Spurrier takes not-so-subtle jab at Skins front office this evening

[inmate running the asylum]

Originally posted by bubba9497

There is no secret that Spurrier and Vinnie C, are not on the same page to say the least. Snyder is straddling a fence between the two, and may be forced to decide if he is going to Support the Ball Coach, or continue to handcuff him with Cerrato.

Actually this situation happened before with the Redskins between Joe Gibbs and Bobby Beathard and Jack Kent Cooke. Near the end, Gibbs and Beathard had trouble deciding on which players to cut. Gibbs wanted to keep his veteran players beyond their life expectancy and Beathard wanted to develop younger players he liked.

Finally, Jack Kent Cooke had to smoothe over the situation. That is why Beathard ultimately left for San Diego as their GM.

The only difference was, that Gibbs and Beathard had had success before their relationship started to unravel.

[Atlanta Skins Fan]

Originally posted by Ax

As I remember it, Beathard left because of a rift between he and Gibbs. In general, Gibbs wanted to keep the older players who had won for him, and Beathard wanted to go younger. It was Gibbs who wanted Desmond Howard over Beathards objections. Cooke sided with Gibbs and Bobby soon departed.

Beathard resigned in 1989, and Howard was drafted in 1992.

It was Casserly who deferred to Gibbs about Howard, as this history makes clear:

In an effort to promote front office harmony following GM Bobby Beathard's resignation in 1989, new GM Casserly allowed his head coaches to have significant input on personnel decisions. The plan ultimately backfired. Only a few short years removed from Super XXVI, the team spiraled downward.

Washington's 1990-93 draft classes were unspectacular at best. The lowlight came in 1992 when Casserly deferred to Joe Gibbs and traded up, taking WR/KR Desmond Howard with the fourth overall pick in the draft. Howard never caught on, as the success Howard enjoyed later in his career came after his brief tenure as a Redskin. Other first rounders under the early years of Casserly's watch, DT Bobby Wilson (1991) and CB Tom Carter (1993), never achieved their potential.

[Ax]

Originally posted by Atlanta Skins Fan

Beathard resigned in 1989, and Howard was drafted in 1992.

It was Casserly who deferred to Gibbs about Howard, as this history makes clear:

I knew that.

At least I got the rift part right. :doh:

[joe]

I listened to the exchange, if you heard the wistful tone in Spurrier's voice the words had even more impact than they do in print, which says a lot.

I could live with Cerrato, if the skins were to go back to the arrangement that they had when Gibbs and Beathard were at their peak here. Beathard brought the guys in and Gibbs had final say on who stayed.

Personnel decisions in football are difficult and Cerrato seems to hit on more than he misses on. Remember that when we talk about a missed second round pick, that Taylor Jacobs was Spurrier's choice, Cerrato wanted the safety from Ohio St.

But for the coach to have credibility with his players, they must know that the final decision on who to keep rests with him. Too bad that Snyder, for all his supposed homage to Redskins history, does not follow this basic building block for our glory years.

[Posse81]

The front office has failed to realize that it takes balance when assembing a football team. You need to have the right mix of free agents and draft picks, but it's probably best not to rely to heavily on one over the other.

When the front office was put in awkward situations such as the Big Daddy situation, it did not have young players to come in and fill the gaps. This is why we are finding that a "Three Year Plan" is not the smartest way to assmeble a football team--you can be good in this league for a long time if you draft well. Philly, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh are examples.

If we had a decent GM who was able to reload through the draft a few years ahead of schedule this team would not only have been better the last few years but also a more cohesive unit. But outside of the first round, Cerrato has been woefully inadequate on draft day.

So its not Cerrato's fault that Trotter can't play a disciplined brand of football, it is his fault that we can't easily cut and replace him. The FO has no ability to cover for it's mistakes. If you draft well, you can do that.

[Art]

Originally posted by Even Madder

Uh-huh. Gee, great, we've got Flemister and Bruce Smith under contract. How nice. Seriously, I expect about 30-50% roster turnover this offseason. You're painting a very misleading picture.

But I agree that this is a young, talented roster -- but it's almost in spite of the FO instead of because of the FO. Remember, this is the same FO that shopped Ramsey around as trade bait a year ago, and Smoot around this year. Imagine if they'd succeeded! They also started a 40-year-old at DE just because they thought it would be a good marketing ploy for him to get the sack record.

