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Call it a hunch but I came to the conclusion for a few reasons. And it makes me very happy. Here are some of the reasons.
-A good rebuilding plan takes a good 5 years. Seeing as how Ralph is 86 and Marv is 80, I doubt these guys are looking at 5 years down the road. These guys should have second thoughts about looking 5 months down the road. The doubters will say that Marv’s in better shape then most 40 year olds. True, but when you’re 80, it could go down at any time.
-Marv had a weekly radio show on WGR. Numerous times throughout the season he would say that this is a win now league. He also went as far as to agree with the benching of JP and said that you should always play your best players and the guys who give you the best shot to win the next game.
-At the PC yesterday, Jauron mentioned that we were going to try to win now. Sure we could write this off as coach speak, but based on the two points above and Ralph and Marv telling us that they were going to be more straight forward with the fans, I’m thinking that he was being honest.
So what does this mean?
1. It means that I’m very happy! I know I’m in the minority, but I think this team has a lot of talent.
2. This is a somewhat risky proposition. On one hand, I’m one that believes that you rebuild as you go. There’s no real reason to rush out and start cutting guys just to create more cap room that you don’t plan on using anyway. For example, we have 4 picks in the top 70 in the draft. Used wisely (see point 6), those 4 picks could be starters for the next 5 years. The risky part comes in with the idea that the current nucleus of players is good for 2 or possibly even 3 more kicks at the can. Without very good drafts the next 3 years, we could be in trouble when that time comes. I can see how some would be weary of this proposition, thinking that it’s a waste of time to take the chance with the next 3 years and just start from scratch now. The key will be good drafting over the next 3 years to ease the transition from the nucleus now to the new guys coming in.
3. I would have to think that Moulds and Adams will be brought back. Moulds of course will be restructured, a method practiced by every team in the league except for us under TD who took the term fiscal responsibility to a new level. If what I said above was true, Levy will not want to go into the season without these 2 big guns on the field. We’d be severely weak at either position if either of these guys were cut.
4. I would think that a strong effort would be made to bring back Clements but I won’t go so far as to call it a slam-dunk. I’ve heard that the Tag for CB’s will be about 5.3M, which IMO is a very fair 1-year salary for Nate. If I were in charge, I would tag him. I would listen to trade offers, but unless my socks were knocked off with a tremendous offer, I’d keep him for the season.
5. I have a feeling a new QB will be brought in. This is going to be one touchy subject but the QB play last season was atrocious. It’s difficult for me to criticize the play of our offensive skill players with the QB play we suffered thru. In addition, Marv and Dick have no ties to JP. They don’t care when he was drafted. Again, based on my assumptions above, they will be less likely suffer thru 2 years of bad play so that JP will ready to be good in 3 years. At the same time, if they’re ready to win now, I don’t see them trusting Holcomb to get it done. It’s my guess that they’ll look for another QB. I have NO idea who they will target.
6. This is more of an opinion, but for the draft, we have 4 day one picks and at least 4 day two picks. I don’t want a single “High Motor” guy and I don’t want a single, “project”. Especially with the day one guys. 9 times out of 10, “High Motor” means that the guy doesn’t have great talent, but works hard. And even thought the Jason Peters project appears to have worked, I don’t want to draft an undersized player and try to switch positions. It rarely works. Let’s only draft guys that started in college at the position that we want them to play.
7. The O-line will be addressed in the draft and possible slightly in Free agency.
Kind of where I see us heading.
-A good rebuilding plan takes a good 5 years. Seeing as how Ralph is 86 and Marv is 80, I doubt these guys are looking at 5 years down the road. These guys should have second thoughts about looking 5 months down the road. The doubters will say that Marv’s in better shape then most 40 year olds. True, but when you’re 80, it could go down at any time.
-Marv had a weekly radio show on WGR. Numerous times throughout the season he would say that this is a win now league. He also went as far as to agree with the benching of JP and said that you should always play your best players and the guys who give you the best shot to win the next game.
-At the PC yesterday, Jauron mentioned that we were going to try to win now. Sure we could write this off as coach speak, but based on the two points above and Ralph and Marv telling us that they were going to be more straight forward with the fans, I’m thinking that he was being honest.
So what does this mean?
1. It means that I’m very happy! I know I’m in the minority, but I think this team has a lot of talent.
2. This is a somewhat risky proposition. On one hand, I’m one that believes that you rebuild as you go. There’s no real reason to rush out and start cutting guys just to create more cap room that you don’t plan on using anyway. For example, we have 4 picks in the top 70 in the draft. Used wisely (see point 6), those 4 picks could be starters for the next 5 years. The risky part comes in with the idea that the current nucleus of players is good for 2 or possibly even 3 more kicks at the can. Without very good drafts the next 3 years, we could be in trouble when that time comes. I can see how some would be weary of this proposition, thinking that it’s a waste of time to take the chance with the next 3 years and just start from scratch now. The key will be good drafting over the next 3 years to ease the transition from the nucleus now to the new guys coming in.
3. I would have to think that Moulds and Adams will be brought back. Moulds of course will be restructured, a method practiced by every team in the league except for us under TD who took the term fiscal responsibility to a new level. If what I said above was true, Levy will not want to go into the season without these 2 big guns on the field. We’d be severely weak at either position if either of these guys were cut.
4. I would think that a strong effort would be made to bring back Clements but I won’t go so far as to call it a slam-dunk. I’ve heard that the Tag for CB’s will be about 5.3M, which IMO is a very fair 1-year salary for Nate. If I were in charge, I would tag him. I would listen to trade offers, but unless my socks were knocked off with a tremendous offer, I’d keep him for the season.
5. I have a feeling a new QB will be brought in. This is going to be one touchy subject but the QB play last season was atrocious. It’s difficult for me to criticize the play of our offensive skill players with the QB play we suffered thru. In addition, Marv and Dick have no ties to JP. They don’t care when he was drafted. Again, based on my assumptions above, they will be less likely suffer thru 2 years of bad play so that JP will ready to be good in 3 years. At the same time, if they’re ready to win now, I don’t see them trusting Holcomb to get it done. It’s my guess that they’ll look for another QB. I have NO idea who they will target.
6. This is more of an opinion, but for the draft, we have 4 day one picks and at least 4 day two picks. I don’t want a single “High Motor” guy and I don’t want a single, “project”. Especially with the day one guys. 9 times out of 10, “High Motor” means that the guy doesn’t have great talent, but works hard. And even thought the Jason Peters project appears to have worked, I don’t want to draft an undersized player and try to switch positions. It rarely works. Let’s only draft guys that started in college at the position that we want them to play.
7. The O-line will be addressed in the draft and possible slightly in Free agency.
Kind of where I see us heading.
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