Group Think II

[strait8]

We could take a chance on the UFA's, Newman and Manning. In one career I got a great QB from the UFA group. He made the Hall of Fame It is a ballsy move. I like it.

Then I would trade down at least one choice if you wish to take someone other rhan Carr. There is a fair cost difference between 1 overlall and 2-5 overall.

Hell, we sound like John Butler, GM, at SDO when he traded the rights to Mr M Vick.

[Swaggs]

I think we should try to grab one of Newman/Manning and then go out and sign a Batch-type guy. We can trade down and draft a project QB and get to work on building our line first.

[Mike47]

Ok, so what I've gathered is this:

We sign: 1 Newman, 2 Manning, 3 Batch/Johnson/Frerotte

For QBs after that, we'll pick one up in the middle to late rounds of the draft.

PROJECTED QB DEPTH CHART
1. Newman/Manning
2. Batch/Johnson/Frerotte
3. Rookie

This will be our plan of attack for QBs.

If anyone would like to recommend a specific contract offer let me here it. I usually just give them what they're asking for. Straight8 has been recommending, for Newman and Manning, two years with a 20K bonus. Anyone else care to chime in?

Who do you guys like out of the three vets?

[strait8]

They are asking for 1 yr 260K, I have not been sucessfull trying to sign a rookie UFA beyond two yrs. I usually offer 20K bonus 260/yr 1 and 420 year 2.

That way if they are good you have locked for at least two, if they are not, you cut them for a max 20K loss.

[Mike47]

So why don't we just sign them for one year with no bonus, and if they work out we'll extend their contracts? If they pan out we'll be dishing out the cash regardless, so why bother waiting? It sounds crazy, but we might just mess ourselves up in the long run. Just playing devil's advocat.

[strait8]

I just hate giving money away. I like locking them up for two and saving myself a starters salary for at least one year.

[SaintAnselm]

I agree with what you guys have decided to do at QB. I see no reason to draft Carr and I think trading down will allow us to improve ourselves at more positions. I also think we need to sign the guys, like strait8 says, to 2 year contracts. It will save us having to dish our bigger money for another year if they pan out.

[Tasan]

I agree with everything said about the QBs exept 1 thing. I see Carr as that special player that you only get 1 chance at drafting. His potentials go all the way across in almost all his categories, and his actuals are pretty good right now. That is a very special player. I'm just not sure we'll ever get a chance to get someone like him again. I know we have holes to fill all over the place, but I think we should get this guy while we can.

Of course I'm just the defensive coordinator, so if you offensive guys want to go another route, thats up to you ultimatly. I just think we are dismissing his superior talent too quickly.

[strait8]

I spoke to the GM's in Carolina and Detroit.

Carolina is willing to give their #1 (2nd overall) and #2 (34th overall) and #3 (66 overall) for our #1.

Detroit is willing to give their #1 this (3rd overall) and #1 next year as well as #5 next year for our #1 (1st overall) and 3rd next year.

I am not saying Carr is not special. As I said earlier I now know how john Butler felt when he traded mike Vick.

[strait8]

As offensive line coach here are who I see we need to make offers to:

Players are listed in order of my personal preference

Center

1 Jeff Smith 6yr vet wants 11.26Mil/over 4 years. Probably will take 13 mill to sign

2 Kevin Long 5 yr vet wants 13.5 over 5 years. Probably 14.5 15 mil to sign.

I llike Smitth because he is amore complete player. Long could become better as he still has some run blocking potential to fill out.

There are no 1yr free agents at this position

Guard
Kerry Jenkins is for real. he wants 21 mil /years. This is expensive. But I see him as a Pro bowl guard especially on a running team.

there are no other young experienced guards worh picking up.

In the Undrafted rookie pool I like the following 3 players. I would endeavor to sign them all and convert 1 to center as a backup
These guys are all potetial and no experience.

Patrick Vickers, Scottie Matthews and Earl Roberts[/b]

Tackle
Spencer Folau is a steal here at 560K. he probably cna be signed for 1.3 mill/2 years with bonus. I don't think we have to bid till week 3 on him.

I like UFA's
Darryl Allen and Thomas Bensen.
We probably have to draft another Tacle.

[SaintAnselm]

I think you have to like Carolina's offer. It's pretty solid. I agree that there may not be anyone worth taking there though so we could always trade down again and see what we else could get for the #2 pick. I'll be back on later with my picks from the FA pool.