Your story about Gardener is funny. Gardener left in what, February? So everyone knew there was a hole to fill. Six months later, they still hadn't filled the hole, and they cut their other DT. This is not a plan. You can argue in hindsight that losing Gardener and Big Daddy was a good thing, but you can't argue that it was planful.

The front office has no plan. This year they'll scramble to build a pass-rushing DL, probably by replacing 3 of 4 guys on the DL. That was never part of the plan. It's just like last year with the OL -- they stick one finger in the dyke and the water comes pouring out somewhere else.

EM,

It's not at all misleading to point out that almost every starter on this team is under contract for next year. While we know Smith is gone and we hope for a couple of changes to improve the defensive line, we are looking at the potential to return all but a small handful of starters as starters -- moving some into reserve -- while improving a couple of aspects of the team that need improvement.

Yes, the front office did shop Ramsey and it worked. He signed quickly thereafter. And had we actually traded him for what we asked for, we'd have fixed our offensive line problem earlier, perhaps, and had Rex Grossman now in the equation as we demanded the Bears first in return. We said we didn't shop Smoot at all. We said the Lions asked about him and we said, "Sure, you can have him for Shaun Rogers and a first". In fact, I remember it being EVEN MORE audacious than that. We essentially responded that we'd trade Smoot for a combination of players and picks that NO one would give up for Smoot, meaning, he wasn't going to be moved.

But had those moves succeeded, indeed, we'd have a ton of different talent here and a lot of draft picks to play with. So, while I'm not inclined to believe everything the Times says, I'll say that had we gotten what we asked for for Smoot, assuming we were hot to move him, then we'd have been falling over ourselves building shrines to the front office for making the deal of the century.

Two years ago this football team needed immediate and pressing help at kicker, punter, defensive line, offensive line, receiver, QB, tight end, kick returner and linebacker. In two years we've largely filled needs at QB, kicker, kick returner, offensive line, receiver and even safety and linebacker.

We still need defensive line, tight end, punter and safety as remaining long-term needs. This offseason we are almost certain to address two or three of these areas. We didn't plug one gap while allowing another to spring up at all, EM. Two offseasons ago we attempted to make due with the offensive line, filling other areas, but that didn't work out as well as we'd like. We also made due along the defensive line as well, not adding Gardener until August. That fix worked BETTER than we'd hoped, but we hadn't solved our issues there.

If we can allow ourselves NOT to blow up other parts of the team this offseason, we can make an effort to continue to add long-term fixes to the areas that remain needs. This would appear possible because everyone is either under contract or under our control that we need. Losing Bailey would create another need you'd almost certainly have to plug immediately if not fill immediately. But you'd have ammunition to fill it as well in return.

Some here seem to want another blow up. You say you want it or at least expect it despite the fact that we have obviously put together a core roster to keep some continuity. Personally, I'll continue to watch as the pieces get added and realize a final roster doesn't happen overnight. We had enough to win with this year. We lost. Why? We know why.

[Om]

I'll continue to say that this team, despite the obvious upgrades as several positions, was fatally flawed w/o a legitimate pass rushing DL and a proven quantity to run the ball when the rookie QB necessarily struggled trying to run a sophisticated pass offense.

But that's opinion, and I know it isn't shared by everybody. So on to the real question now:

Giving the front office the benefit of the doubt, and putting the "blame" for our struggles on the coaching staff ... what about next season? If we're 2 years into a sterling rebuilding program that we all knew was a 3 year program all along ... do we or do we not bring back the coach for whom the plan has been drawn?

[jbooma]

Originally posted by Om

But that's opinion, and I know it isn't shared by everybody. So on to the real question now:

OM I am with you, maybe you should join me Code, and Navy on our attempt to creat the real extemeskins :laugh:

[Art]

Om,

Continue to say it, but put names behind it.

We haven't had a legitimate pass rushing DL for years. We didn't two years ago under Marty, and we had less talent at safety and linebacker, and we finished with one of the best defenses we've ever had here. Who's the dominating pass rusher on Kansas City? Minnesota? Dallas? Philly? How about where are the Giants with a dominating pass rusher seeded in the playoffs?

The Jets? Tampa?

The point is the lack of a dominating pass rush lineman isn't a fatal flaw, obviously. Having a dominating pass rush lineman isn't the Holy Grail. You KNOW me. You KNOW I've wanted a lineman in the draft for some time. Which defensive lineman would you have taken over Coles? None. Me neither. Not in free agency or in the draft. And that's essentially what it boils down to. Which free agent or rookie did you want over Coles. And when you figure out which guy it is, tell me if we were fatally flawed or not by not having a dominating receiver.

