Who Escapes the Axe?

[inFINSible]

When the time of rebuilding is upon us,how would YOU do it? Which player or players would you keep on our defense.....just for the sake of this thread, you can only keep TWO starters( I'll assume that we'll be able to afford to keep ALL reserves)........which two and why? In the draft...What position do you draft first?.....Or do you go "best available" player first?

I keep Surtain and Taylor.

Taylor for his motor and attitude on the field, which I want to rub off on any newbies and as long as he's on the field he'll draw attention away from the new guys, giving them room to operate and learn. Surtain because he's young and physical and still has some upside,IMO. I think Fletcher and Surtain could eventually form a Madison and Surtain/like duo.

Then I follow the JJ credo....."Draft for size and speed, everything else can be taught."

OL or DL....best available.

 

[Steve Mo]

Your killing me here! It's SO hard!


PS- How do you make polls?

 

[inFINSible]

whenever you start a thread....there's a box at the bottom, right above the submit.......check that box, then hit submit....

 

[iceblizzard69]

I said Surtain and Taylor. However, this situation will never come because these guys are locked into contracts that are hard to get out of and these guys want to stay. Also, the big advantage in keeping Taylor is that it will keep Zach Thomas around. I don't ever see Taylor and Thomas playing on two different teams.

 

[inFINSible]

Locked into BACKLOADED contracts, which means that they'll be cut before they see the final years of those contracts, if we go into a TRUE rebuilding mode...... and if they keep coming up short it's not going to matter who WANTS to stay, it's going to be who WE WANT to stay. Regardless, the premise of the thread is "you can only keep two" You chose Taylor and Surtain you can't keep Zach too. that's cheating.

 

[Barbarian]

Well, I took Surtain and Thomas.

Surtain is our best CB, even though Madison get's more press. Patrick is a shut down type guy that can play more physical and is a better all around DB than Sam.

Thomas is a 1-man tackling machine. as long as you have a couple beefy guys in front of his he disrupts Offenses in a way that few other players do.. he is the leader of this D. His play reading is unparralelled (probably the smartest linebacker in the game) and is more versitile than a D-Lineman would be, even compared to the best DE in the game (Taylor).

JM2CW

 

[Surferosa]

Were actually in pretty decent cap shape, which is astounding given all the long term contracts we initially gave out. We really lucked out with a few guys. For example, Tim Bowens had his contract resstrcutured by the front office almost annualy, until we owed him $9 million in his final year - only for him to accept a pay cut before the season (in other words, we never had to pay him all the backloaded money). Shrwed cap management by Spielman and Co.

It also helps that our most marketable player (Ricky) has a very cap friendly deal (“not likely to be reached†incentives that don’t count against the cap), while our QB's cap figure is under 2 mil a year through 2004. Most team's QB's have cap figues that are closer to 4 million a year (Jay is not only a great player for us, but hes cost effective as well).

We will take a big cap hit for Daryl Gardner next offseason, but overall we are in good shape. Our only "big" contracts are Surtain, Madison, JT, Zach and Fielder - and none of them are in the leagues top 25 (The Jets for example, have 3 players making 7.5 mil a year or more). Thats not bad at all, folks.

As long as our big salary guys continue to play at a high level, then we wont have to eat their contracts and dig ourselves into a financial hole. Teams generally get into trouble when they overpay for a player who underachieves - theyre then forced to cut them and prorate the signing bonus to the next year's cap. As long as our big guns continue to perform, its just a matter of restrcuturing, and not an issue of cutting the player and keeping “dead money†on next years cap.

 

[Surferosa]

Just to stress the importance, that last line is the key folks....

 

[Muck]

Taylor is a given. He goes without saying. I just can't see us replacing him. He's too good.

I picked Surtain as my other. Even though I think Madison is the better CB, Surtain is slightly younger. And I just feel that Fletcher would do better opposite Surtain than Madison. Also, we can't afford to let both CBs go. We let go of one and bring up Fletch.

I also feel that Zach will stay. I don't believe we'll be in as big a trouble as Baltimore, Jax, and New York. But then again, we don't have any expansion teams to bail us out salary wise. Still, I think we'll keep THREE players if it comes down to it.

 

[Muck]

Good post, Surf

 

[inFINSible]

Originally posted by Surferosa
Just to stress the importance, that last line is the key folks....

How long do you(not you, personally) keep financing underacheivers, and I'm not talking individually, I'm talking teamwise. How many years of coming up "just short" do you need to see before you admit that the current team is critically flawed in some way that, you can't quite put your finger on? The point where SOMETHING needs to be done, like the retooling the Rams did to their defense a couple of years ago. Something drastic, like changing personell or philosophy.......This is 90% hypothetical, I guess.:o

 

[baccarat]

Originally posted by inFINSible
The point where SOMETHING needs to be done, like the retooling the Rams did to their defense a couple of years ago. Something drastic, like changing personell or philosophy.......This is 90% hypothetical, I guess.:o

Want drastic time change? 4 words: Good bye, Jim Bates!

 

[baccarat]

This is a tough question. It's a catch-22 situation. If we absolutely had to keep only two, I would lean towards JT and Surtain. A top notch DE, and a All Pro caliber CB.

 

[inFINSible]

Originally posted by booyeah_
Want drastic time change? 4 words: Good bye, Jim Bates!

A change in philosophy maybe? Would you like to see a change to a 3/4 defense?

 

[baccarat]

Originally posted by inFINSible
A change in philosophy maybe? Would you like to see a change to a 3/4 defense?

I don't want to see prevent defense when we're ahead, I want to see our LB's to start the play closer to the line, and I want to see us blitz more frequently and at the right time. I'm just not a big Jim Bates fan.