Rams Gab

Since my last article several WRs have been scooped up.  So, our analysis of unrestricted free agents begins with Joey Galloway.

1 Joey Galloway – Galloway was drafted by the Seahawks in 1995.  He has played for Seattle, Dallas, Tampa Bay, New England and Pittsburg.  Joey’s best stats came while playing with the Seahawks and the Bucs.  His first 4 years with Seattle he attained more than 1,000 yards from scrimmage every year.  He had the same productivity for the Bucs from 2005-2007.  In 2008 Galloway was out most of the season with a foot injury and he has seen extremely limited playing time since.

2 Josh Reed – Josh was drafted by the Bills in 2002 and has played for them ever since.  His best year was in 2003 when he started all 16 games and had 58 receptions for 588 yards.  He has had 2 additional 50+ reception years (2007 and 2008).  2003 is the only year he started the entire season.  Last year with the Bills he made over $3M with productivity of 27 catches for 291 yards.

3 Muhsin Muhammad – (Born Melvin Campbell) ‘Moose’ was drafted by the Panthers in 1996.  He is a 2-time Pro Bowler & 1-time First-Team All-Pro.  His career receiving numbers are 860 receptions for 11,438 yards.  From 2005 to 2007 he played for the Bears, but he returned to the Panthers in 2008.  In the last 2 years he has played in 30 out of 32 games.  In 2008 he had 65 catches for 923 yards and then in 2009 he had 53 receptions for 581 yards.

4 Airese Currie – Currie spent his collegiate career at Clemson where he earned first-team All-ACC honors in football (senior year) and was also a three-time All-ACC sprinter. Currie was drafted by the Bears in 2005.  He spent his first 2 years (mostly) on the team’s injured reserve.  He was let go in 2007.  In April 2009 he signed with the CFL Tiger-Cats.

5 Bobby Wade – Wade was drafted in 2003 by the Bears.  He was with them almost 3 years and his time was divided between receiving and punt returning.  His best year with the Bears was in 2004 with 42 receptions for 481 yards.  The next year he had 10 fumbles and was released late in the season.  Bobby spent the next 18 games with the Titans and then signed with the Vikings.  2007 and 2008 with the Vikings were Wade’s best years.  His stats were 54/647 and 53/645 respectively.  2009 saw Wade moving to the Chiefs where he did not have a good year.

Of the 5 receivers above, 2 have positively caught my attention.

1)      The Moose Man… Muhsin Muhammad.  He has been in the NFL since 1996, but has been durable and has never had a dramatic decline in productivity.  I would think he has a couple more years in him.  I’d pick him up as a complementary receiver and a mentor.

2)      Airese Currie has to date had very little impact in the NFL.  However; his college career shows extreme speed and talent.  I’m not sure I would be willing to give up on him yet.  He might still be able to have an accomplished NFL career.

From today’s review that’s all that’s looking good to me.  Stay tuned for Free Agent Fever WRs part III.  There are still a half dozen remaining UFAs to choose from.

UPDATE: Make that three with Richie Incognito signing with the Miami Dolphins today.

This week, the Seahawks signed former Rams WR Ruvell Martin and the Cardinals signed former Rams LB Paris Lenon.  Neither of these departures are big losses for the Rams.  Martin was deep down the depth chart at wide receiver even after lots of injuries to the wide receiver corps and Lenon started at outside linebacker after the trade of Will Witherspoon, but was largely ineffective.

The Falcons released former Rams 1st round pick Tye Hill yesterday which brings two things to mind.

First and foremost, the 2006 draft was an complete and total failure for the Rams on many levels.  Mike Sando covers the 2006 failures in his NFC West blog today. We have covered the 2006 NFL Draft here before and head to this post to see who we would pick instead of who the Rams selected in 2006. The only thing I would change in that post is changing the Rams sixth round pick from QB DJ Shockley to WR Devin Aromashodu after Shockley was released this season and Aromashodu had a decent year with the Bears.

