Kearly final thoughts on roster??

[Renohawk]

Kearly, I would like to know your thoughts on the final roster. I've enjoyed your insight into the draft and through training camp and hope you have a little extra to share with us on the breakdown of the 2013 Hawks.

 

[JesterHawk]

Roster is never final.

 

[sutz]

Roster is never final.

Well, his thoughts on the current interim roster at season's opening would be nice.

:laugh:

 

[samwize77]

I agree. Kip. if you have time I think most everyone on the site would enjoy hearing any insights you have. Scotte, thats goes for you also...same with you Coug. Damn, lol..........

 

[JesterHawk]

Final thoughts?

2 words.





SUPERB OWL.

 

[sam1313]

Agreed Kearly. Share more wisdom/intellect/aggravation/or pure conjecture. We would all like to read it (even those who give you a hard time).

 

[McGruff]

I'd appreciate all of your thoughts as well, fellow posters . . .

 

[Starrman44]

Can I co-sign this and also what McGruff said?

 

[kearly]

I hope Scottemojo chimes in. I'm much more interested in what he thinks than what I think.

I'm taking the Brooks cut like a champ. He looked very promising against 3rd string offenses, but when he didn't get promoted through the course of preseason the way Mayowa did, I sensed that the coaching staff wasn't as high on him as I think they should have been. I think he's still out there. I hope he gets a turn on our PS at some point and returns next preseason.

As far as why they undervalued him, there is a lot of stuff we don't know. Maybe he was lazy in the weight room, maybe he had an attitude, maybe he stunk in practices. I just know he looked very good for a UDFA tackle in the preseason games. But that's only one piece of the puzzle. The FO is not above making mistakes, and I'm pretty sure they made one here, but there are plenty of times they made decisions that looked awful at the time that worked out brilliantly in retrospect.

I didn't like the Howard cut, but I kind of get why they did it. He's still a bit rough around the edges, and his effort wasn't consistently there. Still, they should have kept him. I do like the gamble they took trading for D'Anthony Smith though. I watched a tiny bit of his college stuff. Smith is probably the 2nd best athlete at DT for us after Bennett. And if the trade doesn't work out, we probably won't even lose the (7th round) pick. The condition is based on playing time.

I think they should have let Lotulelei go. He's the kind of LB you find every year late in the draft. More athlete than football player. You can't teach instincts and instincts are very important for LBs. Lotulelei doesn't have that 6th sense for the ball like Allen Bradford does. If he cleared waivers and made our PS, then great. If he gets signed by another team, oh well.

Speaking of LBs, I thought they kept way too many of them. I like Malcolm Smith and Mike Morgan, but they'll barely ever see the field this year. Ditching Howard to keep all three of Smith/Morgan/Lotulelei seems really hard to justify. We've got a zillion backup non-pass rush LBs right now. That was the easiest place on the team to make cuts, but they opted to cut some very promising and rare talents at DT instead. I thought that was a head scratcher. A year from now, when Bennett might be too expensive to keep, that decision will probably be something they regret.

Mike Person looked terrible in preseason but I trust Tom Cable. Apparently Cable has said that he thinks Person is a better tackle than Alvin Bailey. Cable also LOVED Max Unger when he first came here, and that was when Unger was really struggling. Cable also made Omiyale, McQuistan, and Giacomini look like good lineman even though they sucked before coming here. He turned a DT who'd never played OL into a potential pro-bowl guard. I kinda trust Tom Cable's opinion, so I'm not going to argue with the man.

Very happy that Spencer Ware made it. I was not expecting that simply because of the roster crunch. If the FO feels the same way about Ware that I do, he'll be here for long time. IMO, he's a baby Marshawn Lynch.

Cutting Winfield was the correct choice. I actually almost made a post here speculating on the possibility a week before it happened but opted against it when I saw that his cap savings were minimal. Turns out, Winfield retired and for some reason most of his guaranteed money won't hurt us after all. Not sure how that works, but according to some reporter Seattle is off the hook for most of Winfield's $2 million. So Seattle saved a decent amount with that cut. Winfield looked slow and "old" out there in the Denver game, and that was supposedly before his knee injury.

I'm surprised they went with 2 TEs and have yet to acquire a 3rd. This team runs a lot of 2 TE stuff. That's even more surprising given Miller's foot condition. McGrath isn't great, but going 2 TEs seems reckless to me. Our emergency TE will probably be an offensive tackle, one with essentially no experience at the position who isn't on an NFL roster for his soft hands.

