UPDATE: Via Twitter(according to Stokely's agent) Stokely will not sign with Redskins

[hammerva]

don't freak out everyone, chances are half these guys won't make the team.

Then why are you wasting your time getting all of these guys if they won't make the team. You aren't supposed to treat free agency like finding the golden ticket to the Willy Wonka Chocolate factory and buying case of candy bars.

it isn't an issue with price it is an issue with quality. You are telling me that for all of these cheap WR's they are bringing in they couldn't find an equally cheap offensive linemen or corner that actually helps the team INSTEAD OF THEM

But don't worry guys, just wait until Kevin Sheenan and Larry Michael talk about it and you can still live in your delusional fantasies about how great this team is.

[Destructis]

Then why are you wasting your time getting all of these guys if they won't make the team. You aren't supposed to treat free agency like finding the golden ticket to the Willy Wonka Chocolate factory and buying case of candy bars.

it isn't an issue with price it is an issue with quality. You are telling me that for all of these cheap WR's they are bringing in they couldn't find an equally cheap offensive linemen or corner that actually helps the team INSTEAD OF THEM

But don't worry guys, just wait until Kevin Sheenan and Larry Michael talk about it and you can still live in your delusional fantasies about how great this team is.

Ok so the roster is going to end up at 53, why should we even bring 90 guys into camp by your logic. Just pick the team now and say **** it.

[NavyDave]

^ Maybe we did our "research" and found out that these guys were just as good as the more expensive options, and we could get these guys dirt cheap. Dirt Cheap means thats what they are worth. DIRT. Have a little faith. I do have faith. I believe we are going to be in the running for the franchise QB sweepstakes and thats not a bad thing. Just do it with youth.

[authentic]

Then why are you wasting your time getting all of these guys if they won't make the team. You aren't supposed to treat free agency like finding the golden ticket to the Willy Wonka Chocolate factory and buying case of candy bars.

it isn't an issue with price it is an issue with quality. You are telling me that for all of these cheap WR's they are bringing in they couldn't find an equally cheap offensive linemen or corner that actually helps the team INSTEAD OF THEM.

They're signing all of these guys because free agency is done and we're gonna carry 14 WRs and refuse to address Oline. Oh yeah, thats right the season starts this Sunday also.....

[MonkFan8]

Yes, Larry Johnson and his 5 carries in 2 games was very traumatic.

I hope you're being sarcastic.

Once we actually let the young guys take over, our running game improved by leaps and bounds (pun intended).

I know you're not really that dense.

[SonnyRules]

Good possession receiver; never been very fast but has a way of getting open. Could be a little long in the tooth.

[WyomingRedskin]

This is really Joey Galloway II. Why? You take reps from Hankerson, Austin and the other youngster and sign old guys who have no future on this team. Should've kept Moss and signed one of them, forget the receivers where's the O Lineman

Ummmm.....Donte Stallworth and Jabar Gaffney are both 30-years-old and COULD easily be productive for another 3 or 4 years. So they have what in common with 38-year-old Galloway?

[NavyDave]

Yeah who knew signing a guy for very little money would actually make a team worse? Calm down people.

This is a great signing!!! Can you imagine the Jersey sales by the you're too slow to play WR in highschool so play soccer instead demographic?

When is the last time we had an aging, permanent tan challenged WR make the roster?

[kubstix]

I have a feeling we are doing this for 1 reason......training camp. All these guys will be cut. We need veterans at WR to teach these young kids during training camp/preseason.

[REDPepper]

I agree that putting ourselves in a position to draft an elite QB could potentially be the best possible outcome for us, even though that's no guaranteed recipe for success either obviously. And I don't think we should be going all out to compete this season. If we win some games this year, awesome! If not, oh well, we're rebuilding, I don't expect much.

And when you rebuild, I know it's tempting to throw out all the young guys out on the field to get them experience and help them develop, but it's not always the right move. If our young options at WR just aren't ready for the NFL, then they're not ready. We'll hurt their development if we throw them out there too early honestly. I know it's frustrating, and it's hard to know for sure if they're ready or not unless we give them a chance, but we'll just have to trust our coaching staff on that one. Maybe guys like Austin just aren't going to make it in this league. Just because we're rebuilding doesn't mean we need to give them a shot for the hell of it.

