All is quiet--for now

If worse comes to worse, there's always Hood or Smoot.

I doubt Smoot will come back. Is he going to be cut? I think he is still under contract with the Vikes. He just left 2 years ago.

Word is he's just about gone.

Is Clements that good? Has he put together consistent seasons of progress to justify the hype around his free agency? We may be better off not being able to sign him.
Dallas Sucks.

the only reason it didn't happen already is cause of the new tv deals... BUT, we are DEFINITELY at a competitive disadvantage every year, since we lead the league in dead cap, which is money spent on player's that are no longer working for you, and the price/performance deals dan snyder and crew make for free agents are vastly inferior to those made by most teams, which again, puts us at a disadvantage.

if the skins clear 15$mill and st louis has $20mill clear, we can't win unless they let us. we CAN be outbid, cause the skins overspent immediately once the cap raised when other clubs didn't, and now the lions may have $40mill or something insane in cap space, and we have to hustle new contracts to existing players for more future dead money to make space. we're just paying on credit instead of with cash, but it really does hurt the team and its ability to maximize talent over a longer period of time.

Yeah I'd definitely prefer a more draft-centric approach. It would, as you say, maximize talent over time.

But the cap space still wouldn't be a problem for the 'Skins unless Nate Clements was somehow now worth a $20 million signing/roster bonus or something ridiculous. Which he's not. The Rams, in your example, have plenty of cap space to outgun us if they wanted to. But they still wouldn't totally bust the payscale just because they have the cap room. Besides, if any team has shown the propensity to overpay and blow up the payscale for players, it's us. We're still likely to win any race in which we earnestly enter for a player's services.

I'm not arguing that overpaying for Clements is a good idea. But if the team wants him, I think they'll get him.

CLEMENTS IS NOT WORTH THE $ HE'S GOING TO GET. Nice player but is he Champ Bailey? Hell no. But some team out there with the $ is going to overpay for him. Hopefully it won't be us.

Yeah I'd definitely prefer a more draft-centric approach. It would, as you say, maximize talent over time.

But the cap space still wouldn't be a problem for the 'Skins unless Nate Clements was somehow now worth a $20 million signing/roster bonus or something ridiculous. Which he's not. The Rams, in your example, have plenty of cap space to outgun us if they wanted to. But they still wouldn't totally bust the payscale just because they have the cap room. Besides, if any team has shown the propensity to overpay and blow up the payscale for players, it's us. We're still likely to win any race in which we earnestly enter for a player's services.

I'm not arguing that overpaying for Clements is a good idea. But if the team wants him, I think they'll get him.

yeah, i don't disagree with any of that. We're just not in the best relative shape compared to other teams. clements probably wants a champ bailey deal though (salaries rise yearly since its a growth industry, and the new tv deals also created massive pay inflation). If they put a lot of the money in the first 3 years, it'd really f with our ability to get him plus dock (or other OG) and a LB (we also have a #6 draft pick to pay).

As much as I want the Redskins to nab a #1 corner, I would be upset if they paid an $18M bonus (Champ Bailey money) to Clements or Samuels. I'd rather suffer through another bad season.

I'm not sure I'd write off the possibility of Clements just yet. If we were to make a splash in free agency I think corner is the one spot worth going after hard and heavy.
this seems to be snyders signature. getting a high profile free agent, that everyone thinks that there is no way they end up in washington. remember last season how randle el was on his way to chicago?

Perhaps a more conservative approach regarding free agency is on the horizon?

I know, it sounds ridiculous.

We are in a tough spot, we need a serious d-lineman who can either rush the QB or collapse the pocket, Branch may be the best out there, haven't seen any film on Adams, or Anderson, but as you said, it is going to be very hard to stay pat with our current secondary, to take a conservative aproach via free agency would be fine except this year where we have really only 1 significant pick. Do we trade down and accumulate more picks to address more needs with possibly lesser talent? Or do we take a top Lineman in the draft and hope to strike lightning in a bottle with a couple lower tier free agent signings?

We need to see if there is a lineman or 2 that will be around in the second round that can make an impact? If not then we have to draft 1 high, leaving us with no ability to draft a quality guy for the secondary.

And here it is in a nutshell, we now face a situation that has been brought upon us by constant mismanagement of the draft, by individuals who really do not understand the significance of the draft for building a team.

We could have addressed these areas in the past and be looking at 2 possible all pro type recievers right now in Johnson and Garrett, but we are stocked to the Gill's with WR's, 2 of whom are probably not going to be anywhere's near as good as the 2 kids coming out this year.

And yes we need to start clearing out cap space some how starting with AA, take the hit and move on.

I would rather trade the pick than spend it on a defensive tackle. We have much more pressing needs at other positions (DE,CB, LB). I don't know why people are expecting to get huge sack numbers from the interior of the defensive line. It's a rare thing in the NFL. In addition DT is the only position on the team at which we actually saw promising play from not one but two rookies. Anyone who thinks the interior of the line is the problem wasn't watching the same team I was last year. Unfortunately if this article is to be believed that apparently includes Greg Williams.