Full on team building mode theory thread.

[Yubaking]

Trading Reyes for a DE on running downs will allow the offence to read our d and play to our weekness. Stopping the run starts in the middle but a high round draft pick or expensive free agent is not how id invest the cap at this time.

I am fine with our first round pick being Hageman or Tuitt if other players (Nix, Dennard, Mosley, Lewan, Gilbert and Martin) are not available and we can't trade back. We could keep Reyes fresh for known pass rushing downs by using him as a sub behind either Hageman or Tuitt, who would offer us a more stout presence on the DL for downs other than third and long. The stout presence would help our other defenders make plays much more so than Reyes being blown 7 yards off the line of scrimmage..

[Beerman]

Schwartz is probably the second best OG that's available in FA and he's young. He will get a multi year deal far exceeding 1 million per. I would love to get him personally, but he won't be cheap.

I would avoid Worlids completely. FA pass rushers just aren't worth it IMO. The premium price tag is just too high. Draft and develop pass rushers. AJ had the right idea to keep bringing in pass rushers continually, he just chose the wrong one in English. Imagine if that would have been Clay Matthews.

I suspect Telesco is of the same mindset in regards to pass rushers and will look to rebuild that position. It just likely won't happen all at once due to contract/cap limitations.

[Beerman]

Cooper, like I've mentioned before, would be completely miscast in our offense IMO. I suspect he resigns in Philly anyways. He developed a great relationship with Foles.

I also don't know why everyone keeps saying we need a deep threat. We don't throw the ball deep. We aren't going to suddenly go to back to Norvmode and become a deep passing team. We don't have WRs running deep patterns every single time like we used to. We need explosion off the line and the ability to run after the catch. All WRs can run deep patterns, not all of them can get open off the line of scrimmage and beat press coverage.

[Beerman]

In regards to Soliai, I like him. I do wonder why Miami was so god awful vs the run last year though. I don't think I saw a single Miami game other than ours.

His price tag and length is an issue. If you give me a choice, I go with a CB via FA vs. a NT. It's just simply a matter of who will likely outperform the contract. A CB in our D plays 100% of the snaps and will likely be younger.

I suspect Soliai is looking for a 4 year deal, which I wouldn't care for much.

[Yubaking]

Cooper, like I've mentioned before, would be completely miscast in our offense IMO. I suspect he resigns in Philly anyways. He developed a great relationship with Foles.

I also don't know why everyone keeps saying we need a deep threat. We don't throw the ball deep. We aren't going to suddenly go to back to Norvmode and become a deep passing team. We don't have WRs running deep patterns every single time like we used to. We need explosion off the line and the ability to run after the catch. All WRs can run deep patterns, not all of them can get open off the line of scrimmage and beat press coverage.

I think we do need the threat of a deep pass. Without one, teams can vertically compact their defenses against us, which gives us less room in the short passing game and even hurts our running game.

The reality is that we were 28th in passing plays over 40 yards and some of those involved short passes that the receiver ran for a big gain. We need occasional big strike ability to keep defenses honest.

Fortunately, Telesco knows this as he has already referenced the need to increase our team speed on offense, which I am sure was a reference to the fact that our WRs are not fast except for Royal, who has a small catch radius and is therefore not as useful on long passing plays.

I like Cooper because he is big enough and fast enough to get the job done. Also, his racial slur usage might drive his price down slightly. I do not think Cooper is a racist. I just think he was a guy in a liquored up altercation that ran his mouth, not what I would exactly call a unique experience.

[Yubaking]

In regards to Soliai, I like him. I do wonder why Miami was so god awful vs the run last year though. I don't think I saw a single Miami game other than ours.

His price tag and length is an issue. If you give me a choice, I go with a CB via FA vs. a NT. It's just simply a matter of who will likely outperform the contract. A CB in our D plays 100% of the snaps and will likely be younger.

I suspect Soliai is looking for a 4 year deal, which I wouldn't care for much.

I think CB and NT are our two top needs at present. However, your focus on performance versus contract overlooks the issue of positional scarcity. If we do not get Nix (I think it's only about 33.33% that we do get him), then we will not be able to draft a starting NT in 2014. So the odds are that the only way that we could get a true starting NT is by signing Soliai. CB is not scarce at all in the draft, so we could easily draft one. Then we would have both positions covered instead of just CB.

Also, outside of V. Davis (who will likely cost too much), who would you want as a FA CB? The options aren't that great for FA CBs this year. But there are tons of solid CB prospects in the draft and we have S. Williams returning.

