We have more then enough depth. We need star power

[HeluCopter29]

It seems like every week I read things on this board like "Shanny sucks" or "We don't have depth" or something like that. And I always scratch my head, because quite frankly it doesn't make any sense to me.

We've finally started building through the draft. We've traded back and ended up with more then 7 picks every year then Shanny's first year. Last year, the year we traded our #2 away to get RGIII we had 9 picks. I believe we have 9 picks scheduled for this Aprils draft as well. And honestly, basically everyone Shanny's picked has played well or contributed in some way. And so have the FA's quite honestly. When it comes to getting depth, we've been damn near perfect.

But we don't have any real "star power" outside of RGIII. Think about the elite (and I use that term rather loosely right now) guys on the teams with the top 5 records for a second.

1. The Falcons: Roddy White, Julio Jones, Tony Gonzalez, Michael Turner, John Abraham

2. The Bears: Julius Peppers, Matt Forte, Brandon Marshall,

3. The Texans: JJ Watt, Arian Foster, Andre Johnson,

4. The Ravens: Ray Rice, Haloti Ngatta, Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Terrell Suggs

5. The 49ers: Frank Gore, Vernon Davis, Patrick Willis, NaVorro Bowman

And not to mention all of those teams have star power along their O-Line.

(Also, note how I didn't list any QB's on that list )

And now I challenge you, ES. Find me one player on our team that matches the skill of any of those players at their respective positions. With the exception of maybe Abraham, you will be hard pressed to find one.

So this off season (if our cap situation get's resolved) and a VJax becomes available, let's not have a knee jerk reaction because of the Vinny era. Because you need a mix of quality stars and quality depth. And we've got a lot of Rob Jacksons. Let's get some quality stars now, shall we?

[TSO]

I totally agree. We've been rebuilding our depth for last few years while being severely hampered in terms of getting star players due to the uncapped season and lockout. This offseason, I believe, was about getting those star players at key positions and then the cap penalty destroyed our plans. We got Garcon, though, and I believe he IS a star. It's incredibly unfortunate we lost him essentially for the season after only two series in which he destroyed the Saints D.

That being said, I think we'll continue to target the real game changers during this offseason, especially at Safety and Cornerback. If we can get one more star WR that would be nice, but with the cap penalty it may be too much. I really think Garcon is the guy anyway.

[Forehead]

Since you didn't mention other teams O-linemen, I'll leave Trent Williams off the list. Ryan Kerrigan has potential but has shown to be not nearly as effective without Orakpo. Orakpo is injury prone. Fletcher used to have star power but is noticeable slower this season. RG3 and Alfred Morris, much as I like watching them, are rookies who have played nine games, though RG3 is so prominent with his advertising and love from the NFL that he probably counts. But he's pretty much it.

[Captain James]

Too soon to consider Alfred Morris a star? I think we are at least set at runningback for a while. We haven't had elite talent at WR for a while though. You're right though...not much to get excited about with our current roster. Nobody that other teams fear and mad respect.

[Rypien1191]

We need Bowe here next year.

Bowe, a new RT plus a healthy Garcon and Davis will do wonders for our offense.

Spend every other pick/FA dollar on defense.

[SWFLSkins]

I disagree, GB has injuries yet guys step in and they keep winning. Before the season started our WR core offered plenty of guys that could or should have stepped up to NFL level without dropoff, yet they seemingly disappeared. RB touted four good backs, yet we have one. TE touted four good TE's yet we have two. LBer was a supposed strength as was the whole front seven, yet who could start on any other good defensive team now in anyone's opinion?

Star power is the way we went before, it did not work, we need talent scouts that get it right. We need coaches that use the strengths of players, especially on D and ST's. Our offense is fine with some tweaks to the line and some depth. Quality depth.

[HeluCopter29]

Since you didn't mention other teams O-linemen, I'll leave Trent Williams off the list. Ryan Kerrigan has potential but has shown to be not nearly as effective without Orakpo. Orakpo is injury prone. Fletcher used to have star power but is noticeable slower this season. RG3 and Alfred Morris, much as I like watching them, are rookies who have played nine games, though RG3 is so prominent with his advertising and love from the NFL that he probably counts. But he's pretty much it.

