[Scalper]

2 of 3
We are a young team somewhat rebuilding. Take at least a year for us to have any hope of winning SB with new coach and system being implemented. Get rid of older players who won’t be in prime in 2-3 years when truly competitive. Get rid of dead weight underperforming players.

Cuts:
Norman, Reed, Richardson, cap savings, $23M, total cap space, $63M (with Williams on books at $14.5M).

Trade Kerrigan. Even if only a 3rd or 4th round pick. He will be 33-35 by the time we are competitive. Love the guy, but these are the kinds of tough decisions good teams make. Some value is better than no value. Cap space now $73M.

Find whoever did the awful Smith trade/contract, stick them in a potato sack, roll them down the side of Everest. $21M in dead money. Atrocious.



Offense

This will be priority. Developing our young QB is crucial. Doing so is priceless. No team in the salary cap era has won more than a single SB without a stud franchise QB. If we wait a year on FS or CB or reshaping the LB core, so be it. You can’t have Haskins stagnate another year. He should have started day one, but Gruden played the guy who might have saved his job. Haskins is very inexperienced and will need time. Give him EVERYTHING you can.
TE is secondary to OL, even though TE most glaring hole on roster. One blown passing assignment by some lead-footed OL can cost us our franchise QB for a year or more, and the price of lost development makes it punitive. We could wait a year for a solid TE (though I rather wouldn’t). We can’t wait a year for a LT.

We have a QB. You draft Chase Young, no brainer. No one is giving us 3 #1s. Someone may offer an additional #1 and a lower pick or 2. We will not be picking this high again for a while. Rivera may not be Lombardi, but we should be a six-win team absolute minimum, on strength of Del Rio and defense alone. You take the transcendent quarterback killer and know you have an elite pass rush with him and Sweat for the next decade. Next pick 3rd round, no starting LT to be found there.

Resign Williams LT 4-year deal, $16M a year, lots of guarantees, overpay him a bit, may eat some cap by year four, that’s life. As much about sending the proper message to other FAs and team, as his talent. He will miss some games, but we have to have a good LT. You can’t let the only surefire HOF homegrown player on roster be treated that way and leave. About long term culture, righting the culture. And Williams most talented LT available to us unless you pass on Chase Young which you shouldn’t. If Young taken by Cincy, improbable, you trade back take one of OTs who is also BPA or the stud CB. Would have been better to have had a plan, but we hosed that. Williams may very well want to just be traded or play out current deal, he is in last year. There is no one available where we draft or in FA who is even close to him as a pass blocker, even a bit diminished by age--if he is healthy. Would have been better to have a plan here, but we didn’t, you eat this one as the final price of having an imbecile like Allen running things.

Resign Schiff. $14-15M annual. Sucks one of our only elite players is at a low leverage position like RG, easiest position on line to fill, but talent is talent, have to keep what elite talent we have. Don’t love his injury record, and he is almost 30, so not too long a deal.

Resign Flowers. Could cost as much as $8M annual. Do it anyway. He is young and solid if not world beater. He never should have been a T, but is just a beast in terms of raw strength and should continue to improve as a G. He is only 26.

Alternatively, sign Thurney in place of Schiff or Flowers, all depends on market and demands. X factor compensatory picks, letting either G walk, getting 3rd or 4th comp pick next year, and rotating Martin in. No idea if comp picks in new CBA, another X factor.

We can’t afford to have a completely rebuilt line making bad mistakes protecting an inexperienced starting QB with slow mental processing of defenses. Prescription for disaster. Easy to say don’t spend this money. Just imagine Haskins getting his knee bent back 180 degrees the wrong way by blown pass protection. Enough said.

