adam

Saints UFA's of interest (ties to Pace): Patrick Robinson, CB, 27 Mark Ingram, RB, 25 Ramon Humber, ILB, 27 Robert Meachem, WR, 30

I don't know about this guy, he only placed 361st in his age group in the 2014 Austria Ironman, and it took him 12 hours and 45 minutes to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and then run a marathon. https://twitter.com/RobertDriskell/status/4...7322624/photo/1

Here are some realistic candidates that are under 30: Defense: S: Devin McCourty, 28 Will Hill, 25 Tashaun Gipson, 25 LB: Brandon Marshall, 25 Jason Worilds, 27 Craig Robertson, 29 Brandon Spikes, 27 CB: Brandon Flowers, 29 Kareem Jackson, 27 Byron Maxwell, 27 DL: Ndamukong Suh, DT, 28 Terrance Knighton, DT, 29 Nick Fairley, DT, 27 Jared Odrick, DT, 27 Jerry Hughes, DE, 27 Brandon Graham, DE, 27 Offense: OL: Stefen Wisniewski, C, 26 Orlando Franklin, OG, 27 Mike Iupati, OG, 28 King Dunlap, OT, 29 WR: Cecil Shorts, 27 Kenny Britt, 26 Andre Holmes, 27 Denarius Moore, 26 FB: Henry Hynoski, 26 Cory Harkey, 25 Will Johnson, 25 Jed Collins, 29 RB: Stevan Ridley, 26 Shane Vereen, 26 Jaquizz Rodgers, 25 Roy Helu, 26 Mark Ingram, 25 Ryan Mathews, 27 TE: Jordan Cameron, 27 Chris Clay, 26 Niles Paul, 26 QB: Jake Locker, 27 Ryan Mallett, 27 Mark Sanchez, 28 Austin Davis, 26

I thought Pace did great in the presser and revealed a few things. I actually like that he picked the Bears and felt that it was the right fit and he wasn't desperate or looking for "the next job". Just him listing off the characteristics of the QB makes it seem like there is no way Cutler is back this year (or at least not in the long term plans): After saying things like "reliable" and "instincts" and "intangibles" which are basically what Cutler lacks, I really don't know how an interview is going to change his view on him. Also, I liked that he said that he wants the coach to be able to maximize the player's abilities with the schemes and not pigeon-hole them into something they are not (McClellin anyone?). Then he also mentions about drafting BPA and not to weight the needs so high. McClellin was basically not a need, BPA, or in the right scheme, so Emery failed 3 times on the same pick. Also, merging of the scouting departments makes a lot of sense, since technically the traits you are looking for should be similar. He also said he would use analytics, but it was only another tool - which is in stark contrast to Emery who would go into detail about all the stats he looked at: Lastly, this might sound weird, but I liked his energy. He was enthusiastic and is big on everyone buying into the plan, which is much easier to do with a boss that you respect and trust, and a vision you believe in. In a way Emery might have gotten a raw deal at first with the "you must keep Lovie deal", then he did the same thing to Trestman with Marinelli, so the culture was tainted from the beginning. As Pace said, his next step (and arguably biggest) is getting the right HC. This will be our first true assessment of Pace, so I will withhold any judgement until after that selection, but all signs are pointing to this being a great move by the franchise.

Just kidding, but here are some videos of Ryan Pace if you haven't seen them: http://www.neworleanssaints.com/media-cent...70-0645c279fa4d http://www.neworleanssaints.com/media-cent...cf-c411bc91921c

Nice one. I really didn't know a lot about him, but the more I read on him, the more I like. I will go on record and say that I approve of this hire.

I just remember initially not having a good feeling about Emery (whether it was his age or connection to the Bears), but this is what I initially had to say, when speaking about the GM candidates, lol:

Once again thanks for the great info.

I actually got a ticket once for not stopping at a red light before a right turn when I actually stopped twice. I stopped about 6 feet short, then pulled up and did a rolling stop before turning and the cop said I never stopped. I tried to explain that I had stopped before the line then pulled up to see the traffic. He didn't care and said that he didn't see me. I actually had to restrain my wife from getting out of the car to yell at him.

It is cheaper to keep him. With him on the roster the cap hit would be $5.2, if cut, it would go up over $1 mil due to bonuses, etc. So he is on this team in 2015 unless he is traded.

Things are definitely speeding up.

If you can trade them and take most of their cap hit off the books fine, but otherwise I think Cutler and Marshall stay at least one more year. Looking at Dead Money vs Cap Savings, these are the players with with a huge cap savings (Forte) or comparable dead money to cap savings value: Name - Dead Money / Cap Savings Forte $1,000,000 / $7,800,000 Houston $3,960,000 / $3,030,000 Gould $1,800,000 / $1,800,000 SMC $1,888,036 / $741,227 So Houston would cost $6,990,000 to keep or $3,960,000 to cut. The big savings really come after 2015: Name - Dead Money / Cap Savings Cutler $3mil / $14mil Marshall $3.75mil / $6.25mil Bushrod $4.4mil / $4.3 mil Allen $0 / $8.5mil Houston $2.97mil / $4.02mil Bennett $1.15mil / $5.18mil Jennings $1.5mil / $4.25mil Gould $1.mil/ $2.9mil Cutting these 8 would equal dead money just over $18 mil, but would save almost $50 mil. So if they all played in 2016, their cap hits would total around $68 mil.

Looks like we had Brian Gaine and Lake Dawson todayyesterday and have Ryan Pace and Chris Ballard tomorrowtoday. I assume the Ballard announcement will come Friday?

