More trade news: The #Chiefs are deep in talks with the #49ers on a trade for star pass-rusher Dee Ford, sources say. Things have escalated and this could get done by the end of the night. Ford needs to work out a new contract with SF, which is a big piece of this.
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
That's my frustration - the lack of value on the 'now' from folks celebrating this deal.
All anyone wants to talk about is that we turned a potential 2021 comp pick into a 2020 2nd rounder. Okay...but we lost our best pass-rusher and probably the best pure pass rusher in the league last season.
This 'he's a speed rusher' stuff is ridiculous. Ford came into the league as a speed rusher but he was absolutely capable of beating guys in several ways as he developed. He started using that lever/stiff-arm that Houston was so good with last season. He developed a true rip move that would allow him to get inside guys. Shit, he demonstrated a bull rush on several occasions. His footwork was great and his hand skills were improved to the point of very good, if not elite.
Ford was a straight up, bad-ass pass-rusher last season. He wasn't Bruce Irvin needing to line up wide and run fast around lead-footed tackles to succeed. He was able to convert speed to power and use the threat of speed to get inside guys. He was a genuinely dynamic, elite pass-rusher.
That has a TON of value, if only for a single season. And no, he wasn't a disaster against the run either. He was below average if you ran straight at him but he was outstanding as a pursuit defender which made running away from him a trick. He had a clear weakness - he wasn't outstanding at setting the edges on runs to his side, but now you're in a 4-3 where that weakness could be obviated somewhat by having a Will right behind him to clean up or fill.
But it's done. And our GM has demonstrated a pattern of extremely questionable FA acquisitions. And the market is pretty much barren at this point.
So do I want to trust our pass-rush to Chris Jones in a new role and some late-round rookie? No - but it's the best of bad options now that we've dealt our best pass-rusher for a middling return.
Those are good observations on the evolution of his rushing ability. He’s still a one-dimensional player whose skills are situational.
Yes, the scheme might hide some or cover up for some of his weakness against the run by positioning that LB “over” him, but good teams are going to scheme to run right at him, and moving him to DE is only going to exacerbate that. IMO. Not the type of talent to bet on long-term or build around, and if you’re not doing that, it’s ok to move on from him.
On the return, I hoped for more... but the fact he was so good as a pass-rusher last year but had so little trade interest just shows what the rest of the league thinks of hill (some combination of one-trick pony and major injury risk).
If Veach’s plan is to nab one of Sweat or Ferrell or Omenihu, etc. and add a bit of pass rush ability while improving base run D, and add a cheap situational pass rusher, I’m on board with that. I think that makes the defense as a whole better.
Especially if the plan includes using some of the freed-up dollars to extend a key piece or trade for a CB or sign a few more pieces.
Ford isnt a good fit for Spags scheme. I get the trade. I'm just not confident in Speaks and that other dude but obviously I'm not there in practice. I only know what ive seen during the games.
I'm sure Veach and Spags have a plan just hope it works out. Better draft well because other than Chris Jones right now our dline looks like shit to me. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Here's the thing with Dorsey - his poor contract history is overstated and you can point all this shit out all you want but nobody listens.
Bowe was a bad contract that he was lucky to be able to escape as easily as he did; no argument there. But that's a product of having a barren cupboard when he got here. He had no choice but to get Bowe signed and Bowe's deal was reasonable when signed. He couldn't have known that Bowe would just shut it down because what experience did he have with the man? And there was literally nobody in the wings behind him - that WR corps sucked WITH Bowe; they had to presume reasonably representative production from him in trying to assemble it going forward. They did and Bowe mailed it in. But you can't hold Bowe's personality against Dorsey - he'd just gotten there. All you can do is look at what he had on hand, what he was asked to do (build a credible team) and what his available options were. Bowe's deal was completely defensible in real time.
The Houston thing was on Houston's camp as much as Dorsey's. Let's not forget that Dorsey tried hard to get Houston extended prior to his breakout season. Houston's camp said they wouldn't do so for less than Watt money so Dorsey made Houston prove he was that level of player. Houston did. We extended him to, by all accounts, the same deal he was requesting the year prior. And then he got !@#$ing hurt, man. Shit happens.
Dorsey TRIED not to do the Berry deal and got cut off at the knees for it. Clark ****ed us there, not Dorsey.
And on Maclin, the dude was excoriated for cutting Maclin and clearing $10 million in real time. But it was obviously the right move.
The truly terrible one was Hali and DJ's wasn't much worse. But I believe he had a handshake agreement with DJ and that's why he so willingly gave money back. The damage DJ did to our cap is overstated because people ignore his restructure. As for Hali, that was obviously a panic move after Houston's knee simply didn't respond. Was it stupid? Yep, but that was the only move on his ledger that was, IMO, stupid of his own making. Well that and not cutting Colquitt or Daniel to free up some smaller chunks here and there.
Dorsey's cap shortcomings are overstated. He was tasked with turning an embarrassingly shitty franchise into a respectable squad immediately - and he DID. To have done that in a single season while jettisoning a whole bunch of shit from Pioli and to have a cap that was a single-season of irritation away from being in pretty good shape was quite the feat. And it would've been even more impressive had Clark not gotten his dumb-ass involved on the Berry decision.
Dorsey's an excellent GM, IMO. Veach is a scout and a puppet. For all the credit that Veach gets for scouting Mahomes (and he should get plenty), I'm not convinced that he'd have gotten the deal made that Dorsey got made to even go up there and get him. Dorsey is simply a better facilitator than Veach is, IMO.
