Mitch, I am truly saddened by the fact that we did not retain Logan Thomas. Of all our bubble personnel, he was indeed my favorite because he is the one that I felt was most like Andy Dufrane, (he literally did crawl through 5 football fields of excrement and came out clean on the other end). I thought that he made more progress with less opportunity to do so, than anyone else on the roster.
Throughout all of it, his big knock was that he was hopelessly inaccurate. There is no doubt that his pressure packed two minute drill to win the Raider's game, and his come from behind win in the second half of the Bronco's game, proved that he has put that argument to rest. He now throws the best deep ball of all our QBs, (Palmer included), and his accuracy for the entire 4 pre-season games is best among all our QBs. He also has shown a great deal of progress with BA's complicated offense, despite not getting the amount of reps that he could have had, or should have had in his one full year, and one off-season with the Big Red. I am greatly saddened that he will not be competing for the back-up QB position for us next year. We all knew that roster cuts would hurt this year, but little did we know that our own coaching staff would be somewhat complicit in the loss of at least one truly hard working and fast improving player from our roster. To my thinking, this was somewhat reminiscent of Ken Whisenhunt pounding a square peg into a round hole and then wondering why it was taking so long for him to learn the process.
Nearly just as hard for me to accept is the loss of S. Jones Q. His loss was simply due to the number and talent level of the safeties on our roster ahead of him. He will become a valued player for his new team, and I say that with complete confidence. I believe the same can be said for WR Shipley, and RB K. Williams. Sadly, in Shipley's case, it would appear that the staff opted for the potential up-side, (yet to be fulfilled by Brittan Golden), with his length and speed. It is doubtful that Golden will ever match the hard work of Shipley, much less his unmatched strength of hands as a receiver. They must be pretty confident that what is yet to come from Golden by way of size and speed and is far greater than Shipley could ever have mustered up. As of yet, Golden certainly has not shown the determination of Shipley nor has he shown the route running ability of Shipley, and he most certainly has not shown the ability for yards after the catch that Shipley has thus far. One simply cannot gain yards by running side to side without even attempting to turn up-field into harm's way.
Without naming all of them, there are still other players who would nicely have fit into our roster, but I am certain that the front office and staff had valid reasons for their choices. This is where it becomes hard for us lay people to understand what we cannot possibly know or see. Given their track record, I must bow to the wisdom and expertise which our front office and coaching staff have already proven to possess. They have said that these cuts would certainly not be easy to make and they were surely correct in that summation.
