adam

After Wilson and Wagner deals, Seattle has to clear some cap space. McDaniel will probably sign with a 4-3 team, but he would be a decent pickup to fill the hole made by McDonald (and only a few letters to change on uniform). Could he work as a DE in a 3-4? Just curious because he is only 30, played for SEA the last 2 seasons, and shouldn't cost more than $2-$3 mil per year. On a totally unrelated side note, I did some research (not complete yet) after the Wilson and Wagner signings and found that there are 12 teams that will have over $70mil in cap space tied to their top 6 players in 2016 (basically 6 players taking up half their cap space): SEA, DEN, GB, PIT, CAR, BAL, BUF, DET, DAL, NO, ARZ, and MIA. NE, CIN, and IND were the only 3 playoffs teams that don't fit that mold. I actually find that somewhat interesting. Obviously all those teams have better players (who require more money to keep) but you would think that the bottom of their roster would be weaker with less money. Now those numbers are for 2016, so there is a good chance that many of them won't be next year.

From initial reports, Royal, Ratliff, and McManis have stood out so far.

In the NFL.com interview, I liked the fact that he was aware that it could've easily been him sent packing when the new staff was brought in. He said something to the effect of "I could've been the guy that was shipped out of here". To me I think it a least shows that he shouldered some of the blame for the "chemistry" and also shows that the new staff had some trust in him. Hopefully the balance he displayed in the interview will translate to the field.

That link brings me to Potash's top 5, and none of them are Pace.

Awesome, would hate to lose anyone.

Pretty cool Fantasy Football primer with Hroniss Grasu: https://vimeo.com/129000196 I really like this kid and hope he becomes the next Olin Kruetz and anchors our line with Long for the next decade.

I believe Bowling had mentioned that he would not be playing this year.

Guys, here are the teams from last season, please confirm your teams and then we can determine how many openings we have for new GM's. Some of you use different team names, usernames, GM names so it is not clear who is who. We also have to track down the Commissioners. This is what I am tracking so far, and once I get a few other team/GM names locked in, we can start adding as needed. Keeper - Pay League 1. Grizzled - DJ 2. The Bunny - Ary (Commish) 3. PapaBear - Kam 4. The Mad Lithuanians - Andrew 5. Ravens Party Bus - Brad 6. Crushers - Bowlingtwig - will need possible replacement GM 7. Nopper - Nopper 8. Victorious Secret - Stinger 9. Cali Bears - Sully 10. Domination Inc - Adam TB2 - Free League 1. Ragz to Bitchez - D 2. Jock Rock - Brad 3. Pix Picks - Pixote 4. Legion of Doom - Greg 5. Victorious Secret - Stinger - will need replacement GM 6. Domination Inc - Adam 7. bowling's Okay Team - Bowlingtwig 8. Deathtongue - Lloyd (Commish) 9. Forte yds to Freedom - Aaron 10. TravD - Travis 11. 12.

Ok good, we just need to reach out to the commissioners to renew the leagues to see where we stand with active coaches. I had a team in the paid Keeper league and Talkbears2 (free) league.

Just checking in to see if we will be continuing our TalkBears Keeper and non-Keeper leagues this year? I believe Drunkbomber is the Commish for the keeper league, but I have not seen him on here in a month or so. With that said, are the past managers still interesting in continuing the leagues this year? Any other members wanting to join in?

What do you expect from a trophy wife? I don't even know how she is famous or why they continue to interview her.

You don't know who Mathis is? Back to back Pro Bowls and an All-Pro in 2013. John Fox was his coach in Carolina (where he was drafted), so there is that. He is going to have a lot of suitors.

He listed Allen after McPhee, and I can see Houston rotating in all over the front 7. Young, if healthy can spell either OLB, and Bostic is good depth inside with SMC. To me that is good to have that rotational depth.

Grizz, To me it is about the yards after contact. Langford seems to be pretty good in that category and also makes defenders miss. I would say he is comparable to a younger Forte, but Matt has clearly lost a step or two. Langford is a burner; Carey seems like the odd man out.

