DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Browns' Offseason Activity

I certainly wouldn't let Hubbard go. He filled in well at both OT and G for us when we had injuries. Finding a versatile OL player who you can plug into four of your five positions at a moments notice and still hold up well isn't as easy to find as one may think. You are using one roster spot to fill in for two back up positions. With a limited number of players allowed on your active roster that means more than some seem to think.

Now if Hubbard were still on his old contract which gave him good starters pay I would agree. But he renegotiated his contract last year to reflect the role he now plays. Getting rid of our best depth player on the OL isn't something I'm ready to see happen. Weakening one of our strongest units by getting rid of our sixth man doesn't seem to be how to continue building a team.

The problem with Hubbard is that he's coming off major injury. If he was healthy it would be a no brainer to keep him.

I would first have to know the odds of a complete recovery from such an injury and the related timeline of recovery to form a proper response.

It could or could not be logical to conclude what the outcome would most likely be given the evidence.

I was definitely getting his injury mixed up with Delpit's. Knee surgery is no joke, but it might not be as potentially devastating as an Achilles.

That and there's a huge degree of difference in how devastating a knee injury can be. Some are just not as serious as others and the timeline of recovery can vary greatly. That's why I say I would have to have a lot of information about this particular injury to come to an informed decision.

I'd say if the knee cap is torn away, it's pretty serious.

That and carrying OL amounts of weight isn't great for knees in the first place. There's also lots of torquing that goes on in the trenches and pretty much non-stop contact with multiple bodies. Probably a tough one to come back from for a big fella.

J/C
Haha I just saw Teller carrying an alligator ... wow

Nope, we're going to turn that puppy into a full blown hooded cloak and start calling Teller Leatherhead.

Where on the line did he play in those snaps? I forget.

Edit. I'm assuming LG.

He played guard but I think his regular position is tackle.

Some guy named Blake signed. Good deal.

I am sure the deal was good for us and him. A guy like him signing could make us think we might be able to move on from Hubbard. It could be a dollar and cents move or a dollars and sense move.

At some point you have to consider if the insurance policy is worth the cost.

Cutting him would only save $2.7 million... his value as the insurance policy is still likely worth at least that.

I think he played tackle against the Chiefs.

He came in clueless and played his butt off for us is all I know. Some guy named Blake is a keeper.

He's a developmental prospect that they want to see how he grows anyways.

He filled in at Guard against the Steelers, then filled in at LT against KC. (after Willis and Lamm each went down with injuries)

He is exactly the type of back-up you want. Young, with ability. He has also demonstrated the ability to shift positions. No doubt a guy who with some time and work could become a starting player.

What more can you ask?

Without an in-depth evaluation, it looked to me that he did better while at LT than Lamm or Hubbard did when they filled in at LT

He's a younger Hubbard?

I think it may be a little early in the process to go that far. I don't feel like you can make that kind of judgement on such a small sample size. But the reasonable expectation that he could rise to the level over time is certainly there.

This is the way great teams are built. Of course you draft the best players available. Of course you sign FA's to fill in holes. But most of the players on the field are not superstars. The best way to keep quality players on the field within salary cap constraints is to identify developmental players that have great potential and develop those players.

Great teams are those who can sign players from other people's practice squads, UDFA's and draft players in the lower rounds that develop into starters and key backups over time. Indications thus far indicate that Blake may be such a player.

And the dominoes are falling . . .

Clayborn doesn't surprise me, but before this is done we will have 1 or 2 that will have some up in arms.

Not up in arms, but cut him to save only $3m is surprising. Makes me wonder if there is more to it.

Losing Vernon as well, we're down 2 DE, the more to it may be we're going after a FA and will replace Clayborn with a rookie draft pick.

well, he didn't exactly live up to what he was brought in here to be, that's for sure. Maybe it's as simple as he grossly underperformed.

His numbers were pretty much identical to the last couple years of his career and signed a 2 year for under $6m. While he was nowhere near stellar, we pretty much got what we paid for.

Interesting. I felt he was brought in to be more than that; to be a guy that would push Vernon or maybe take reps from him.

He never got close to that level of play here.

Clayborn impressed me at times.

Clayborn was decent, but not anywhere near a must have. As for the $3 mil, sure, if you look at it as $3 mil for another player, it doesn't seem like much. I view it as $3 mil more you can add to what you might have to offer a player.

I don't know what it would take to get Chubb as an example signed, but that $3mil added to a signing bonus might be what gets it done. Giving a player $5mil up front to sign v $2 mil is a big incentive factor.

So, would you rather have Clayborn for $3 mil or would you rather have Chubb? Basically, that is how it could boil down.

The "More to it than that" is that they think they can get the same or even better production with less cost from young guys like Curtis Weaver.

Not to mention that if the guy plays enough, how many sacks do they get because pressure comes from somewhere else and the QB more or less just runs back in to a player?

I don't remember how many sacks Ogun had, but I don't remember him simply bum rushing QBs straight up the middle like Aaron Donald.

The ones I mostly remember is pressure came from somewhere else and Ogun just happened to be standing the right place at the right time. Heck, Garrett gets some of those.

He also played through a nagging hip injury that hampered him pretty much all year. IIRC, he looked his best at the very beginning of the year, prior to picking up that injury.

j/c:

So Baker is at a little over $18 million and Ward is at a little over $13 million.

j/c:

He may very well have been - but based on his numbers coming in and his salary I'd personally have looked at that as a bonus over an expectation.

Regardless, he's not a Brown any longer, so good luck to him and I hope we find an upgrade.