It's not like having these veteran WRs play instead of unpolished young WRs is going to make us win multiple games and significantly lower our draft pick. If they have that much of an impact then that's awesome, and we should just go ahead and win those games with veteran WRs then. But they probably don't have that much impact. But let's say we end up drafting a "franchise QB" and throw him in his first season. Do we want him throwing to capable, although not great, veteran WRs, or young WRs who have no place on an NFL field? Hell, just in the locker room. I want veterans who know what they're doing and know how to be professionals. Not young guys who don't know the first thing about succeeding in the NFL, both on and off the field.

It's like having a bad offensive line. It's straight up cruel to throw out a young, talented QB onto the field if the offensive line in front of him is garbage. He's going to be destroyed. He won't even have a chance to succeed. You need talent around you. Even if these veteran WRs aren't THAT talented, and we'd ideally have better options, the reality is, WE DON'T have better options. Let's give our team the best possible chance to succeed and win games.

The last thing I want to see this season is John Beck throwing to a bunch of young, inexperienced WRs behind a terrible offensive line and mediocre RBs. We're going to have flaws on offense, it's pretty clear. Let's at least try to limit those flaws. We can game plan and alter our strategy to make up for inefficiencies at certain positions on offense, but not if every position is an issue. Getting a solid group of veteran WRs who have proven they can play in the NFL, even if they're a little over the hill, gives us a respectable and capable WR corps. It might not be deadly, but they'll get the job done. It'll make our QB's (and thus our entire offense's) job a lot easier.

It's like the Wizards. It doesn't matter how good John Wall might be as a rookie if you surround him with basically no talent. He's not going to succeed like that. Yes, he's a rookie, and he'll get better with time, and getting minutes and experience helps, and it's not like the Wizards had many other options to make the rest of the team much better. But do you think Wall would have played better if he was drafted by, let's say, the Magic (insert any other playoff team honestly)? Even if he started from day one and got just as many minutes, he'd probably play better if he's surrounded by talented veterans. Hell, let's say he was on a team like the Pacers. A team that's not very good, but not terrible. A team filled with average to above average players at most positions. They're veterans who have been in the league and get the job done. It'd be a better outcome than throwing him with a bunch of other kids who don't know how to succeed and win at the pro level. I know the NBA and NFL are completely different, so maybe this isn't the best example, but I think the basic nature of it is true here.

Bottom line, give our offense something to work with. Whether it's this season or in the future. We can only tackle (no pun intended) so many different needs at once. If we can handle one position for the mean time by simply signing some veteran free agents for cheap, then let's do it. Because we don't have that luxury at other positions most likely.

[NavyDave]

True even with the aging WRs I still do not see us winning more than 6 or 7 games though 4 less wins would be better for the franchise's future.

[PigSkinRodeo]

Every time i come to Extreme skins it's always the same cry baby fans doing what they do best crying before week 1 is even played or before a new addition has even taken the field.. Unlike the cry baby's in this forum there are True Diehard Redskins fans that actually take the wait and see approach instead of thinking the end of the world is here. I swear I'm proud to be a Long time redskins fan cheering for my team through the good the bad and the ugly.. But most of you aren't fans your just a bunch of fair weather fans and to be honest your don't deserve to even call yourself a redskins fan as far as I'm concerned.:saber:

[REDPepper]

And for the record, these guys aren't DIRT. Some of them may turn out to be, to be fair. We'll have to wait and see. But one man's trash is another man's gold. You never know what we see in these guys.

And that's how free agency works. If you want the players with no flaws, the guys who are young and approaching the prime of their careers, and are already established as top notch players at their respective positions, and are somehow available as free agents, then you're going to have to pay top dollar to get them. You're going to have to pay more than pretty much every other team in the NFL. That's how the Redskins have failed miserably in the past with free agency. Even if you don't sign the best of the best free agents, and you get the 2nd tier, but still pretty good free agents, it is going to cost you. These players were either cut by their teams, or their teams decided to not resign them, or their deal expired and they want to go to a different team, and most likely get the most money in a contract as they possibly can. AKA their teams think they're over the hill, seriously injured, way too expensive, or have some other issue that makes them damaged goods. OR they are interested in getting paid as much money as they possibly can. OR the other option (although a lot less common than we'd like to believe) is that the player simply wants to go to a team where he can win a championship, but again, that's pretty rare in today's world, and any player in this situation would still probably get paid just as much to go to the championship contending team as he would elsewhere.

