Time Is Ticking

[azdad1978]

by: Mike Jurecki




Time is ticking…

Arizona is about 6.3 million under the cap and would like to use some of that towards safety Adrian Wilson and wide receiver Anquan Boldin with pending contract extensions. With the way Wilson is playing, the price keeps going up. November 8th is the deadline according to "paragraph 5" in the CBA, if a team decides it wants to extend a current players contract, then they can increase the player’s base salary this year. Therefore it will count towards this year’s cap; anything after November 9 is counted as a signing bonus and will go against future years.

Listed below are projected free agents...

Exclusive rights - 4 (ERFA) - Players with two or fewer years of experience who have no outside negotiating power. Their rights belong to their previous club provided they are made a minimum qualifying offer.

OL-Jeremy Bridges
CB- Dyshod Carter
TE- Lorenzo Diamond
WR- Reggie Newhouse

Practice Squad- 8

The Cardinals must make offers to these players; otherwise they will become street free agents at the end of the season. Clubs may start signing practice squad players as soon as possible or begin signing street free agents players for the next season on January 3, 2005.

TE- Bobby Blizzard
WR- Lawrence Hamilton
LB- Issac Keys
QB- Chris Lewis
SS- Adrian Mayes
T- Jim Newton
FB- Joshua Rue
DE- Antonio Smith

International Practice Squad- 1
G- Rolando Cantu

Restricted Free Agents- 5 (RFA) - Players with three years of NFL experience. Like an unrestricted free agent, they are free to negotiate with any team, but the current team has the right to match any offer and if they do so they retain the rights to the player. Failure to meet the offer means the player is awarded to the new team, but the new team must give the old team compensation in the form of draft picks.

FS- Quentin Harris
LS- Nathan Hodel
DL- Ross Kolodziej
QB- Josh McCown
WR- Nathan Poole

Unrestricted Free Agents- 12 (UFA) - Players with four years or more of NFL experience who can sign with their own team or any other team in the NFL. If they leave their previous team, the team that signs them can do so without having to award the previous team compensation.

RB- Troy Hambrick
CB- Renaldo Hill
TE- Freddie Jones
LB- Ronald McKinnon
FS- Ifeanyi Ohalete
RB- Emmitt Smith
OL- Cameron Spikes
DB- Michael Stone
CB- Robert Tate
DE- Kyle Vanden Bosch
SS- Adrian Wilson
DE- Peppi Zellner

Franchise Free Agents (FFA) - Unrestricted free agents who have been designated as the "Franchise" player. Current team has the right to match any offer. If they refuse, they are given compensation by the new team the player has signed to play for.

Transitional Free Agents (TFA) - Players who can negotiate with any club but current team retains matching rights.

http://www.azcardinals.com/news/col_details.html?iid=281

 

[spanky1]

Out of each category, my "must resigns" are: Bridges; Keys,Mayes and A. Smith; Hodel, McCown and Poole; and Hambrick, Ohalete, Stone, Wilson and Zellner.

 

[Red Air Force]

Out of each category, my "must resigns" are: Bridges; Keys,Mayes and A. Smith; Hodel, McCown and Poole; and Hambrick, Ohalete, Stone, Wilson and Zellner.

Must Re-signs?!?! 3 of those guys are practice squaders, and McCown has proved to be average at best during his audition so far. Not to mention the fact that Stone has done little to nothing in four years, exept maybe as a gunner this year, and Poole, although a decent reciever, hasn't stepped up as yet this year, and could be easily replaced by any decent 4th reciever.

Hodel, I can see, he has proved to be an excellent long snapper, but Ohalete, Hambrick, and Zellner are still at best marginal starters, and offer much room for improvement at these positions.

The ONLY must resign player I see at this point is Wilson. ALL of the others are fodder, who need to prove that they should make this team next year.

EDIT: I forgot to include Bridges who appears to be a decent prospect, but needs more game time for a proper evaluation.

 

[joeshmo]

First of all if I understand correctly Jeremy Bridges is not a FA this year. He signed a 4 year deal in 2003 with Philly (http://espn.go.com/nfl/nfc/draftsignings2003.html) and we got him off of waivers which means we take on his contract that Philly gave him. So that means he wont be a FA for another 2 years.

As a team we will most likely resign all of or most of our EFA's. They are very cheap at about $325,000. With the rule of 51 starting again in the offseason these guys will have minimal to no cap implications. Plus it is better to fill your 80+ roster with these types of guys who know what training camp and offseason is all about and guys you have already invested time in training then with 20+ UDFA, practices are just run better that way. Plus I would much rather have these guys then any UDFA that would be available.

As for the RFA's we have to see if these guys are worth the minimum RFA bid of $628,000. Hodel will be back on the team, in fact I think we end up giving him a long term deal, he was Rackers LS in college, something I did not know. McCown will also be given a offer if only to at least hold his rights for trading purposes(who here thinks GB would jump on a trade for him if the price was right and if Green wanted to go another direction). Green likes Kolodziej as well so I think he will get an offer as well. As for Harris and Poole I think it matters as to what we see in FA, but in the end I think we give all 5 of our RFA's an offer as it to is failry cheap.