What defensive lineman was there even close to the rating of Jacobs in the second round of the draft? A guy sure to fix the problems here? That's right. NONE. We've CLEARLY missed chances to improve the defensive line. It's my personal pet peeve with this team over the years.

But there's more to a team than a defensive line. We've got other parts very capable of performing better. Failure to get that is not because we lack the eureka of a pass rushing defensive lineman.

[Om]

'booma, my friend ... due respect, but I think you're 100% missing the point of Extremeskins.

The "real" Extremeskins features zealous and exhaustive representation of ALL possible sides of every Redskins-related issue ... and more.

This is where Big Dogs run. You know the rest.

[jbooma]

Originally posted by Art

Om,

Continue to say it, but put names behind it.

We haven't had a legitimate pass rushing DL for years. We didn't two years ago under Marty, and we had less talent at safety and linebacker, and we finished with one of the best defenses we've ever had here. Who's the dominating pass rusher on Kansas City? Minnesota? Dallas? Philly? How about where are the Giants with a dominating pass rusher seeded in the playoffs?

Art what are you using to determine passrush?? Sacks, QB pressures, knockdowns, etc.....

[Art]

JB,

I'm reminded of a line from Sommersby. "Look and you will know." A pass rush can be solid without generating a ton of sacks. A pass rush can be lacking while generating a ton of sacks. Last year we had a lot more sacks than we'll end up with this year. But on the whole, we've had a more consistent pass rush this year -- though much of it over the last six or seven weeks skewing the results -- than we had last year.

A pass rush is probably something most easily designed as a play created by the rush that forces the QB to consider that the defensive line actually exists. Consider that a hurry, pressure, knock down, sack, and all of the above. An effective pass rush can even simply be putting your hands up high to take away throwing lanes.

Very frequently this year, and last, and the year before and the year before, we've generated little to no consistent pressure on the QB. And we don't generally do a ton of blitzing to help that much. Two years ago we had the weakest pass rush in the league. Legitimately I think we had 20 sacks which was around the lowest in football. I'll double check that number but I think that's right.

The difference was we played -- after the first five games -- pretty aggressively on the outside. The scheme was beautifully simple. Like Rhodes. The first move was forward. Arrington owned the tight end and played in space, lowering the boom on crossing receivers and backs.

Kurt Schottenheimer actually had to scrap his system -- a one similar to this one -- and tear out all the reads to get the guys to figure it out. Now, that's not always recommended for a coach. It doesn't always work. But it DID work for him, as it did for Rhodes before him. It even worked for Lewis in the final two games last year which were beautiful to behold as it was completely different than anything we'd seen.

The point is you CAN work around the lack of a pass rush. You can create situations where you still force the opposition to react to your actions. We don't do that. We run a scheme that requires we have guys who can shed blocks and pick the right hole to fill. A scheme based on the defensive line being very strong and the back seven being opportunistic behind it when forces are created.

Though we have a number of turnovers in our favor, it's been too easily picked apart to be effective this year. A legitimate pass rusher would have helped out immensely. A guy capable of getting three or four legitimate hurries a game. It's just a shame that we don't have a coaching staff capable of identifying strengths and hiding weaknesses better to have made that less necessary.

[Om]

Originally posted by Art

Om,

Continue to say it, but put names behind it.

We haven't had a legitimate pass rushing DL for years. We didn't two years ago under Marty, and we had less talent at safety and linebacker, and we finished with one of the best defenses we've ever had here.

You wound me.

Was it better than what we have now? Yup. Kurt S. could coach circles around Edwards right now. Was it even worth mentioning in the same breath as the defenses we fielded under George Allen and Joe Gibbs, though? I hope you’re just hyperbolizing.

But to the matter at hand:

Who's the dominating pass rusher on Kansas City? Minnesota? Dallas? Philly? How about where are the Giants with a dominating pass rusher seeded in the playoffs?

The Jets? Tampa?

The point is the lack of a dominating pass rush lineman isn't a fatal flaw, obviously. Having a dominating pass rush lineman isn't the Holy Grail. You KNOW me. You KNOW I've wanted a lineman in the draft for some time. Which defensive lineman would you have taken over Coles? None. Me neither. Not in free agency or in the draft. And that's essentially what it boils down to. Which free agent or rookie did you want over Coles. And when you figure out which guy it is, tell me if we were fatally flawed or not by not having a dominating receiver.

