Jennings will probably get a bigger contract than Welker, simply due to age. (But not a higher cap hit than Welkers tag)
In any event the difference between the open market contract of Welker and Jennings isn't going to be enough to do much with.
You might be right. And if that's the case, then it isn't worth the exchange.
But every other part of that team was better than we have now, with the exception of TE.
Its hard to argue getting rid of a guy is a good move because we scored 120 fewer points without him with an otherwise more talented team.
Are you really saying you would be happy getting rid of Welker and scoring 120 fewer points?
The goal isn't to simply reduce your points scored, obviously. The goal is to improve the *TEAM*. They are so much better than any other team in the NFL offensively that they have some wiggle room there. They can afford to lose a few points scored per game if the end result is an overall improvement of the entire team. That's a big if, obviously, but that's the premise.
But diminishing the best area of your team (the passing offense) isn't the wisest one.
As I just said, they've got such a huge advantage over the rest of the league offensively that they could afford to have a slightly less awesome offense if the resulting dropoff helped improve the defense enough.
Wes Welkers contract isn't the reason we don't have a dominating defense. There are many other ways to find the 5-7mill cap room he would take up in year one. And crazy to think that 5-7mill would make our D dominant.
I dunno. The Pats' D was pretty good by the end of the year with Talib. If that 7 million was enough to add a game-changing safety, that might just be enough to make the D a top-5 scoring defense.
Huh? We couldn't beat Az, SF at home or Seattle or Baltimore on the road. Losing 1 TD per game would have resulted in losing to the Jets, Bills, and maybe Fins and Jags. Losing 1 TD on offense makes us 10-6 at best, and possibly 8-8.
Well of course you're not taking into account the consequently improving defense. Obviously - well, I hope it's obvious - I'm not arguing that the plan should just be to reduce the scoring output by the offense....and that's it.
What does any of that have to do with Welker? You realize you just tried to argue 5-7 mill spent between a Welker replacement and defense is supposed to turn us into the best defense in the NFL when we just lost a playoff game by watching the mediocre Raven offense go 197 yards on 3 consecutive TD drives without even putting up enough resistenace to make them convert more than 1 first down on the 3 drives combined?
Welker's money doesn't turn that into the best defense in the NFL.
At some point in the near future they're going to have to go on without Welker. If he's going to cost them over $10 million a year, with the pounding he's taken, maybe now is the best time to make a transition. I don't know. It'll be interesting to see how BB plays this.
So hop on your unicorn and fly down to Foxboro.
Why would you say something so stupid as this? What does this statement have to do with anything we're talking about. We were having a nice conversation until you decided to throw this stupidity in there.