Thread: Replacing Malik Jackson?

Originally Posted by Al Wilson 4 Mayor

I'd rather have our best WR compared to our 4th best front 7 player.

Now somebody teach our best receiver how to catch again and we'll be all right.

Originally Posted by G_Money

Now somebody teach our best receiver how to catch again and we'll be all right.

It was definitely an issue last year. He was good, but not great last year in the receiving game.
His blocking ability is pretty undervalued.

A penetrating interior pass rush is extremely valuable and often the most over looked part of the defense. Malik should get most of the praise for the production that our OLB's got as he made them slide out

Originally Posted by Hoshdude7

A penetrating interior pass rush is extremely valuable and often the most over looked part of the defense. Malik should get most of the praise for the production that our OLB's got as he made them slide out

True. Gotsis is an interior rusher too, though. He's as raw as Malik was so I doubt he will do this year what Malik did last year - growth will need to happen. But we got a guy who should help with that and is about 15 million dollars a year cheaper.

Jared Crick. Plug and play, and I don't expect Denver to miss a beat.

Originally Posted by MOtorboat

Jared Crick. Plug and play, and I don't expect Denver to miss a beat.

Crick isn't gonna be as productive as Jackson, but he doesn't have to learn anything about the scheme since he played in it for 2 years under Wade in Houston. He should be absolutely serviceable, and then we'll see whether he can find some growth back under Wade now.

Originally Posted by Hoshdude7

A penetrating interior pass rush is extremely valuable and often the most over looked part of the defense. Malik should get most of the praise for the production that our OLB's got as he made them slide out

Wolfe played less snaps, due to the suspension, and was double teamed more and got more pressures than Malik.
I firmly believe Malik was our 4th or 5 best front 7 player.

Originally Posted by G_Money

Crick isn't gonna be as productive as Jackson, but he doesn't have to learn anything about the scheme since he played in it for 2 years under Wade in Houston. He should be absolutely serviceable, and then we'll see whether he can find some growth back under Wade now.

He'll old the edge with Williams well and let Miller, Wolfe and Ware to do their thing. He has been solid opposite Watt for four years. I believe he started immediately.

Originally Posted by MOtorboat

He'll old the edge with Williams well and let Miller, Wolfe and Ware to do their thing. He has been solid opposite Watt for four years. I believe he started immediately.

He didn't start for 2 years in Texas, but that doesn't mean he can't handle his business now. I think Crick will be pretty good for us too, but I do expect some dropoff from Jackson. If not, then Wade Phillips really is a damn genius and we need to stick his head in one of those Futurama bottles and keep him around forever.

Originally Posted by Al Wilson 4 Mayor

I'd rather have our best WR compared to our 4th best front 7 player.

Our best WR is Sanders and we might lose him I but don't think we will.

Jackson is going to be really hard to replace and I don't think we will. But we couldn't really re-sign him either. They'll find ways to plug in play different guys t find something that works. Lot of good players in a very good system. The best thing Denver has going for itself on the Denver side is a great system. System trumps players any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

We moved on without Decker.
We moved on without Moreno.
We moved on without Julius Thomas.
We moved on without DRC
We moved on without Pot Roast
We moved on without Welker

I would have loved to have kept most of them but we let them walk and we have a Lombardi without them. That's the way this works. It's a mature franchise that has to manage their cap carefully. In all honesty, the best teams stay on top by getting and keeping the best coaches as well as the best players.

Another part of the churn is the compensation for unsigned free agents. New England can lose draft picks because they get extra bonus picks each year for letting a certain number of FAs walk. It's how the game is played.

Originally Posted by G_Money

Elway wouldn't have done that anyway. He's been very vocal about not dedicating too many resources to one position on the team because it hurts too much in other areas. Malik was not getting paid by us.

Whether we should have kept Wolfe or Jackson is up for debate, but I thought the rumor was that they made the same offer to both dudes, first one to take it gets it, and Wolfe took it.

Wolfe: 4/36 million with 17+ guaranteed
Malik: 6/85.5 million with 30 million guaranteed and another 5 million in bonuses.

Malik was absolutely right not to sign the deal. His guarantees are almost as much as Wolfe's entire deal. And in return, he can't play here. Wolfe made the same decision Chris Harris made: to take "enough" money and stick around Denver longer to enjoy winning and not have to endure a craptastic environment.

It's great when players choose that. If they're happy, and they get to stay, then I'm happy. It works best when there are multiple options. DRC chose differently a couple of years ago, and missed out on the Super Bowl. Now that Malik HAS his Super Bowl, he can prioritize the cash and make sure he's set for life. I don't blame him in any way.

That's a reason it's hard to keep Super-Bowl-caliber teams together. Elway seems to be doing a pretty good job of keeping the train rolling, though, despite some guys needing to get off.

I really like this a lot. The salary cap era pushes a lot of very linear and binary decisions on teams and players. You mentioned in another post that New England has the habit of letting an expensive guy walk while simultaneously signing a slightly less productive player and his replacement. That is very astute; I would like to add that when a team does this, they can sometimes sign multiple 'lesser but still good players' to reasonable deals. Green Bay won't pay its WR's megabucks, but they will dole out solid contracts to keep a strong corp together. I think it possible that Denver might take that same approach with the defensive line. This gets easier to do when you take the aforementioned 'New England' approach.

Our best WR is Sanders, lol. Uh-huh...

Originally Posted by Al Wilson 4 Mayor

Our best WR is Sanders, lol. Uh-huh...

Sanders is the Broncos best WR right now. He's been for the last year. He's not only the Broncos most consistent WR, but he's the most dynamic. Not a knock at all on Thomas, or any other WR on the roster. It's a testament to just how good Sanders is.

Originally Posted by G_Money

Elway wouldn't have done that anyway. He's been very vocal about not dedicating too many resources to one position on the team because it hurts too much in other areas. Malik was not getting paid by us.

Whether we should have kept Wolfe or Jackson is up for debate, but I thought the rumor was that they made the same offer to both dudes, first one to take it gets it, and Wolfe took it.

Wolfe: 4/36 million with 17+ guaranteed
Malik: 6/85.5 million with 30 million guaranteed and another 5 million in bonuses.

Malik was absolutely right not to sign the deal. His guarantees are almost as much as Wolfe's entire deal. And in return, he can't play here. Wolfe made the same decision Chris Harris made: to take "enough" money and stick around Denver longer to enjoy winning and not have to endure a craptastic environment.

It's great when players choose that. If they're happy, and they get to stay, then I'm happy. It works best when there are multiple options. DRC chose differently a couple of years ago, and missed out on the Super Bowl. Now that Malik HAS his Super Bowl, he can prioritize the cash and make sure he's set for life. I don't blame him in any way.

That's a reason it's hard to keep Super-Bowl-caliber teams together. Elway seems to be doing a pretty good job of keeping the train rolling, though, despite some guys needing to get off.

I also thought it was very telling just how much Wolfe wanted to remain a Bronco. Malik seemed pretty indifferent when all was said and done.