Mark Long Beach

Good call. Thanks for pointing this one out. And good for Ross, I liked him when he was here. Always seemed to give everything he had. Our line seemed to play better with him in too. Too bad he got hurt.

and 62.5% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Great DB's get you interceptions and cover sacks. They don't get your DL into the opposing backfield for a great passrush. That's all DLine (with some help from the LB's of course) Losing Clements... and one of our DEs, our starting safety, his backup, our starting CB, his backup, and our Nickelback. But it's all Clements...

Yeah, I was also surprised by his play late in the season. Unfortunately it didn't last long. With our weak TE depth he's still got a shot at making the roster.

Well for certain, Fowler is still one of our best 5 lineman. Another good thing, the oline is NO LONGER the weakest position on our team. Thank God for that. It's been horrible for the previous 5 years or so. Of course, we have precious little depth. Preston and Whittle. Not much. So we clearly still need more draft choices to pick up a few lineman and hope we hit on one. Still I'm happy that we've managed to upgrade to at least a middle-of-the road OL!

Our long snapper, he screws up a couple important times and he's gone. Wish we has Schnek back, very few screw-ups with him.

I wouldn't have cried if we signed him. But I'm also not crying that we didn't. The guy has been given many opportunities to step up as a number 2 receiver and he hasn't. Yet. or maybe never. With him not willing to sign for more than one year, it was clear that he was looking solely at getting a new chance at another team if it wasn't working out to him, or a big payday (from another team) if it was. I don't think we missed out on much other than signing a "name" that's well known.

My eyes, the goggles they do nothing! If you can manage to fight through and read the text, it was solid. Nothing groundbreaking, but seemed to be on top of things. I thought the needs and alternative picks were pretty decent, for the teams that I knew about. but the layout...!

9/9. As a masters degree holder in programming, I would be expect to be near the top. Lots of logic puzzles which are stessed in programming classes and in work. On the other hand, being under stress with a time-limit can do bad things for people taking tests. Wonderlic gives an insight into how well they can follow if-then style consequences... maybe. The problem is that the test is fairly abstract. whereas in football: if the safety moves up, there is a weakness in the center of the field beyond his position... This is much more concrete with much fewer options. Reminds me of Texas Hold-em vs other poker games, you have MUCH fewer options in TH to evaluate, so someone with a much simpler set of math skills can do very, very well.

Um... I also don't agree with your opinions here, and you're being pretty abusive for those who don't share your opinions. We are not blind, and we are not asleep. Josh Reed, while not a steller WR, is a decent option to have. He's a possession receiver who can reliably catch the ball and get a first down. (he's really overcome his dropsy problem early in his career) He's also a solid blocker who can help our run game should it ever get to the second level. Don't get me wrong, he's a #3 receiver. But he's fine as a #3, just not a #2. Roscoe Parrish hasn't proved that he can be an effective WR. He doesn't seem to run routes well. Yes he's explosive, yes he can "hit the home run" but only in the open field. This is why he excells as a punt returner. Steve Smith he ain't. I'm hoping he continues to develop, but at the moment, he's where he should be, a platooning #3 WR. He still has potential to improve, while JR isn't likely to get a lot better. Here's to hoping Roscoe works hard and turns into a late bloomer. As for your comparison of Lee Evans & JR vs Chad Johnson & RP... I love LE, but CJ is the better receiver. He's got other issues, but he's hands down the better receiver. I base this on watching both of them, but if you want stats to back them up (not that they tell the whole story at all) but LE averages 932yds/year with only one season(in his 5 year career) above 850 yards. CJ has averaged 1340 yds/year over the last 6 years. Averaging above LE's most sucessful season for longer than LE's been in the league. As last year shows LE can be schemed out of the game. So it's lunacy to use any comparison of LE vs CJ to prove JR vs RP as CJ dwarfs LE. I'm also not sure how you can say that RP is a more accomplished WR than JR. He's not. In his career, he has waaaay less receptions and significantly fewer yards each season, and the same TDs. That is NOT more accomplished. On the good side, RP has improved every year in # of receptions 15 to 23 to 35, and in yards/year 148 to 320 to 352. Again, here's to hoping he continues that streak.