I left O-Line off simply because that's a very subjective position to grade and there's no stats to base it off of.

Rak and Kerrigan are good, but neither have really proved themselves "elite" or someone who will take us to the next level.

---------- Post added November-5th-2012 at 02:50 PM ----------

I disagree, GB has injuries yet guys step in and they keep winning. Before the season started our WR core offered plenty of guys that could or should have stepped up to NFL level without dropoff, yet they seemingly disappeared. RB touted four good backs, yet we have one. TE touted four good TE's yet we have two. LBer was a supposed strength as was the whole front seven, yet who could start on any other good defensive team now in anyone's opinion?

Star power is the way we went before, it did not work, we need talent scouts that get it right. We need coaches that use the strengths of players, especially on D and ST's. Our offense is fine with some tweaks to the line and some depth. Quality depth.

I think the point I'm making is that Perry Riley is a good player who would make any team in the NFL, but he's not really a star player. And if you don't have anyone around him to elevate his game, we're not going to be that talented. GB has great players all around to elevate the game when they have injuries.

Quality depth wins games if there's a proper amount of star power to guide it. I'm not suggesting we go back to the ways of Vinny, but we've over-corrected IMO.

[Rufus T Firefly]

I think there are areas where our depth is lacking and the term "star power" is tricky as it could be interpreted as having less to do with football skill than irrelevant popularity, but still I agree with your general premise. The team needs a couple of great players more than several good ones.

Hoiwever, you say all those teams have star power on their lines. Really? Who? Oher because of The Blind Side but again, that has less to do wth football. Chris Myers, maybe. But there really isn't much if anything in terms of star power on those lines and Williams might be a better LT than any of those teams have.

Orakpo, Kerrigan, Morris, Garcon, Davis. There are some players who are in the realm of being stars if they aren't there yet. It would just be nice to add another one or two. If our cap penalty were lifted, I think we would and should try to.

[VeroViper]

We need Bowe here next year.

Bowe, a new RT plus a healthy Garcon and Davis will do wonders for our offense.

Spend every other pick/FA dollar on defense.

Could you imagine. And RG3 with a year under his belt. That offense could be sick. I agree with the OP. I've been saying for a while, this regime has done a solid job building depth. We're just severely lacking impact playmakers on both sides of the ball.

[TSO]

Quality depth wins games if there's a proper amount of star power to guide it. I'm not suggesting we go back to the ways of Vinny, but we've over-corrected IMO.

That's a nice way to put it and I've already said I completely agree with your premise, however, I don't think we really "over-corrected" the problem. I just think that we can't overlook four massive factors that affected our current rebuild:

1- The contract sizes of Haynesworth and Hall in which we attempted to fix during the uncapped season. Haynesworth is the worst of it because we got absolutely NO production from him and he could've shored up our NT position had he been anywhere near a decent human being.

2- The amount of restricted FAs in 2010 due to the uncapped season rules which severely hampered our ability to bring talent in through free agency.

3- The lockout and subsequent lack of adjustment from all newly acquired players into our schemes because of having no offseason in 2011.

4- The cap penalty that surprised us on the eve of free agency this year and screwed up our plans.

Those 4 things need to be re-iterated a hundred times because they simply can not be overlooked. I've pretty much been doing just that all morning, lol. I know it's fun to say things like "good coaches/GMs don't make excuses" and make one's self feel all manly and accountable, lol, but the reality is those things really did have a massive negative affect on our ability to acquire difference-makers. We were able to get younger quality depth, however, and that's good... but that's all we were able to do because of all that.

I truly believe this offseason was to be the one where we were to get the star players. We did that at the most important position on the team at QB, but we were severely hampered in doing so through Free Agency due to the cap penalty. I do believe Garcon is a star player, however. It's incredibly unfortunate he got hurt the way he did. Still, I think without the cap penalty this offseason we'd have a few more play makers right now and be sitting near or at the top of the division in terms of record.

