Here’s Curry’s problem…weak coaching for a guy who’s life just turned upside down. In the past year he:

Moved across country.
Started a new job
Got married
Had his first child
Became a multmillionaire
Bought a house
New cars
Became an instant celebrity

He’s overwhelmed right now, and our coaching staff seems ill equipped to help out. He’ll adjust to his new role and you’ll see a completely different player next year.

Bobby,

You knocked it out with your analysis…great scenario. I have some follow up questions, which I’ll post tomorrow. Gotta spend some time with my girl tonight.

Happy TG everyone!

As Duke has said, we cannot be a jack of all trades and masters of none. We have no identity. None. We aren’t a running team (two of the worst rushing performances in franchise history in the last month). Since Matt doesn’t have time to throw, we’re not a passing team either.

On defense, we’re okay stopping the run but we’re certainly not as stout as we’d all like us to be, and our pass defense is well documented in how far we play off of receivers and how terrible our pressure is from the front four.

Basically, we don’t even know who we are. That must change. And I would begin this change by spending my time and resources, as GM, on the offensive line. I want defensive linemen to see us on the schedule and to get a sick feeling in their stomach because they are going to have a physically superior unit who will continually pound them for 60 minutes. And this isn’t Jim Mora press conference garbage about how “passion” and coaching is going to be enough to get our current unit to the QB. We all bought into it last off-season, but we’re not seeing the results each Sunday. The best way to actually improve the results is by improving the talent.

As it stands right now, my #1 job will be to sign Jahri Evans in free agency. I will overpay, but at least I’m overpaying a man who can legitimately say that he’s the best player at his position (RG) in the NFL. There is no other potential free agent who can say that he’s among the top 1-3 players at his position. None. And if anyone wants to talk about overpaying for “just a guard,” my response to that is that if any team in the NFL knows how important a dominant guard is… it’s the Seattle Seahawks.

My next job is to make phone calls to Miami (Jake Long), Denver (Ryan Clady), Cleveland (Joe Thomas), Baltimore (Michael Oher), etc. I want a dominant LT. After the QB position, I believe that LT is the second most important player on the football field each Sunday. Good things come with a price. I understand this. I am willing to trade Aaron Curry to make it happen. I am also willing to “throw in” something else. What would that be? I don’t know. Maybe a team would want their tackle replaced? I would trade Lock. Maybe they want a 5th rounder this year or a 3rd rounder next year? I’m not trading either 1st rounder or our 2nd rounder in addition to Curry. I can’t put a gun to anyone’s head and force them to trade their franchise offensive tackle and if a trade scenario doesn’t work out so then I begin studying the LTs in the draft and will be drafting one in the 1st round.

If we have Evans at RG and Willis at RT, then I believe we have a right side identity of other teams knowing that we’re going to run the ball over our right side and we’re going to be so good that opponents still won’t be able to stop us. Another nice thing about right side offensive line run blocking domination is John Carlson. He’s a very good run blocking TE. He makes it all the easier to run off the right side in short yardage situations. And he’s a prime candidate to get open on short yardage play action fakes that will keep defenses somewhat honest.

Unger is my Center. He’s going to be a good one.

At this point, I don’t know about LG. If Walt comes back and we’ve traded for Thomas, then Walt is at LT and Joe Thomas is at LG (and our LT in waiting). But this is a scenario where I’m not going to count on Walt (that would be stupidity)… I am going to select a LG with our 2nd rounder (preferably Mike Johnson). Even if we have to go with a #1 pick at LT and 2nd rounder at LG, that’s okay with me. We will have LT/LG/C where everyone is between 22-23 years old. If you want to build chemistry, there’s no better way to do it than to get young guys who will play together for a decade (and with Evans only being 27, he’ll be around for a long time too). Depending on whether we can trade for a LT, and not have to draft one, this would also affect resigning Rob Sims. I will not rule out Rob Sims, it just depends on what happens with everything else. Our line could look like:

LT Rookie
LG Sims
C Unger
RG Evans
RT Willis

LT Walt
LG Oher or Thomas or Clady… (Mike Johnson LG in waiting)
C Unger
RG Willis
RT Lock

There are so many scenarios that my head could explode. There’s no guarantee Evans will make it to FA. There’s no guarantees we could trade for a guy like Thomas, Oher, Clady, or Long. All I can say with certainty is that somehow, some way, the talent on the offensive line will be better.

