to the playoffs since 2001 - why keep going w/a trend that isn't working?
