We also added James Carpenter a guard who was a #1 pick in 2011 from the Seahawks. He's a B- guy, and an upgrade at the position for us. As of right now we don't have a ton of desperate needs. We need an impactful outside pass rusher, another RB, and another TE. I feel like I'm forgetting something. OH!!!! A QB.... the centerpiece to the whole team.
As well as the free agents I mentioned we also traded for Brandon Marshall & Ryan Fitzpatrick and resigned David Harris & Bilal Powell. I can't complain about any player we have brought in or resigned. All good moves. But I have some major concerns with the contract that Revis signed and the fact we let Harvin walk. And sadly I think both of these moves will have more of an impact than all of the good things that have happened.
First the Harvin thing. Because of the ridiculous contract we gave Revis our stock pile of cap cash has quickly dwindled. It made the luxury of a 10 million dollar x-factor guy like Harvin less feasible. Decker and Marshall both missed time with injuries in 2014. I think Harvin was an important piece to the puzzle in 2015. Not only do we lose him but he's definitely signing with The Bills or the Pats. We had until March 19th to make a move with Harvin. Trading him for anything is better than letting him walk to your division rival. His contract was crazy, but you had time to let teams talk to him, and if they could agree on a new contract they would easily give up a late round pick. Just cutting him was dumb.
And as for Me-vis, I mean Revis. He's going to be 30 years old this summer. He isn't worth 16 million this year. Corners hit the wall, with zero warning, right around 29-30 years old. Last season was probably his swan song. He has absolutely NOTHING left to prove moving forward. He is guaranteed 39 million dollars. He has a ring. He's back on a team, playing for an owner who dumped him when he was recovering from an injury and his future was in doubt. Now he gets to take Woody's money and sit back and fade away.
Obviously Woody knew fans would be thrilled to get Revis back and he's trying to sell tickets. So he told our new GM to do anything needed to resign him. If Woody would have just done this in 2010 the contract would have made sense, and he would have never ended up in New England. Now we decide to make him the highest paid CB in the league... when he's on the downside of his career.
I know, and our front office knows this is a 2 year deal for 39 million. He will make 16 million this year, 16 million next year and he is scheduled to make 15 million in 2017, when he will be 32. No way we pay a guy at that age that much money. So if we cut him in 2017 we eat 7 million in dead money against our cap. That's unacceptable. Brandon Marshall makes 7.5 million. That gives you an idea of what we are losing with that dead money.
With all that being said, it will be nice to see #24 in green & white again. And he does improve our defense dramatically. The biggest mistake over the past week was not finding a way to bring Nick Foles to the NY Jets. He was the best guy available, everyone knew he was on the block, he is a rare talent that has proven he can play in the NFL, and he's young. That was a potential 10 year starter for us. Without a franchise QB, everything else is just academic.
St Louis got Foles for Bradford... and Philly threw in a 2016 2nd round pick!! That's nuts. If we would have offered our 2016 2nd round pick Philly would have pulled the trigger. We could have also packaged Harvin and let Kelly negotiate a new contract before the trade is official. Bottom line is we could have had Foles and our team didn't get it done.
Right now we have Smith, Fitzpatrick and Simms. If we take Mariota at #6 (if he's even there) we most likely start Fitzy and Mariota takes over mid season. And he will struggle. Not only does that put our new leadership on the hot seat, but it also means we can't take Fowler Jr or Shane Ray with our #6 pick. It also sets up a scenario where in 2016 we have a wildcard highly drafted QB as our starter.... and if he is a bust we will be hitting the reset button yet again heading into 2017 with Revis's ridiculous contract hanging over the head of our new GM.
The biggest move that Mac and 'Super' Bowles needed to make in their first few weeks in charge was getting us a QB. And we will never see a situation again with a QB this good & young, with a guy as nuts as Kelly who is willing to deal him. This was a one shot deal. And the New York Jets missed horribly. Like usual.
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