[GWinSkins83]

Mike Wallace should be a target. Cut Moss, Morgan, Brown, Hall, and London. Use their money for DRC, Wallace, Mundy, and Clady. Cut some other players too like Reed and Zo.

[Rufus T Firefly]

Mike Wallace should be a target. Cut Moss, Morgan, Brown, Hall, and London. Use their money for DRC, Wallace, Mundy, and Clady. Cut some other players too like Reed and Zo.

I wouldn't cut Morgan, and you would have to do some serious backloading to get the contracts for the players you want fit into the cap space you'd create with those cuts. And I can't see Clady actually hitting the market.

All that said, I don't mind the way you're thinking at all.

[#98QBKiller]

I totally agree. We've been rebuilding our depth for last few years while being severely hampered in terms of getting star players due to the uncapped season and lockout. This offseason, I believe, was about getting those star players at key positions and then the cap penalty destroyed our plans. We got Garcon, though, and I believe he IS a star. It's incredibly unfortunate we lost him essentially for the season after only two series in which he destroyed the Saints D.

That being said, I think we'll continue to target the real game changers during this offseason, especially at Safety and Cornerback. If we can get one more star WR that would be nice, but with the cap penalty it may be too much. I really think Garcon is the guy anyway.

I definitely agree. I'd love to see us try and get Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie to help our secondary and maybe someone like Josh Cribbs or Danny Amendola to improve our passing game. I do think Garcon is a legit start and top WR, we just happen to be one of the unluckiest teams in the NFL with injuries this season.

[SkinsFTW]

1- The contract sizes of Haynesworth and Hall in which we attempted to fix during the uncapped season. Haynesworth is the worst of it because we got absolutely NO production from him and he could've shored up our NT position had he been anywhere near a decent human being.

The worst part about the Haynesworth deal is that we're paying most of that 36 million on his deal, 1/2 of it next year, as basically a cap hit for the deal that the league approved. I guarantee they'd have just cut him immediately if the league had been honest about it at the time. Also, the league didn't fine the difference, they fined the entire amount of the deal which is just BS.

[GWinSkins83]

I wouldn't cut Morgan, and you would have to do some serious backloading to get the contracts for the players you want fit into the cap space you'd create with those cuts. And I can't see Clady actually hitting the market.

All that said, I don't mind the way you're thinking at all.

I would cut Morgan to fit Wallace in. Plus Morgan is overpaid. I would also try and trade Hankerson for a 4th or 5th round pick. Im even thinking about Wilson being cut. I know its not all his fault but I'm tired of seeing him involved in a blown coverage. Bowen and Cofield look overpaid too. Atleast see if they'll reconstruct their contracts.

[Bigmuss1]

This is a great OP, I agree with what Shanny has done thru the draft. You would have to be labeled an "idiot" to think the cap penalty and such didn't hurt this team. We are full of back up reliable players, say for the last two games, those type players kept us in all the ball games. Add some real talent, especially on D, and sprinkle in a Bowe for RG3, this could be a serious contending team. I'm anxious to watch this team thru the rest of this year, getting RG3 and Alfred important pro experience. If we knock off a couple of division foes, great, but watching them develop is the most important. IMHO

Hey, while we are developing, maybe every other team in the NFC East keeps on losing too! You never know!

But, back to the original topic, go get some stars on O (WR) and fill up the D thru the draft. Maybe have enough cap space to grab a top tier FA at safety.

[terpskins10]

I think it bears noting that out of the 20 guys you listed, 15 of them were drafted/signed as UDFA by their respective teams.

And, for the "ZOMG WE TRADED OUR FUTURE FOR RG3 AND WE CANT EVARRR ADD TALENT OUTSIDE OF ROUND 1" crowd, some of the biggest stars on there (Rice, Forte, Marshall) were NOT first round picks.

