Burner's Burning Questions: Free Agency, The Mock Drafts, 2016 (Continual Updates)

I like the approach of using the draft and re-signing our own guys. A 31 or 32 year old player isn't the answer.

With that said, there's also a huge balancing act that needs to happen.

That balancing act is too many holes, and not enough draft picks. And every year we will keep having a few more guys that need to be replaced.

Next year, it may be Garcon and Jackson. A year or two later it will be Trent and D Hall.

I don't think we can just use draft picks alone in the big picture, unless we are willing to trade a few aging players for even more picks.

Once we get to a certain point we can do that, but we aren't there yet.
 
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Fear The Spear said:
We don't need to fill every single hole, to be a great team - just the important ones.
Even the best team in the league does not have every hole filled.
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Every team has holes, but most problems on a team can be reduced or eliminated pretty easily.

Crappy kickoff coverage? Immediately get a kicker who crushes the ball out of the end zone.

Too many sacks? Get a QB that gets the ball out of there quickly.

The problem we have right now though isn't an easy fix....it's a simple numbers game working against us.

Let's say we currently need 8 new starters. We get three in the draft (a successful draft) and fill the other five with one year guys (Goldson) or second rate players that are short-term fixes.

Next year, we still need 5 new starters. We successfully fill 3 more. But......we also have two or three prior starters that are retiring, or are basically no longer starter quality. Hatcher types.

As long as we have successful drafts, I think our current course has us catching up 3 or 4 drafts from now. But not 1 or 2. To catch up faster, we either need to sign one or two higher quality young FAs, or we actually have to start getting draft picks for our guys instead of just letting them walk for nothing in return.

In the meantime, that balancing act also requires a big sales job by Scot. He has to try and convince guys like Trent, Garcon and Jackson that they should stay here and give 100% instead of trying to win a SB elsewhere.
 
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In short, we're gaining 3 starters per year from the draft. But we're unfortunately starting at a big deficit.

So while we may be gaining 3......we're also likely to lose 2 or 3 a year. 3 steps forward, 2 or 3 steps back.

We aren't making up much ground on our current course.
 
And at the end of next season? We may lose Garcon, Jackson and D Hall. Or some other player due to age or injury.

And we'll replace those 3 losses with 3 more draft picks.

But we really won't have made up any ground. At least not much ground.
 
It's going to be a slow process, but we will get there. McCloughan is building this team the way the goods are built, like Packers and Seahawks.

Dealing with FA's is like going to an auction. You have to know the ceiling for what your willing to pay. You can't get caught up in the emotion of winning the top bid. Our FO is working to keep us out of cap hell.

We do have a lot of holes. Right now we are very thin at safeties. I know they have a plan, so willing to let them work their plan.
 
We've been down the fill-lots-of-holes-with-FA's route and it's gotten us nowhere.

What you're neglecting to mention McD is that if we draft 7 players a year and 3 of them become instant starters, let's say 2-3 more every year crap out - they just aren't good NFL players. That leaves 1-2 other players who might just need a little more time to develop into good, solid NFL players. I'm willing to wait a couple of years for them, because that gives Scot more pieces to play with.

A-A-Ron sat on the bench for 3 years for goodness sakes. If you think every draft pick is going to step right in and contribute, it ain't gonna happen. Keep shoving more players in the developmental pipeline and good young players will start coming out.

It's a completely different dynamic and way of thinking for us. I'm thrilled with the approach, and excited to see progress, even if it takes a few years to become apparent.
 
riggins44 said:
It's going to be a slow process, but we will get there. McCloughan is building this team the way the goods are built, like Packers and Seahawks.

Dealing with FA's is like going to an auction. You have to know the ceiling for what your willing to pay. You can't get caught up in the emotion of winning the top bid. Our FO is working to keep us out of cap hell.

We do have a lot of holes. Right now we are very thin at safeties. I know they have a plan, so willing to let them work their plan.
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I'm fine with being patient. Even if it takes another 5 drafts or more. Like you, I think the final goal is to become the Packers.

I'm probably more patient than 99% of the fan base.

I'd be thrilled trading every single one of our players tomorrow morning, and heading into the draft with 40 draft picks:) Now that would be awesome to watch and see McLovin build a young foundation in one single draft. Maybe the single greatest draft in history.

My concern is that there are two ways to go--sign the big priced FA's when you are close to a SB (which we aren't, and I don't advocate.)

Or blow it up and really do a rebuild. Grow through the draft and take smart risks, and get as many draft picks as possible, then re-sign your own guys.

I just feel like we haven't been aggressive enough on option number 2. And that we have too many holes to fill following our current plan that will likely provide us with only 3 core guys a year.