[Tasan]

If we do this deal, our scouts need to start looking at who is the best value pick, and where they think he might fall to. I agree the Carolina deal is the sweetest, but I also don't think there is really a #2 player out there. Then again, I guess we could always just use it there, but the true value may be to trade it again for some more.

I say make the deal then see whats out there for it. If we can't stay in the top 10, then keep the pick and get the next best player. If we can stay in the top 10 and pick up more picks though, by all means do it. There are several players that will help us out that will be around til 10 I believe. Again, that may be something the scouts need to look at.

[Swaggs]

I think, no question, we would be wise to take the Carolina deal.

I think it is always wise to diversify our picks, to minimize the effect of a bust. If Carr busts after camp, we will be irrepairably damaged as a franchise. By trading down we get a comprable pick in the 2nd overall, plus another two starting caliber players.

Thougts...?

[Tasan]

Originally posted by Swaggs
By trading down we get a comprable pick in the 2nd overall, plus another two starting caliber players.

Thougts...?

My only reservation about this is that I don't think there is another player that is comprable to Carr. Everyone else seems like they are a step below him. Just my thoughts on it, in case I hadn't made them clear enough before

[Tasan]

Dola...wanted to seperate these thoughts out.

Here are some guys I'd like to see with the team for this next season on the defensive side of the ball. Most of these guys are 5th year or younger, and all are at or under $2mil to start out.

SILB Earl Holmes -- great hitter, starts at $1.040mil, should be a nice cheap LB for us.

MLB Jamie Duncan -- blitzer for our 3-4, might move outside, nice endurance, pricey at $2.0 mil, but worth it in my eyes.

SS Tony Parrish -- Either plays SS or FS, cheap at $1.5mil to start

SS Brian Walker -- Either SS or FS again, low endurance only question, cheaper than Eric Brown at 1.6mil to start

LCB Duane Starks -- Cheap solution for us at CB for now, doesn't stop the run well but only $1.4 mil to start

SS Raion Hill -- cheap backup under a mil can start in a pinch.

1st year Projects: (I'd like all of these guys signed, shouldn't cost much like stated above)

LDT Turner Lewis
RDE Bobby Wallen
LCB Chad Fenderson
SS Artie Nichols
RDE Darnell Hevey
LCB Mark Diaz

[Swaggs]

We would still have the option of trading down and/or picking up an early pick next season.

[strait8]

I think we have to zero in on one or two players we really do want and get an idea before the draft where they might fall.

Let's get a list of 5-10 players priortized. This should be an ongoing thing as we do the 20 week FA. It will change as we sign or not sign players. A position of need will appear. Right now RB looms large. It will be harder to trade down from #2 and keep control of the player we want to draft.

Give e your thoughts!

Tasan-I like the guys you have picked for the "D". They are the exact guys i would pick. jamie Duncan is a must.

[Tasan]

On the defensive side, I really like Dwight Freeny and Dennis Johnson. Past those two, there really aren't any other defenders worthy of a high first rounder.

[strait8]

My Choices for the top 5 draft choices would be any of the following in order

Feeney DE
Lewis DE
Luke Staley RB
Andre Davis WR
Lenny Walls and convert him to CB

In the next 5 I would take any of the above or
Joey Harrington-QB
Albert Haynesworth DT
Julius Pepper -DE
Marc Columbo -T

[Ragone]

I'm Fine With Newman Or Bubba Manning at qb...

However, your overlooking the fact that David Carr is way better then every other qb potential wise... so if we push off drafting a qb this year, We might have to spend a high pick sometime in the near future for another qb, so just delaying the inevitable.

I'd like to see money thrown at Bledsoe if we decide to trade down.. at least a attempt.

[SaintAnselm]

That is not neccesarily the case. We may be able to get a pretty serviceable QB out of FA in the next couple of years. This year I can't imagine throwing 10 million a year at Bledsoe at this point. Just an opinion.

[Mike47]

Hey guys, I'm at work right now and wont be able to get into the game until tomorrow after school. Have no fear, after tomorrow's classes I have an entire day off. We'll get choppin soon enough. I love the input so far!