The second thing that this brings to mind is that this is another move from 2009 that worked out perfect for the Rams.  They were able to get a very small something (a 7th round pick) for Tye Hill who was just released by the Falcons.  All four of the high profile players that the Rams released or traded in the offseason or during the 2009 season were released by their new teams this offseason.  Tye Hill is the latest casualty.  Will Witherspoon was released by the Eagles, Torry Holt by the Jags and Orlando Pace by the Bears.

The Rams continued to fill out their offensive line depth, by resigning guard Mark Setterstom.  Setterstom has been with the Rams since he was drafted in the 7th round of the 2006 draft by the Rams.  He was non-tendered by the Rams this offseason, which made him a free agent.  However, it seemed like the Rams were hoping to bring him back for next season and that what they have done.  Setterstom has endured an injury-plagued career to this point, but has been solid when he was able to stay on the field.

Setterstrom will join the competition for right guard with John Greco and veteran Hank Fraley.

I contributed a few paragraphs and the selection for the mock draft that Phins Phocus is doing over on their site.

I’ll leave it as a secret about who I picked.  Stop by Phins Phocs and check out my pick and reasoning and let me know what you think…

The Rams signed a versatile guard/center combination player in Hank Fraley over the weekend.  Fraley will backup the center position for the Rams and will join the competition for the starting spot at right guard with John Greco  and others.

Mike Sando has the scouting report from Scouts, Inc:

Fraley is a bad-bodied pure center who is very intelligent and crafty in his trade. But Fraley isn’t particularly quick, athletic or powerful. Massive nose tackle types are often more than he can handle, as are ultra-quick upfield penetrators. Ideally, Fraley is an outstanding backup, but he can be serviceable in a starting capacity.

As of today there are 22 unrestricted unsigned WRs available in the 2010 free agency (realistically 21 since the great Issac Bruce is probably retiring).  Some of the free agents are old greats, some have yet to develop, and some are problem children.  We’ll take a look at all of them and see if they still have what it takes to play in today’s NFL.

1 Javon Walker – Walker was first drafted by the Packers in 2002.  I’m afraid that after what began as an astounding career, he would now be placed under the label ‘problem child’.  Walker had a big playoff presence in both 2002 and 2003 with the Packers.  In 2004 he had a career year with 89 receptions, 1,382 yards, and 12 TDs.  Walker had one more productive year in 2006 for the Broncos, but otherwise has become known for discontent and injury (GB), a gun fight where a fellow teammate died (DEN), and getting badly beat up in Vegas and then not performing on the field (OAK).

2 Laveranues Coles – Coles was drafted by the Jets in 2000.  He has had a stellar career with 1 Pro Bowl selection in 2003.  He has played for the Jets, Skins, and Bengals.  He has had three 1,000+ receiving seasons and several others that were close.  He has been productive his entire NFL career.  In 2009 with the Bengals he had 43 receptions for 514 yards (12 yards per catch).  Every season Coles receiving yards per catch has been a respectable 10+.

3 Marty Booker – Booker was drafted by the Bears in 1999.  He showed promise in his first 2 years and had numerous dominant performances.  In 2001 he had a 100 reception season for a cumulative 1,071 yards.  2002 was an even better year for Booker with 97 receptions and 1,189.  That year he was selected to his first and only Pro Bowl.  He was traded to the Dolphins in 2004 where he had 4 productive seasons.  In 2008 and 2009 he played with the Bears (again) and the Falcons respectively.  These last 2 seasons have not been good for Mr Booker.

4 Terrell Owens – TO was drafted by the 49ers in 1996.  In his case I’m afraid the label ‘problem child’ doesn’t due him justice.  TO for most of his career has been a full-blown DIVA.  He aroused conflict and strife at San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Dallas and was let go from each of those organizations.  His tirades, on field antics, and media stunts are legendary.  On the other hand (lol), TO is a 6-time Pro Bowler & 5-time First-Team All-Pro.  In the last 10 years he has averaged 1,164 receiving yards per year with a pretty small standard deviation.  His last Pro Bowl selection was as recent as 2007 and last year he averaged over 15 yards per catch.

