DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Free Agency discussion continued....

FA is flooded with very good-elite WRs...Definitely need to land one of them, perhaps even two...Cecil Shorts makes sense, he would be an upgrade...however I know he has reoccurring hammy issues? Maybe some rest will serve him well...

I don't know.........this is a good draft for WRs.

Yeah.

But say we sign a guy like Shorts. Draft one of the many WRs in the first two rounds.. And team them up with Hawkins?

Plus, I'd love to add TE Maxx Williams in the 2nd round (assuming he's there) and we'd be on the way IMO to setting up whomever the QB is for success..

Hell I might take Williams at 19, and hope Jaelen Strong drops to the 2nd round..

I really like Maxx. IF you couldn't tell.

??? who?

Cooper
White
Parker
Coates
Strong
Smith
Green-Beckham
Greene
Lippett

Plus others..

I really haven't been studying the draft. It bores me, but it's getting closer and the Combine has started, so my interest is piqued.

Educate me on Williams. I am not being sarcastic at all. I don't know squat about him. I like to learn. Educate me.

Check out the draft forum. There is an ongoing thread there that should help...

Thanks for answering pblack's question.

I started looking at the WRs after reading Mourg's post in the Draft forum. He is right that there really seems to be a bunch of them. I watched them at the Combine today.

Very impressed w/some of those guys, especially White. Wow! Cooper is sweet, too. I haven't got to look at tape of Parker yet, but I will study him later. Strong looks to be very interesting, but I wanna view more tape.

Devon Smith? One of my hometown boys. Great deep threat who makes tough catches and drops easier ones. Not much of a route runner, but the boy can fly and make adjustments on the deep ball. Great leaping ability. Good blocker.......had to be under Urban...LOL I think he could be valuable as maybe either a 2nd or a 4th WR. Not a 1st or a 3rd. You wanna use him as a secondary guy to stretch defenses and make some huge plays, but you would never want to count on him to get you first downs.

Maxx Williams imho has the best hands of anyone in this draft. He isnt much of quick twitch guy but he runs good routes, squares his body making a nice wide target for the receiver. Decent speed but plays with a high IQ to find openings. Ok blocker, not great but willing. I think he will have a much better pro career than he did in college.

I think it is a long shot to get Randall Cobb out of Green Bay where Aaron Rogers is throwing to him. But, our new wide receiver coach was the offensive coordinator and later head coach of his at Kentucky. What might appeal to Cobb is Joker Phillips was the lead recruiter for Kentucky in his recruitment out of high school. Maybe, there are some strong ties there to give the Browns a leg up with Cobb.

It might be a real pipe dream but if the Browns could get one of the top 3 receivers in the draft White, Cooper, or Parker with Cobb opposite and Hawkins in the slot we probably will not miss Gordon at all.

I would be ecstatic if we land Shorts. Bring in one of the top 3 WRs in the draft and we have a solid crew going into 2015 with Shorts, Gabriel, Benjamin, and Hawkins.

Good call by you on White. He looks like the real deal.

We have been both always been opposed to drafting WRs high, but the game has changed dramatically and we are weak at that position. I think we do have to address the WR position early this year.

Tab, not doubting White's athletic skills, but man, hasn't WV receivers kind of fizzled? I remembered Tavon Austin being the stud two years ago. Turns out Stedman Bailey was the better. Even still neither made a mark in the NFL. I question WV coaching. Is White going to be a 3 year project before we see fruit?

As for the overall WR talent this year compared to last, I say we are looking at slightly below last years pool. I like Michigan States Tony Lippett and Georgia Techs Darren Waller. If it simply adding a tall receiver, both these guys can be added in later rounds.

If Farmer decides to take a wide receiver with a first round, this is a good year with an extra pick. I thought last year taking JFF with the extra pick was a good place to take a risk.

I'd very much like this approach. Shorts is someone who'd I'd view coming in day one and being a positive impact to our WR core and to the offense. Draft Cooper or White and whoever we have at QB has some options.

Cooper/White, Shorts, Hawk, Gabriel and Travis - who couldn't live with that? If the offense line can hold up, this will also help alleviate some of the pressure from whatever so-so/average to even below avg QB we will have in, IMO, a huge fashion.

The way I see our offense being able to score is by taking as much pressure and responsibility off the QB and dispersing that amongst the skilled positions RB, WR and of course the o-line as a unit.

Tavon Austin got Scottenheimered.

j/c:



https://twitter.com/tonypauline

I would take Skrine back at that price. I also think that Pettine believes he can turn average corners into above-average corners. I think Skrine is a goner.

http://overthecap.com/position/cornerback/

As a reference, at average per year, that would put him #17 among cornerbacks according to overthecap.com

He is worth that right now. No, I am not saying he is in the top 17 corners, but prices go up all the time. It's the same as Joe Haden should not be the highest paid corner, but his contract was up and he got paid. In a few years, he won't be the top paid guy.

Prices escalate.

At that price, I would be willing/wanting to bring him back. Skrine is scrappy, has great speed and is continuously improving his game. He's made some fantastic plays including some incredible INTs. Unless they (the staff) thinks Desir, Poyer, Nelson or even I guess Gilbert can step up and be a legit #1 if need be due to injury, but a shutdown corner on the opposing offenses #2 WR. We all know wherever Joe Haden will be lined up, next to him will be the opposing team's #1 WR, just got to suffocate their #2 and beyond to be a elite secondary.

