11 hours ago
(Yesterday, 05:55 PM)Au165 Wrote: Hindsight is 20/20 but....everyone was super interested in us signing Christian Wilkins. Had we done that everyone would have proclaimed we were amazing and were all in on free agency. The dude hurt his foot early in the year missed all but 5 games and there is serious concern he may need another surgery and miss another chunk of this upcoming season. The Raiders have a TON of money now sunk in a guy who may never really deliver any value and they can't get out of that deal for at least one more year. Major foot injuries on big guys approaching 30 are usually death sentences.
The right plan is the plan that works. The wrong plan is the one that doesn't. Very few ever go back though and talk about the consensus "right plans" that didn't work either because they are too busy harping on our plan that was wrong here. Right now, we still probably have a better chance of getting value out of the two DT's we drafted last year than the Raiders do of getting Value out of Wilkins. We will see what happens but had we taken and connected on the biggest possible swing at DT last year we still would have been screwed so I think it's kind of tough to look at it as if there was an "easy" answer.
Good post.
I admit I wanted Wilkins. But I wanted to retain Reader more. Also was a big fan of Williams in Seattle, but he re-upped there.
This year? I thought the FA DTs were wildly overpaid. Passing on the big tickets and bringing back BJ Hill for $9 mil and signing a tank NT was fine with me. Though I did love me some Calais Campbell. IDK at $7 mil, though.
If we'd have structured Chase/Higgins better ($11 mil in cap space), or restructured Burrow (+19 mil), then we could have spent bigger. Or waiving Moss/Stone.
As is, we have around $15-$16 mil in real cap space for Trey's extension and a cushion for injury signings and IR. With Peatt & Volson on the roster
