Free Agency Madness 2011: A Thread for post lockout signings

bring it

DUM DUM

SI_PeterKing Peter King
Get used to the cacti, Kevin Kolb.

If the Bears sign Randy Moss, I'm finding a new team.

after 30 years, im ready to move on.

Wait, is that a thing that's being talked about? o_O

Mike Brown on Carson Palmer: "He has retired. If he is going to walk away from his commitment, we're not going to reward it."”

Dallas releasing RB Marion Barber.

he's not very good

There was a point where he was sort of incredible, but it was fleeting.

barber's head seems to go down when the team isn't doing well. i think he has a couple real good seasons in him for a winning side, like randy at ne. most likely he will be an expensive addition to a sucky team and will disappear from games, like randy at oakland.

i think he's too slow to be make any real impact in the nfl

he could be like what mcgahee was for a few years, i gues

his best seasons came as a 3rd down/platoon back before he got named starter but i would guess his ego and contract demands are beyond that now. if it weren't for the inevitable price tag i would love to have him on the pats.

If that's the case, r.i.p Lawfirm

i'll take lawfirm, thx

do the pats still have fred taylor?

after ridding themselves of laurence maroney, i couldn't see the pats opting for barber

pats also drafted two rbs, didn't they? i think fred taylor is gone.

benjy is a different kind of back. actually kind of surprised no one is taking a nibble at him on 2nd round tender. his lack of draft pedigree working in pats' favour.

fred taylor and sammy morris unrestricted free agents this year and won't be back. i don't know anything much about the new guys, and i am not real-world advocating for barber, but that model of player that would fit in nicely i think.

Wait, is that a thing that's being talked about? o_O

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, July 26, 2011 12:10 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yes.

I wouldnt waste time discussing Marion Barber. Running backs are a dime a dozen in this league. Plus it's like boxing, once youre shot youre shot. There's no coming back. The days of a guy like Walter Payton are long gone.

Cool, I will waste my time however I see fit though.

seattle seahawks, your 2010-11 qb will be...tavaris jackson! don't go booking any vacations on a playoff weekend folks.

2011-2

lolsquawks

facepalm

mcnabb to minnesota supposedly in the works

seahawks also signing matt leinert wheeeeee

i guess there is at least an identifiable thought process behind that

is volek being linked with anyone?

i'm still baffled by Leinart or maybe he's just another Mike Phipps idk

I think Leinart is equally as baffled by himself

supposedly he just has a shitty work ethic and has never put in the effort to turn around the deficiencies in technique he came to the league with. maybe carroll thinks he knows how to get into his head and drag out the heisman qb.

there's no way that leinart could be worse than a. whoever seattle currently has b. like the bottom 25% of nfl starting qbs

well, he certainly could be as bad as those qbs, but at least worth figuring it out

feel like me and Matt should form a club

if la canfora is to be believed jackson is being signed as the starter and leinart and whitehurst will face off for back up. but i agree that it makes sense for carroll to at least take a look at him

didn't they just trade a 2nd or 3rd rd pick for whitehurst?

lol yup

completely inept

whoa

it is weird to think but for some reason whitehurst became really hot property while third string at san diego. ironically i remember that arizona were tipped to replace leinart with him at one point.

whitehurst was never even good in college & he played at a good school

The reaction in San Diego when that trade went down was total bafflement and glee.

wait did his dad QB at Green Bay?

predicting my Dolphins still have a flimsy assed offense this year, no matter who they sign. which is a shame cuz their defense could be special!

fins being linked with deangelo williams. maybe they could squeeze one great year out of him a la ronnie and ricky.

yeah ok, his dad did play for Green Bay

i remember the elder Whitehurst being not bad

I think DW's first choice is to remain a Panther, so we'll see how that goes.

they just gave a DE a massive deal, so i doubt that's gonna happen

how & when did deangelo williams go from being one of the best rbs in the nfl to being a guy that no one should sign