What defensive lineman was there even close to the rating of Jacobs in the second round of the draft? A guy sure to fix the problems here? That's right. NONE. We've CLEARLY missed chances to improve the defensive line. It's my personal pet peeve with this team over the years.

But there's more to a team than a defensive line. We've got other parts very capable of performing better. Failure to get that is not because we lack the eureka of a pass rushing defensive lineman.

Art, I straight out admit I don’t know the NFL and college personnel boards well enough to make an educated analysis on which moves we should or should not have made. So I won’t waste either of our time. I take it you do, though, because you seem happy enough with the group we fielded, and simply ascribe their woeful inability to compete at an NFL level to poor coaching.

Maybe you’re right. I hope so, in fact, because this thing will be a lot easier to fix if all we have to do is bring in a competent defensive coordinator. It just doesn’t look that way to me, is all. I think that’s just grossly oversimplified.

Our problem wasn’t that we didn’t have a “dominating” rush line, it was that we didn’t even field a competitive one.

Let’s not pretend I’m suggesting here that all we’re talking about is not having added one “dominant” rusher. What I’m talking about is having gone into a season (where we KNEW we were starting a rookie QB and were going to struggle offensively) with a unit that isn’t just woefully substandard in MY inexpert eyes, but also in the eyes of vast majority of the presumably educated – or at least granted considerably more access – people who follow and write about the league for a living. You read the stuff too, Art. Don’t you? Maybe my problem is I just don’t know which ones to believe.

I have never once suggested Spurrier doesn’t share blame for what’s happened here. I have been seriously disappointed in many aspects of what I’ve seen. But I have been trying for a while now to make the case that the front office, which you so doggedly defend – extoll? – is not without blame here as well. A damn fair share of it, in fact.

No, I don’t have enough inside access to tell you what specific moves “worked” and which did not, or which ones were even smart and which were not given the context of this team under this regime at this time. What I CAN do, though, is look at the dysfunctional family that is the Redskins at this point, and see that the working relationship between the front office and the coaching staff is an unmitigated disaster. And I can see how the front office has been a large part of that simply by looking at the product we put on the field every weekend.

You look at that product and see, apparently, coaching failures and coaching failures alone.

I look at it and see coaching failures exacerbated by front office failures. I just don’t have the confidence you do that this is all on Spurrier. I look at it and see where a competent front office would never have let him take the field this season with the DL and RB units he had to work with ... not if this team had any serious pretensions about competing for the playoffs.

You keep saying you find it stunning that people can’t see what you’re seeing.

Well, I find it stunning that you can’t seem to see what you apparently are not.

[jbooma]

Originally posted by Art

JB,

The point is you CAN work around the lack of a pass rush.

I agree with you there, but you can not work if your DT's are getting manhandled on the line. That is our problem they didn't have to double any of our players. At least Big Daddy and Garnder were doubled a lot.

The DL this year was the worst in so many years. Big Daddy yet he didn't get a lot of tackles was a force they had to deal with. No one on our line has that ability except Russel but the skins were smart with him. They didn't want to show the rest of the league what they know about him so we can get him cheap next year.

[sonsofwashington]

Originally posted by 70Chip

What do y'all say -- should we make some playing cards with a picture of Vinny on the Ace of Spades?

Have you ever seen that new Guiness commercial where they create the Guiness bottle?

BRILLIANT! BRILLIANT!

[Glenn X]

What continually cracks me up about some people on this board is all the bellyaching they do over Snyder and Cerrato. Oh, no! Woe is us, for Snyder and Cerrato lead the worst front office in the entire NFL!

Puhleeeeeeeeze.

Have any of you folks ever heard of Georgia Frontiere and John Shaw? She's the ex-lounge singer owner of the Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams and he's her smarmy first lieutenant. Together they conspired to completely alienate their team's fanbase in southern California, so that they could then get out of their lease agreement with the city of Anaheim and try to secure a sweetheart stadium deal from some buncha suckers someplace else. The fact that the Rams are doing so well today has nothing to do with Frontiere or Shaw. They totally lucked into Dick Vermeil (who was considered way past washed-up when they hired him for chump change) and Mike Martz (who was an unheralded QB coach from a mediocre Redskins team) and all the success that has followed; the proverbial blind squirrel finally running across a nut. Frontiere is still mostly concerned with playing her piano and dreaming about being the star she never was, and Shaw is still mostly concerned with shining his pretty pennies.

For all the mistakes he's made, gimme Dan Snyder over those two clowns any day of the week. Snyder may be many things, but he's no carpetbagger and he's actually trying to put together a winning team (albeit in fits and starts), rather than simply chancing upon one after almost two straight decades of zilch.

