Quote:
Originally Posted by GMScud
You don't miss Ryan Clark? Man, I sure do. We could have kept him for pennies on the dollar compared to Archuletta's contract. Plus he and Taylor were great together. #21 regressed in Clark's absence.
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Count me in the we handled our safety situation improperly last year group, but I'm not convinced it has much to do with Ryan Clark. By most accounts at the time, Archuleta was an upgrade. He ended up being unecessary with Taylor still around and also ended up being damaged goods, so we kinda got screwed also. We didn't get screwed any worse though then if we were to find out that Ryan Clark had gotten hurt and couldn't run or tackle well anymore. We just spent a lot of money to get unlucky.
I'm starting to think that while Free Agency is a viable way to build a roster, big money signings are almost never going to help your team. The best values as players come without hype. The only players that you should overpay for are ones that have unique attributes that you can't get anywhere but that one player. I'm starting to think you should never spend big for need alone.
One lesson that has to come out of this is that investing big into a 2nd safety is never a good idea because crap like that happens. People like Ryan Clark are all over the waiver wire. Heck, Pierson Prioleau is on our team and should do exactly what Clark did for us in 05. Safety is a position where you can always find a long term solution cheap, especially if you have a dominant player at the other safety.
I'm not sure that Sean Taylor will ever be a dominant player because his cover skills are barely adequate, even for a safety. In today's game, the truely dominant safeties have to be able to cover. If Taylor stops playing out of position, he can be a slightly above average player in this league (as compared to Roy Williams who will never even be average because he's playing in the wrong era).
But unless slightly above average is unacceptable for a safety (and on a defense thats this bad, its not like a poor covering safety is the reason for everything that goes wrong--far from it), Taylor's good enough to be a playmaker in the secondary. I just don't see him getting all that much better over time. His skill set seems better build for the NFL of the 1990's than the present day game.
The point still stands though. As long as we are going to pay Taylor like a No. 1 safety, we don't bring in another expensive option. Too much can go wrong for very little payoff. (See: Archuleta, Adam)