I would say my order of preference would be: Bowles, Quinn, Kubiak, and Toub, and I would not be interested in Shanny. Obviously Bowles and Quinn for their defensive prowess, Kubiak for his ties with Cutler and Zone Block Scheme), and Toub for his blue collar style and ties to the Bears (seen as good and bad). I would be ok with any of them to be honest.

He would be a huge upgrade over Mel Tucker.

I could see a team like Seattle or New England taking a look. Great teams without a true #1. Also, CAR, PHI, or KC as well who are cusp teams without a legit #1. Like others have mentioned, Marshall and Alshon are sort of redundant commodities. Jeffery has actually led the team in receiving the last two years, so the torch has already been passed. With that said, Marshall does bring some competitiveness to the team. That SF game was epic. I would give this core one year to prove themselves, and if not, dump Cutler, Marshall, and Forte (FA) after 2015. I would also cut/trade SMC, Houston, Allen, Bushrod, Jennings, and Gould after this season (if they are not gone already).

I don't mind the trade down, especially if it parlays picks, but I can't see NE giving up that much to move up to #7. Also, it would be hard for me to pick an RB in the 2nd round when we have Forte, especially one who has never played since an ACL injury. We just have too many holes on defense that we almost have to go defense, defense the first two picks. I like McKinney, Grasu, and Fisher.

I was looking at Pro Football Reference's AV (approximate value) rating and based on this year's stats, Wilson would be comparable to Watt and Kuechly. Suh would be slightly lower because of the lack of stats. Then if you consider the difference between Cutler and Wilson vs Watt and Allen, there is a bigger value difference between Watt and Allen. Same could be said for Kuechly and (any Bears LB). If you compared Earl Thomas to Chris Conte (using the AV rating), the difference is actually comparable to Wilson vs Cutler. For odds, they are trying to balance the betting, so the more the public bets on one side, the more the line goes up. So a bigger impact on a line is more to do with public opinion than the actual impact on the game. Favorites are not always the better team, they are just the team with the most bets on their side.

Looking at KC's staff, since Toub is there, I am just throwing some names out with offensive experience: Brad Childress and Tom Melvin

Tell that to Dave McGinnis.

I like everyone but Everett. Top 3 would be awesome. We still would need a legit MLB.

Very tough to assess exactly how many wins they would be worth. Wilson has a lower completion %, TD and INT rates, but a higher Y/A. So Wilson would have had around 25 TDs to 9 INTs with 63% Completions and 4200 yards passing using Cutler's attempts. I would have to figure out how much 9 less INTs would be, the extra yardage and 3 less TDs. For the other players, I think those players would be worth more than one extra win. JJ Watt was arguably the best player in the NFL and had an impact on almost every single play. In a way, he possibly would have more impact than Wilson if added to a team since Wilson would not have as much impact on all running plays where Watt is disruptive on every play from at least a scheme standpoint. Suh is huge and impacts both the pass and run, and Kuechly is the QB of the defense. I believe those 3 individually are worth 2-4 games if they are on our team.

That is a pretty good analysis about practice versus game days, but I completely discount anything Dilfer says about playing football. He was arguably the worst QB to ever win a Super Bowl and I never understood why ESPN felt he had any credibility. I agree about the OLine and lack of protection. Those ghosts are real, and Carr never truly recovered and had similar bad habits.

Cutler is not the biggest problem, but you are right that the QB position has the most impact on the game. However, some other positions and impact players can have close to the same amount of impact on our team. Just think if we had JJ Watt? How about Suh in the middle? How about Kuechly as MLB? The defense has allowed the most points in team history in back to back years. It has been historically bad and not even Wilson makes this magically a playoff team. Do we win a few more games with Wilson, sure, but we probably go 8-8 with him at the helm. We only lost 3 games when the defense allowed less than 30 (BUF, MIN, and MIA). Do you really think Seattle is a playoff team if they had our defense? I don't think so. However, I could easily see them still being a playoff team with Cutler at QB. Besides our ridiculously bad defense (of all-time), we had one of the worst Special Teams units in football with us giving opponents the best field position in the league starting at the 32 and giving our offense the 7th worst starting position in the league at the 26. That is over 1000 yard difference over an entire season and about 64 yard swing per game.

I agree Cutler is not the biggest problem, but he remains part of it. When evaluating INTs, you almost have to look at all attempts versus just INTs. Cutler had some INT's that were definitely not his fault, but he also had a bunch of near miss INTs that should've been INTs (dropped by defender). So in the end it almost evens out. If you look at Cutler holistically, he has some serious flaws and actually took a step backwards this year (for some reason), but in the end still remains a viable option at QB. One of the biggest things was with expectation management. Everyone expected a huge year from him and the offense this year and the consistency was not there. Some have pointed to the fact that Cutler had the ability to audible out of plays and switch from run to pass or pass to run at the line, and this led to most of the confusion this season. So as the season went on, teams just showed a certain front to initiate the audible, only to drop into the coverage needed for the expected play. The team also had a bunch of pre-snap penalties that can be linked to these line calls. Not that any of the audibles were right or wrong, they just added a layer of complexity to the offense that seemed to be one of the roots of the problem. To Cutler's defense, the offense play calling was horrible. Even when there was no audible, the offense was never in rhythm. I also believe the team had a bunch of dropped passes that were legit drops and not necessarily bad passes. In the end, I still believe we can win with a Cutler-caliber QB, but not unless the defense gets back to at least a respectable level and the Special Teams doesn't pin us behind the 20 every drive.