[Art]

Originally posted by jbooma

I agree with you there, but you can not work if your DT's are getting manhandled on the line. That is our problem they didn't have to double any of our players. At least Big Daddy and Garnder were doubled a lot.

The DL this year was the worst in so many years. Big Daddy yet he didn't get a lot of tackles was a force they had to deal with. No one on our line has that ability except Russel but the skins were smart with him. They didn't want to show the rest of the league what they know about him so we can get him cheap next year.

JB,

Wilkinson was decidedly not doubled last year. The year before, yes. But not last year. And even the year before Lang was more often doubled than Wilkinson given the positioning within the defense and the technique assigned him. Our defensive tackles aren't getting manhandled on the line at all. They aren't getting a ton of push, but neither are they getting blown away. Most consistently the yards against us in the running game come on the edges. And, of course, we're not getting a great deal of rush from the interior of the line in the passing game. Again, we haven't for some time and have had good defenses and there are good teams now that lack precisely the same thing. So, how can they get by when it's a fatal wound for us?

[Prosperity]

you are satisfied by not being the worst off?

[Om]

Staw man, Glenn.

Given the choice, I'd definitely go with lethal injection over impalment.

[Highway66]

Are Snyder and Cerratto gay lovers?

[Even Madder]

I'll say that had we gotten what we asked for for Smoot, assuming we were hot to move him, then we'd have been falling over ourselves building shrines to the front office for making the deal of the century.

You are clearly one of the more delusional guys here -- and that's saying something. Everything the FO touches turns to gold for you, doesn't it? You even think the moves they didn't make were the "deal of the century."

Some here seem to want another blow up. You say you want it or at least expect it despite the fact that we have obviously put together a core roster to keep some continuity.

I never said I want a blow up. I said I expect it.

we are looking at the potential to return all but a small handful of starters as starters

No, we aren't. It's likely that you'll see significant changes to the starting 22. On offense, I'd guess you'll see a new RB (Canidate is done), TE (Flem is a goner, I hope), and maybe a center. So far, so good -- only 3 out of 11 change, which would be nice.

On defense, I'd be surprised if we didn't see Bruce Smith, one or even two of the tackles, possibly even Wynn, possibly both safeties, and maybe Champ go. That's 7, and you might even see a change at LB, which would be 8. Now it's not likely that all 8 will actually change, but are you willing to place a bet right now based on your convictions?

I'll bet you that at least 4 of the 11 starters on defense change and 2 of the starters on offense change. That's almost 30% of the starters -- will you take the bet? Or are you just blowing smoke?

Here's the bet: if the Skins change more than 6 starters, you change your avatar to Mrs. Cerrato to reflect your, shall we say, somewhat unnatural love for the pool boy. You can pick anything you like for me if it doesn't happen.

[jbooma]

Originally posted by Art

So, how can they get by when it's a fatal wound for us?

Because at least those other teams have one legit stud on the line. We have none

[Art]

Om,

First thing's first. When you lack up front strength as we lack, you disguise that with coaching. Instead of requiring the guys up front to engage the blocker, read the offensive backfield, then move into proper positioning, which is what we require and which is a technique that requires bodies of the sort we don't have -- though Dalton has looked pretty good for a while now -- instead of making them do precisely the things they are weakest at, you allow them to do the things that diminish that weakness.

It's ABSOLUTELY criminal to coach guys who lack the sort of talent necessary to run this defensive style in this way. Instead, you simply have them all slam into a specific gap on every play. In unison. You tell them to take a side. Get there and stay there. They may not always be able to. They may often be told to go in a direction that all but assures a big gain against us.

But, at least they will dictate something to the offense. Playing this sort of style is risky. It will cause bigger plays to be made against us. But, it will actually force the offense to react to us, which is my basic belief in what a defense should be based on anyway. Obviously that's not the case with many very good coaches. Many employ to their success a reacting style. I just don't happen to like that style. And I also recognize that guys who do run that style generally have to have very good defensive lines to do so.

Absent that you cater to what you do have. That inability is failed coaching.

Again, Ray Rhodes would have this team as a Top 5 defense. It's a better defense than he had a few years ago.

In the offseason we made a choice to improve our offensive personnel. We went out and did precisely that. Presumably to assist the young QB and limit how much he'd have to struggle as a young QB by having competent players around him to lessen his load. We could have easily chosen to forsake some of those improvements for improvement along the defensive line.

