OK - very simple pun - we lost Vance Walker who was our wide-body before the draft. Our starting Tackles are: Babineaux (who is getting older and heavier on the CAP) Corey Peters (who I thought had a good season) Then rotating in Peria Jerry, who has not really impressed after 1st year major knee injury. We have a couple of long-shots from the Undrafted Free Agents Do we need another DT prior to Camp?
I thought Babineaux would be cut to create cap space. $4.7 million in the final year of the contract (so no serious bonus penalties) Clabo was cut instead.
We could use a kind of stop-gap guy for immediate help. We might be building a pipeline of real developmental prospects though. The other prospect that we already had in house is Micanor Regis. He was an undrafted DT last year and spent the season on the practice squad. Now he's had a redshirt year to get accustomed to life in an NFL organization, get familiar with the playbook, learn the lingo, and learn what's expected of him. He lists at 305 pounds, which is roughly the same size as Vance Walker. I do like the two undrafted free agents we signed this year as well. They aren't the best known names, but they are both strong, stout, and know how to get into the backfield. Also noteworthy... I had always seen Huynh listed as 301 pounds, which didn't exactly grab me as what I wanted in a prospect for the one-tech spot. But the Falcons web site has added the rookies to the roster listing, and they show him at 315. That's more like it... I still think we need more help at DT and also at LB. But we're probably not done yet. We usually do add a few extra players around training camp and late in preseason. And since Clabo is allegedly going to be treated as a post June 1 release (meaning we'll be pushing his unamortized signing bonus to 2014's cap), we have the cap space to sign a legit name or two. It will be interesting to see who is available in June.
There are still some adequate free agent defensive tackles out there http://walterfootball.com/freeagents2013DT.php Richard Seymour (too expensive) Sedrick Ellis - Saints first round bust can rotate with Falcons bust Peria Jerry Corey Williams, formerly of the Saints/Browns/Packers Shaun Cody - he sucks, but he's been the starter the last couple years in a single gap 3-4, so Torgo would welcome him Amobi Okoye, who somehow is still only 26 Crotch grabbing Shaun Smith A bunch of fat bodies, like Justin Bannon and Casey Hampton etc etc Plus whoever shakes loose as the rosters are cut from 90 to 70 to 54.
There were some rumors about him in the early days of free agency, and he's hands down the best DT on the market. The catch is that his previous contract (voided by the Raiders) was just plain insane. He's going to have to come way down in price before any team will touch him. Frankly, the smart move on his part would be to retire rather than return. But the release of Tyson Clabo before the draft adds to the mystery. The Falcons are allegedly after the cap space right now. That says they have something in mind - and it's probably not about Matt Ryan's contract, which could be extended in ways that do not affect the team's 2013 cap. So what position(s) are they looking at? They've already got a trio of QBs, a new feature RB, a stable of complementary RBs and FBs, their current and future TE, two top shelf WRs plus a bunch of developing prospects, and a mix of young and veteran offensive linemen. It's tough to see them wanting the cap space to add anything more on offense. On defense, we signed one top shelf DE and drafted two more. We put our first two draft picks into CB, resigned our starting safeties and drafted two more developmental guys. And we have our punter, kicker and long snapper - as if we'd ever use that kind of cap space on the specialists anyway. So if the team really is planning anything else that would require Clabo-type cap room, it has to be either LB or DT. And it could go either way - both positions have potential starters in place but questions about the depth.
it will be interesting to see who we pick up when the cap casualties occur. TD has been good about grabbing impact players.
