I was expecting this. When it came to comments about on-the-field stuff, his name just wasn't being mentioned at all.

 

Somewhere, in a New England locker room, Derek Dennis is laughing evilly between bouts of admiring the upholstery on his chair.

 

Spoiler alert... Havent season next weeks episode yet!

 

We kick a young player to the curb to sign a cig smoking vet in the twilight of his career. That was just great.

 

This is what I expected. Steinbach practically asked Philbin to let him retire instead of cutting him, if it came to that.

Well, it came to that.

Glad he went out with some dignity.

 

Who cares about Derrick Dennis?

What I care about is we had one roster spot and gave it to Steinbach instead of Braylon Edwards. Whoops!

 

Not true. We had a full roster and cut a G to sign a G.

If we wanted Edwards more than any other WR we could have signed him and cut someone. Eric did not take Braylon's spot.

 

OMG another AWFUL free-agent signing by Ireland!!!!!! :angry::tantrum::angry::tantrum::angry:

 

I don't think Eric Steinbach's play has slipped from the last couple of years because I think it would be difficult not to notice. I think he's just recognized as a second stringer with a new team that he is awful.

 

"Hey Derek, we're gonna cut you to sign a guy with nothing left coming off an injury who should probably retire. Thanks for stopping by though."

 

Unless it was some sort of charity signing, it was poor signing from the get imo..

 

What is a charity signing and why would that not have made it poor?

 

The Fin's crack medical staff strikes again...

 

What does this have to do with the medical staff?

 

We had two guys in for a visit and signed one.

We signed the wrong guy.

Happens alot 'round these parts.

 

Duh. He had a meniscus tear in his retirement joint.

 

Why would Braylon be the right guy?

 

Braylon Edwards is not "the right guy" in any context you want to put him in.

 

Becuase he hasn't yet retired and has previously played well at a position we're thinner than Kate Moss at.

Moreover, he's been ok thus far with Seattle and as recently as two years ago he had 904 yards receving and 7 TDs.

Do we have any WR on the roster with more than 7 career TDs? I'm serious. Do we?

 

That's the thing I don't get when I see a post like Stringer's which kind of attempts to pre-empt any criticism associated with the signing by sarcastically making fun of it.

When you're signing someone cheap like this, you're kind of looking for a homerun. You're hoping to get a guy that ends up outperforming the amount you invested in him by a country mile. If Eric Steinbach was healthy and played all year, pretty highly regarded player around the league when healthy, then that would be a homerun. You only paid a veteran's minimum contract but you got something that other teams pay $5 million a year for. That's a homerun. When you go for homeruns, it's expected you're going to strike out more often. Just a fact of life. And so any given time you strike out going for the dinger, it's not as big a deal.

But you've also got to put the barrel on the ball at SOME point, don't you?

I mean, Legedu Naanee another cheap signing, practices well, isn't producing in the preseason games. Artis Hicks another cheap signing, could and maybe will still be our starting right guard for the year, but then again he's been pretty much M.I.A. for most of the practices over the last two weeks and it's looking like Jim Turner is trying hard to get John Jerry that job. Chad Johnson was a total whiff. Eric Steinbach a total whiff. If David Garrard is released as most speculate, that ends up a total whiff. Gary Guyton looks like a total whiff. Jamaal Westerman is ranked about #9 on a defensive line that coaches probably only want to keep 8. Tyrell Johnson looks like a total whiff.

Don't you have to hit on one of those eventually?

I dunno. Just thinking out loud. Obviously when isolated individually and looked at in a vaccuum, you can't sit here and claim anyone is doing something poorly just because Eric Steinbach didn't work out. But the big picture might say something different.

 

Ok, not like we could use a WR who has actually been productive in this league as recently as two years ago.

My mistake.

 

Just because they bring in two guys doesn't mean they have to sign one or the other. Braylon wasn't regarded as better than what we have in the system we are gonna play, and Steinbach's retirement had nothing to do with that.

 

Davone Bess has 11 career TD's in 4 years. Hartline has 5. Nannee has 4. These are our top 3 guys.

But no, we couldn't have used Edwards at all. Wasn't even worth a sniff.

 

It couldn't be that Steinbach was brought in as insurance? It was a last minute signing of an old veteran for not a lot of money. Why does that translate to a home run attempt?

 

So you have no issues with the way the WR position was handled this offseason?

 

I think you're making a rather large assumption that Braylon would be any better in this offense than what we have or even had (don't forget CJ at the time we brought in Braylon).

And I still don't understand why this has anything to do with Steinbach.

 

Not really.

We had holes everywhere. We cannot plug them all in one off season. There is a finite amount of picks and just because a guy is a WR, doesn't mean he's an upgrade.

I'll say for the 100th time, out of all the major holes on this team, WR was the least important of those majors.

 

And why didn't the team that he produced 7 TDs for keep him? Why didn't they sign him when they still need WRs now? What did he contribute to SF, and why isn't he there anymore?

By no means is this a legitimate argument to sign someone. Either way, if the team feels the need to sign a WR with a recognizable name they could always sign Plaxico Burress.

 

To be fair, Henne just did not have it, the killer instinct to throw the ball into the EZ to a Wr.

I'm not wild about how the Wr corps was handled, that was when I foolishly thought we were not rebuilding.

May as well stick the young guys with upside out there and just take our medicine and hope one is Steve Johnson.

 

I think they ought to consider it.

He had 8 TDs last year and was very good in the redzone.

Again, I'd like to score some TDs this year. We don't have any pass catcher on the roster save Fasano who has any history of scoring alot of them.

 

Perhaps Henne had alot to do with it, but I'd feel much better if we had a veteran presence. Even if one of the young guys blows up, the veteran will still be sueful. More than one WR plays at a time.

 

A favor.

His body was a catastrophe..so you can somewhat detect what your gonna get.

If we were actually looking at him as a prospect to upgrade the team, doesn't bode well for our depth, or it's a bad evaluation of talent.

 

He was cleared to play from a physical standpoint, but was saying on HK that his body wasn't responding or something similar...

 

This was obviously coming. You could see it while watching Hard Knocks.

 

Doesn't mean something was missed on a physical or anything like that. It's more likely he simply has just lost too much due to age or his body doesn't respond to wear and tear like it used to and he's not into it anymore.

 

But TDs aren't necessarily representative of anything beyond the situation he was put in. His yards per target was lower than Hartline's, and even lower than Bess'. His catch-rate was lower than both of theirs as well. The fact that the Jets' offense decided they wanted to throw a lot of balls to Burress in the end-zone doesn't mean it would happen here, or that he would be a better option for it.