tatepatsfan

Falcons are re-signing Decoud. Falcons agree to contract with Thomas DeCoud | ProFootballTalk

Not that I think Decoud is a great player, or that we'd even be interested in him, but the safety market is getting progressively thinner. Goldson, Griffin and Branch were all franchised and there are rumors that the Titans and Babineaux have made good progress towards a deal. Is there anyone else out in free agency worth pursuing?

I've read that this year's group of safeties in the draft is considered weak, although there are surely other posters on this board that know more on that than I do.

What do you all think the plan for the position should be? Does moving McCourty there full time and then pursuing a CB in either the draft/free agency make more sense?

BradyManny

It certainly needs a lot of work. More than any position on the roster.

- Ihedigbo should not be the full time S on a team competing for a title.
- Chung plays well, when healthy.
- McCourty showed some flashes of potential at S, but obviously that deprives CB of some young talent. Will he be a hybrid player, playing CB in the base, and S in the nickel?

There isn't a lot of safety talent on the market. If Belichick has one regret from last year, I bet it was letting go of all the safeties. Sanders, Meriweather, McGowan, Page all had their deficiencies and each transaction made sense at the time - but the cumulative result was one of the worst safety corps in recent memory. All four played better than Ihedigbo.

The draft pool for safety sucks. So I'm not sure what they are going to do, but they have to do something.

Deus Irae

Landry's probably the best available:

2012 NFL Free Agents: DB

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JackBauer

I'm not sure if you're being positive or normative, but I assume you're not in favor of the Patriots signing Landry.

Deus Irae

Given the alternatives in both free agency and the draft, I'd have no problem if I heard that the Patriots wanted to bring him in to take a good look at his achilles, but my post was about giving the link to a list of the remaining available free agent safeties.

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"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
- Marcus Aurelius

billdog3484

Landry to me comes off as more of thumper at safety, comprable to chung. I think we need more of a roamer than a thumper

JackBauer

I hear you. I just don't think Landry is going to be able to cover any better than the safeties already on the roster.

Deus Irae

Let's just say that I think you rate the team's current safeties more highly than I rate them.

__________________
"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
- Marcus Aurelius

Sciz

The way the NFL is heading, I'm a strong supporter of moving McCourty to safety full time. Teams have to be able to play man coverage against elite QBs, and McCourty struggled with that. And it's way easier to find a man CB than a center field FS this offseason. None of the other options really excited me, even before Branch, Goldson, and Griffin were tagged. The correct move was to get Weddle last offseason, but it's too late for that now.

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Rob0729

I think the two best options are Dwight Lowrey who went from a crappy CB to a pretty good FS or Richard Marshall, a good CB who played really well at FS when he replaced an injured Kerry Rhodes plus he gives a lot flexibility. The added bonus about Lowrey is it will peiss off Jets fans if he came here and did well after they traded him for next to nothing and safety is one of the Jets' biggest needs.