Season	Team	GP	Att	Yds	Avg	Yds/G	Long	TD	Rec	Yds	Long	TD
2008	CAR	16	273	1,515	5.5	94.69	69	18	22	121	25	2
2009	CAR	13	216	1,117	5.2	85.92	77	7	29	252	30	0
2010	CAR	6	87	361	4.1	60.16		1	11	61		0

the dolphins didn't go 0-16

i'm still trying to wrap my head around how they win from 1-15 to 11-5 in just one season

that's what eric mangini, brett favre, a tom brady injury, and a little bit of luck will get you

i was just wondering if mangini had a job this yr -- hes gonna be an espn analyst --

http://www.boston.com/sports/blogs/thebuzz/2011/08/mangini_joins_e.html

so sorry, 1-15.
So i guess that's what could go wrong.

i was just wondering if mangini had a job this yr -- hes gonna be an espn analyst --

http://www.boston.com/sports/blogs/thebuzz/2011/08/mangini_joins_e.html

― johnny crunch, Thursday, August 4, 2011 3:28 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

yuck

Yeah, if you're gonna be awful, the Jon Gruden route is the way to do it. I hope Gruden stays on MNF for another 10 years.

I'm still surprised that Mangini's had a career for this long!

espn is so weird... like, it just seems like they scoop up unemployed ppl connected to football every off season w/o regard to whether or not they should be on tv, or have anything interesting to say about anything? it's like a retirement home

gruden is the best -- i haven't laughed harder at tv all year than i did during his qb camp w/ terrel pryor

Adam Schefter reported this afternoon that the 49ers sent out an e-mail to every team in the league to try to trade Mays. One front office of another team told Schefter it has never seen a team just mass e-mail a trade availability like that.

so i guess taylor mays fulfilled the prophecies

Which means sooner or later, Favre's gonna have a terrible announcing or analyst gig. He may be even worse than Troy Aikman and Troy Aikman's repeated concussions. The only player-turned-analyst I can think of that actually worked well is Charles Barkley. Shaq will probably be on this list too.

I love Gruden for so many reasons, he's definitely the "best worst" announcer, especially since you easily can mimic him through an entire game. "Now this guy, Chris Kluwe, he's gonna punt the ball. That's just what he does. No one does it better than this guy. He's a guy that knows how to punt. When it's 4th down, and you need a punt, he's who you call on. He'll be ready."

The only player-turned-analyst I can think of that actually worked well is Charles Barkley

This is a bizarre opinion. Like 99% of analysts are former players. You don't like any of them?

yeah that's a stupid statement

I'm just saying the one that came to mind off the bat. I forgot Bob Uecker! Though he's way more famous as a broadcaster.

Who do they have on Fox; Jimmy Johnson, Howie Long, and Terry Bradshaw? With Troy Aikman announcing? It's like the whole thing where so many teams are coached by former players...no doubt those guys have the experience, but are they really the best suited to TV work? Its like Mitch Hedburg said..."You're an excellent cook...can you farm?"

Why, who are you guys fans of? Obviously I'm not able to remember the entire list but I do think that like 90% of the analysis and commentary on TV is garbage

i think mangini is less of a stiff then he came across as when he was a hc.

chris collinsworth

rich gannon is pretty decent iirc. phil simms wasn't awful for a while there. i could prob give you more names but i'm forgetting the diff guys that work for fox/cbs.

there are really good nba analysts -- webber, kenny smith. van gundy.

also if you think about, like, local announcers, you have a lot of pretty good guys that were ex players.

i mean, obviously tons of them suck balls & have nothing interesting to say and are maddening most of the time. but not always.

xp - I actually wasn't aware that he ever played. But yeah, he's pretty good, in fact probably the best one out there (though that's mostly by default)

Van Gundy is pretty good, but he was never an NBA player. Coach-turned-analyst seems to work much better. As far as local guys go - I can only really speak for Wisconsin; the Brewers announcers are decent, but the play-by-play guy is much better than the ex-player who does color commentary, who doesn't seem to understand baseball at all. The Bucks announcers are ex-players who can call the game fine but don't really have the voice for it and complain a lot when the team is losing (which is often)

I mean, I'm not trying to say "Barkley is good and everyone else sucks", but ex-players obviously have a much better chance of getting on TV despite lacking any real TV skills. Troy Aikman is actually pretty good in this regard but I'd much rather have someone who went to school for this, you know?

it's funny, i'm reading joe posnanski's book on the 'big red machine' right now & he talks intermittently about how much the press liked joe morgan and how well spoken he was & you really get the sense that he was just destined to be a broadcaster. and... he was terrible.