A quick search of my words during the offseason would clearly outline my position as supporting such action. But, again, I ask who? We tried to offer Gardener a nice deal. He got more. More power to him. We see how it's worked out for him.

We offered Wilkinson more than he got in Detroit. We could have sacrificed Coles -- and I know I supported taking a defensive lineman at ALL costs instead -- but again, the question is who. At No. 13 who would we have had who would have helped our team now as much as Coles? The only answer I come up with is no one. So then I look at free agents. Other than KGB, who was available that was worth the No. 13 pick as a restricted free agent? No one. And KGB wasn't worth that pick.

So, who was an available free agent we could have gone after and used Coles' money to get while keeping No. 13? Again, there's no one who was available who can be said to have been the sort of guy or guys we needed. We DID get a guy like Noble who is ideal for the system Edwards runs. He plays precisely how Edwards needs. We lost him.

Is that a bad front office move, or, just bad luck? Not to say Noble was the single best guy out there, but he was ideal for what it turns out we are running defensively along the line. Upshaw was injured much of last year, but, came off a huge playoff game against the Jets and would seem to be as good a secondary option at end as just about any team has in reserve, which is where he's been much of the year.

The fact is, it seems pretty clear to me the front office had a list of needs on this team, just as it did the year before, and it went through the list of potential people we could have added, and decided we'd improve more with Coles than we might have with any of the available defensive lineman. Perhaps they knew the projected free agents this year that create a stronger defensive line market, though it appears to be a limited defensive line draft.

Given the choices we made it's hard to point to a person or people we could have done anything different with than we ended up. We could have CERTAINLY given Gardener whatever he wanted and lost out on Thomas or Coles. We could certainly have caved to Wilkinson, a man whose absence actually saw our defense improve, but, would that have made things different?

If Dallas is able to get by with a less than competent defensive line, is it possible to suggest you can get by with a less than competent defensive line. Coaching is what allows that to happen. If you put the defensive roster of the Cowboys on the Redskins and let them be run as Edwards has done, we'd be about where we are defensively. And if you put our roster on the Cowboys and let it be run as the Cowboys have done, we'd be about where they are defensively.

Dallas is the IDEAL example because we are so similarly built in terms of strengths and weaknesses. Dallas is the ideal example because it shows what coaching can do when allowed to cater to the personnel. Parcells doesn't LIKE the style of defense they are running in Dallas. He's running it because it's suitable. That's to his credit.

[Art]

Originally posted by Equality

you are satisfied by not being the worst off?

No. But I'm satisfied that the decisions that were made were proper, despite my personal misgivings about the line and my personal desire to have the line addressed.

What people seem to mistake here is that we could have done it all. We could have signed all the players we signed who've been very successful for us by in large, AND we could have added more guys to the defensive line. We could have predicted Noble would have gotten hurt removing an ideal cog for this defensive system and had a half dozen Pro Bowlers waiting in the wings.

We had a choice in the offseason. Fix this. Fix that. We chose what we chose. And until someone can figure out precisely what combination of players we could have gotten in favor of the combination of players we did, then it's just plain goofy to pretend something else could have been done than was.

Basically if we didn't have Coles we'd wonder why we didn't do more at receiver than we did. The difference is we KNEW Price and Coles were available options. Even Boston. We KNEW last year was a good year to improve your team at receiver. We knew we had to improve our team at receiver. And though I wasn't in favor of ignoring the defensive line -- and we didn't ignore it -- I was certainly able to understand that offseason is about chosing how to deploy your resources to best improve your team.

Coles did that and is a name we can attach to the offseason. All the chatter about defensive line assistance is just a lot of fanciful imagination based on nothing because none of us -- not even those of us like me who were STRONGLY in favor of getting defensive line help -- can point out where we blew that opportunity directly.

Last year we could. Last year we could say we should have added Weaver instead of Betts. This year maybe we could argue we should have added Nick Eason instead of Dockery who were similar prospects.

It just seems to me that if you think we could have done more with the defensive line than we did then you have to outline specifically where it could have been done and specifically who we could have had and explain how that would have impacted who we did add. Otherwise it's pretty clear the choices we did make were probably good ones.

[Art]

Originally posted by jbooma

Because at least those other teams have one legit stud on the line. We have none

Booma,

Now you're just making things up. Name the stud on Dallas. Name the stud on Minnesota. Not the guy who some people call a stud, but the guy who actually is PLAYING like one. Name the stud on Kansas City even.