FOX Sports Says Pierce is Gone

if we do lose pierce we won't know exactly what we've lost until we see him play for another team, in a different system but if we lose smoot we do know what we are losing , not the best cb in the league but a pretty good one.

Damn, very dissapointed about this. I'll still hold out the same hope, but man that is a blow. Well I was saying today if we can keep just him or smoot I'll be happy.

Please Fred!

He's not worth the money.

Neither was Dieon Sanders, Bruce Smith, Mark Brunell, Jesse Armstead, Trotter, or Borrow, however Pierce deserves it more than any of thers guys.

He's not worth the money.

What do you base that on?

The difference is, with the exception of Trotter none of the other guys were products of their respective systems. Just too old to perform. Or in Barrow's case - injured.

Here's the thing though: let's say that Pierce is a product of this system, which I'm not so sure about because when Kurt Schottenheimer was the DC here he was pretty high on Pierce, but does that really matter? I mean aren't we planning-hoping?-to have the same system in place for several years anyway?

It's not as if we're pondering whether to keep Stephen Davis but we're switching to the Fun 'n Gun

skin' FO shoulda locked these two up when they saw how awful the maret was going to be... their bad, now they got to either pay up fast or look at their other options.

I have a feeling the giants severly backloaded the contract and it might be worth picking up for 2-3 years with such a tiny bonus... just a thought.

Smootsmack - it means he's not worth the money when you can plug someone else into the spot. I like Pierce, I liked him before he was a starter for the team and like how much depth we had at linebacker. He did an amazing job this year and surpassed everyone expectations - but he's simply not worth that type of money. I hate to see a division rival get him, but I can't fathom paying him that.

Pierce was a great player for us and he's got a super career ahead of him. It's tough to lose him, but that is free agency. Last year, we got a player who made a tremendous difference for us from the Giants in Cornelius Griffin. You can't have everything go your way.

The most important thing is to build a team with a winning spirit that isn't based on stars but really creates an atmosphere where everyone is seen as important and everyone has an important role. If a free agent like Mike Barrow goes down, you have an Antonio Pierce ready to fill in the void like this past season. If Arrington goes down, here comes Lemar Marshall. Or if you are the NE Patriots, you have a Troy Brown that can even be willing to play defensive back.

In a star system, the team is just the sum of its parts. You lose a key part, then you have a problem. Players think they are more important than the team generally.

In a team spirit system, if a player goes down or is lost, you have people there who are already there to replace him, who already believe in themselves and their importance, and they have self-confidence and the desire to make the team more important than individual accomplishment. Whoever is playing isn't griping about what sort of plays they are getting called for them - they are willing to sacrifice for the good of the whole.

That is the kind of atmosphere we are building on the Redskins. It was harder to get that going on offense for various reasons last year, but we are building that thanks to Joe Gibbs and the staff.

I'm confident we will have players who will step up and be able to fill in for Pierce in different ways. Barrow is there, and maybe with Pierce gone, another player or two will have a chance to step up and provide the leadership that Pierce did.