2010 Free Agents

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by hail_2_da_skins

Why are we looking at a free agent list? I thought the Redskins had changed their ways. Going after high priced free agents is not the way to go. Develop from within, build through the draft. That should be the new mantra!

What fails is bad utilization of available resources. Though I hate referencing other teams, I will do it now for examples only.

When Randy Moss signed with New England, they signed him to a reasonable contract, and no ridiculous trade value = Win for the Patriots

When Oakland signed Wilfork, they gave up future picks, and took on a heavy contract = loss for the Raiders (win for Pats longterm by gaining valuable picks)

When Asante Samuels left the Pats, the Eagles took him on to fill a specific need at a reasonable cost = win for the Eagles.

those are the types of wins we want to see in FA, if they are out there, and the type of losses we want to avoid going forward. Building a successful NFL team does not mean ignoring ANY potential player, but evaluating and getting solid team players at an acceptable cost. And I would note that acceptable cost is different for each team, we should have an acceptable upfront cash(not longterm cash) cost that is higher than most teams which gives us an advantage in the FA market, but we also should have a lower acceptable trade cost than many teams -meaning we should be stingier than most teams in trading away picks because our team, specifically the OL needs a lot of young blood to build longterm- so we should not be looking at restricted FA's very much.

Bottomline:
in FA market we should be moderate buyers this year,
in the RFA market we should be heavy sellers, seeking draft picks for compensation.
and in the Draft, we should be open trade partners, seeking best possible positioning, either by trading down or up in the later rounds to get the young players for the OL, and if a qb is there that MS/BA wants.

one side note outside of this, I would get Josh Cribbs if he comes available, and give serious consideration to whatever the trade terms are.