Ben wrote:mjkvol wrote:the_process wrote:The Barkley signing makes no sense.
Yes, he's very good. He's also hurt a lot.
Between Hurts and Barkley they are now spending about 63M annually on their backfield and their defense still sucks.
Also there's a finite amount of touches and TD's to go around, and I suspect that was at least part of the reason last year fell off the tracks. Adding Saquon does not alleviate that pressure.
Would have been far smarter to use that money on a safety and LB, and then just take a back on the 2nd day of the draft.
100% agree. It's been proven time and again (and by the Eagles as well) that big money does not need to be spent on the RB room to have an effective run game. I'm not a fan of keeping RB's after their rookie deal is up, when they are due to get paid. It's too easy to find quality backs in the mid-late rounds and even as UDFA's rather than take up a big chunk of the cap.
But that goes triple when talking about a back like Barkley, who hasn't shown he can consistently stay healthy, and is too inconsistent to rely on game to game. And he will be 28, just too old at that position to be handing out that kind of guaranteed money. This is the classic "signing the aging star" kind of mistake that poorly run franchises make.
100% agree with both of you. My son texted me from his study-abroad program-- he found out before I did-- and at first I thought it was a joke. When I realized that it wasn't, I just scratched my head. There are so many other needs higher than RB. And we let D'Andre Swift, who's 2 years younger than Barkley and without a big injury history-- and who rushed for more yards per carry in his first four seasons-- go to the Bears for 3/$24M.
LB, pass coverage, wide receiver, even O-line: all of them are higher priority needs.
How many times, during those awful losses to end the season, did any of us say, "damn, if only we had a better RB?" I'd venture zero.
Yet here we are.
Admittedly I too was against signing Barkley for all of those reasons mentioned, but now that it's officially done, I feel like I'm trying my hardest to rationalize and even defend it. Yes, he's 27 (won't be 28 until January FWIW) and could start to decline at any moment, but if I'm Barkley, I feel a LOT better running behind the Eagles O line (even w/ Kelce retiring) than I did the Giants steaming pile of garbage O line which did me no favors. Plus, with all of the other weapons we have, he won't be asked to carry the whole offense like he did for years with the Giants. Best case scenario IMO is CMC who was also asked to carry the offense during his years in Carolina whose life was made easier due to the other weapons that SF has. Plus, I feel like he'll make Hurts's life a whole lot easier especially in Kellen Moore's offense and punish teams for blitzing him. He's also a MUCH better pass blocker than Swift which was likely a big reason why they let Swift walk. FWIW Swift also has had a reputation for being injury prone despite him being healthy for us all of last season. Like Barkley with the Giants, I'm sure overuse had a lot to do with his injuries in Detroit.
As far as the defense goes, yes, the holes are still glaring but it's still relatively early in free agency and we still have the draft. They reportedly went hard after McKinney but for whatever reason he chose GB over us. There's still a lot of good names out there. Could a CJGJ reunion possibly be in place?
Obviously Huff was brought in to replace one of Sweat or Reddick. Could one of them potentially be traded for a pick plus LB or safety?