1. We're not a championship contender, so those rare players that fall into that category wouldn't consider coming here right now anyways.

2. If their former teams think they're over the hill, injured, or just not that good, there's a good chance they're right, so why would we want them?

3. Even if their former team thinks the player still has talent, they think he's not worth his asking price, so again, they're probably right, and why would we want them?

4. If there is a legitimately good player available, and he's a free agent because he wants to get the best possible contract, then we have to pay more than all 31 other NFL teams. That's basically guaranteeing that we overpay for that player, and since it's football, no player is a guarantee, especially if he switches systems, and if he's openly in it for the money, there's the added risk/red flag that he's not the type of guy we want on our team.

[SkinsFTW]

Building for the future! :2cents:

[Hiro]

Stallworth yes. Gaffney yes. This one? I'm scratching my head on this one ....

[NavyDave]

Some of those so called crybabies have been right the last couple of years and the idea that everyone should blindly trust the Shannys and Danny after last year isn't going to happen.

Is the term fairweather fan even applicable in Redskins nation for the past 10 years?

People have a right to call into question certain moves.When the regular season starts they will be among the loudest rooting.

[flexxskins]

This has probably been mentioned already, but if we are going to keep bringing in old WR's, why not bring in Moss and T.O.?

[REDPepper]

There are obviously exceptions. There's no guaranteeing that a player's former team made the right decision to let him go. Maybe our scouts and coaching staff think the original team made a mistake, and this is our chance to get a real good player. But history has shown that if a team is willing to let their own player go, they have tended to be right. And for another history lesson, let's look at the Redskins past free agent mishaps. The majority have been when we spend a lot of money for veteran players who end up being over the hill, not as good as they once were, or no longer motivated, or simply not good. They were all essentially let go by their former teams, whether they were cut, simply not resigned, or traded for picks. We need to pay more attention to the big red flags that other teams are putting on their former players when they let them go. We've ignored this in the past, and it's killed us. There might be exceptions out there, but there seem to be more free agents that are in fact over the hill then ones that still have plenty left in the tank.

Even if we scout correctly and find a player who still has a lot of gas left in the tank, in order to sign that player we have to pay top dollar. It's risky because he might not end up being good at all. If we luck out and he's still got talent, there's a good chance he won't be at the top of his game for the duration of his contract. If we really luck out and he remains a good player after 4+ years, then we're pretty fortunate, but we're still paying him a ****load of money, so at that point, we're merely getting equal value for what we paid him. There's pretty much no upside on big name free agents, even 2nd tier free agents. Best case scenario is normally that we get what we paid for, and if history has taught us anything, it's that there's a real good chance that we won't get what we paid for. And that's not just for the Redskins. We've been burned by this more than any other team, but it happens all across the league. It's time to start learning from our mistakes.

The best possible value from free agents is from the guys you get for "dirt cheap". The diamonds in the rough. Success stories there may be rare, but the beauty of going after veterans (or even younger guys) and signing them for dirt cheap is that if they turn out to be busts, you can simply cut them and it's no harm done, or you stick it out and keep them around, but they're not getting paid much, so it's still no harm done. Upside is you get a quality player for an incredibly low price.

Be smart guys. It's time to start thinking. Think about what I've said here. Think about the very essence of free agency. It's a bunch of guys who were LET GO by their former teams. Even if the players have been great in the past, their teams let them go, or they're out to get a boatload of money - an amount their former teams decided they weren't worth. In order to get any free agent, you pretty much have to pay more than all other 31 NFL teams. That's not a good sign. BUILD THROUGH THE DRAFT. LIMIT FREE AGENT SPENDING. BRING IN VETERANS AND LOW RISK FREE AGENTS FOR AFFORDABLE PRICES. It's simple.

[Truant]

This has probably been mentioned already, but if we are going to keep bringing in old WR's, why not bring in Moss and T.O.?

It's a fair question. I think the guys being brought in:

a. have experience with coaches here

b. are VERY cheap

c. will be expected to mentor the young receivers we have

I think Moss/TO probably were eliminated by at least one, if not all three, of the above.

[REDPepper]

This has probably been mentioned already, but if we are going to keep bringing in old WR's, why not bring in Moss and T.O.?