[pjfootballer]

That's a nice way to put it and I've already said I completely agree with your premise, however, I don't think we really "over-corrected" the problem. I just think that we can't overlook four massive factors that affected our current rebuild:

1- The contract sizes of Haynesworth and Hall in which we attempted to fix during the uncapped season. Haynesworth is the worst of it because we got absolutely NO production from him and he could've shored up our NT position had he been anywhere near a decent human being.

2- The amount of restricted FAs in 2010 due to the uncapped season rules which severely hampered our ability to bring talent in through free agency.

3- The lockout and subsequent lack of adjustment from all newly acquired players into our schemes because of having no offseason in 2011.

4- The cap penalty that surprised us on the eve of free agency this year and screwed up our plans.

Those 4 things need to be re-iterated a hundred times because they simply can not be overlooked. I've pretty much been doing just that all morning, lol. I know it's fun to say things like "good coaches/GMs don't make excuses" and make one's self feel all manly and accountable, lol, but the reality is those things really did have a massive negative affect on our ability to acquire difference-makers. We were able to get younger quality depth, however, and that's good... but that's all we were able to do because of all that.

I truly believe this offseason was to be the one where we were to get the star players. We did that at the most important position on the team at QB, but we were severely hampered in doing so through Free Agency due to the cap penalty. I do believe Garcon is a star player, however. It's incredibly unfortunate he got hurt the way he did. Still, I think without the cap penalty this offseason we'd have a few more play makers right now and be sitting near or at the top of the division in terms of record.

I think VJax, Finnigan and Winston would be on our roster right now if not for the penalty. I still think we would have signed Garcon to play the Z with VJax at X. Moss would probably not be on the roster if we would have signed Jackson and neither would Polumbus or Brown if we had have secured Winston.

[Rufus T Firefly]

I would cut Morgan to fit Wallace in. Plus Morgan is overpaid. I would also try and trade Hankerson for a 4th or 5th round pick. Im even thinking about Wilson being cut. I know its not all his fault but I'm tired of seeing him involved in a blown coverage. Bowen and Cofield look overpaid too. Atleast see if they'll reconstruct their contracts.

OK, now you're talking about getting rid of 3 of our 4 top WRs and signing one guy at that position.

When you use the word "restrucutre" you should know what it means. Restrucutred contracts are almost always simply turning salary into bonus money which lowers their cap hits in the short term, raises them in the long term. That doesn't make much sense in the context of what you're talking about. If you're talking about pay cuts, then fine. But neither Cofield nor Bowen are going to accept a cut, nor should they. They are quality 3-4 lineman and crucial to this team's defense. They are each going to be paid about 4 mil next year and they both know they could get that and more on the market, so they're not going to take less just because you think they're overpaid.

You seem to be advocating getting rid of large amounts of players to create room to sign a fraction as many, while not creating cap space or acquiring draft picks to fill in the large depth problems (and in this context, 'depth' means solid starters as well). This would be some kind of a massive rebuilding project, but one centered around large money FAs. It's about as ill-conceived a plan as that sounds.

[GWinSkins83]

OK, now you're talking about getting rid of 3 of our 4 top WRs and signing one guy at that position.

When you use the word "restrucutre" you should know what it means. Restrucutred contracts are almost always simply turning salary into bonus money which lowers their cap hits in the short term, raises them in the long term. That doesn't make much sense in the context of what you're talking about. If you're talking about pay cuts, then fine. But neither Cofield nor Bowen are going to accept a cut, nor should they. They are quality 3-4 lineman and crucial to this team's defense. They are each going to be paid about 4 mil next year and they both know they could get that and more on the market, so they're not going to take less just because you think they're overpaid.

You seem to be advocating getting rid of large amounts of players to create room to sign a fraction as many, while not creating cap space or acquiring draft picks to fill in the large depth problems (and in this context, 'depth' means solid starters as well). This would be some kind of a massive rebuilding project, but one centered around large money FAs. It's about as ill-conceived a plan as that sounds.

