As beastly as Vilma is...

and as much as I like the guy, maybe giving him a long term contract.

I really like this Atogwe guy out of St Louis, and it's easier to find capable MLBs than capable FS. Loomis has said that we don't have much money to spend given upcoming contracts over the next few years, but signing Vilma has pretty much been a given.

Whats say we franchise Vilma, give the money we were going to give him to Atogwe, then try to get Curry in the draft. If we get him, we can play him at WLB for a year and have a great LB corps, then if we can't keep Vilma next offseason, we can consider moving Curry to the middle of go after an MLB in the draft.

If we DON'T get Curry, we can focus on one of the positions of the players we're worried about extending soon (worried about losing Brown, go LT, Evans go G, etc...). Develop that player or even let them start if good enough, then when the vet's contract comes up, we let that player go in FA. The money saved in letting them walk in favor of the relatively cheap draft pick would free up some cash that could be used towards keeping Vilma around.

Biggest downsides I can think of is if the draft player is a bust (but that's a risk you have to take, can't build a good team solely around FA) and pissing Vilma off using a franchise tag.

Of course they could always give both Vilma and Atogwe long term contracts with the intent of letting a Brown or an Evans walk soon, avoiding the franchise situation with Vilma.