ESPN: Nate Clements in Redskins' plans?

Yeah this is a good point. The safeties have gotten their act together once Archuleta was benched and Taylor and Fox/Vincent had some time to get on the same page.

You wonder if GW and Jerry Gray were instructing Rogers to give a big cushion early on in the season because they knew with Prioleau out and Archuleta so crappy, they needed Carlos to guard against the deep ball. I certainly never saw GW get all pissed at Rogers on the sideline for giving a huge cushion. That's the great thing about football, it's such a team sport. When one link is weak (ahem, Archuleta) it makes the rest of the links look bad. Would Rogers have needed to give the huge cushion if Ryan Clark were retained? Would Rogers have looked that bad?

Of course that doesn't explain why Rogers would bite on all those double moves earlier in the year. And with Springs out, regardless of cushions, he did show that he can't cover a #1 WR yet. He did need to improve on some things, and I think he has to some extent. Plus the safeties are now playing better.

I can see Matty's point, I don't think we can be completely confident with just him and Springs. We need to bring someone in who can compete at the same level, if not better. Fox and Vincent have done an admirable fill-in job, but what we really need to focus on is improving the SS position. I'll bet Rogers and Springs will both look a ton better with a better SS in the fold with some range and the ability to communicate with ST. So maybe like Matty said, you bring in that new CB and let Springs play SS. That strengthens all the links in the secondary's chain, and all of a sudden they may all look better.

Or maybe you get serious about a SS in the draft, or poaching Michael Lewis from the Eagles.


A move like getting Lewis reminds me of the Giants getting Pierce - making our backfeild better while dealing a blow to one of division rivals. Although how much is Lewis going to cost?

The one thing we can't do regarding the secondary is stand pat.

Springs is getting old and has been banged up, Rogers is still developing but nothing is certain, and forget about guys like Wright he's not even that great of a nickel.

At safety I really don't think Fox is the next Clark, and Vincent is in the same boat as Springs. Prioleau is coming off a significant injury, but at least it happened early so he should be able to return strong. As for Archuleta, do we even need to bother discussing it anymore? Dude is gone.

A move like getting Lewis reminds me of the Giants getting Pierce - making our backfeild better while dealing a blow to one of division rivals. Although how much is Lewis going to cost?

Well Archuleta's deal kind of blew the whole safety scale out of whack. He was given the biggest deal in history to a safety, but he was obviously a huge mistake.

I can see teams making the argument that Archuleta's contract should be thrown out the window in terms of setting precedent. I can also see agents making the argument that every safety in the NFL is better than Adam Archuleta, so they should get more than him.

I don't see every safety getting huge raises because of Archuleta, but there's sure to be some inflation. I'd think Lewis would be worth something like a $8 million signing bonus, maybe $25 million over 5 years. Affordable if we wanted him.

But that's the thing, I threw out his name on wild speculation only. I've got no idea if his skill set translates well to a GW defense. Who knows if the Skins want him.

The rest of the league will probably ignore Archuleta's deal and conduct business as usual. They'll just brush it off as another wacky Snyder deal, one that was way outside the norm.

That's what I'm thinking. If I'm a safety and I go up to my agent and say, "Look at the contract Archuleta got paid, THAT'S the cash I want!" the agent would probably laugh him out of his office...unless he was talking about playing for the Skins.

Yeah there's a Snyder scale and an everyone else scale.

Funny thing is we never have to blow up the team due to salary cap problems. Wonder if there's a reason for that? Hmmmm... could it be Snyder's cap managers know what they're doing?

The rest of the league will probably ignore Archuleta's deal and conduct business as usual. They'll just brush it off as another wacky Snyder deal, one that was way outside the norm.

Why is Synder involved in the contract negotiations of our players anyways? Why can't he take the approach JKC took and let Gibbs do the talking since Gibbs is the team Prez?

Yeah there's a Snyder scale and an everyone else scale.

Funny thing is we never have to blow up the team due to salary cap problems. Wonder if there's a reason for that? Hmmmm... could it be Snyder's cap managers know what they're doing?

Right. It's quite appealing for players to look at the bottom line figures we give them that we put off year after year. Until the league changes the rules on restructuring, you can rest easy the Skins will be fine with the salary cap.

Why is Synder involved in the contract negotiations of our players anyways? Why can't he take the approach JKC took and let Gibbs do the talking since Gibbs is the team Prez?

HA. How much contract negotiation experience do you think Gibbs has?

HA. How much contract negotiation experience do you think Gibbs has?

Not sure - I know we used to have Joe Mendes who was the lone conservative voice and cap specialist back in 03 in the FO but he was let go for Vinny Cerrato.

I am wondering if Synder gave out huge bonuses when he owned the communication company before the Skins - I would have loved to collect some of those checks.