As for the UFA's, that is anyones guess.

 

[spanky1]

Must Re-signs?!?! 3 of those guys are practice squaders, and McCown has proved to be average at best during his audition so far. Not to mention the fact that Stone has done little to nothing in four years, exept maybe as a gunner this year, and Poole, although a decent reciever, hasn't stepped up as yet this year, and could be easily replaced by any decent 4th reciever.

Hodel, I can see, he has proved to be an excellent long snapper, but Ohalete, Hambrick, and Zellner are still at best marginal starters, and offer much room for improvement at these positions.

The ONLY must resign player I see at this point is Wilson. ALL of the others are fodder, who need to prove that they should make this team next year.

EDIT: I forgot to include Bridges who appears to be a decent prospect, but needs more game time for a proper evaluation.

Red Air Force,

Practice Squad players still have to have contracts and therefore they too need to be re-signed.

Every team has to have some, as you call them, "marginal" players on the roster. You can't have a full roster of "elite" or even "can play for any team" type of players in the salary cap era of football.

Going forward, every team will carry four (4) RB's.......two will be in the mold of a young Emmitt Smith or a Marshall Faulk and the other two will be in the mold of Shipp/Hambrick.

As for McCown.......I'm not going to go there.......as for Stone, every team has ST'ers and he is one heck of a good one.......as for Poole, who is better out there as a #4 or #5 WR and is available at his price.

Nuf said

 

[spanky1]

joeshmo,

I didn't realize that Hodel and Rackers were on the same college team........good scoop! And you are right, Hodel is a keeper long term.

 

[Mr.Dibbs]

Hodel, Hambrick, Hill, Brdiges, Josh (assuming he doesn't ask for tons of dough), Ohalete, Wilson, and Pepe would be nice to keep. These guys will at least give us solid depth. Emmitt would also be a nice addition, but we need a young RB. Hopefully Shipp will be in excellent form next year.

The rest I think we can replace though free agency or the draft. If we can finish 7-9, I think we will be able to draw at least a couple of solid FAs this off season.

Pool is a goner. I just have a feeling that he and McKinnon won't be back for sure next year. McKinnon will go to the Titans, and Pool will eventually get an offer from the Packers.

 

[Red Air Force]

Red Air Force,

Practice Squad players still have to have contracts and therefore they too need to be re-signed.

Every team has to have some, as you call them, "marginal" players on the roster. You can't have a full roster of "elite" or even "can play for any team" type of players in the salary cap era of football.

Going forward, every team will carry four (4) RB's.......two will be in the mold of a young Emmitt Smith or a Marshall Faulk and the other two will be in the mold of Shipp/Hambrick.

As for McCown.......I'm not going to go there.......as for Stone, every team has ST'ers and he is one heck of a good one.......as for Poole, who is better out there as a #4 or #5 WR and is available at his price.

Nuf said

I get that, but my point is that only Wilson is a "must re-sign". I'm not saying that they have no value, or serve no purpose on this team, but none of them are ireplaceable. I'll use Gilmore as an example of a guy whos value to the team was overestimated, and was given an inflated contract.

 

[TJAM]

joeshmo,

I didn't realize that Hodel and Rackers were on the same college team........good scoop! And you are right, Hodel is a keeper long term.

Another tid bit...........Rackers holds the record at Illinois for all time points and his LS for all four years and all his kicks was Hodel. In Rackers senior year , they had the fastest time of any college combo from snap to kick, which also was faster than most of the pro snapper / kick times.

They would be a nice combo to keep together for a while. I talked to Rackers once and he was extremely confident in his abilities and attributed part of it to his ability to being able to focus 100% on the kick because he knew that the ball was going to be where it needed to be when his foot swung thru the spot where the ball was to be. Apparently he starts his movement to the ball way before the snap even takes place, since it only takes about .3 sec for it to get to the holder.

 

[arthurracoon]

Hodel is a keeper long term.

I dont think this guy has ever messed up a long snap. *knock on wood*

 

[Chaz]

I dont think this guy has ever messed up a long snap. *knock on wood*

DOH!!!





That was close

 

[john h]

Must Re-signs?!?! 3 of those guys are practice squaders, and McCown has proved to be average at best during his audition so far. Not to mention the fact that Stone has done little to nothing in four years, exept maybe as a gunner this year, and Poole, although a decent reciever, hasn't stepped up as yet this year, and could be easily replaced by any decent 4th reciever.

Hodel, I can see, he has proved to be an excellent long snapper, but Ohalete, Hambrick, and Zellner are still at best marginal starters, and offer much room for improvement at these positions.

The ONLY must resign player I see at this point is Wilson. ALL of the others are fodder, who need to prove that they should make this team next year.

EDIT: I forgot to include Bridges who appears to be a decent prospect, but needs more game time for a proper evaluation.

Like you of this group the only must is Wilson as I see it. We would look like the same old Cards if we let him get away.