You now have solid OL:
Williams - Flowers - Roullier - Scherff - Moses
You have also spent $25M in new money on OL.
$48M in cap space remaining.
Backups: Martin G, Piersch C, Christian T

What I don’t like about this OL is that the money on young players is backwards. You should spend a lot on tackles and a C, and find serviceable Gs in later rounds or at Walmart. You could argue we reset the switch, but still hostage to past a bit with such a young QB and no 2nd round pick. Flowers and Scherff were both first round picks and have elite traits. Williams enough said. You should have a backup true C that can swing to G, rather than vice versa, only took us 20 years to figure that out. Our backup G and C are solid and serviceable. We could use two new backup Ts easily.
RT is a conundrum. Maybe Moses improves with better coaching, but Callahan was no slouch. Easy to become disheartened with old regime though. Bit ridiculous to have four high-priced OL though. Someone besides Roullier needs to be on a rookie deal, or not be a super-high-priced FA.
With uncertainty about Williams returning, and Moses being far from inspiring, Christian being far from inspiring, and Penn being a pork chop, you could argue we have NOTHING at tackle. No surprise we brought Henderson in for a look. We should take a look at Robinson of Browns as well. High pick, mauler, more a run blocker, struggles pass protection. If you were going to let Scherff walk, or Flowers, you could bring him in as backup G at the least, if he’s sensible about a deal, at lower cost.

You could argue that we would be far better off letting Flowers walk, starting Martin at LT, and spending money on a free agent RT. Except that there aren’t any great options in FA. Some say Conklin, but he is not a great pass protector. You could say Humphries, or Vaitai, etc., but none excite me as way better than Moses, who is making $8M a year.

WE HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM AT OT. IT IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM ON THE ROSTER, NOT TE AS EVERYONE SAYS. THERE ARE FAR MORE TALENTED TEs THAN TACKLES, IN GENERAL, AND IN FREE AGENCY. OUR FRANCHISE QB IS GOING TO GET KILLED IF WE DON’T SOLVE IT.

Allen deserved to be fired for mismanagement of this single position alone.
Even if you say sign Williams, keep Moses and give him one more year, we have NOTHING behind them. Williams will miss a few games, even if we can sign him back. Who is starting in the interim on this roster? No one.
We have to either sign a solid backup T, ideally someone younger, or commit to drafting best T available with our 3rd round pick. Ideally though, you want to have some option on roster so you can go BPA more and don’t have to reach. Not a bad draft for tackles, a half dozen to dozen tackles second-third round grades. If you could trade Kerrigan for a T, awesome. It would be FAR from absurd to use 3rd and 4th round picks on OT, or the 3rd and the 3rd for Kerrigan (may be unrealistic) on OT. Picking top of 3rd round, you would pray a starting T might fall to us, insurance against Moses and Williams. It would not break my heart to draft 3 Ts, cut Moses, Christian, and go young, but the board would have to fall that way. If Moses sucks it up and Williams gets hurt even if signed, we need two starting Ts.

In some combination of Robinson, Henderson, Rookies, we have to find 2-3 Ts. I would MUCH rather have Ts slide to G than keep an extra G. Maybe you try Scherff or Flowers at RT, though again, Callahan probably already considered this. There’s also no guarantee a 3rd round pick at T pans (50% bust rate), which is why I’d use my 4th rounder too. If they all pan out, kind of problem you want to have.

The problem here is balancing the long term need to draft and develop versus plugging the holes. OL is the one place on roster you can’t have gaping holes if you want your QB to live. Deep in my gut, I’d want to draft 3 Ts, hope one develops or flashes, figure one may bust or go to PS, and cut Moses this year or next.

Free agents you let walk: Davis. Thompson. Keenum. McCoy. Peterson. Penn. DRC. Bergstrom. Bostic. Colvin. Burton. Orchard. Smallwood. Cunningham. Woodrum. Humphrey.

Resign Brantley if he’ll take a cheap deal. So we resigned Scherff, Flowers, Brantley.