Further, Soliai has been durable, only missing one game in the last 4 years and 5 in the last 6 years, so I am not as concerned about giving him a 4 year deal. In fact, with the right guaranteed money, we might be able to use the possibility of a 4th year to lower the overall yearly average salary paid to him and spread out his signing bonus. He would just be turning 34 at the end of the 4th season (December 30th), so I think a 4th year should not be a deal breaker if it were to come to that.

Finally, Miami's run defense issues were not Soliai's fault according to PFF. He graded out somewhere in the +11.0 range overall if memory serves me correctly.

[Beerman]

I think we do need the threat of a deep pass. Without one, teams can vertically compact their defenses against us, which gives us less room in the short passing game and even hurts our running game.

The reality is that we were 28th in passing plays over 40 yards and some of those involved short passes that the receiver ran for a big gain. We need occasional big strike ability to keep defenses honest.

Fortunately, Telesco knows this as he has already referenced the need to increase our team speed on offense, which I am sure was a reference to the fact that our WRs are not fast except for Royal, who has a small catch radius and is therefore not as useful on long passing plays.

I like Cooper because he is big enough and fast enough to get the job done. Also, his racial slur usage might drive his price down slightly. I do not think Cooper is a racist. I just think he was a guy in a liquored up altercation that ran his mouth, not what I would exactly a unique experience.

While I do agree we need more of a deep threat, I just don't see it being the MAIN thing when looking at a WR. There's a reason we were 28th in passing plays over 40 yards - we don't run those patterns very often. Why do you think Rivers led the league in completion %? We are a high percentage passing offense. We do need more speed at WR for sure, but it can't just be speed. He needs to be able to gain separation off the line or else he can't run 85% of the routes in the offense. You can't just have Allen running all the short routes or else they just key in on that. It's all about the ability of being able to run the entire route tree out of any position on the field.

It's why the loss of DX hurts so much. He's the type of guy we need. He's physical and gives us that mismatch in the end zone. He's fast enough to run the deep routes, but he also is able to explode off the line and win on shorter routes.

It's that ability to win off the line that really opens up the route trees for WR's. If a CB starts to press you, you can blow by him. If they stay off the line, you win on the crossing routes, slants, quick hitters/outs. Our entire passing offense is based off of winning the short passing game though. Then you can beat them deep with Green or on double moves. If we can't win off the line though, we are screwed. You lose the crossing routes. You lose the slants. You lose the quick ins and outs. Those 10 play drives evaporate.

If you noticed last season, no one respected Brown. He not only doesn't have the deep speed, but he wasn't winning any battles at the line of scrimmage. He was an easy cover. Defenses never had to waste a safety doubling him because the corner just shadowed him the whole time. He just couldn't get off the line of scrimmage with any burst whatsoever.

[Beerman]

I think CB and NT are our two top needs at present. However, your focus on performance versus contract overlooks the issue of positional scarcity. If we do not get Nix (I think it's only about 33.33% that we do get him), then we will not be able to draft a starting NT in 2014. So the odds are that the only way that we could get a true starting NT is by signing Soliai. CB is not scarce at all in the draft, so we could easily draft one. Then we would have both positions covered instead of just CB.

Also, outside of V. Davis (who will likely cost too much), who would you want as a FA CB? The options aren't that great for FA CBs this year. But there are tons of solid CB prospects in the draft and we have S. Williams returning.

Further, Soliai has been durable, only missing one game in the last 4 years and 5 in the last 6 years, so I am not as concerned about giving him a 4 year deal. In fact, with the right guaranteed money, we might be able to use the possibility of a 4th year to lower the overall yearly average salary paid to him and spread out his signing bonus. He would just be turning 34 at the end of the 4th season (December 30th), so I think a 4th year should not be a deal breaker if it were to come to that.

Finally, Miami's run defense issues were not Soliai's fault according to PFF. He graded out somewhere in the +11.0 range overall if memory serves me correctly.

It's actually a great year to be in the market for CB's via FA. A ton of them took 1 year deals last season plus you have the addition of top corners like Verner to the market. It's also a very deep position in the draft, but I think it's loaded with more #2-3 CB's more than top end talent.

