re: Cap update: ~$2m over, Will Smith update: still fat

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How does that not make sense if you get a younger, cheaper, and better option?

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you think we can get a better safety than Roman Harper in Free agency?


WIll SMith, maybe. But imo he fits well into the 3-4. A lot of people are overlooking him. HE's the perfect 3-4 DE.


they asked them to restructure for a reason. They want(and need) these guys back.

Will isn't tall enough, powerful enough and stout enough to play the bookend well

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HE's the perfect 3-4 DE.

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Hell no.

And they offer him a lesser deal to stay on the team. GTFO with that BS.

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And they offer him a lesser deal to stay on the team. GTFO with that BS.

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Im not saying he's worth what he is being paid now.

I am saying we are short on bodies and talent, especially to play that DE position. He's important, in my eyes

he's an inch shorter and the same weight, if not more.

dont know how long his arms are. So im not going to make shite up

I'm not here to say he can't play the position but I think he's far from ideal and it may just be time to walk away

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His strength is his best asset

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Probably true at this point in his career, but he's still not strong enough to be an effective 3-4 DE imo. I'm not sure what good he is at this point besides depth.

Plus he has relatively little experience as a 5 tech. There will be depth options available in FA that are more proven and possibly even cheaper than whatever Smith is willing to accept. Or maybe the Saints could be interested in spending a bit more cash and going after a good aging vet that won't have any long term offers (someone like Cullen Jenkins or Richard Seymour at $4-5m this season instead of Smith at $2-3m).

As for Harper, I think cutting Smith and Vilma would give us some cash to spend and a chance to be patient with him while we keep an eye out in FA. Between a new player's prorated bonus + base salary, I don't think that we'll be able to get some big upgrade over Harper for the $5.25m we save this year (if we don't accelerate his 2014 portion of his signing bonus), but SS is probably the best position on defense to be bad at. Someone like Abram Elam (who played for Ryan in Dallas) or Jim Leonhard could be cheaper, aging stopgaps. And from what I saw, Quddus was better last season than both Harper and Jenkins anyway. I just think that picking up a cheap vet + making SS a mid-round priority (Shawn Williams?) and rolling with those two instead of Harper would be worth the nearly $5m freed up to spend elsewhere, like maybe on a FS that's not a twat.

I appreciate the cap wizardry from Loomis for the push to win now. I'm just leery of of the amount of how much money keeps getting rolled forward. At some point you have to pay the piper. You can only do that so much for so long. They cite New England as the model they wanna emulate. I see two areas where they do not follow.

One is that the Pats don't mess around with keeping guys for leadership, appreciation of their contributions, or the like- unless their contract is compatible. They'll trade or cut a player outright before taking an overloaded contract. Isn't Belichick the one who coined the phrase "Better to cut them one contract too soon than to keep them one contract too long."?

Second, is that the Pats have to be the kings of trading back in the draft and accumulating more draft picks. Last year was the first time in a while they were moving up in the draft. I think much had to do with accumulating almost too many picks. Ya know with a quality team that only so many players are gonna make the roster. I can remember a lot of Loomis moving up draft trades but no trading downs come to mind.