random thoughts

[DEBUCSOWN]

Just sucks we dont have the cap spaasce to sign a tulloch or hawthorne or lofton. If so just barely & we still have too many other needs. & as much as id like to trade down and get a lb in the draft..Richardson or Claiborne would have a more immediate impact.

Says who?

As I was reading in another post we have about 17ish million. Depending what barber does and other positions we still need to fill + draft it won't be much

[BucBalla85]

Just sucks we dont have the cap spaasce to sign a tulloch or hawthorne or lofton. If so just barely & we still have too many other needs. & as much as id like to trade down and get a lb in the draft..Richardson or Claiborne would have a more immediate impact.

Says who?

As I was reading in another post we have about 17ish million. Depending what barber does and other positions we still need to fill + draft it won't be much

Dude that's plenty of space for a LB. Barber should be last priority. I'd give a LB and RB money before resigning Barber. Plus Barber shouldn't get 4-5 mil anyways for a small role he will play. Especially if Claiborne is the pick. Use about 12-13 mil to sign a RB, LB, and Barber and you still got plenty of money to sign draft picks and small 1 year deals.

[DEBUCSOWN]

Its not plenty of space for an above average linebacker. We have like 10 spots that need filling.

[DEBUCSOWN]

Dont get me wrong I hope your right..I just don't see us landing any decent lb..draft it is.

[BucBalla85]

We will upgrade the LB position because our current LB are less than average. Getting average LB will at least help prevent big plays like the LB allowed last year.

[TheQ]

The Quincy Black deal that Dom gave him is pulling down the LB situation. They have to keep him and that is a shame.

[John Galt?]

We didn't sign Lofton because he wanted CB money for a 2 down position. Lofton is just a 2 down LB, good against the run but poor coverage skills and you don't pay $9 mill+ for that. $6mill-$7mill is far more reasonable.

Now you will notice no other team has signed him either. That means to me that Tampa and others are waiting for his ego to chill and price to drop.

[BucBalla85]

The Quincy Black deal that Dom gave him is pulling down the LB situation. They have to keep him and that is a shame.

If we didn't resign him we'd be able to sign 2 LBs. Doms worst move so far.

[wreck ship]

I stopped reading after our lbs are fine. Far from. Id say thats our biggest hole. Only lb on the roster worth a Damn and purely based on potential is foster.

"biggest hole"?

That means we should have gave Lofton what he wanted or we spend our 5th pick on a LB.

The fact that the position is still Fosters say's Schiano and Davis don't see red flags when they look at that unit.

Like I said fosters the only keeper. What's a bigger hole please enlighten me. Only arguable one imho is 3rd down rb cause blount can't block or catch

DT, CB, RB

I'm not saying we are set for life at LB but I'm not blowing it out of proportion to the extent that we need to waste out 5th pick on a lb or over pay for a FA lb.
I heard somewhere that Schiano wants his lb's to be Able to play all three positions. I'm sure he saw them playing out of position on film which leads me to believe that he and Davis are not prioritizing revamping that unit over improving an offense that can't score in the 1st half of games.

[BucBalla85]

We won't draft a LB at 5 and we won't overpay for one because there isn't anybody good enough to take one @5 and there is nobody good enough to overpay. If Patrick Willis hit the market you gotta believe the Bucs would have been willing to cough up the money to get him cause he's worth it. Lofton isn't worth what he's asking for. Like I said just an awful year to need a LB but there is plenty out there we can afford and are better than what we currently have.

[bashear]

It's hard to tell what we have on the roster after last season, but I'm more concerned about our LBs than the OP.

The OP also states that Freeman should be a top 6 QB. while I would be stunned if he is. First, he's not shown that he will ever be a top 6 QB in the league, and, while it's feasible he does have the talent to be one, I don't get the idea that the QB in Schiano's offense will ever be a top 6 QB.

? I thought he proved he can be in in his 1st full season as a starter.

He showed promised that one year, but he "proved" nothing. List the top QBs in the league: Rodgers, Brady, Brees, P.Manning. Think of all the others vying for the 5th or 6th spot. Do you feel Freeman "should" be in that mix next year? In Schiano's offense, to boot? That's quite a stretch, but I'd love to see it happen. Heck, I hate to say it, but a legit case could be made that Freeman is the fourth-best QB, just looking at the NFC South. Top 6 overall next  year? C'mon. man.

[BucBalla85]

Freeman can easily bounce back. It really depends on him because he has shown he can be a good qb. Just really needs to be consistent.

[Broke.Phi.Broke]

I stopped reading after our lbs are fine. Far from. Id say thats our biggest hole. Only lb on the roster worth a Damn and purely based on potential is foster.

Agree. Our LB are far from fine.

+2

+3

[Madman]

Its not plenty of space for an above average linebacker. We have like 10 spots that need filling.

Plenty of cap room for Tulloch or another LB. Can't fix everything in one offseason and bringing in 10 FAs isn't the solution.

Find a quality vet LB and then look to the draft for young legs at RB and CB/S help.

[BucBalla85]

Yea it's likely we will still have some holes to fill when the season starts believe it or not. We lost 10 in a row last year. You don't do that without some major holes. Coaching was obviously one of them but hopefully that turns out better. There was still obvious holes with coaching aside. We have addressed some very important ones and that will make us a better team alone. I don't think anybody expects us to win the sb or even go to the big game, but the moves we made and will make before the season starts will improve our playoff chances. I think we will at the very least be competitive in our division again and games will be fun to watch again. It's just unrealistic to expect us to fill all of the needs after we had so many after this past season. It should take another offseason or two before we fill out our roster and gain the depth we need to be consistent contenders but this offseason was a great step in the right direction.