an ideal offseason

[Ickeyshuffler]

For those of us w/ too much time on our hands:

Ok, the offseason's killing me cause it's just too darn slow - nothing to do but speculate. So...here's the ultimate in speculation, a complete prescribed offseason w/next year's starting lineups. some things have already been done of course, and I don't have everything in my head so I'm probably leaving things out + screwing a few things up. I don't have an Xbox/playstation so I guess its my low-tech version of madden's franchise mode. Anyhow, please suggest any changes/additions/corrections or post your own!

CUTS:

rogers beckett

reggie kelly

kevin hardy

kim herring

kevin kaesviharn

Larry Moore (he's still a bengal, isn't he? Didn't see much of him at all)

maybe duane clemons if geathers looks good and we draft a DE in rnd 1 or 2 and maybe again in 6-7 or undrafted.

FREE AGENCY:

re-sign houshmandzadah

re-sign Braham (1yr)

re-sign most quality special teamers/cheap backups: wilkins, myles, chamberlain, mitchell, etc.

don't resign tony williams, carl powell, kyle richardson

sign ONE of the following: Ellis Johnson, Ed Jasper, Bryan Robinson

Sign Anthony Thomas

Sign Darren Sharper if not too expensive (after dumping herring, kaesviharn, and beckett we should have some $)

Sign Anthony Becht (if we don't, draft Alex Smith - see below)

TRADES:

rudi to ____ for 2nd pick

3rd rnd pick OR 4th and 6th round picks for Jaime Sharper

trade up in 2nd if we need to to get Ernest Shazor - perhaps our 2nd w/our 4th or a pick or two next year to get into end of first/beginning of 2nd.

DRAFT:

#17: Marcus Spears (if there...probably not) or Channing Crowder (most likely)

2nd, A (our original pick, traded up if need be): Ernest Shazor

2nd, B (pick for Rudi): Alex Smith, or a DE like Matt Roth if a solid one falls and/or if we sign Becht

3rd (if we still have it, if not get a C in 4th): Center: Spencer or Wilkerson

***Lineup on opening day, best case scenario:

Offense:

QB carson palmer

RB combo: #1 chris perry, #2 anthony thomas, kenny watson here and there

FB: jeremy johnson

WR: chad johnson, TJ houshmandzadeh, peter warrick (lots of 3wr sets - let pdub and tj battle for who gets the most reps), kelly washington, kevin walters, cliff russell

Line: Levi, Steinbach, Braham, Williams, Willie (young guys getting a few reps: Rookie Spencer at C and G, a developing Stacy Andrews at RT)

TE: Alex Smith

***Defense

DT Rotation: john thornton, matthias askew, bryan robinson, langston moore

LDE: Geathers, Matt Roth

RDE: Justin Smith

LOLB: Jaime Sharper

ROLB: Brian Simmons

MLB: Channing Crowder

Webster and Landon Johnson back up all spots and get a LOT of playing time in what I think ought to be a LOT of 3-4 sets.

CB: Tory James and Deltha O'Neil, w/ Ratliff as nickel corner and primary backup getting reps.

SS: Ernest Shazor

FS: Madieu Williams

Special teams - best in NFL: myles, wilkins, chamberlain, mitchell, abdullah, etc. Warrick back on PR hopefully + graham.

My little fantasy - we'd be awesome if all this panned out.

[Whur CHad At?]

1. Not getting sharper(either one)

2. Earnest Shazor will not start, if he does opposing teams will have a field day against us. Plus i dont even see us drafting him. I see us drafting Big Ben Wilkerson

3. P Dub can be added to your cut list, and maybe Washington too

4. Take Clemons off your cut list, he is too valuble to our D line figuring him and justin smith are our D line.

5. Anthony Becht is peice he is slow and a waste of money

6. I agree that we will Draft Crowder, but He can play outside.

7. Starting LB unit - OLB Crowder MLB Webster OLB Simmons/Johnson

[HoosierCat]

Not bad...among other things I've been pushing Becht myself...but the cap would probably prevent a lot of what you want to do...

Myself, I had this general outline...

1. Sign A-Train. Figure that costs $3-4 million/year

2. Trade Rudi for a 2nd round pick.

3. Trade Warrick for a 3rd round pick.

That frees up about $8-9 million in space. So we have $4-5 million to play with.

4. Trade the 17 to Denver for Trevor Pryce.

Signing him probably chews up much of the $4-5 million.

5. Cut Hardy, trade the 4th to Texas for Sharper, use Hardy $$ to sign him.

Draft: take S Shazor and C Wilkerson in the second and the two BPAs available when we pick in the third (me I'd shoot for BA LB and BA WR/PR).

[Ickeyshuffler]

Your probably right JoiseyCat, I really didn't do much in the way of cap calculations so a lot of this probably isn't feasable. then again, cap or no cap, it probably isn't feasable anyway considering it actually involves doing something during the offseason

is denver shopping pryce? haven't heard that - if so I'd be quite happy to see us trade for him.

Anthony Becht is peice he is slow and a waste of money

I've been pushing Becht myself..

I honestly don't know all that much about Becht, he just seems like the best value out there and I hear he can block quite well - and he's got to be a better receiver than Kelly so it has to be an upgrade over our current "tell the other team exactly what we're gonna do based on which TE is in there, unless of course it's Tony Stewart which means we can't do anything all that well" TE corps. I'd be interested to hear more about him since both of you seem to feel strongly one way or the other.

P Dub can be added to your cut list, and maybe Washington too

Hmm..I'd keep him. If he's healthy and returns to 2003 form he's a really valuable weapon, and exactly what we need given our third down and red zone woes. A bit of a cap hit, but unless we actually plan to make some of the trades + other moves here I really think he'll be worth keeping. It's a contract year, so his play during the next 16 games will basically decide his financial future in the NFL...and that's the best kind of motivation there is these days. I'm from Seattle and watching Ray Allen play right now has me believing that more than ever.

Finally, on these quotes you'll notice I can't seem to get it to say who it's quoted from. How does one go about doing this? Thanks!