It's possible. All that may very well be true. But he had a lot of issues and he came into a good situation with Reid and the Chiefs.
Similarly in Cleveland, he was set up flush with picks and cash.
I don't know if you listen to Haberman and Middlekauff but John is pretty tight with Veach and company, so this may come off a little scorned earth, but his word was that Dorsey was to egotistical and that's why he was let go. I don't know.
I don't really have a lot yet to base Veach off of. He's signed some guys I like, but he's paid market for them, which as you said, isn't exactly hard.
This is a big offseason. So far, seems a little rocky. [Reply]
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho:
Those are good observations on the evolution of his rushing ability. He’s still a one-dimensional player whose skills are situational.
Yes, the scheme might hide some or cover up for some of his weakness against the run by positioning that LB “over” him, but good teams are going to scheme to run right at him, and moving him to DE is only going to exacerbate that. IMO. Not the type of talent to bet on long-term or build around, and if you’re not doing that, it’s ok to move on from him.
On the return, I hoped for more... but the fact he was so good as a pass-rusher last year but had so little trade interest just shows what the rest of the league thinks of hill (some combination of one-trick pony and major injury risk).
If Veach’s plan is to nab one of Sweat or Ferrell or Omenihu, etc. and add a bit of pass rush ability while improving base run D, and add a cheap situational pass rusher, I’m on board with that. I think that makes the defense as a whole better.
Especially if the plan includes using some of the freed-up dollars to extend a key piece or trade for a CB or sign a few more pieces.
Lot of paths to improving the D now.
The issue with nabbing one of those pass rushers, is that you could have kept Ford on the tag and done that. You don't have to do one or the other.
Now you're in a position where you're right in the middle of a rookie qb contract of a guy that's going to absolutely break you off on his contract and to get a pass rush, it's gonna have to come from....who exactly? [Reply]
Originally Posted by O.city:
It's possible. All that may very well be true. But he had a lot of issues and he came into a good situation with Reid and the Chiefs.
Similarly in Cleveland, he was set up flush with picks and cash.
I don't know if you listen to Haberman and Middlekauff but John is pretty tight with Veach and company, so this may come off a little scorned earth, but his word was that Dorsey was to egotistical and that's why he was let go. I don't know.
I don't really have a lot yet to base Veach off of. He's signed some guys I like, but he's paid market for them, which as you said, isn't exactly hard.
This is a big offseason. So far, seems a little rocky.
I don't care how egotistical he is, dude is good at his job.
He has drafted 2 franchise QB's in back to back years...got Tyreek Hill, stole OBJ, that list goes on and on.
Originally Posted by O.city:
The issue with nabbing one of those pass rushers, is that you could have kept Ford on the tag and done that. You don't have to do one or the other.
Now you're in a position where you're right in the middle of a rookie qb contract of a guy that's going to absolutely break you off on his contract and to get a pass rush, it's gonna have to come from....who exactly?
Have to keep in mind that Spags’ scheme is less reliant on individual matchup winners because he likes to send 5 man pressures so often. It’s more of a blitz scheme that disguises what they’re doing up front. Actually not all that dissimilar from what NE was doing the past couple years with Daly’s DL.
Again, he's a good pursuit defender against the run. Too many people overlook backside contain on run plays because they're not obvious, but Ford was outstanding at that. He was able to use his natural instincts to get upfield to his advantage since those run plays often left him unblocked. Then he could use his speed to close on the backside and either take down the ballcarrier if he hesitated or shut off cutback lanes.
For runs the other way, he was absolutely an asset.
And lets not forget that he often demonstrated solid coverage skills the season he was asked to fill in for Houston and play that role; dude won us a game covering a RB out of the backfield. But when he was in Hali's role, he was simply pinning his ears and getting upfield. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. He demonstrated the ability to operate in coverage, he simply wasn't asked to do it very often (because, duh, he's an elite pass-rusher).
He has one stand-out weakness: people running right at him. That doesn't make him one dimensional. That means he's not a perfect player; he isn't Peak Houston. I simply don't think that's a deal-breaker when you have 11 guys on a defense and Ford has become a willing player, if not a guy who has the kind of lower body strength to simply stand up an OT.
I think the issue is the injury risk and I reiterate - that's completely fair. Back injuries are terrifying. But man, sometimes you gotta spin the wheel and take your chances. We're certainly doing that with Matthieu. For a marginal return in a year where you appeared to be going for a title, it seems like Ford was a worthwhile risk.
I'll grudingly accept this deal if Veach uses the money to keep some of the big-time guys I think we need to hold onto. I REALLY would like to see him get a deal done with Fuller before his value takes another step forward as I expect it to (Jones and Hill are probably at/close to peak already). That would demonstrate a solid long-term vision.
But if the !@#$ing guy goes out there and starts dumping draft capital for short-term veteran fixes and/or signing 2nd tier FAs like Ansah or McCourty, I'm gonna be pissed. And his track record suggests that the latter is more likely than the former. [Reply]
Originally Posted by pugsnotdrugs19:
Have to keep in mind that Spags’ scheme is less reliant on individual matchup winners because he likes to send 5 man pressures so often. It’s more of a blitz scheme that disguises what they’re doing up front. Actually not all that dissimilar from what NE was doing the past couple years with Daly’s DL.
For better or worse.
Ok, fine.
But add better players to that scheme and.....you'll get better results, no?
I'm kind of over the whole "scheme fit" stuff. Fit your fucking scheme to the players. If you can't do that, what the hell do you do? [Reply]