Naw Im talking about getting Wallace off of Moss' and Brown's contract. Morgan gets paid to much for what he brings to the team. So we can use that money for some other player. Add a D'Rick Rodgers from Tenn to be our big Wr to replace Hank. Add a Tavon Austin to battle with Aldrick. And yeah ask Cofield and Bowen to push back some of that money so we can put some players around them so their unit doesn't look like the worst defense ever.

[WellsHTTR]

OP, I agree completely. We have plenty of quality depth. What we desperately need is starters.

Despite the focus on FA in this thread, I offer one, very simple reason why we lack more stars:

We didn't draft them when we should have.

For the vast majority of NFL standouts, getting "star power" takes several years of development before finally breaking out. Very, very few of the NFL's best were truly elite in their first few seasons. It takes time. From the team's perspective, what you want is to have those talented, high-potential guys on the roster right as they hit their prime, and do what you can to make sure they're playing for you and not somewhere else when that happens. The best--and in most cases only--way to time that right is to have drafted those star players to begin with.

For purposes here, this means two things. First, we don't have more stars because we misfired on so many high-round draft picks before Shanahan arrived. How many threads on ES are dedicated to our draft-day failures during the Vinny era? Posters in other threads have painstakingly--and painfully--listed which NFL superstars could be playing for us right now if only we had selected them instead of an eventual bust.

Second, we need to be patient with the guys we have drafted. Orakpo, arguably the guy with the most star power on our squad (at least if you go by the Geico and Nike ads), was our first-rounder in 2009. No one can argue that Shanahan's first-rounders (Williams, Kerrigan, and Griffin) show enormous potential to be elite. As for second-day Shanahan picks like Riley, Jenkins, Hankerson, LeRibeus, and Helu, these guys show potential too. What's holding them back is inexperience. I see great things in these guys' future, but we can't expect them to be perennial All Pros right out of the gate.

Our problem right now is that we have air in the pipes. Where other, better teams currently have a core group of quality-to-elite starters who predominantly were drafted between, say, 2004 and 2009, we have... Orakpo and Davis. That's it. We gave away too many high-round picks in those years, and too many of the other guys we drafted in the meantime who were supposed to step up and be the nucleus of the 2012 Redskins ended up being busts. That said, this roster has a great deal of young talent. I think a lot of those guys will join the ranks of the elite within the next few seasons. We just have to stay patient and, very importantly, continue to draft quality depth players behind them so that when the 2014 Redskins start the season, we'll turn heads. For the right reasons this time.

[Laxpunk2006]

Mike Wallace should be a target. Cut Moss, Morgan, Brown, Hall, and London. Use their money for DRC, Wallace, Mundy, and Clady. Cut some other players too like Reed and Zo.

First of all this wish list is pretty unrealistic as far as salaries are concerned. Clady just turned down 10million a year before the career year he is having. Wallace held out because he wanted top 5 money.

Second of all, not a fan of special teams? Doughty and Alexander are good STers and depth players. They aren't the problem its the players in front of them.

[GWinSkins83]

First of all this wish list is pretty unrealistic as far as salaries are concerned. Clady just turned down 10million a year before the career year he is having. Wallace held out because he wanted top 5 money.

Second of all, not a fan of special teams? Doughty and Alexander are good STers and depth players. They aren't the problem its the players in front of them.

Clady might be out of the question but not Wallace. We like the only team that have famous Special Team players. They are getting paid 2.5 and 3 million to be good S'Team players?

[Skins199021]

Cut Hall, Brown, Moss, Morgan, and Fletcher (this is beneficial to us both, we save money, he can go to a better team)

Sign Dwayne Bowe, DRC, Byrd, and Sebastion Vollmer

yea I know major FA splashes bla bla, but these guys arent 32, and we have a QB

If I could only get 3 of them I would take Bowe off that list

[Rufus T Firefly]

We like the only team that have famous Special Team players. They are getting paid 2.5 and 3 million to be good S'Team players?

Numbers I assume you pulled out from betwixt your cheeks?