NFL Offseason Updates

Happy Valentines Day to all you lovebirds out there!  I hope your day is filled with red, chocolate, and lots of whatever it is that makes you feel good.  Hallmark, Russell Stover, and (insert Jewlery store here) all thank you for your business.  What am I doing for Valentines Day you ask?  I am taking Jena to the Bonefish Grill in Owings Mills, one of our favorite places to go.  We've probably been to Bonefish more than any other restaurant.  Jena actually got me started on Bonefish (and especially the Bang Bang Shrimp...fantastic!).  It should be fun, so happy to share with you!

Yes, the title of this post is NFL Offseason Updates.  Now that the Super Bowl is safely behind us, we can take a look at how teams are starting to position themselves for the upcoming 2012 campaign.  We start with John Clayton's mailbag piece over at ESPN.  One of the interesting provisions of the new CBA is that teams can apparently roll over unspent salary cap room from year to year.  As a result, several teams are in very good shape as far as the cap goes to spend what they like to fill their needs in free agency.  One of those  teams just happens to be YOUR Washington Redskins ($47.56 million in cap room).  This is thanks to those salary cap geniuses who back in 2010 jam-packed the payroll with over $230 million, front-loading contracts like those for stalwarts like Albert (name will never be mentioned on this blog again) and Donovan McNabb.  In that season, everyone thought the Redskins were just going off the deep end spending as much money as they could.  They may still have, but at least when it came to the salary cap, it does look like they know exactly what they were doing.  Since they front loaded all of those contracts, the team was left with boku cap space for 2011, which they are now able to use in 2012 as well, giving us lots of flexibility when it comes to free agents.

Since it is Valentines Day, it seems appropo that the team (and the fans) have grown a love affair with Peyton Manning.  As covered here in detail, it seems like the Colts are ready to move in a different direction.  Jim Irsay has canned the coaching staff, and seem like they are 100% on board with Andrew Luck in the draft.  What does this mean for Peyton?  He's going to be a free agent, something that the Manning clan never really foresaw.  Then again, they also probably never foresaw multiple neck surgeries in 2011.  It just goes to show how much of an MVP Peyton really was to the Colts.  All signs point to the Colts cutting the elder Manning lose before they owe him a roster bonus on March 8th.  There has been lots of speculation that the Redskins would make a move on him (and according to Clayton's mailbag, a play on Reggie Wayne as well to sweeten the deal).  The Redskins certainly have the salary cap ammo to make that happen, as it looks more and more like our prospects for snagging RGIII in the draft are getting worse.  After all, Cleveland has multiple first rounders to deal, and they are just as quarterback strapped as we are.  Peyton Manning is the kind of big splash the Danimal loves to make, and we know that Mike Shanahan loves veteran quarterbacks

...ummmmmm, does Donovan McNabb ring any bells with anyone?  Just saying...

Assuming Manning does not pan out as this explanation dictates, our other options going forward are somewhat limited.  Picking 6th probably means we would have to trade back to get a guy like Ryan Tannehill from Texas A&M.  We could also potentially take a receiver at 6 in Justin Blackmon from Oklahoma State (Dustin is very high on both of these guys...perhaps we could do a draft profile on both of them?) and stand pat on the quarterback until the second round.  We would have to draft a developmental guy, not a start-right-away franchise guy, which in my opinion is why we have been floundering at quarterback for so long...we need a franchise guy!  For too long we've been taking late first rounders (Campbell, Ramsey), over-the-hill free agents (Brunell, McNabb), and guys that just plain suck (Grossman).  I know the last time we took a quarterback high in the draft (Heath Shuler) it bit us in the rump, but that was almost 20 years ago!  That scouting department is on the street.  One would think we could do a bit better this time around.