WR, could be worse. High pick on WR luxury we don’t have this year. Lots of high WRs bust, you can find good #2 WRs in later rounds. We have Mclaurin, Sims Jr., Sims, Harmon, Quinn. We could debate how good all except McLaurin are, Sims Jr. sticks special teams alone, Harmon at least a 5th WR, Sims has size but not speed or perhaps enough, Quinn Gruden favorite and may not stick but could be a #5 or #6 WR on some team maybe not ours. I look at McLaurin, Sims Jr., Harmon as near locks to stay on the roster. All on rookie deals. The lower portion of WR depth chart more wide open. If Quinn sticks, smurfy WR core, could use a big man, would look for one late in draft. WRs are expensive, but usually a lot in FA, and if patient can get some deals. Best approach would be to draft a developmental big WR late rounds, perhaps sign the right FA if price right. With a big armed QB like Haskins, speed at WR sure would help. Overall, you could do worse than starting McLaurin Harmon outside, Sims Jr. slot, not spending a nickel in FA, drafting a WR or UDFA, and standing pat and saving money. A modest priced FA makes sense though.

RB. I’m not a big Peterson fan. He was great, he is good now, but I want a back of the future not a guy in decline. RB is a position for the young. Guice Love both talented, both can’t stay healthy. Guice especially worrisome health wise, injured every year, may be the next Jordan Reed. If the Browns are stupid enough not to tender Hunt high or extend him, I’d sign him, only RB FA I’d sign to decent sized deal, besides Henry, but no way he hits FA. Lots of young cheap RBs in the league, and teams consistently find solid RBs late round. We should draft a RB, sign one on the cheap, have Guice Love and other 2 RBs compete, maybe IR one if they all look good. We need SPEED at the RB position. We need a #3 back not just change of pace, but that can start. To me, signing or cutting Peterson is a good litmus of the new regime. I would not break my heart to draft 2 RBs. Can’t have Love Guice both injury prone and Thompson injury prone. Thompson another Gruden favorite may not be a Rivera favorite. This is also a bit of an unsettled position.

TE you need to start over from scratch. There is no one on roster I love, except perhaps Sprinkle or someone else as a #3. Everyone says sign a big name FA. Hooper might command as much as $12M a year. He isn’t as fast as I’d like, and with all that WR and RB talent in Atlanta, it may have made him look better than he was, but he certainly doesn’t suck. With the amount of cap space we have, we could certainly pay that much, but whether we should is another question, or hold out for a second-tier guy for half the price. If we make a single splash signing in FA, this is probably it, at TE. We still need to draft a backup this year, and another TE year after. When you look at need for depth at TE and WR and RB, trading down anytime you can except with first pick makes sense, except we are desperate for T help. There are 3rd or 4th T on other teams that might start for us.

Again, Allen left the cupboard completely bare at TE through typical mismanagement, and as with T, we are a hostage to that. We don’t have to reach or overpay for a TE though, in the way we must T. If bidding for FA TEs gets insane, sign a second-tier one to a good deal, and plan on drafting one next year higher. WE ARE NOT WINNING THE SB THIS YEAR OR NEXT. WE DO NOT NEED TO FRANTICALLY PLUG EVERY HOLE WITH HIGH PRICED FAs. My only exception is OL.

We also need a veteran QB and backup developmental QB. Alex Smith should illustrate than any NFL QB is but one play away from done. We need a young guy learning the system. NEVER been a fan of Smith, but can’t really cut him until next year, and if we do, massive dead money. He’s never won anything, and we never should have traded for him. Trading Fuller and picks for him was atrocious. Yet another fleecing of our old FO, reminiscent of the Bailey trade, etc. I want a backup who knows that’s all he is, rather than a guy with delusions of starting or being elite, so that the focus is developing Haskins. Haskins is no sure thing, Smith never has won or will win anything, so we absolutely need developmental QB.

A RB or two, a receiver or three, a tight end or three, a tackle or three, a guard potentially, developmental QB. We could use all our picks in the draft on O and not fill all our holes needs. We have some talent on O, for sure, but also a huge work in progress. If we sign say Hooper, or some other good FA without the name recognition but equal talent, Guice stays healthy, our young WRs develop, and we figure out the mess that is the O-line, we could be better, but we realistically have two drafts before having any hope of sufficient depth and talent. We need to trade back EVERY chance we get after drafting Young and best OT available. And every chance we get next year unless stud OT falls to us in first round.