We all know that we don’t live in a perfect world, but if we did and I could predict our OL, here’s what it would look like:

LT Walter Jones
LG Joe Thomas (Mike Johnson is our 2nd round pick)
C Max Unger
RG Jahri Evans
RT Ray Willis (Casey Knips would be drafted in the 4th or 5th in anticipation of not being able to resign Willis after the ’10 season)

Joe Thomas (or Michael Oher) was acquired for Aaron Curry and Sean Locklear. If necessary, I will add a draft pick. I don’t want to, but sometimes good things come with a price. And I don’t want a LT question mark. I view Lock as a solid RT and below average LT. He also makes a lot of money. Part of the reason I would trade him in a scenario like this is because it will save money by not having him on the roster (and he was replaced by a star). I will not get into a habit of trading draft picks for players (or throwing draft picks in), but in order to add a true superstar LT… I will pay a hefty price. I would love to have a dominant piece on the left side (Joe Thomas) and right side (Evans) so teams must remain honest on short yardage situations. All I know is that we will build a team who will rank among the highest in the NFL year-after-year in short yardage conversion percentage.

I view the QB position as the most important on any team. We have a good/great one and I believe he’ll be great with a good/great offensive line to provide him a running game. However, I don’t want to have a questionable back-up. Worst case scenario, we bring back Seneca as a FA at a reasonable salary. Best case scenario, we pick-up a salary cap casualty who can’t find a starting job. I think of a possible solution like Marc Bulger. When healthy, I think Bulger is one of the better QBs in the NFL. At least top 15-20. He was very good 5 years ago when he actually had good players like Pace, Holt, etc. When his talent (and OL specifically) declined, so did he. I think he’s only something like 32 years old so it’s not like he’s done for and I know he’d do well in an offense that actually had some decent talent (and our OL would be much improved). There are rules in place for the uncapped year in 2010 such as a player can’t make more of a percentage of his salary from one year to another. Basically, it’s a scenario where you can’t play a player $20 million for ’10 and then $5 million per year for 5 years after it. But, if a legit starter like Bulger can’t find a job and we know he’s good, I’d have no problem giving $9-$10 million to Bulger for one year and, actually, I’d want a club option for even more money as insurance in case Matt had a significant injury in ’10 and we needed Bulger as a starter for ’11 (as long as it’s at least a little bit than what Matt is scheduled to make, which I think is around $9-10 million). There are no rules against doing this in an uncapped year. Now, I’m not saying Bulger will even get cut loose from the Rams… I’m just stating the importance of making sure we have a good Plan B in place in case we lose Matt. I am not opposed to drafting a QB in the 1st round, it’s just something I’d rather not do at this moment in time (unless Matt has a health issue we don’t know about).

I like J-Force and would like to find a compliment to him. Worst case scenario is we have another year of Julius Jones (last year of his contract). I don’t want this and will do everything I can to add another runner. It’s just that you can’t always get everyone at every position you’d like. If there’s a way I could get Spiller in the early twenties, I’d do it.

Depending on the coaching staff, that would dictate FB. Say we have a WCO like Holmy or Gruden running the show… I would try to bring back Weaver. If Knapp is back (or if I have no say in this) I am okay with bringing back Griffith at a minimal contract. Schmitt will be playing the final year of his contract and will most likely contribute on ST.

I think TJ, Burleson, and Butler will be an okay trio. I really like what Obo has become on ST (when he’s playing defense). I’d like to add a young guy in the 2nd or 3rd, but, again, you can’t always have everything you want.

I love Carlson and what he’s going to be. I think our depth is fine, but with anything, would always be willing to find ways to make it better.

Defensively, are we going to stay with a 4-3 or will there be change to a 3-4? I’m going to assume we’re sticking with a 4-3.

If we have traded for a real LT and signed RG Jahri Evans in FA… then I will have achieved the #1 objective in improving the OL. This will allow a phone call to be made to the team with the #1 pick. I will offer both #1 picks and our 5th rounder for their #1, 2, and 3 picks. Originally, I thought about only offering both #1s for their #1 overall and their 2nd rounder. But with the rookie salary structure being so goofy, I think it’s perfectly legit to ask/tell them to add their #3 for our #5.