[Tasan]

bump

[Mike47]

Ok guys here is an update:

I think we're going to pull the trigger on the trade w/ Carolina:

HOU 2002 1st (1)
for
CAR 2002 1st (2)
CAR 2002 2nd (33)
CAR 2002 4rd (66)

We've been debating it for some time now and the only thing holding us back is the desire for David Carr. Who knows, there's a good chance he still might be around at pick #2. Worst comes to worse, we could take Harrington or trade down again.

Here are the offers I currently have in place for free agency. I'm not sure how you guys want to go about this (week 1...upload new file...week 2 upload new file...) but at least we're finally getting started. I'm not going to advance to week two until we've made sure we have offers on everyone we're interested in signing.

WEEK ONE FREE AGENCY (First Draft)

BACKFIELD:
QB Byron Newman 2 yrs/$680K: $20K bonus
QB Bubba Miller 2 yrs/$680K: $20K bonus

Guys, we still need to narrow down who we want out of these three QBs if we are still intersted in any of them:
Charlie Batch/Rob Johnson/Gus Frerotte

OFFENSIVE LINE
C Jeff Smith 4 yrs/$13M: $2.08M bonus
G Kerry Jenkins 5 yrs/$20.95M: $3.92M bonus
G Patrick Vickers 1 yr/$260K
G Scottie Matthews 1 yr/$260K
G Earl Roberts 1 yr/$260K
T Spencer Folau (week 3 bid)
T Darryl Allen 1 yr/$260K
T Thomas Bensen 1 yr/$260K

Looks good so far on offense, we obviously still have some holes to fill. What are we thinking as far as RBs and RECs go?

DEFENSIVE LINEMEN
DT Lewis Turner 1 yr/$260K: no bonus
DE Bobby Wallen 1 yr/$260K: no bonus
DE Darnell Hevey 1 yr/$260K: no bonus

LINEBACKERS
ILB Earl Holmes 3 yrs/$3.74M: $780K bonus
ILB Jamie Duncan 4 yrs/$10.8M $2.09M bonus

DEFENSIVE BACKS
S Tony Parrish 4 yrs/$7.99M: $1.04M bonus
S Brian Walker 5 yrs/$11.02M: $2.61M bonus
CB Duane Starks 3 yrs/$5.24M: $780K bonus
S Raion Hill 2 yrs/$1.79M: $520K bonus
CB Chad Fenderson 1 yr/$260K: no bonus
CB Mark Diaz 1 yr/$260K: no bonus
S Artie Nichols 1 yr/$260K: no bonus

The defense looks go so far as well. I like that a handful of the defensive players are popular amongst the fans. That should help fill the seats for sure.

Right now we should be rounding out the rest of our free agency approach. Other than that, we need to continue brainstorming abotu who we would like to grab out of the draft in round one. We obviously do not need to sign player x to a multi-million dollar deal if we're drafting player y who plays the same position.

Looks great so far!

[Mike47]

Hey Straight8, you we're saying that you liked Kevin Long as well as Smith at C. Why don't we sign Long as well and let one of them play RG? Long is a fan favorite and I'd hate for us to lose interest in him simply because we don't have room for him at his natural position. Odds are one of them could make a successful transition.

[Mike47]

Sorry for these quick posts; when I see something I just ask.

With us pursuing as many OL as we are in FA where does Flozell fit into the mix? Is he going to be our other starting T aside Folau? Should we cut him?

[Tasan]

We're gonna need starting quality LBs somewhere. If we get Duncan and Holmes, we still need 2 more. I think this should be a 2nd to 4th round priority for at least 1 of them.

[strait8]

Hi Mike47 I've been at meetings all day. Yes pull the trigger on Long as well. He can play guard and back up center as well.

Definitely good thinking as his salary demands are not high

Strait8

[strait8]

Let's take him further down the road at least till after the draft.
We haven't signed Folau, yet and there is no other good T in free agency that is not a 10 or more year veteran.

I'd like to see who comes available after the draft/before camp. A decision can be made then depending on players and cap room required to sign players for other positions.

What is our total cap used till now?

[Neel]

As far as RB goes, there are several good ones in the draft, so if we do not wait too long to address the position, we should be OK there.

[strait8]

I think we can play Duncan in the MLB and Holmes on the SLB.
We need a WLB. We could try to sign Jamie Sharper. He want $6.8 mil/3 years.
We probably need at least 7 LB to go to camp with and cut 1 0r 2.
Probably draft two and sign one more in the pre camp FA.