You make a good point about position scarcity in regards to NT, but that shouldn't be a reason to overpay. That's what got us in this mess to begin with. I also don't agree with giving any 30+ aged player a 4 year deal. Ever. I stated very clearly last year we should be getting younger, not older. Only players that should ever receive a 4 year deal are players coming off their rookie deals. It's the only guys that have the greatest chance of outperforming their deals. Very few 30+ aged players will have that needle pointing up (besides QB). In fact it's a greater chance we are paying for past accomplishments than future gains. If I'm Telesco, I keep the team as young as possible and try to get rid of players before they start declining. It's the cold hard truth.

[Steve]

How do you figure that Worilds is going to get $8M per year? Dumervil and Hali do not get that kind of money and they are established top level pass rushers. Worilds is an emerging player, but he has not even had a 10 sack season. As I stated, my idea was to drop Freeney and Johnson and pick up about $5.625M to sign Worilds and a rookie OLB that we select fairly early in the draft. I think Worilds' price should be somewhere around half of what you are suggesting. If his price really is $8M, then we can consider someone else.

He is the only FA pass rusher. He is also better then Kruger was, so he is likely to get more, probably a lot more then last year. Kruger got 5 year $40 mill. Hali got a 5 year, $60 mill. Dumervil's contract is not relevant, since he signed a late year deal for a player on the wrong side of 30. Pass rushers get paid, and get overpaid every year.

Similarly, I think the points that you raise with regard to Schwartz and Cooper are not well taken. Schwartz had a base salary of $630K last year and he was not in his rookie contract. Because KC is deep at OL, he is a reserve. I would be disappointed if we could not get him for $1.5M. My expectation would be that his price would actually be closer to $1M.
Further, Schwartz has NFL starting experience at OT. He is better than Clary by a huge margin per PFF and costs way less. It doesn't matter what else we do, signing Schwartz and then releasing Clary should be the easiest moves we make this offseason.

Schwartz was one of the best young OL last year. He played 8 games. Maybe you don't pay attention, but a guy who adds depth at OT and was one of the better young OG get paid a lot more then $1.5 mill a year. Unkown guys might get that, but he is no longer unknown. Everyone has a bunch of film on him.

Given how he played last year, I find it unlikely Schwartz will be considered a backup. He pretty much won the starting job inside. He also played enough to be considered a pretty good player, so the idea that no one else noticed is pretty much bullshit. He is going to get paid by someone. And someone will probably give him discoutned starters money. He is going to get a lot more then $1.5 million, because other teams do their homework.

Cooper should not be all that expensive either. I wouldn't want to pay over $2.5M for him and even that is a stretch. In my previous post, I suggested we would draft Moncrief in round 3. I think Moncrief would ultimately beat Cooper out, but until then, our #2 WR is squared away. Once Moncrief emerges, Cooper is our #3 WR. I suggested drafting Herron in round 4 as our new slot guy in place of Royal. I suggested re-signing Ajirotutu. That would give us Allen, Cooper, Moncrief, Herron, Brown and Ajirotutu regardless of what Floyd does.

Cooper is going to get paid a lot more then he was. He is a pretty complete WR, even if he is somewaht un-atheltic. Most important, the guy just doesn't really fit what we need. We need somone to stretch the field. We need someone to give our other receivers room to operate and have space. And Cooper doesn't fill that need. So, he might well be more valuable to some (which drives his price up), but he is not that valuable to us.
Tutu has a lot of work to do at WR. He is a fine depth and ST guy, but he lacks great speed deep, he drops a lot of passes, and he is somewhat inconsistent in his routes. I am fine with resigning him, but I don't think he really fills a need at WR. He is deep depth and ST, not WR help. I hope he develops, but he probably won't.

I do think Cooper is fast enough to stretch the field. His 40 time is only .07 slower than Vincent Jackson's and his 10 and 20 yard dash times are faster than Jackson's. Actually, the only thing I do not like about Cooper is that he only has a 31 inch vertical leap. But he is much better than Brown and makes a solid #2 guy until Moncrief can take over, which I suspect he would no later than 2015 and possibly even within 2014. Cooper gives us that solid fall back option.

Have you watched the guy play? He is not a long strider and he doesn't use his body as well to position. He lacks the althetic ability. His game and best routes aren't down the field, so teh 40 thing is not relevant. Lots of different ways to get the same 40 time, and Cooper quick move to seperate, then not gain as he goes is not going to help him running downfield. And his lack of the ability to go up and win deep passes and fight for the ball are problems.