Yeah, he was mentioned in the ChicagoBears.com article here: http://www.chicagobears.com/news/article-1...95-a90cd165c734 It never hurts to add playmakers.

https://twitter.com/newsdamian/status/602863636873248768

I just like the competiton at all levels of the roster. If he doesnt make the roster, then our backend of the 53 man is pretty solid.

Acho was actually really good 2011-2012 where he started 26 games, had 70 tackles, 11 sacks, 2 INT, 5 PD, and 6 FFB. He broke his leg in 2013 and spent most of the season on IR. He just lost the starting job due to injury and couldn't crack the starting lineup in a really good Cardinals defense. If you are talking to a Cards fan about Acho over the last two years, that would make sense, but he was one of their better player in 2011 and 2012.

From an expectation management perspective, I really don't know how much more one organization can do in an offseason. Pace is already better than Emery (I know that is not saying much), and most of the front office moves could be seen as upgrades. The entire coaching staff is a massive upgrade (Trestman In terms of the players, I actually see Ola winning the RT job and Grasu winning the job over Montgomery at some point in the season. We then have Ducasse, Fabuluje, Groy, and Mills for depth. With Mills not in the starting 5, we got better. Like it or not, Cutler is at least the starting QB for this year and probably next year. To me, regardless of the QB, it is hard to win when your team is allowing 30+ pts a game (7 times). Trestman was fool's gold and I think the team got a raw deal with him at HC vs OC. Cutler now has more diverse weapons (Jeffery, White, Royal, Bennett, Forte, Langford) than he ever has. The line is decent and will be better than last year, so if he doesn't improve and play like a top 12 QB, then we really need to move on. The skill positions on offense are probably better than last year even with the loss of Marshall. We gained Royal, White, and Langford to compensate for the loss of Marshall. On defense, the D-Line looks to be a strength with decent rotational depth. I have no complaints there with Goldman, Ratliff, McDonald, Ferguson, Jenkins, and Sutton. The Secondary is in transition and I feel like we have a good mix of youth (Amos, Fuller, Vereen) to go with some veterans (Rolle, Mundy, Jennings). The LB Corps is my biggest question mark because it seems like we have 20 LB's and only 4 positions and possibly 9 making the roster. If you don't start, you need to play special teams. So McPhee, Young, Allen, Houston, Foster, Bostic, Jones, and Acho make 8, that means 1-2 roster spots for: SMC, Bass, Washington, Dunn, Lattimore. If guys like Bostic or Jones are now subs, that means we upgraded enough to push them down the depth chart, which is a good thing. Either way, that is a pretty deep group of 8, with no really bad players in the bunch. I am thinking 7-9 is our low (2 game improvement with some other close games) and 11-5 is our high (we surprise teams and take advantage of a Suh/Fairley-less Lions).

Yeah since the last one was the next game against GB. Losing to GB twice in 21 days with one being in the NFCC (at home) really sucked. I guess it was fools gold because SEA was 7-9 and shouldn't have been in the playoffs anyway.

I was looking for something else and came across this full game video of the 2010 playoff game against Seattle. This was essentially Cutler's last good playoff game. He throws for 2 TDs, runs for 2 more, and doesn't throw a single INT. For those interested:

If he was that good, he would've been picked up by another team. I believe he ended up in the CFL and was out of football by 27. 2007 is still one of the worst drafts in my book.

Well they went with the kick at 15 and live ball for 2 pt conversion. It is gonna suck for teams to make a game tying drive only to have the Kicker miss the 33 yard XP and lose by one. Kickers just became a lot more important.

Yeah, 7 pts for a TD, unless you elect for 2 where a successful try gives you 8 and a failed try gives you 6. Basically the 2pt conversion really becomes +1 or -1. There were only 8 missed XPA in 2014 out of 1230 kicks. So less than one percent of the kicks potentially had an impact on the score and game. Why not just award the point, and speed up the game?

Yeah that was pretty bad. Enis over Moss is basically inexcusable.