Seriously? I know how tempting this is. But remember, this isn't Madden. It's not worth the attitudes. If we're bringing in old WRs I'd much rather have them be guys who have been 3rd or 4th WRs for their entire careers, and have kept quiet and done their job. NOT guys who used to be stars (especially guys who love to run their mouths), who aren't as good as they used to be, and will have a hard time accepting that they have lost a step and are no longer a legit #1 option. Those guys can't accept that as they age they are no longer as good as they used to be. So when they fail to put up the stats they used to they'll be quick to blame the QB, coach, or whoever else they can think of instead of accepting the reality.

Let's say some of our young guys surprise and step it up, and deserve to be our #1, 2, or 3 options at WR. The veteran WRs we've brought in will be able to accept falling in the depth chart because they know their place. Guys like TO and Randy Moss won't be able to do that, and they'll do their best to drag down the entire franchise with them.

---------- Post added July-27th-2011 at 06:31 PM ----------

It's a fair question. I think the guys being brought in:

a. have experience with coaches here

b. are VERY cheap

c. will be expected to mentor the young receivers we have

I think Moss/TO probably were eliminated by at least one, if not all three, of the above.

These three reasons sum it all up. Well done. Three very good reasons for signing these guys. Nothing to lose.

[NavyDave]

And for the record, these guys aren't DIRT. Some of them may turn out to be, to be fair. We'll have to wait and see. But one man's trash is another man's gold.

True. Just because Stallworth had one more reception than the number of people he ran over and Stokley had ZERO TD catches last year for the 1st time since 1999, is no reason to believe that Shanny jr offense won't have them playing at a pro bowl level.

[Chachie]

This is the first WR signing of the day that I can understand. Dude wins.

[REDPepper]

True. Just because Stallworth had one more reception than the number of people he ran over and Stokley had ZERO TD catches last year for the 1st time since 1999, is no reason to believe that Shanny jr offense won't have them playing at a pro bowl level.

I want to clarify, I don't expect Stallworth or Stokley to be "gold". I don't even expect Stallworth to make the team. I was saying the "one man's trash is another man's gold" line just to put it out there. It definitely has some truth behind it, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we signed these guys because we think they're diamonds in the rough. I don't think we're going to see quotes from the Redskins front office in tomorrow newspaper hyping these guys up, or claiming that we're thrilled to have them on the team because we think they're going to come in and be great WRs all of a sudden.

Free agent signings don't have to be home runs! We need a football TEAM. 53 players. Not all 53 of those guys have to be potential pro bowlers, both in this coming season and/or in the future. We need role players. We need veteran professionals who have produced in the past and know how to make it in the NFL.

We took an incredibly weak WR corps and made a few moves that might make it passable. Maybe not, but for the price we paid, there's nothing to lose. If these guys are no better than guys like Austin or Banks, then we'll just cut them in preseason. Our receiving corps won't be any worse than it would have been if we didn't make these moves. Nowhere to go but up.

I don't think anybody, ANYBODY, is expecting Stallworth, Gaffney, or Stokley to play at a pro bowl level. I don't think hardly anyone even expects them to play as well as they were playing about 3 years ago, when they were clearly putting up better numbers than they did in the past year. We know they've aged. We know they probably aren't as good as they once were. The question is how much do they have left in the tank, and can they help our football team win games and improve?

[cmman848]

Why we would sign all these aged receivers vs giving Rice a decent contract is beyond me

[REDPepper]

Why we would sign all these aged receivers vs giving Rice a decent contract is beyond me

Possible reasons:

1. He doesn't want to come here

2. He's asking for too much money

3. Other teams are interested and have driven his price tag up too high

4. We don't think he's THAT good, at least not as good as other teams do

5. Injury concerns

Bottom line, we had our reasons, whatever they may have been. I can guarantee you our front office at the very least considered signing Rice at some point in time. We'll probably never know why we didn't go after him, or even if we did but just couldn't seal the deal. Gotta have faith in our GM, coach, scouts, or whoever that decided Rice wasn't worth it. Or if we wanted him, but he simply wasn't interested or had better options, then oh well, nothing we can do about that.

It's hard to accept, but just because our team wants a certain free agent doesn't mean that we get to sign him. It's seemed like that in the past, but we've been spoiled. In theory we can get any free agent we want (because I doubt there are many, if any, players that are adamantly opposed to playing for the Redskins, regardless of price), but in order to do that, we have to significantly outbid every other NFL team. That's how we've gotten ourselves into trouble in the past. Glad we're not making the same mistake once again (at least not yet).