5 Torry Holt – College and NFL superstar Torrance Jabar Holt was drafted by the Rams in 1999.  He is a 7-time Pro Bowler & 1-time First-Team All-Pro.  Need I say more?  No drama here; just superb athletic ability and performance.

So, of the first 5 available free agent receivers what are my thoughts?

1)      Javon Walker – Javon gets a sincere pass.  He is past his prime and has way too much baggage.

2)      Laveranues Coles – Sign the man.  Coles has been nothing but consistent and productive.  I would definitely sign him to a short term contract (1-2 years)

3)      Marty Booker – Unfortunately, I would have to pass on Marty Booker.  His productivity has seen too much of a decline over the last 2 years.

4)      Terrell Owens – No question here, sign the man.  TO’s drama and negative energy appears to have decreased over the years.  He prides himself on his physical fitness and high performance.  He should be huge value-add on a short term basis.

5)      Torry Holt – Sign him up.  The last 2 years he has slipped from the heights of his youth.  However, he has still been very productive and probably has another good year in him.

Your thoughts?  Stay tuned for part 2 where we look at Joey Galloway, Josh Reed, Domenik Hixon, Chris Chambers, and Brandon Lloyd (if they are still available).

And anyone who has watched or played football during the past 10 years says a collective “duh!”.

The NFL panel found that ACL injuries were 88 percent higher and ankle injuries were 32 percent higher on Field Turf than grass.  That’s huge when a team like the Rams plays all their home games on Field Turf and some away games and an ACL injury will end any player’s season.  That is a huge risk to take and not coincidentally, the Rams have been plagued by injuries over the past 2-3 seasons.  The Rams are upgrading their playing surface to a newer and more permanent version of the Field Turf in 2010, which should be a huge improvement, but still dangerous according to this NFL study.   Edit: The Rams will be using the Magic Carpet II™ Conversion System featuring the GameDay Grass™ 3D Synthetic Turf System made by Astro Turf, for those of you into specifics.

The article notes that the Field Turf company paid for their own study and it not surprisingly, it found that Field Turf did not increase injuries.

(via Football Outsiders)

Via Smart Football, here are the 4 rules for drafting a QB high in the NFL draft:

He must be a senior, because you need time and maturity to develop into a good professional quarterback.

He must be a graduate, because you want someone who takes his responsibilities seriously.

He must be a three-year starter, because you need to make sure his success wasn’t ephemeral and that he has lived as “the guy” for some period of time.

He must have at least 23 wins, because the big passing numbers must come in the context of winning games.

- Sam Bradford is not technically a senior, but he was in college for 4 academic years because he was a red-shirt in his first season at Oklahoma.

- I haven’t found anything saying that Bradford has already graduated, but he was set to graduate in 3 and a half years this winter with a degree in Finance and only on B amongst all A’s in his classes.

- If you could his injury-shortened junior season, Sam Bradford started for 3 years and was “the guy” for Oklahoma over this period of time.

- In his first two seasons, Bradford won 11 and 12 games with the Sooners.  In his third year, after his first injury, he returned to the lineup to lead the Sooners over Baylor.  That gives Bradford 24 wins in his career.

The Parcells theory is just another way to evaluate quarterbacks, who are nearly impossible to evaluate how well they will do in the NFL in vastly different circumstances.  But, Sam Bradford passes this one just like he passed all his classes at Oklahoma.

Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo was able to sit down with Ndamunkong Suh of Nebraska for 35 minutes at his pro day.  Suh also performed positional drills, but he only ran those for about 15 minutes.  The most important news is not the drills, but the coach and player conversation.  The NFL combine only allows 15 minutes for each interview, so the Rams had to wait for Suh’s pro day to talk to him for an extended period of time.

There has been a lot of talk linking the Rams and Sam Bradford, but Ndamukong Suh still was the best defensive player in college football last year and possibly the best defensive prospect of the past 10 years.