Glad that Mayowa and Bradford made it, but after week one of the preseason that was never in doubt for me.

Didn't like the Coleman/Robinson swap one bit, but I'm guessing they had smart, secretive reasons for it. I think they want FB to be much more of a receiving position this year. It would also explain all the experimenting with TEs at FB.

I would have done a few moves differently, but our final roster is still the best in the NFL. These were the biggest disagreements I've ever had with the FO in terms of the 53 man cuts, but our roster is so good that even if cutting Brooks or Howard really is another 2009 Bennett type mistake, we'll still be the NFL's best team. I can live with that.

(Edit: Michael Brooks made our practice squad. Hell yes.)

 

[Renohawk]

Thanks Sir, appreciate your views and sorry to have requested a little work out of you on this labor day. ha ha. Great comments.

 

[12th_Bob]

I agree with you about Coleman, not really a straight swap with Robinson because I think he fits that match-up Marcel Reese position even though Robinson became a great blocking FB the last couple of seasons, I do like Coleman a lot as a moving chess piece. I wonder if it's the right call for this team though in the locker room.

 

[TwistedHusky]

Ecstatic that Brooks made it.

I honestly think we are going to look back on the Howard release and regret that one.

He is a fast DT, reasonably sized and could be useful if any of our guys go down. Not sure how the extra linebacker/safety Lotu helps us this year, I would have preferred they keep Howard.

We needed that other DT, but other than that - we came out of preseason with most of our roster in tact and hopefully no significant injuries (I don't count Harvin since I never saw him play for us).

Not sure if I am OK with just 2 TEs on a roster and no experienced FB, maybe since Turbin can catch the ball well he can be our emergency TE? Probably not a go to guy if we are asking our TE to block.

 

[samwize77]

Thank you Sir Kip When the cuts started happening and changes were being made, I was wondering what your thoughts were going to be after the dust settled. It has settled now hasn't it, or is there more to come?

 

[ImTheScientist]

Ecstatic that Brooks made it.

I honestly think we are going to look back on the Howard release and regret that one.

He is a fast DT, reasonably sized and could be useful if any of our guys go down. Not sure how the extra linebacker/safety Lotu helps us this year, I would have preferred they keep Howard.

We needed that other DT, but other than that - we came out of preseason with most of our roster in tact and hopefully no significant injuries (I don't count Harvin since I never saw him play for us).

Not sure if I am OK with just 2 TEs on a roster and no experienced FB, maybe since Turbin can catch the ball well he can be our emergency TE? Probably not a go to guy if we are asking our TE to block.

Lotulelei isn't a safety.

 

[truehawksfan]

The one thing I hate is the injury report, or lack of one, during the preseason.

If they could, would they put the doubtful, questionable, or probable tag on Mebane, Hill, McDaniel, Avril, Bennett, etc.?

Because, they kept just 4 DTs makes me think, Mebane, Hill, and McDaniel are ready to go....probable. Otherwise, why not cut one LB and keep Howard?

That said, Irvin and Clem will not play and seeing a lot of 3-4/5-2 formations in the preseason makes me think the team will play Smith, Bradford, Morgan, etc., a lot when going into these formation. Makes sense to me as to why they have so many LBs/Leo's on the team.

 

[TwistedHusky]

I know but he isn't big enough to really be a standout linebacker, maybe Pete sees him as a big backup SS?

I honestly don't know.

The whole Lotu thing is just as confusing to me as the Howard cut.

 

[chris98251]

He is listed as a LB but his size speaks more of SS but he plays with the abandon of a LB, Kam is a Safety but hits like a LB, again I think it's a sort of Hybrid position for us.

 

[SDHawk]

Colt Lyerla seems like a virtual lock for our 1st round pick next spring. I cant think of a better fit for our offense, the way it's trending.

 

[QuahHawk]

Still waiting to see us sign a TE and DT from someone else. Maybe the players we expected to get cut didn't. Or maybe another year is on the world's. We will go all season with 2TEs and need another big body DT.

 

[King Dog]

The one thing I hate is the injury report, or lack of one, during the preseason.

If they could, would they put the doubtful, questionable, or probable tag on Mebane, Hill, McDaniel, Avril, Bennett, etc.?

Because, they kept just 4 DTs makes me think, Mebane, Hill, and McDaniel are ready to go....probable. Otherwise, why not cut one LB and keep Howard?
.

I was listening to Holmgren last week, and he said it's amazing how guys are just suddenly healthy when the regular season rolls around

Expect Mebane, Hill and McDaniel to be ready to go.