Free Agency 2008

NFL free agency in 2008 started off like a rocket. There were a ton of big signings and also even bigger trades. I took some notes after the first couple days but never found the time to write about them. So without further delay, let’s get to this overdue analysis.

Starting with the greatest team in the league:

Pittsburgh Steelers: Obviously we lost Alan Faneca which we all saw coming. The Jets overpaid for him (but more on that when I talk about the Jets). Our other two losses were Jermaine Tuman to the Cardinals and Allen Rossum to the 49ers. Neither will really hurt the team and actually Rossum leaving will help the team because he sucked the biggest balls on Earth last year in his role as a return man.

Speaking of return men, our first signing right out of the chute was Mewelde Moore, former college stud turned Pro “blah” for the Minnesota Vikings. We picked him up as a return man and I suppose a potential 3rd down “pass catching” back. I love this signing. First, we desperately need a return man and he can’t be worse than what we’ve had for the last couple years. He just CAN’T be any worse. Next, he’s also a running back. While I don’t think we need another running back, it surely doesn’t hurt. Shit, who knows, he may return to his former college greatness and we may have a real steal on our hands. We also signed Kenyaron Fox as a back up linebacker and special teams player. I don’t really know him (came from KC, I think) but we can always use line backers and special teams players so it seems to make sense. I’m a little nervous that we have not signed any offensive linemen. I guess we’re going to just roll the dice that we can draft someone with immediate impact. Cross your fingers on that one. I saw that center Justin Hartwig (released from the Panthers) was in for an interview in the last couple days but I’m not too thrilled to sign him. The Panthers had a pretty stinky O-line last year also so while it probably wouldn’t be hard to be better than Mahan, I’m not sure this guy is the answer. I’m optimistic with the first two college prospects we brought in for interviews: 2 Defensive Ends. Lord knows we need at least one more “good” to “very good” defensive end after the Aaron Smith injury debacle last season. The line just sucked wind without Smith. While I still want an O-Line guy with our first two picks, you won’t see me bitching about taking a D-Line guy. Finally, I would be remiss not to mention that Big Ben will be pulling in a shitload of money for the next (8?) seasons. I can’t remember how much the contract was but I recall it averaged just under $13M per season and it was over $100M lifetime. He wasn’t a free agent and thank the gods of football that he won’t be anytime soon. Now we just need to pull in another Lombardi Trophy to make that investment worthwhile.

While the Steelers are never very active in free agency, the rest of the league surely was. Here are some random thoughts on other teams:

NY Jets: They win the “Dan Snyder” award for spending a shit load of money during free agency. They pulled in a lot of high priced talent on the O-Line (Faneca and Woody) and then turned around and gave Calvin Pace a massive contract to play linebacker. Now I think these are some good guys but I’m not sure any of them deserve the money they got. So the Jets front office is going to end up looking either very silly or very smart depending on how much gas is left in these tanks. They also pulled in Jesse Chatman from Miami which is a move I really like for them. They now have 3 backs (Jones, Washington, and Chatman) that could carry the load if they needed. They also picked up Tony Richardson to help that O-Line and RBs. If this fullback is still even a glimpse of his former self this Jets offense should be very strong with the run this year which will set up their passing game to… fail, I suppose since the one acquisition they didn’t spend a ton of money on was a QB. Will it be Pennington? Sloth Clemmons? Or a TBD draft pick? God only knows and God save the Jets. Between these two I guess I draft a QB of the future and start Clemmons again. So while I think the Jets are vastly improved they still won’t make it deep into the playoffs without fixing their QB problem. What a shame to waste a potentially good running game…

Tennessee Titans: I really like the pick up of Alge Crumpler. Sure, he may be all gimped up and never play well again, but if he is okay he’ll really help Vince Young by being the big safety valve that makes Phillip Rivers look like a good quarterback (I’m speaking of Antonio Gates, of course). I also like the pick up of Jake Scott from Indy. Bringing The Freak back (Javon Kearse) and Justin McCareins strikes me more as desperate as anything else.