Drafting Suh with the #1 overall pick in the draft will also give us a defensive identity. Teams will know that they will not be able to run the ball up the middle on us and that there will be massive interior penetration on every play. This will cause offensive coordinators to lose sleep at nights and that’s what we want. It will be very much like what teams face when they play the Vikings. They know that Williams and Williams will not allow them to run the ball. I want teams to fear us like this. Suh, Mebane, Cole… will be a very, very good combination at DT (mainly Mebane/Suh). As long as we’re at it, I’ll see how Tubbs is doing and offer him a win-win contract if he wants to give it a shot. If not, oh well… nothing was lost. I don’t have medical records so this is simply speculation.

Can we sign Aaron Kampman (will he be healthy) or any other FA DE? Can we resign Tapp? Can Jackson be a legit DE? Kerney will be released due to salary cap considerations and lack of production for what he’s paid. I would be willing to bring him back though, but doubt he’d want to if his pride was hurt. I can’t say for sure what I’d do here because I don’t know if we traded for a LT, signed Evans, traded up for Suh, etc. There is a situation where I’d like us to potentially draft Derrick Morgan with our 1st rounder to light it up on the corner at DE for us. All I know is that I like Nick Reed but never want to count on him to be a starter. He’s a situational player. There’s no shame in that. He’ll be good in his role and I like good role players.

Even without Curry (if he’s gone in a Oher/Thomas/Long/Clady trade), this is a pretty solid unit. I can say with certainty that the Seahawks won’t take a LB with any pick in the first few rounds.

If ’10 is uncapped, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to bring back Grant (with him scheduled to make about $6 million in ’11 it’s pretty safe to say it’ll be his last year in Seattle though). This will keep us okay at SS.

Something has to be done with FS. I don’t have a problem with keeping Babs around for depth purposes, but we need a young guy. I’d want a FS with a 2nd round pick.

I think Tru and Wilson are a fine pair of CBs. We would have to add a CB in FA (not a major contract) and I would not be opposed to bringing back Jennings. He’s not as bad as some think. Ideally, I’d like to add a 2nd rounder here… but not with our situation at RB, OL, DL, and FS.

Basically, in a perfect world, we’d trade for an elite LT, sign a RG (Evans), and trade both 1st rounders and a 5th to a team for their #1, 2, 3…

We would draft Suh #1 overall. With the #2, #2, and #3 (1st overall pick in the 3rd) we would add a FS, LG, and BPA.

If there was a way to add CJ Spiller in the 20s… I wouldn’t be opposed to trading our two early 2nd rounders to the team in the mid 20s for their #1 and #2 (and if they wanted a #6 for their #7 too, I’d do it), which is also a late 2nd rounder (they may be willing… but remember, Spiller is still available and this IS a perfect world).

What to do with the 4th round pick? A SS like Myron Rolle? An OT like Casey Knips? BPA is the way to go, but I hope that BPA would be a SS or OL. If Spiller isn’t added… maybe this is a round to go RB… lots of scenarios…

Audible – Some or most of this would complete our division title hopes of 2010. We’d have a good/great OL. We’d have drastically improved our DL by adding a cornerstone player. We would finally have a decent FS. And we would have added a 4.3 playmaker who plays fast. This is a perfect world and we would compete for a spot in the Super Bowl next season:) Lots to think about and I actually even have many more scenarios that I’ve thought of, but it’s time to quit writing for now…

LoL!

Anywho..good post Duke, I agree with all of those points. I wonder how much Burleson could be re-upped for.

Also Audible- “A scene of non-football violence in Oher’s movie?! Wow, no wonder Ruskell didn’t draft him!” That was funny as hell m8.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL! *Raises glass to all the crazies on the blog who have taught me to be a discerning fanatic*

The o line in 2010 would look something like: LT – R, LG – Sims, C – Unger, RG – FA / R, RT – Lock. (This must be approached as though Walt is done)

As for their FA’s. I’d like to see Nate re-uped before he heads into a contract year. I think Tapp should also be a priority. Sims to should be retained, too.
The rest are a case by case.

Coaches – Knapp and DeHaven are history. And Ruskell is clearly gone because I’m calling the shots.

This isn’t perfect but I believe it is a solid starting point. It’s very brief and not as detailed as I would like (trying to do this quickly, food cooking!) But you get the general idea.

Th

We need help at DT, DE, OG, and LT, and safety. Can you think of a reasonable scenario that would enable us to fill those needs, stay under the cap, and get back to the playoffs? What would you do that would get us back into the playoffs?