VJ was a lot taller, and long strider who built speed as he went (like Floyd). Both he and Floyd are very, very good at using their big bodies at walling off defenders. Both win a lot of jump balls. Both do a good job of setting up deep routes. Just because Cooper has some height and VJ has some height doesn't mean they are remotely the same type of players. Quite the opposite, they are really nothing alike.

I do not dispute that there could be other RB options, but I think Gerhart would be cheap and would allow us to focus on other needs in the draft. My only purpose in noting Gerhart's 40 time was to show that he may be somewhat faster than many people think he is. I agree that a 40 time does not tell us all we need to know about a potential RB.

League min alone goes up a lot for Gerhart, relative to a rookie or young RB. And a somewhat faster guy who contribute more on ST is always a better option. And I am not necessarily talking about a return guy at RB. I am thinking another RB who can fill lanes. Gehart is fine, but he has taken a lot of hits, and I think Minn will try and keep him, because AP takes a lot of hits. And if we can get him for almost nothing, fine, but Gerhart is not a nothing kinda guy. He is going to get an offer. But I bet Norv pays to keep him. He likes useless depth, and Gerhart isn't useless depth to them.

I think your salary range with respect to Soliai is right on the money and I think Soliai is worth every penny. He represents the single best signing we could make. Soliai forcing teams to double him will allow our other players to make plays. I think his presence would significantly improve the results achieved by our DEs, ILBs and OLBs.

First, if all that is needed to make a D improve is get a big run stuffer like Soliai, why was the Dolphin D so bad? They really sucked. And they let teams run on them late games several times late in the season, and tehy just got worse. I can't shake their final game of the season, where they were playing 8 and 9 man fronts vs the Jets, who could not pass, and the Jets ran the ball down their throats. Not all of it is Soliai's fault, but it doesn't add much to your theory.
Most NFL teams are playing guys who are late round picks and UDFA, or smaller guys who are closer to DE types. They know that tying up a lot of resources is a mistake.
Plus, teams did not run on the middle of our D. Thomas didn't play well, but he didn't get run on that much. They ran at our DE and OLB (not JJ though). So, why are we thinking adding a NT adds much to our D. Add in that because we gave up a lot of competetions, and a high average per attempt, we wouldn't improve much if our run D got a lot stiffer. But teams can and will pass the ball up and down the field on us. Any way you look at our pass D, it HAS to get better. Our run D wasn't great, but it was night and day better late in the season then in the begining.

It is only once we have Soliai that we can afford to bring in a legitimate developmental prospect. We could also bypass Nix and address other needs in round 1 if we have Soliai. If the team wants to keep Geathers and see what he has, I am fine with that because I would actually like to have 3 NTs and count Lissemore as a 3-4 DE, which is what he is. I disagree with your assessment of Geathers, though. His pad level issue is a problem for him. I do not think he plays with great knee bend as you state. I think we are pumping an ultimately dry well in trying to develop him. Rather than re-signing Thomas, whose limitations are now apparent, I would draft J. Ellis in round 5 because he showed flashes of very good play against top level seniors recently during Senior Bowl week. To me, he is less of a reach by far than Geathers is.

Ellis showed that he is an NFL caliber athlete who has the size at NT. He was not that productive as a college player, despite not being in a major college player (vs major college compeition). He is OK, but there are guys like him every year. Again with Lissemore to fill the short term needs, we can afford to let other teams reach for him. THe few clips I have found, he looks more like a 1 gap guy, then a true 2 gap guy. If he falls to the late 4th or 5th, then maybe take him and more Lissemore back to DE, let Geathers fight it out and see if one can win. But like most rookie DL, Ellis is probably not going to play much, and is a couple years away, unless we are willing to relly have him play small role, and we don't seem to do that much. We seem to prefer to throw them in and let them do everything.

Remember, Geathers played pretty well against an AL OL that had 2 - 1st rounder Jones (I foget when he was picked) and a future #1 in Cyrus Kouandjio. So, you can aruge that Ellis is poised for greatness, but the fact is that Geathers did well vs an all start OL (AL) and then struggled, like a lot of DL do as rookies. Now, you want to take another guy who is going to do the same thing. Any guy who has the potential to play immediately, is going to go pretty high.

And, as I keep pointing out, NT is not really a big need. It is a minor need. I would rather see us take a smaller guy, who can provide some help at DE. But these days we don't need a huge space eater.


The better idea is to let some of our higher priced guys contracts expire next season, and continue to build through the draft. Keep our money and extend our own draft picks, rather then piss our FA dollars for FA, who will for the most part not play up to the big money we offer them.

