So much going on I thought this would be a good way to talk about all of it without flooding the niners and raiders threads with crap.



I'll start it off. WTF is Chip Kelly thinking bringing Sproles in. A 5th round is a good deal for him. But McCoy is the best back in football right now. Why take the ball out of his hands? And Bryce Brown is probably the best backup in football. Why take the ball out of his hands?

The only thing I can think is that they had someone reach out for Brown or are going to trade their entire draft for McCoy. Hell if I know.

Been a weird FA season so far. The Raiders look like a bunch of idiots. The broncos are going nuts. They know they need to win a super bowl in the next 2 years. Soon as Manning retires they're a last place team so it's full rebuild at that point and they'll just trade and cut all these fat contracts away and start over. I'm kind of wondering if they're gonna take a flyer on a low draft pick QB... maybe dude from San Jose State. Let Manning build someone. Dude they got now is not an NFL starter.

 

The Ware pickup for Denver is going to be huge. Revis to Patriots. And yes the Raiders do look like a bunch of idiots. I see them winning 4 games this year.

 

I honestly think that Chip wants the most weapons he can have. Sproles is in the last year of his contract. So it's a one year deal. Last year Sproles was #1 in receptions and McCoy #4. So defenses are gonna have a hard time trying to figure out where the ball is going to go. Plus the return game has been absolute ****. So Sproles will help there. It was a down year for him in that aspect but he might be better than other alternatives.

Denver is going nuts, but yea, do the deals, try to win the next 2 years and move on.

What about Carr in the draft? Fresno State, did really well.

 

As a Saints fan I gotta say that it sucked seeing Sproles go. He made some big plays for us. From what I heard, the Eagles wanted him for his return skills, and he also can cause some major mismatches when he lines up off the line with a linebacker on him. I'll toss up in here that the Saints signing Jarius Byrd was a huge step up for our defense. Just glad we didnt lose Pierre Thomas.

 

Thomas was the bigger loss. I'm a big fan of his. I think he was under utilized.

I think teams get caught up trying to load up their positions so they can "confuse" teams. You want to know what happens when you have 3 good backs... it's counter productive. It NEVER works.

Look at New Orleans. They tried to smash 3 and 4 backs in to that system and it would have been way better with just 2. The Panthers destroyed careers by trying to load up their backfield.

You pull people out of wack when you take them in and out too much. Not only that it's hard for the line to black for 3 different kinds of backs.

As a return man... he didn't just have an "off" year, he's falling off. He's 30 years old. 30 year olds do not belong returning kicks. Great way to have an injured return man. They could have got a return man in the draft pretty easily and had a younger version of sproles that would be happy just returning kicks and catching a carry every now and again. There's a few of them in the draft pretty low down... talking 4th 5th rounds.

Instead you have the best RB in the league. A crazy good back up and now a tramendous receiving weapon that can run when needed.... so 3 guys fighting for touches.

They didn't need him. No way this doesn't **** off of Brown within a few games when he starts seeing zero carries or 2 or 3 touches a game. Sproles will have to take touches from both of the other backs. So what... you give McCoy 15 touches. Sproles 10. Brown 5. That's nearly 30 touches a game to the backs and NONE of them will have a chance to get in to a groove.

He's over thinking it.

The only way this pays off is if one of the other 2 backs gets hurt.

 

You've got to remember that they've got Chip Kelly at the helm though.

Sproles is definitely a guy that fits his system, and he has got their running game on point. They averaged 15yards per game more than the 2nd ranked team.

McCoy got around 19 touches per game last year, and absolutely shredded no matter what, so I don't think a couple less will hurt him too much.

I think they'll end up using Sproles in a slot receiver role more often than not. I'd put him as the #3 WR on that team skill wise right now. I'd bet Brown still gets more rushing touches than him (7-8 avg per game), but Sproles will be involved in more plays to keep the defense on their toes.

Just my thoughts though.

 

Well with Shadys running style makes him a prime candidate for a knee injury. I don't wish it on him but I'm just being realistic. Sproles is good insurance.

 

I was commenting and then saw this and was like yea what he said but add that sproles is also a good kick returner.

Im a Raider fan so I stopped paying attention.
Listening to 95.7 the game and they are ripping the Raiders apart....
I have no freakin clue what our front office is thinking.

 

The Tuck pick up could be huge if he can play like he did last year. First good move I've seen from them so far.

If they can land a quality RB then having McFadden on the roster for so little could turn out to be a good move. I think he's only guaranteed like $100k. So if they land a killer free agent they could always release him... or just keep him on as a number 2/change of pace back. Which is probably good. He's still dangerous from time to time.