[Tasan]

We're playing a 3-4 so we need 2 more starters. Duncan will be the SILB and Holmes the SLB. We still need a corner blitzer at LB and another run stuffer. With a 3-4, we'll need around 7-8 LBs for the season. LBs are usually cheaper than DL, so thats a plus. If we have the budget for it, I'd love to have Sharper, I just figured he would be out of consideration due to his pricetag.


I was thinking Farrior when I read Sharper. Sharper is okay, I'm just not sure he's work that kind of money. MLB Greg Biekert would be a better value, but again I don't know if the budget allows that.

[Neel]

Mike, I think the trade down was wise...at #2 we could still get Carr but I doubt it. Even so, we should get Harrington still.
It appears our OL is looking good.

How deep in the draft were you looking to take an RB? If we could land one of the top 3 rated...we could control the clock and keep some games close with a pretty good ground game.

[strait8]

Sorry Tasan, I forgot 3-4. Your Right we need 8 LB. We need to sign at least 1 more now.

Currently on our roster Don Davie and Brant Boyer MIGHT make adequate backups. The rest are stiffs.

We might sign one or more of the following 3 first year UFA's
OLB Leroy Goosen
OLB Winston Talton
ILB Andre Hopkins

All can be had for $680/2yr/20K bonus

[dread]

do I have to make any modifications to my fof4 to use these files or do I copy and replace files to use for this. In other words what do I need to do to use these files lol.

[Tasan]

Okay, I've done some math, and considering the FAs we have listed above and our rookie pool, and considering for some salary adjustment with the FAs, we should have around 20-30 million after the draft, and a pretty full roster. With that in mind, I think we should persue a top flight WR, like Bill Schroeder, and a stud LB like Farrior. These will fit even with money for a vet QB, and will be well worth the money.

[Tasan]

Originally posted by strait8

OLB Leroy Goosen
OLB Winston Talton
ILB Andre Hopkins

All can be had for $680/2yr/20K bonus

These guys are alright, but I'd just offer a 1 year deal, as they usually devalue after training camp, and better might be available after the draft.

[strait8]

After expansion draft 54.76mill available
Draft estimate with trades 7 mill
Players signed to date 17 Mill (approx)

This leaves us $32 million approx.

I'm all for signing Farrior, he's a real WLB. Schreoders good, but it will depend on who is deliverying the ball how much he will pay off this year.

[Neel]

Dread...just backup the files in your Universe directory (if you have another game going) and extract the the files for the Texans into the Universe directory.
Then you just open the game.
Remember, never take out the universe folder, just the files inside it do you replace.

[strait8]

These UFA's are signing for the minimum at 260K/1yr.
Even after the draft I usuall cannot sign them for a second year without a bonus and 400K for the second year.

Have you been able to sign any for less?

[Swaggs]

I suggest not going overboard on the number of Centers that we sign. I believe that center is a position that we can find a starter with later in the draft. Perhaps as late as the fourth round, we might find a a very good starting center.

[Swaggs]

Also, will our philosophy be to play our young and talented but undeveloped (re: green bar) players to get them to mature faster, or will we try to play them behind veterans?

My thoughts are to play the green bar players at OL, LB, and DL early.

[Mike47]

Yeah, after starting to reread some of the posts I'm starting to think that we may be getting off track. What exactly are we trying to build here? If you ask me, I think we should not be throwing money around at players just to build a solid team right off the bat because I can assure us that it probably wont happen. Our team cohesion is going to be the worst in the league and no matter how much talent we sign/spend money on we're going to have major growing pains IMO. I don't think we have to fix every leak the first time around. We need to find players who are worth what they're asking. No sense is throwing cash at players just to fill holes; it will only hurt us in the long run.

I say we break this all down individually by positions. We've allready covered QBs so lets move to RBs then to RECs etc. Always keep in mind that we're looking for guys to help us more down the road than right out of the gate. Sorry if I'm getting us all of track but it just seems we're signing a bunch of stud players because we feel we "have" to.

Quick review (through our GMs eyes):

QBs
1. Carr/Harrington (1st round)
2. Batch/Johnson/Frerotte
3. Newman/Manning

Guys, Carr is so sweet. It's going to be so hard to pass on him. But is the Carolina deal too sweet to pass up? Will we appreciate Carr, minus a few extra drafts picks, more than Harrington and a few extra picks 5 years from now? Is Newman or Manning good enough to be QB2s? Should we save our money by not signing a Batch etc? Hell, with a run oriented offense could we get by starting a guy like Batch? Just some more things to think about.