Signing a La'el Collins last year for virtually nothing, getting draft picks for guys that have left, or signing a 24 year old FA would speed up the process. If they don't work then you dump them....hopefully on team-friendly deals.

But I'm fine waiting 10 years if we have to. I just feel it could be done more quickly.
 
Give it a rest on the La'el Collins thing. The kid raised serious questions about his character pre-draft. The team elected not to take a chance. Those decisions tend to work out more than they don't. That he appears to have been a low-risk pick is great, but whether or not that was predictable at the time is highly debatable. So let's not pretend it was a no-brainer at the time. Saying 'if they don't work out, you dump them' isn't realistic. That's called a 'blown pick'. Truth is, whether or not that was a smart pickup remains to be seen.
 
The premature panic also doesn't seem to include the reality that, as units improve each year, due to familiarity of systems with a growing core of players, along with new additions via the draft, FA, trades, etc..., the remaining holes will shrink in size, as they are slowly being nullified, if not eliminated. Better D-line play aids a learning/growing secondary. Better secondary play aids the D-line, and so on. If our boy genius head coach ever helps develop a running game, and then figures out how to actually use it, then better ball control, and more scoring will also aid the defense in it's growth.

So, hang in there little tumbleweed. No need to panic shop.
 
Boone said:
Give it a rest on the La'el Collins thing. The kid raised serious questions about his character pre-draft. The team elected not to take a chance. Those decisions tend to work out more than they don't. That he appears to have been a low-risk pick is great, but whether or not that was predictable at the time is highly debatable. So let's not pretend it was a no-brainer at the time. Saying 'if they don't work out, you dump them' isn't realistic. That's called a 'blown pick'. Truth is, whether or not that was a smart pickup remains to be seen.
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I don't think passing on Collins was some decision that's going to kill our team going forward.

It's just that Dallas got him for free. It didn't even cost them a 7th rounder.

That's the best risk/reward proposition a GM could ever dream about. No draft pick, cheap contract, young and projected as a first rounder. If he didn't work out, it wouldn't have hurt the team financially. That's the kind of low-risk shot that can accelerate a rebuild from 5 years to 3 years.



Ax said:
The premature panic also doesn't seem to include the reality that, as units improve each year, due to familiarity of systems with a growing core of players, along with new additions via the draft, FA, trades, etc..., the remaining holes will shrink in size, as they are slowly being nullified, if not eliminated. Better D-line play aids a learning/growing secondary. Better secondary play aids the D-line, and so on. If our boy genius head coach ever helps develop a running game, and then figures out how to actually use it, then better ball control, and more scoring will also aid the defense in it's growth.

So, hang in there little tumbleweed. No need to panic shop.
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There's no panic here. Far from it. I've never been one to make spastic posts about our coach "killing" the careers of someone like Griff or Alfred Morris. We're in good hands.

Now that neither of those two players are garnering much interest around the league, hopefully reality has set in.

And the running game is the least of my concerns.

I'm just commenting that we have too many holes to fill at our current pace. We either need more decent picks, or we should take some more shots on players under 25 years old.
 
I came across this today and found it interesting. Take it fwiw.

"This is the deepest D-line draft in at least two decades."

--Mike Mayock
 
Hopefully we can trade down a few spots and get a guy we covet and an extra pick or 2 along the way
 
McD5 said:
There's no panic here. Far from it. I've never been one to make spastic posts about our coach "killing" the careers of someone like Griff or Alfred Morris. We're in good hands.
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I seem to remember how the super human Ladell Betts was being stifled from showing his awesomeness. But, that's neither here, nor there.

Now that neither of those two players are garnering much interest around the league, hopefully reality has set in.
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Reality? You mean the one that is, when/if a FA is signed, has nothing to do with the future of their play. Only the size of their paycheck.
Just as which round, if any, a player is drafted in, has no significance. Except for pay scale. That reality?

And the running game is the least of my concerns.
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A thought shared by the head coach. With the dismal results, to date, showing how much it needs improving. In scheme, philosophy, and performance. Of players, and coaching.
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Redskins?src=hash">#Redskins</a> have signed 28 y.o. safety David Bruton, formerly of the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Broncos?src=hash">#Broncos</a>. Started 3 games last season. Made 6 special teams tackles.</p>— Tarik El-Bashir (@TarikCSN) <a href="https://twitter.com/TarikCSN/status/709842610626682880">March 15, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Starting to fill a hole. A guy that is under 30 and a good special teams player. Saw he was playing well in defensive backfield last season until injured.

Not flashy, but a solid signing.
 
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