Re: How about Cassel for Julius Peppers - My Speculation
Plus the fact that Jake is now 34 years old and they have zip-o after him. It make sense. The CAP is the issue, although if we really were going to franchise Cassel, the money is about the same and Peppers does not load you down on one position with CAP money ala Brady and Cassel. It kind of solves three problems. Pass rusher off the edge. A little younger, play making OLB. A transitional guy to play DE on some alignments and some more help at DB. He does all of these and helps our mediocre DBs. It also gets double teams off of Seymour so he gets better.
I was hoping the Pats would make a bid for Suggs. Same deal. A DE/OLB hybrid. Probably no less expensive than Peppers.
Knowing how BB protects young DBs if at all possible like Merriweather in 2007, another Safety like Sean Jones could start day one, and we could draft someone to work in, with Rodney playing the different LB/S roll. Jones would be an upgrade and is still young.
Vrabel can be your swing guy with Bruschi and Guyton.
Cassel for Peppers and add FA S Jones make an impact with the kids coming back for year two like Wilhite, Guyton and Mayo. Maybe Crabel (IR) and Redd can produce with a year under there belt.
Then we can draft a first round type CB. Now the "D" seems to look fairly good.
A swap and one FA pick up and we can be solid.
DW Toys
That's a good point. I lot of people have been wishing for someone like Terrell Suggs in FA, but Suggs would realistically be at least as expensive as Peppers.
The key is that IF Peppers is serious about not being willing to sign a long term contract with Carolina and IF he is serious about wanting to play in the 3-4 (and willing to take a discount to do it), then it's not entirely unreasonable. Carolina is up a creek if Peppers won't sign a long term deal. They can franchise him for ridiculous $$ and lose out on Pro Bowl OT Jordan Gross unless they can resign him to a long term deal (which they may not be able to afford with resigning Chris Gamble and franchising Peppers); they can franchise or resign Gross and lose Peppers for nothing since they won't be able to afford to franchise him and he won't sign a long term dea; or they can try to put the tag on Peppers, trade him quickly, and then franchise/resign Gross. Not a great set of options.
I could see trading Cassel for Peppers (straight up, or close to it) after each one was franchised, and then signing Peppers for something like 6 years @ $50M. If we could afford to franchise Cassel and care him and Brady for 2009 then we could afford this, at least for next year. Peppers would have to want to play 3-4 under BB "to become the best that he can be" and be willing to take a discount, but at that money he would still be set for life. It would almost certainly mean losing either Seymour or Wilfork (and possibly Mankins) after 2009, and I'm not saying it would be worth it or that it would realistically happen, but imagine what we could do with this:
- Move Mike Vrabel back inside to SILB, where his loss of a step wouldn't hurt as much. Mayo-Vrabel-Guyton-Bruschi at ILB would be fine.
- Resign Mike Wright and restructure Jarvis Green.
- Sign one day 1 OLB prospect like Connor Barwin or Cliff Sintim, since Peppers is 29 and AD will be 32. AD-Peppers-Crable-Barwin-Redd/Woods at OLB would be sick. Barwin/Sintim, Crable and Redd/Woods would be solid backups now and the future in 3-5 years.
- Sign one mid-range CB option such as Jabari Greer. Resign James and Lewis Sanders. Either resign a FA S such as Sean Jones or draft one in the first 2 rounds such as William Moore or Sean Smith.
This would be the $$ equivalent of one major FA signing (Suggs/Dansby) and 2-3 moderate FA signings (Greer, resign Wright, possibly Jones). Restructuring Green and possibly Vrabel and Stephen Neal could free up some money. The rest of the draft could be spent on the offense, bolstering OT/G and drafting a developmental RB and WR on day 2.
The defense for 2009 would look something like the following:
DL: Seymour-Wilfork-Warren, with Wright, Green, Smith and possibly a day 2 DT as backups.
OLB: Thomas-Peppers, with Crable, Barwin and Redd or Woods as backups.
ILB: Mayo-Vrabel, with Bruschi and Guyton as backups.
S: Meriweather and one of Sean Jones/Will Moore/Sean Smith, with James and Lewis Sanders (or possibly Tank Williams) as backups.
CB: Greer-Hobbs, with Wheatley, Wilhite, and one more CB as backups.
That would be something to behold. Over 550# of athletically insane starting OLBs. Peppers and Thomas blitzing or just collapsing the pocket behind Seymour-Wilfork-Warren would be crazy. Imagine how much pressure we could bring off the edges and how much our DEs would be freed up from double teams. Images of AD tossing Favre and Leon Washington around like rag dolls come to mind. Again, not likely to happen, but a nice fantasy.