[Formula 21]

How do you figure that Worilds is going to get $8M per year? Dumervil and Hali do not get that kind of money and they are established top level pass rushers. Worilds is an emerging player, but he has not even had a 10 sack season. As I stated, my idea was to drop Freeney and Johnson and pick up about $5.625M to sign Worilds and a rookie OLB that we select fairly early in the draft. I think Worilds' price should be somewhere around half of what you are suggesting. If his price really is $8M, then we can consider someone else.

Similarly, I think the points that you raise with regard to Schwartz and Cooper are not well taken. Schwartz had a base salary of $630K last year and he was not in his rookie contract. Because KC is deep at OL, he is a reserve. I would be disappointed if we could not get him for $1.5M. My expectation would be that his price would actually be closer to $1M.

Further, Schwartz has NFL starting experience at OT. He is better than Clary by a huge margin per PFF and costs way less. It doesn't matter what else we do, signing Schwartz and then releasing Clary should be the easiest moves we make this offseason.

Cooper should not be all that expensive either. I wouldn't want to pay over $2.5M for him and even that is a stretch. In my previous post, I suggested we would draft Moncrief in round 3. I think Moncrief would ultimately beat Cooper out, but until then, our #2 WR is squared away. Once Moncrief emerges, Cooper is our #3 WR. I suggested drafting Herron in round 4 as our new slot guy in place of Royal. I suggested re-signing Ajirotutu. That would give us Allen, Cooper, Moncrief, Herron, Brown and Ajirotutu regardless of what Floyd does.

I do think Cooper is fast enough to stretch the field. His 40 time is only .07 slower than Vincent Jackson's and his 10 and 20 yard dash times are faster than Jackson's. Actually, the only thing I do not like about Cooper is that he only has a 31 inch vertical leap. But he is much better than Brown and makes a solid #2 guy until Moncrief can take over, which I suspect he would no later than 2015 and possibly even within 2014. Cooper gives us that solid fall back option.

I do not dispute that there could be other RB options, but I think Gerhart would be cheap and would allow us to focus on other needs in the draft. My only purpose in noting Gerhart's 40 time was to show that he may be somewhat faster than many people think he is. I agree that a 40 time does not tell us all we need to know about a potential RB.

I think your salary range with respect to Soliai is right on the money and I think Soliai is worth every penny. He represents the single best signing we could make. Soliai forcing teams to double him will allow our other players to make plays. I think his presence would significantly improve the results achieved by our DEs, ILBs and OLBs.

It is only once we have Soliai that we can afford to bring in a legitimate developmental prospect. We could also bypass Nix and address other needs in round 1 if we have Soliai. If the team wants to keep Geathers and see what he has, I am fine with that because I would actually like to have 3 NTs and count Lissemore as a 3-4 DE, which is what he is. I disagree with your assessment of Geathers, though. His pad level issue is a problem for him. I do not think he plays with great knee bend as you state. I think we are pumping an ultimately dry well in trying to develop him. Rather than re-signing Thomas, whose limitations are now apparent, I would draft J. Ellis in round 5 because he showed flashes of very good play against top level seniors recently during Senior Bowl week. To me, he is less of a reach by far than Geathers is.

if Thomas's limitation is poor coaching, I agree with you.

[Beerman]

The better idea is to let some of our higher priced guys contracts expire next season, and continue to build through the draft. Keep our money and extend our own draft picks, rather then piss our FA dollars for FA, who will for the most part not play up to the big money we offer them. [/B]

I don't completely agree with your take on NT, but I do agree with this course of action. We are better off letting all our high priced vet's walk next year vs. cutting them and going after FA's this season. I just don't see it as a working model going forward.

As per your point in us not really needing a NT, well I just disagree. I do agree that we shouldn't go out and pay a big sum in FA for one, but I feel it completely justified to use a significant pick for one. Using a high pick or a DE as you suggest is completely the same. Both will play limited snaps. I prefer to improve our run defense and short yardage defense vs. taking a DE. We already have a guy that can help at DE on run downs - Lissemore. He can be a decent stop gap NT as you mentioned, but he would be much better suited to play in the base D at DE IMO.

Obviously this goes up in smoke if a bonafide pass rusher is available, I just don't see that being the case at 25. Nix I can see easily dropping to 25 because of his recent surgery.

[Formula 21]

I want Nix to perform well at the pre draft workouts, but then again I don't. If he makes it past 25, I'm pissed.