SKINS 5.1 million under cap.

Cooley must be a priority for this franchise, this year.

Last season he was 3rd in the NFC in recieving yards for TE's

His stats were: 734 yards and 6 TD's

The two guys who had more yards were;

Witten 754 yards but only managed 1 TD to Cooley's 6.

Crumpler who amassed 780 yards, but is easily Atlanta's number one recieving option and should have alot more yards than Cooley, who had to compete with Moss, ARE and Lloyd for catches.

So, Cooley based on those stats is the best TE in the NFC, also, he was barely thrown to early in the season and really only got the ball thrown his way consistently once Campbell started. How Cooley didn't make the pro bowl still puzzles me!

He has amazing hands, is a good blocker, good burst to get open, great motor always giving 100%, has great presence on the field (Who wouldn't go into battle with captain chaos?!) and on top of all that is a very marketable player.

There is every reason to resign him and none not to.

He will be resigned!

Not only that, he did a lot more with a lot less (receptions).

Cooley has earned his payday here. Sign him and get it over with!

Whoever thinks that we wouldn't miss Cooley if we had a 12 sack DE must be smoking something. How could we not miss our top possesion receiver (who is on the verge being a perinnial Pro Bowler) because we had a DE who gets less than 1 sack per game?

Sign Cooley and address the DE, DT positions early in the draft or free agency next year.

If someone throws Dockery numbers at him, I would agree with you (and by "Dockery Numbers", I mean an amount truly out of whack w/ the going rate for TE's). Otherwise, b/c he is as talented as any (and I mean ANY) TE out there - you find a way to resign him.

I don't think it is going to be easy unless they get to him early. The cap jumps by about 10 million next year. While we may be 5M under this year, a lot of salaries balloon next year, other teams will have a lot of cap room to spare and use to bid against us.

Hopefully, we have learned something from the Antonio Pierce fiasco.


I hope you are right about this. My worry is unless we franchise him there is no way he is going to resign early and not test the open market. If his agent is worth anything his advice to Chris is play out your contract and test the open market. What would Cooley have to gain by signing early other than maybe a little goodwill from the fans and team - he would literally lose millions by not testing the market. I think most of us would test the open market if we were in his shoes - Dock did and the Bills throw an absurd amount at him.

So in my opinion if talks break down you have to think the Skins will franchise him - you can't take the risk of losing him for nothing because everyone knows teams will go after Cooley - especially if he is an unrestricted free agent.

Finally - does anyone know who Cooley's agent is? Hopefully not someone too hard to deal with.

the people around here screaming that Cooley be resigned will be the same ones that bitch about the redskins over paying for him

Not neccessarily. I think the Dockery signing is a perfect example. Everyone wanted to resign him but not at the TRULY exhorbitant numbers. No one talked of Dockery being a top 10 guard.

I think we should be up for paying the guy a premium. After letting AP get away over a relatively small percent, I would hope they've learned their lesson. To a certain extent, they have set the market for themselves. If you're gonna throw money at new guys - then treat the locals with the same respect.

Once they've paid off a few talented character guys and stopped overpaying for other guys FA's THEN we can bitch about paying too much for our own - maybe not premium - players.

Cooley must be a priority for this franchise, this year.

Last season he was 3rd in the NFC in recieving yards for TE's

His stats were: 734 yards and 6 TD's

The two guys who had more yards were;

Witten 754 yards but only managed 1 TD to Cooley's 6.

Crumpler who amassed 780 yards, but is easily Atlanta's number one recieving option and should have alot more yards than Cooley, who had to compete with Moss, ARE and Lloyd for catches.

So, Cooley based on those stats is the best TE in the NFC, also, he was barely thrown to early in the season and really only got the ball thrown his way consistently once Campbell started. How Cooley didn't make the pro bowl still puzzles me!

He has amazing hands, is a good blocker, good burst to get open, great motor always giving 100%, has great presence on the field (Who wouldn't go into battle with captain chaos?!) and on top of all that is a very marketable player.

There is every reason to resign him and none not to.

He will be resigned!Receiver yardade, in general, is troublesome, BUT in this case I feel your numbers are very relivant.

Cooley isn't our number one target. For the second straight season now, he has led all TEs in YAC. That play against Carolina, he's the only TE in the league who does it. That's a knockdown for most guys, a catch and tackle for the good ones, a long gain for an elite few, but Cooley is the only one who has the speed and balance, much like a RB out there, to take that one the distance.

His blocking is the only thing holding him back from being the league's top TE, and that should improve over time.

Not neccessarily. I think the Dockery signing is a perfect example. Everyone wanted to resign him but not at the TRULY exhorbitant numbers. No one talked of Dockery being a top 10 guard.

I think we should be up for paying the guy a premium. After letting AP get away over a relatively small percent, I would hope they've learned their lesson. To a certain extent, they have set the market for themselves. If you're gonna throw money at new guys - then treat the locals with the same respect.

Once they've paid off a few talented character guys and stopped overpaying for other guys FA's THEN we can bitch about paying too much for our own - maybe not premium - players.

I agree! I don't know of one sole that would be against or would be crying about paying our own, that ARE top tier players in this league their fair market price.

I think it would be the other way around. If you DID NOT pay a player that has proven to be either the BEST or VERY CLOSE TO at their position, and let them go and give somebody else the payday.

Take care of your proven players and leaders FIRST! Pay them accordingly.

Cooley is certainly worthy of the franchise tag, I don't see the team letting him get away under any circumstances. This year the franchise tag value for TEs is $4.28 million. That will go up some next year, but certainly the Redskins can fit the one-year franchise tag value under their cap next season.

Many salaries do indeed baloon next year, but there definitely is enough flexibility to restructure some players and cut others. Letting Brunell go after this year will trim at least $3.5 million off our 2008 cap. Cutting Phillip Daniels would trim another $3.0 million. We have the flexibility we need, we can take care of Cooley for the long term or we can franchise him.

Cooley is certainly worthy of the franchise tag, I don't see the team letting him get away under any circumstances. This year the franchise tag value for TEs is $4.28 million. That will go up some next year, but certainly the Redskins can fit the one-year franchise tag value under their cap next season.

Many salaries do indeed baloon next year, but there definitely is enough flexibility to restructure some players and cut others. Letting Brunell go after this year will trim at least $3.5 million off our 2008 cap. Cutting Phillip Daniels would trim another $3.0 million. We have the flexibility we need, we can take care of Cooley for the long term or we can franchise him.The problem with the franchise tag is that with all the escalators, it's essentially a one year thing. Works fine for 2008, but wouldn't using the tag on a guy make it harder to get a long term deal done.

I realize it could buy us more time, and that alone could be worth it, but we won't have the cap room in 2009 to Franchise him again. I'd like to see a deal done before November.

Does anyon know when the lat time was that the Redskins re-did a contract during the season? Was it Lavar? I'm not sure, but it would be nice to lock Cooley up so we don't have to sweat on it.
Maybe we throw in a couple a more cheerleaders for incentive. Blah, ha, ha ,ha ha, ha!

We just resigned Betts during the season, and it probably saved the team a ton of money.