I think our options are as follows for our first round pick:
We trade the pick to Carolina. If they pass on Carr we take him. Period. If they pick him we take Harrington or possibly better yet trade down to the middle of the round. After Carr there isn't a player worth the kind of cash we'd be spending at #2. However, later in the round, with even more picks, is another story. Even with Rohan Davey and Pat Ramsey still likely to be available.

Ok, I think I've said all I can say about the QB position. Lets move to the real meat and potatoes, of our offense at least, RBs.

UFA Fortenberry
Another one of those make it or break it players. He has great potential, but who knows. And at a position this vital to our offense should we just bank on him? There is no doubt we should sign him, but I think we better have a backup plan. He does look like he'll help us on 3rd downs even this early in his career. Purnell and Schultz don't look so bad either but I think we could fill their spots with better players down the road.
The vets in this group don't impress me very much. The ones who did were too old.
Moving to the draft: Luke Staley is a stud. This guy should be as high on our priority list as David Carr. He isn't the caliber player Carr is this early on, but then again who is? Besides, he plays one of the most vital positions on our entire team.

Here's what I'm thinking at RB to summarize:

HB1 Luke Staley
HB2 Fortenberry
HB3 (pick up someone after draft/before camp)

Now, to make this post even longer...If we're going to pull of a miracle and land Carr and Staley, it would require more than one trade for certain. Staley would never fall to round two and as we mentioned before Carr probably wont drop to PICK two. If we landed Carr at #2 I think we should use some extra picks to trade up and get Staley.
Yikes. If we keep this up we'll be trading up once for every position in the draft!

Enough's enough. Send me some input! Sorry this was so flustered, I'm just throwing ideas off the wall.

[Mike47]

and Swaggs, I agree with you 100%. Now that I think about it Centers are easy to come by in the middle rounds. As are safeties.

[strait8]

There is no doubt we will play at least two rookies on the OL. At least 1 possibly 2 at LB as well as 1 or 2 on he D line and one at CB.

I always agree with playing them early. i sit most of my veterans in preseason and play my rookies to give them experience and lower the chance of injuries on definite stars.

What I have said above will be mitigated by how much cash we have after the draft and who is a FA at that time

[Mike47]

Why does the NFL run FA before the draft? Makes life (and pretend video game life) very difficult.

[strait8]

Hi Mike:
A decision on QB amounts to this. If we build a good enough defence we can probably win 6 games. Right now we have 5/11 of a good defence. We have no defensive lineman at all unless a rookie breaks through.

We need at least 9/11 to be competitive. On offence he best thing we can do is ball control to keep the ball away from the other team. That means running and the screen/short pass game.

I think our priorities are defensive lineman and a running back, based on who is the best available.

We have nothing to trade but draft choices. no team has two #1 choices to trade us. We can wait till the 18th or 19th week of FA and see if any of the teams have two #1. otherwise I think we take the Carolina Bundle and possibly trade down again to #3 or 4 picking up an extra #2 or more. I would not make the second trade till we know who carolina picks. We should be able to get 1 of these ball players. Luke Staley, Dwight feeney, or Lewis even at #4.

We will probably find a suprise available at our 2nd round choices (33 and #34 overall after the trade). It always happens unless its a ridiculously lean draft. You might find a Patrick Ramsay there.

Trading back up gets expensive so i woud not do that. sit on two. try to project who will take whom and go for it.

Definitely sign fortenberry for 2 years

[strait8]

During the second FA period after the draft we will find the cap oom casualties. I think we might find 2-3 starters and possibly 1-5 backups,

The players are easy to deal with.

The reason FA is before the draft is the NFLPA is more concerned about keeping its members employed. This is the same reason the draft was shortened from 15 rounds to 7.

[Mike47]

bump

[Swaggs]

I don't have the file handy.

What are our in draft and free agent options on the following:

TEs:
pass catching RBs:
pass catching FBs:

I perceive our ball control offense will probably throw a lot of screens and short passes, particularly with an untested/untalented QB this season. I would like to see us pick up a good pass catching TE or FB in this draft (part of the fruit of trading down perhaps?), or both. Specialized pass-catching RBs seem likely to fall to us in the 5th or 6th round.

Thoughts?