Good stuff Bill. I pretty much agree with you 1-7, although I rank Ko is a little better than you, but we'll see. I do draw a little different conclusions from you about how we should solve our weaknesses. (I think our need for WR is so strong that we need to draft one in round 1 unless a stellar talent drops to us - see stats for WR success rates here: http://www.stadiumwall.com/index.php?s=&am...t&p=986122) I like you think we should definitely skip CB as our early priorities. Improvements in our secondary health and an improved pass rush (especially from DT position) will do wonders for our pass defense. I won't complain about any OL or DL picks in the early 4. I view rounds 5-7 as long shots and specialists, so I don't care who gets drafted there, although we need a fullback, and a TE wouldn't hurt.

Gaaaah! I HATE this logic. We need a WR2. We don't have one on the roster, there are no competent ones in free agency. The way the cards fell, we have a NEED and it's a big one. Josh Reed, who is our current #2 as our second "best" receiver has yearly yards of 449, 410 & 578. So hopefully, a player drafted to fill the roll better than JR should get more yards (and pull off some of the double-teams off of LE) Lets look at the 3rd round WRs like you mentioned, here are all the 3rd rounders that get around 400+ yards / year (approximately matching Josh Reed): 2007 LRobinson-437yds, JJones-676yds 2006 none 2005 Chris Henry -1370yds 2004 Bernard Berrian - 2197yds 2003 Nate Burleson -2675, Kevin Curtis 2824 2002 None 2001 Steve Smith 5927yds 2000 Dez White 2145; Laveranues Coles 7245yds; Darrell Jackson 6942 1999 Marty Booker 6311 1998 Hines Ward 8737 So out of 43 WRs you list going in the 3rd round only 9 exceed the performance of Josh Reed. The career yards of 27 of them don't match JR's worst year. The odds of getting a good WR aren't good. By contrast, lets look at 1st round WRs: 2007: CJ-756 TGjr-420, DB-995, AG-576 2006: SH-1776 2005: BE-2685, MC-1941, RW-2154 2004: LF-4544, RW-3657, RW-1958, LE-3727, MC-2222, MJ-1595 2003: AJ-4804, BJ-2675 2002: DS-4213, AL-3552, JW-3815 2001: DT-1602, KR-3844, RG-3165, SM-5497, RW-6984 2000: PW-2991, PB-7391, TT-4017 1999: TH-11864, DB-4699, TE-2404 1998: KD-2325, RM-12,191 Out of 43 1st round WR, a whopping 32 of them meet or exceed Josh's performance with only 11 busts. Of course I'd be mighty disappointed to just match JR's performance with a first round pick. (although JR was near the top of the 2nd round). using 750 yards as my criteria (higher than above), I get (CJ,DB,SH,BE,LF,RW,LE,AJ,SM,RW,PB,TH,DB,RM) 14 winners plus a few that I'd also add such as AG (rookie with a solid 576 yards) Donte Stallworth averaging over 700+yards, and Koren Robinson as he was good until alcoholism destroyed him. Other rookies have a chance to step up in the years to come. so that brings me to about 17 for a 1 in 3 for a real good receiver. So in summary, a 1st round receiver gives 75% chance of getting a useful NFL quality receiver, and a 1 in 3 chance of a bona fide starter. A 3rd round has around a 1 in 6 chance of being useful. Since we NEED a receiver, we should draft one early, and get our pick of the litter. Even if it's a slight "reach".

Mine also gives me the title, but tells me that I need to run 4.01 IE or something like that. (I run Mozilla)

Yup, they've gone to the great bit-bucket in the sky.

Nice response Dawg. I think that the big difference is in the amount of risk you're willing to take. You are willing to take a riskier position (with the potential for greater rewards) than the position that Marv took and seems to be taking with a lot of other decisions. Yes Nate was the number 1 free agent player THIS year, but the decision to cut him loose was basically made LAST year when Marv said we'd only tag Nate for 1 year, so that he could get into camp and learn our new system. Now we still had the opportunity during the season to work out a long term deal if Marv thought it was in the teams best interest. It would have been hard, and it would have been expensive, but it absolutely would have been possible. I think that Marv figured it was worth the potential to get a draft pick (there's absolutely NO guarantee we'd get a worth-while draft pick for Nate) to instead have a happy Nate, in camp on time, helping out the other corners. This also avoided a potential Lance Briggs type situation. Remember, this is the first year that Marv is taking over. There are only so many battles that you can fight at once. Learn to pick and choose your battles until you understand the situation. At the time we got a good (and contract) year out Nate for the cost of a possible draft pick in the future. That was Marv's gamble, where you wanted more than that. Every year is crucial in the NFL, and this was a time of transition with a new GM and a new Head Coach. Distractions for a new management team would be bad. We also got spoiled with getting a first round pick for the underachieving Peerless Price. There really aren't many deals for 1st round draft picks for players. In free agency teams don't want to pay big bucks AND big draft picks for players. That's why for even the best (and older) runningbacks lately have been low 2nd rounders along with the gadzillion dollars they earned.