Atlanta Falcons: I guess we finally know when Jerious Norwood will start for the Falcons now that Warrick Dunn is gone. NEVER! I would not have picked the Falcons to win the Michael Turner sweepstakes. In fact, they wouldn’t even have made the top 20 teams I would have thought would be going after him. I have to say that I question this move from the perspective of Turner. Spend the money wisely because you are going to lose for many seasons to come. This team is in a major rebuilding mode and it will be years before they get good enough to utilize your talents. In the meantime, prepare to run against 11 guys in the box for all 4 downs every series and prepare to be crippled in two years. I mean these fuckers re-signed Joey Harrington after releasing him a few weeks earlier for Christ’s sake. Don’t get me wrong, I’m okay with the Falcons re-building (I mean, the list of veterans they dumped this year is far too long to go into) but I wouldn’t have picked Michael Turner as the first piece of that puzzle. I guess I’m a fan of building from the inside out and that means starting with the lines, then a QB, and then a RB. But we’ll see.

Cleveland Browns: By far the winners of free agency by my calculations. I’m usually not a fan of selling draft picks to fill holes, but by sacrificing the first 3 picks of the 2008 draft they REALLY picked up some good talent (including Brady Quinn from last year’s draft for this year’s first round pick). First, they re-sign Anderson. I wouldn’t have done the deal quite that long (3 years, I think), but okay, it works. Then they pick up Shaun Rogers and Corey Williams to help the D line, their biggest weakness in 2007. They also manage to score Donte Stallworth and while he has never really panned out in his career he can only help their talented offense. Speaking of offense, don’t forget they re-signed Jamal Lewis and there is no reason to think he can’t repeat the stellar year he had in 2007. Finally, the brought in center Rex Hadnot which is who I wanted the Steelers to make a play for. This just goes to show you that the Browns are evil motherfuckers, as usual. The only problem I have with what the Browns have done is letting Leigh Bodden go in the Williams trade. I’m told he didn’t have a good 2007 season but he played very well in the games I saw him play and I would say he was their best DB. So I’m a little suspicious of their defensive backfield. They say a strong front 7 will cover up for a weak defensive backfield and you can’t argue their front 7 got better. So we’ll see how much they miss Bodden. I almost forgot! They also lost DB Richard Colclough which will be another big boost to the defense since he is a worthless fuck.

New England: Where did Richard “King of the Special Teams Fumbles” Colclough end up? None other than with the devil himself. Seems like a good fit to me because now they can all rot together in hell. New England’s defense took some serious hits this off-season. First, adding Colclough automatically makes them worse. In addition, they lost Asante Samuels and Randall Gay. So basically they have ZERO good defensive backs at this point? I mentioned that they say a good front seven will cover up for bad DBs, but were they talking about a front seven that are now able to get AARP cards (Junior Seau and Teddy Bruschi). This defense is fresh out of magic and they are going to suck next year. Good. Fuck those fucking twats and the coach they rode in on. This will be a train wreck that I really enjoy watching.

San Francisco 49ers. The only reason I didn’t already pick the Falcons to be the worst team in the NFL next season is because of the 49ers. Needless to say, these idiots picked up the oldest possible players at every position (I’m guessing) when they signed Isaac Bruce, DeShaun Foster, and shitbag Allen Rossum. Good fucking luck with those has beens. I gather they are looking for some leadership in their locker room or else they have just completely gone insane. I read today that they let D-Jax go which is hysterical since when they traded for him last year I thought they were stupid. At least they didn’t repeat their stupid error by playing him again. This team is in serious trouble.

But I’ll cap it off there. I could probably go on all day if I went through every team’s moves so I’ll leave it just to the ones that stood out to me.

We’re about 1 month from the NFL draft which is the Superbowl of the off-season so get your popcorn ready!

-David