Buster and Gipson are two players we should think very heavily on resiging.

One thing I see positive about the $6.5M annually, and I'm just speculating, is that the in first couple of years or so of the contract, the base would be under that amount of$6.5M, because as we all know, these contracts escalate yearly. And thus, the final years would be well above that $6.5M, possibly averaging to that reported $6.5M annual amount. But I'm assuming that's what that post meant....'average'. The fact remains that it really comes down to guaranteed $$ but if the first couple of years are below that $6.5 while most of the guaranteed money is paid to him (for the sake of discussion, say, $10M) you can release him if other CBs prove to be more valuable.

I'm not keen at giving Skrine $6.5M to start 2015 and increase over time if that is the case. I don't think it's wildly outrageous or anything but I don't think he is worth that. But I understand how FA works, especially this close to March.

That may be.

It's not like Gilbert made Skrine expendable though. I think that may have been the plan.

Williams might have though. I don't think Gilbert has proven anything. If Skrine left I would expect he would be replaced by a veteran free agent.

I'd take Skrine at 6.5 million no problem, look we are around 50 million under the cap. Skrine has been improving each year and this will be his first year with the same DC in multiple years if I'm correct? That means he'll already know the defensive schemes and he could improve even more. He's young and his best years are ahead of him why would we want to let him go just to sign a veteran FA? Isn't Skrine already a veteran and is still young?

I would re-sign Skrine for that price, I just don't know if the team will.

I thought Skrine had his worst tackling season of his career, well besides his rookie year...he was steadily improving..and I noted for years besides having TJ Ward, Lil Skrine was our most ferocious hitter out of the secondary...He seemed to miss a lot of tackles that he normal secures this past year..

His coverage is good, not elite by any means...he still gets caught up in a load of penalties (I think he was amongst the league leaders in giving up penalties...not a good notion for free yards to the opposing team) Given that he still plays and hustles hard...Given he is seeking to cash out, it really doesn't worry to much...the FA class is loaded at CB for #2,3,4 corners...and when doing some digging around about a month ago several FA sites had Skrine ranked a lot lower than we thought..an option could be Tarell Brown...is a tough scrappy corner but whom is 30 years old, but will be half the price of Skrine easily...Perhaps it would be wise to sign a player (say its Tarell Brown) have him alongside Haden...while Williams, Desir and Gilbert prove themselves...then you never know out of the 3 youngsters, we may have our #2,3,4 locked up with them for years to come...well hopefully let's spend the money on building that anemic pass rush and horrible run defense...

I don't know about Skrine specifically, but we had the best tackling team in the NFL. I know our secondary in particular was very good at tackling compared to the rest of the league.

Food for thought:

Saints to possibly release pro bowl guard Evans

I don't see us having a need for a starter at the guard position.

I certainly think Greco could use some REAL competition.

When Mack when down and Schwartz started to struggle Greco looked plain bad.

I like Pettines competitive approach, I think it would be stupid NOT to add a RG and create competition.

I hope we're able to bring back Skrine. He's done nothing but improve over the last few years. Our secondary was a major strength last year and keeping it together would only benefit this team.

As far as wide receivers go? We're not going to land any of the elite ones but I certainly think Cecil Shorts III from Jacksonville would be a great sign. I've also heard that Brian Hartline could be cut from Miami, I would love to bring him back to Ohio and sign him as well. Another solid sleeper could be Andre Holmes from Oakland. He came on pretty strong at the end of last season and has pretty good size (6'4).

I look for us to sign at least one solid WR via free agency then draft one at 12, 19 or 43.

Guys like Thomas (Denver), Bryant (Dallas), and Cobb (Green Bay) will not want to come here to Cleveland.

Evans is probably better than Greco, but he's 31, and I'm more worried about these guys we currently have starting continue to play together more. I think that is where you saw the true beauty in the offensive line's performance. The familiarity with each other.

However, it should be noted, Greco did play sub-par in the second half of the season IMO. Not sure if that is all because of Mack's injury or not, but I think there was a clear distinction between a 1st half Greco and a second half one.

That said, I still stick with him.

We need at least 2 WR's (Including a #1) 2 OL (1 OT and 1 Interior OL) 1 TE (Williams in the Draft) maybe 1 in FA also, and 2 DL (Interior) plus at least 1 OLB (Rush) and 2 QB's (1 FA and 1 Draft)... Now that's 11 players, we have 9 picks and FA ($52mil to spend) we should be able to cover that easily lets just hope our FO picks the right players in the draft and FA ...

If they do there is no reason we can't improve on last years record, of course we ALL know that the QB position is something that needs to improve and with good talent around the QB it should be ok ... JMHO

Contracts are structured in different ways. Signing bonuses are spread out equally over the length of the contract. Roster bonuses are on an annual basis.

As far as the salaries, they can be front loaded or back loaded. In many cases, a team who has a lot of cap space will front load the contract in order to have additional cap space later since they have cap space to burn for the short term.

That's why on the surface, contract numbers can be very deceiving and that works in both directions.