The two teams are not identical. The Pats have had a lot of recent success. We have not. They are perceived by players to be one of the teams with the best chance to win the superbowl. That counts for a great deal. We've not been to the playoffs in (too) many years, and have had a revolving door of poor coaches. We can't act like the Patriots because we're not them. Why is it so hard for you to see that there are different ways to organize people into a successful group? It seems that your complaint seems that we're not ruthless enough, and we don't attempt to maximize value at every opportunity. Your so called "warm and fuzzy" actions get solid value on more than one front. Especially related to the fact that the football team is a team of 100+ people that have to be working in the same direction. We got a good, harmonious year of service from Nate. The new management team got an opportunity to see how good he was, and the opportunity to see if he was going to be worth the price it'd take to keep him. They obviously felt otherwise. This has to do with more than just talent. You seem to think that there is only one way to do this. I and many others on this board disagree. You really can be better off by not taking the so-called most optimal (ruthless) choice. See the psychological experiment called the "prisoners dilemma" where if everyone chooses the most self-serving choice everyone involved is worse off.

Eh. I'll miss him. He was a better player then I gave him credit for. Even though he didn't get the role that he wanted (2/3rd WR) he busted his butt when he did get on the field (primarily special teams) and I think he did a good job there. He was frequently the first guy down, and disrupted the return and often made the tackle as well. I'll miss him more than Willis.

Sept. 9 DENVER BRONCOS - LOSE Sept. 16 @ Pittsburgh Steelers - LOSE Sept. 23 @ New England Patriots - LOSE Sept. 30 NEW YORK JETS - WIN Oct. 8 DALLAS COWBOYS - WIN Oct. 21 BALTIMORE RAVENS - LOSE Oct. 28 @ New York Jets - WIN Nov. 4 CINCINNATI BENGALS - WIN Nov. 11 @ Miami Dolphins - WIN Nov. 18 NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS - LOSE Nov. 25 @ Jacksonville Jaguars - LOSE Dec. 2 @ Washington Redskins - WIN Dec. 9 MIAMI DOLPHINS - WIN Dec. 16 @ Cleveland Browns - WIN Dec. 23 NEW YORK GIANTS - WIN Dec. 30 @ Philadelphia Eagles - WIN

I'd like to keep him as a decent backup and very good ST's player. But I can't argue with him trying to move up the totem pole. I was against signing him originally, because I thought him a poor #2 receiver, but as an emergency receiver and special teams player I've been impressed.

Cool!

Nice work!

I completely agree. Even with all of those off-the-field issues Animal has, there is just no way he slips into the 2nd day. His impact on the field is indisputable!

The two of them are part of a council of 6 players to advise the new commish on issues related to the players. Sort of an informal communications method compared to dealing directly with the players union. Nice. Go guys go. (note the type saying Takeo is lb for Cincy still!) http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2828525

I also think that a second RB is likely. We (the coaches) have seen what we've got. It ain't much, but they feel it's enough to not panic. Drafting 2 RB's would not panicking but rather I think it would be an honest attempt to improve the position via competition. If Shaud and fred can beat out a late rounder, then they should stay. If not, then we move on. Remember Lionel Gates from last year, he looked pretty good as a runner. But he had other issues (to say the least). You never know when you could get lucky and find a late rounder who can put it all together. We've seen what Shaud can do, and it aint much. I fear the same for Jackson. Adding a late round pick in addition to a higher draft pick into the mix just increases the likelyhood of us having a credible starter, or more likely a credible backup in case of injury or a starter that just isn't cutting it (a reasonable likelyhood). If Jackson steps up, all the better for us.

While I don't see it happening, I'd love it. The dude can run. I also don't believe that he's a cancer, I just believe that he's ...odd. Not just a pothead.... but odd. But even today, he's a better runningback than all of our current stable mashed together. I'd love to have wicky.