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john clayton says the hawks are heavily involved with mario williams and could be one of the frontrunners. we've got everything he'd be looking for: a 4-3, cap room, and a desperate need for an elite pass rusher.

he also said we would have enough cap room to sign both he and flynn, re-sign lynch and bryant, and anyone else we'd want to bring back (hawthorne).

honestly, i can't think of a better offseason is these things happen. i honestly can't.

If that happens...and oh, how big an IF it is...

The draft is almost just a luxury, isn't it? We'd be heading into the draft without any gigantic holes. We could use upgrades at spots like LB, or LG, or RT [and move Carpenter to LG]. It would be awesome.

last year's offseason was outstanding (save the qb situation), let's do it again!

That would be nice and allow Clem fresh legs on passing downs.
Hill is probably toast, so they you want Heater back and maybe look to draft or sign a lb. Farrior is available, but he might be expensive for our plans.

Danny Darko wrote:That would be nice and allow Clem fresh legs on passing downs.
Hill is probably toast, so they you want Heater back and maybe look to draft or sign a lb. Farrior is available, but he might be expensive for our plans.

If we have the type of offseason we technically could have where we sign Mario Williams, bring back Lynch and Bryant, and add Flynn then we could have the luxury of addressing LB through the draft. I like Hawthorne and Hill was a solid stopgap [who signed his own pink slip I'm afraid], but Luke Kuechly would certainly be available at #12 when we pick.

Drafting linebackers early hasn't worked out that well for us in the past, but Kuechly's always been praised for his instincts with questions about his physical ability. Then he went out and ran a 4.5 40 at the combine.

I like M. Smith's speed and if we had a line that both dominated the run and created a pass rush, I think an undersized LB who had speed could excel at covering TE in the middle of the field and coming off the edge on blitzes.

Signing M. Williams also would seem to give us the chance us packages where we put Clemons and Williams on each side, kicking Bryant inside. That pass rush is so critical; We survived with big, physical corners last year who get beat from time to time. Getting pressure on the QB makes it harder to beat those corners downfield.

Look at what you could have with one signing, one re-signing, and one high draft pick:

DE: Bryant/M. Williams/Clemons
DT: Mebane/Branch/Bryant
LB: Wright/Kuechly/M. Smith
CB: R. Sherman/B. Browner/Thurmond
S: Chancellor/Thomas

Well we resigned Marshawn. Thats a start. 4yr/31 million with 17 million guaranteed. Its an ok deal but atleast there's no drama with a franchise tag or holdout.

asdf1223 wrote:Well we resigned Marshawn. Thats a start. 4yr/31 million with 17 million guaranteed. Its an ok deal but atleast there's no drama with a franchise tag or holdout.

And it looks like we did NOT franchise tag Red Bryant, which means he could be on the market for teams looking for a big DT. A shame that might happen, but I can't blame the team for shying away from paying $10.5 million for one year of him...especially when they are looking at spending on other areas. Hopefully they can still sign him to a reasonable deal but I'm concerned.

Sweezo wrote:

asdf1223 wrote:Well we resigned Marshawn. Thats a start. 4yr/31 million with 17 million guaranteed. Its an ok deal but atleast there's no drama with a franchise tag or holdout.

And it looks like we did NOT franchise tag Red Bryant, which means he could be on the market for teams looking for a big DT. A shame that might happen, but I can't blame the team for shying away from paying $10.5 million for one year of him...especially when they are looking at spending on other areas. Hopefully they can still sign him to a reasonable deal but I'm concerned.

Yeah I love Red but he's not worth 10million guaranteed for one year. I was more scared about losing Mebane last year and he was far more deserving of a franchise tag last year. I think he gets something similar to Mebane 25/5 with 9-12 million gtd.