Rodney Harrison? Ron Jaworski? Michael Strahan? Tim Ryan? Paul Maguire? John Madden? Don Meredith?

oh yeah, harrison is truly the best

TIKI BARBER

John Madden's kind of a weird case. That's another guy I forgot actually did play at some point. Not sold on Strahan yet though he does seem pretty smart (compared to the rest of those guys)

i <3 Gary Matthews!

My favorite sports talking head is the Braves' Joe Simpson (11 undistinguished seasons as a player, 73-84). Aikman is good, Chucky and Jaws are a good team imo...Dick Vermeil was quite good in the couple of games I've heard him do. Back to baseball, John Smoltz was a good pitching analyst in the brief period of doing Braves games...dunno if he's developed any stylistic ugliness over the past year or so.

I think coaches are often very good at the job, but that seems sort of irrelevant when you're claiming that someone who comes from a broadcast background would be better at the job than someone who used to be part of an NFL organization, whether it be player, coach, or GM. I appreciate guys like Mayock and Charles Davis who never played in the league, but at least they played college ball. It really helps for the analyst to have some fundamental understanding of football.

I do agree with that poly, but I think that coaches by nature have to be good with words and speech, while players don't even really have to speak English. Obviously some playing experience does help but the approach of "let's grab some former NFL hotshot" like Favre (who is apparently destined for this) really sucks.

Obviously some playing experience does help but the approach of "let's grab some former NFL hotshot" like Favre (who is apparently destined for this) really sucks.

In my opinion this stuff just sorts itself out. The guys who have nothing to offer in the studio, like Joe Montana, eventually quit. The guys who say are either decent at their craft or at least have a folksy charm that appeals to the rubes. There are very few examples of guys who offer nothing who stay in the announcing game for long.

Terry Bradshaw >:(

Howie Long is just as bad as Bradshaw.

Fox pregame >>>>> CBS pregame

The teams with cap space, a day before all teams must be in compliance, are as follows: Buccaneers ($ 29,560,000); Chiefs ($ 28,431,000); Jaguars ($ 28,000,000); Browns ($ 27,620,000); Bengals ($ 27,164,000); Broncos ($26,542,000); Bills ($ 23,460,000); 49ers ($ 22,570,000); Bears ($ 19,300,000); Seahawks ($ 16,387,000); Cardinals ($ 14,603,000); Redskins ($ 11,450,000); Packers ($ 11,106,000); Jets ($ 8,920,000); Dolphins ($ 8,446,000); Colts ($7,925,000); Titans ($ 7,127,000); Saints ($ 7,027,000); Patriots ($ 5,264,000); Chargers ($ 5,031,000); Eagles ($4,604,000); Ravens ($ 3,558,000); Panthers ($ 1,915,000); Vikings ($ 938,000); Falcons ($811,000); Giants ($623,000); Rams ($621,000).

The teams in the red are: Raiders ($15,246,000); Steelers ($8,597,000); Lions ($7,793,000); Cowboys ($6,671,000); and Texans ($3,358,000).

The Lions are in the Red?

what is compliance actually? everyone has to be under cap or everyone has to spend up to cap?

Howie Long is just as bad as Bradshaw.

he's easier to look at though :S

Under the cap with your top 51 salaries.

The salary floor is a league average thing, I believe.

Donte Whitner agreed to a 3-yr, $11.75M deal with $4 million gtd with 49ERS.

well hopefully that works out better than nate clements

whitner is at or near the top of his game. good signing for them. he prob could have done better tho, maybe the market is low for safeties right now.

hm, i think heard the salary floor will be in effect next year?

Braylon Edwards to the 49ers on a 1-year deal
Legedu Naanee to the Panthers

is legedu any good?

He makes an excellent third receiver, very willing to go over the middle. Good size, good routes. Former QB.

wanted the dolphins to sign naanee -- love big dudes like that

I hear David Boston is available.

pats just signed this guy

http://www.xerxy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/the_wolfman.jpg

gonna be super weird seeing him line up in blue

Bye Ricky ;_;