[BigHairedAristocrat]

Allegedly, we let Dockery go because he was asking for an unreasonable amount of money and we didnt have the cap space to compete with other offers he was getting. Thats understandable. (Even though i think Dockery wasnt asking us for nearly as much as he got from buffalo. If management here had any forsight at all, they would have given dockery a new contract and then cut Randy Thomas when his contract became to expensive. Instead, they decided to put their money in a guy who was already over 30 at the time, instead of one who was barely 26... but i digress)

When we let Clark go, he was a very good starting safety asking for a very reasonable amount of money. we had the cap space, but we let him go to sign Archuletta to a deal where his garaunteed money was more than the total contract money it would have cost to keep Clark.

If we had kept Clark, not only would we have not drafted Archuletta, but we also wouldnt have needed to draft Landry either. So thats not one, but TWO huge contracts we had to sign because we didnt pay Clark his worth. Those two contracts (and draft pick in the case of Landry) could have been used to upgrade other areas of our team. At the time, DL was a very pressing need and it still is now.

If we had kept Clark, we could have signed one of the many DT/DEs available in place of Archuletta) and drafted another in 2007 place of Landry. Taking it a step further, with our DL situation pretty much set, we wouldnt have traded next years 2nd rounder and 2010s 6th rounder to Miami last year for Jason Taylor when Phillip Daniels got hurt. We also wouldnt have traded a 7th to the Vikings for James.

Entering this years draft, our DL would be set and we would have picks in rounds 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7.

Some can try to overlook snubbing ryan clark as being just one small mistake, but the way I see it, the trickle down effect was huge. Even if we chose to address different areas in free agency and the draft, our team would be stronger today.

This team has shown over the past decade that it overvalues other teams' free agents and our own old, decling veterans, while undervaluing our homegrown young guys. This team would be much younger, stronger, and in better salary cap shape right now if we had decided to pay guys like Antonio Pierce, Dockery, and Clark to stick around. All of them were the definition of "core skins" at the time and were offering us a hometown discount to stay. instead, we let them go and replaced them by signing older FA Vets, trading picks away for older vets (Kendall to replace Dockery), and spending high draft picks to replace them.