Quote:
Originally Posted by Paintrain
I think that the moves that Shanahan and Allen are making this year are to win now and in the future. What's the one position that teams struggle the most to get 'right'? The QB position. With the McNabb trade we have immediately (and dramatically IMO) improved that position for hopefully the next 3-4 years. Perhaps that could have been done with a draft pick as well but at least some people thought that was done twice already in the past 10 years with the Ramsey and Campbell picks. The risk/reward on McNabb is far less than on a drafted QB.
The other moves they've made, adding depth to the backfield, signing Hicks to a 3 year deal, extending M. Williams to a 3 year deal, bringing in Buchanon, signing Ke'Moataue (or whatever), etc. are all moves to win and build depth at positions. They are not going to be able to change a stale, poorly constructed 4-12 roster overnight-especially with the restrictions on free agents this year.
I get the whole notion of 'stockpiling draft picks' but it takes a couple of things in order to do that. We need to have players that are desirable in a trade that we can move without suffering an impact on the roster. For all of the geniuses who want to trade Cooley, what happens if Davis pops a hamstring week 2? Then what? For everyone who is saying trade Landry and Moss, are you that comfortable with Chris Horton and Marko Mitchell? Those same fans will be bitching up a storm come October when we're sitting at 2-5 and those players are thriving elsewhere.
The same goes for trading down in the draft. There's a simple reason why that seldom, if ever happens anymore. No team wants to be on the hook for top 5 guaranteed money unless they are targeting a very specific player like the Jets with Sanchez last year and they didn't get a ransom of picks.
Teams like the Eagles and Pats didn't stock up by depleting their roster of impact players, they used players that fit a role well for them but they had depth enough to absorb the loss. Those teams also were not stuck in a position of drafting for need with every pick, they had a talented enough roster that they could afford to not take a player at a position because they had a gaping hole, which is a position that we've found ourselves in for more than a decade and quite frankly most teams are in as well.
Sorry for the long post, but to answer the OP question, yes, I believe we are building for a Super Bowl but not THIS Super Bowl.
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I get what you are saying about having talent now while building towards the future, and as a matter of principal I agree with you, but I feel that this situation does not apply to our team right now due to what I feel to be too many holes on our roster. My deal isn't that we have alot of holes now (which I do feel that we do), but is that in a couple years we will have significantly more holes due to the age of our team. A few players that we expect to currently have an impact (fletcher, rabach, carter, moss, daniels, all our RBs, etc) in reality probably will be somewhat irrelevant a couple yers down the road, and I do not see that we have the means to replace these players within the next few years. On top of that we are not accounting for the players we might lose (i.e.Rogers), and the players that play might just slip (i.e Hall...at 30 some quick CBs just lose their speed and cant make up for it). I do not want to bank on free agency to replace these guys, we do not know who will be available or what the cap situation will be. I also do not think that McNabb will be able to carry us in a couple of years; but I do think he will be good enough (like Elway was in his SB years) to win it for us IF we have the necessary talent around him, which I feel like we will not have.
And for the record, I still think that Shannahan is a great coach, just not great with personnel decisions.