They're pretty much forced to go OT in the first round in the draft. Bums me out considering the defense that's available but if they're smart they'll trade down and get another pick. I hope they take Zack in the second or take the kid from San Jose State in the 5th or 6th.



On the eagles tip. Justin got me thinking about them both on the field at once. Considering how thin they are at WR... or the type of WR's they have... I could see them doing that a lot and it would be tough to stop. Do they run to McCoy or throw to sproles. I can see a lot of PA plays where they fake to McCoy and hit Sproles in the flat. Or do delayed hand offs to sproles. Use Brown to bang the ball in the short areas. For as little as they paid for him it could be good.

My tune is changing.

 

Chip enjoys a Sproles type of player. Always rant hem back in Oregon. I imagine Sproles does what he did in New Orleans, and that's catch the ball out the backfield or burn a LB on a blown matchup. Dude still has it or shades of it. Combine Sproles & McCoy and you have a lot of talent to utilize.

Tuck is a move in the right direction, same with Woodley. The question is now is what is left in their tank.

I think Steve Smith fits well in a Raider uniform... haha

Ginn to Arizona... boy they're stacked. If Carson is Carson though he'll throw away a few games. O-Line and now WR, with a stout defense... NFC West is gonna be thrashing the rest of the NFL.

The whole deal with Saffold is interesting. I wonder if the Rams let him free to try and lower his contract KNOWingly that Saffold was hurt. That misinformation!

Raiders might want to look at Penn who just got released from Tampa.

 

They're stupid if they don't bring Steve Smith. But saying that... there are other WR's out there that I'd rather have...

James Jones
Lance Moore
Emmanual Sanders
Julian Edeleman.


Steve Smith is an option if he comes cheap. But quite frankly his best fit is exactly where he's at. Sign him for 2-3 more years and let him retire there. Right thing to do for him and the franchise.... and for their QB.


Julian Edelman would probably be my favorite... consistent. Good route runner. Good ethics. Good coaching pedigree so he can bring that to the team.

Sanders and Jones are the most exciting but the Raiders need consistent.

So I'm leaning toward Edelman or Moore.

Then Jones. Then Sanders. Then Smith. LOL!

 

Chris Johnson reportedly will take a pay cut for trade - NFL.com

I could see him going to Dallas or Arizona, but I doubt he ends up in St. Louis.

I would offer up another potential spot for him to go to: Atlanta. Jason Snelling retired. As for Steven Jackson, he's a great player, it's too bad he spent so many years on such bad Rams teams, but his time is coming to a Close. Maybe Johnson could be the player they hoped they were getting when they picked up Steven Jackson last year.

 

Be interesting to see if CJ2k can get back to who he was with a different team. He'd probably be good in St. Louis. Saw someone talking about Oakland last night but I don't like him in Oakland. I'd rather see Blount come to Oakland.

CJ2k gets hated on a lot but people need to take a look and realize that he hasn't been that bad. No one runs for 2000 yards every season. He's broke 1000 yards every season of his career. How many guys have done that? He's only 28. His average fell off big time last season but a lot of that was just the fact that Tennessee sucked in general.

I think in St. Louis we could see a 1300-1400 yard season out of him pretty easily with an average of like 4.2. So I wouldn't be super bummed if Oakland can get him cheap. But they need draft picks.

Arizona... But they do need a second back. Ellington looks like he's the real deal but he's not there yet. His average was like 3.9 last year.

Dallas... Murray is just starting to show what he can do. I wouldn't be surprised to see 1500 from him this year if he can play 16 games. But on the flip side... he hasn't shown that he can play 16 games so having another good back there might be nice.

I think CJ2k wants to go somewhere he can start and get the majority of the touches to show that he can still be dominant.... an win.

 

I don't think Dallas has the space to get him even with a paycut. Brown's need a RB, Houston could use someone to spell Foster.

Honestly if I were a GM, I wouldn't waste a trade for CJ2K and would rather go after Ben Tate. I hear he's in Cleveland right now talking.

Steve Smith may be ending up with the Ravens.

From what they were saying about Saffold on 95.7, he passed the exit physical from the Rams, by Rams doctors. Raiders had him evaluated by a private physician and he didn't pass. Has missed 12-17 games the last 4 years due to injury. The bigger problem was signing him and then giving him a physical. Supposedly the owner is very unhappy with the GM.

 

I see Chip (after getting Sproles), sitting in a dark room lit by a TV screen and a laptop with that evil genius thing, fingers together, scheming, laughing manically.