MERGED: "Feelings" on How Free Agency is Going So Far

[Ravenslifer]

I still don't get this. The Redskins and the Patriots since 2007, and the Eagles this year, prove you cannot BUY championships. The Superbowl winning Pats' teams had a lot of homegrown talent. The Superbowl winning Steelers teams had homegrown talent. The Superbowl winning Giants teams had homegrown talent. The Superbowl winning Packers team had homegrown talent. Even the Saints, who brought in a free agent quarterback, had homegrown talent. The Colts had homegrown talent. The 2000 Ravens - homegrown talent. So even if you chose to discount New Orleans because they brought in Drew Brees from SD, that's like 10 of 12 Superbowl winners (sorry, for the life of me cannot remember what that 02 Bucs team was like, only that Brad and Keyshawn were not homegrown but neither did anything, it was that defense and I don't know who was all on it) since 2000 that rely largely on HOMEGROWN talent.

[gabefergy]

[quote name='BMOREHAWAII' timestamp='1332554019' post='1032970']

Don't do it man. Dont argue with a female who tries to talk football. You just wont win.
[/quote]
Wow. This is an incredibly offensive post.

[Moderator 3]

[quote name='gabefergy' timestamp='1332604983' post='1033179']
Wow. This is an incredibly offensive post.[/quote]

Yes, on many levels. Let's get back on topic and stay there, please.

[ravensdfan]

[quote name='Ravenslifer' timestamp='1332594762' post='1033105']
I still don't get this. The Redskins and the Patriots since 2007, and the Eagles this year, prove you cannot BUY championships. The Superbowl winning Pats' teams had a lot of homegrown talent. The Superbowl winning Steelers teams had homegrown talent. The Superbowl winning Giants teams had homegrown talent. The Superbowl winning Packers team had homegrown talent. Even the Saints, who brought in a free agent quarterback, had homegrown talent. The Colts had homegrown talent. The 2000 Ravens - homegrown talent. So even if you chose to discount New Orleans because they brought in Drew Brees from SD, that's like 10 of 12 Superbowl winners (sorry, for the life of me cannot remember what that 02 Bucs team was like, only that Brad and Keyshawn were not homegrown but neither did anything, it was that defense and I don't know who was all on it) since 2000 that rely largely on HOMEGROWN talent.
[/quote]

Can only speak for myself, but my concern was not that we were not going after any big names in FA. In fact, I wasn't even looking to add new FAs, was just worried that we weren't signing any of our own FAs. The latest moves to help ST (which we sorely need) McClain returning and some depth at Safety have calmed me quite a bit though.

I agree that the EAgles alone proved last season that you can't buy Championships in football.

[Ravenslifer]

[quote name='ravensdfan' timestamp='1332620857' post='1033400']

Can only speak for myself, but my concern was not that we were not going after any big names in FA. In fact, I wasn't even looking to add new FAs, was just worried that we weren't signing any of our own FAs. The latest moves to help ST (which we sorely need) McClain returning and some depth at Safety have calmed me quite a bit though.

I agree that the EAgles alone proved last season that you can't buy Championships in football.
[/quote]

I would agree on the not retaining key players, however the players we did lose, Redding, Zbikowski, Nakamura, etc., were not major contributors at this point except on special teams. Really, Grubbs was the only significant loss. Pollard replaced the strong safeties this year, and Redding would have been supplanted by Kruger, McPhee, McAdoo, etc. soon anyway. Actually, I kind of feel like it's the Derrick Mason-Todd Heap situation: you can't tell 10+ year vets that they are going to be supplanted by rookies and second-year players while they're still on your team. So either they get cut or leave in FA, and the next man steps up, which I think will happen in this case. And if the plan is to move Jah Reid to left guard, well he played left tackle, and I assume it will be easier for him to transition to left guard than it would be to transition over to the right side. I was expecting a major exodus, because the fact is we simply didn't have the money to retain everyone.

And speaking for me, I'm never concerned about our activity on the free agent market or lack thereof. I've watched this franchise operate for 17 years now, and they rarely ever spend big in FA - in fact, the biggest signings they made over the years are what I call "panic moves" - signing Elvis Grbac because we had no quarterback, signing Dominique Foxworth because we had problems in the secondary, signing Sypniewski and Smith because we had no second tight end, signing all manner of free agent castoff receivers because we never drafted anyone good except for maybe Stokley (who never had a quarterback to get him the ball anyway). And they always failed.

I get it how you feel though, because I think we as fans all feel it - we want to feel like our team is making a big time splash, a big time effort to get better. In some ways, I wish Ozzie and Steve were like Dan Snyder, and would find a way to bring in a bigtime free agent like a Vincent Jackson or a Mario Williams. Except I keep in mind that VJ's teams have 2 playoff wins in his career and Mario's team had 1, which he wasn't even a part of. In the meantime, the Ravens and their homegrown talent have gone to 4 straight postseasons and won 5 games, and were less than 1 second from the Superbowl this year. If anything, I'm just a bit miffed that we have so many holes on the roster and not enough draft picks, IMO. I wish the Redskins and Cowboys and Saints punishments were that the other 29 teams each got one of their draft picks, lol.

[J-man]

A sleeper linebacker I can see us getting is linebacker David Hawthorne. Not a blitz, but had 115 tackles last year. Kinda see him as a Jarret Johnson replacement.

[Ravenslifer]

[quote name='J-man' timestamp='1332887947' post='1036043']
A sleeper linebacker I can see us getting is linebacker [b]David Hawthorne[/b]. Not a blitz, but had 115 tackles last year. Kinda see him as a Jarret Johnson replacement.
[/quote]

According to Rotoworld, Hawthorne appears to be seriously engaged in talks to return to Seattle.

http://www.rotoworld.com/content/playerpages/playerbreakingnews.asp?sport=NFL&id=5029&line=230749&spln=1


Truthfully I don't see it anyway. I have a feeling that one of our picks in the first 3 rounds will be used on a middle linebacker. Surprisingly, we've only drafted an MLB that high twice.