Yeah, Marshawn is 29 and just retired. 30 is the brick wall for RBs. They only have so many carries in them due to all the punishment they take, and teams are going to be very wary of giving big money to an RB that old.
But RB has also become completely devalued. A couple years ago, the first RB wasn’t even selected until the 2nd round. (It’s also not helping that one of the few recent first-round RBs was Trent “I DO NOT LIKE HOLES” Richardson; and that dude had two first-round draft picks blown on him). It’s a pass-happy league, and there are plenty of RBs available in the really late rounds of the draft or as UDFA.
The pass happiness is exactly what makes him so valuable, though. He is certainly the best recieving back in the league, and one of the best receivers period. Yes he is 30, but there are very few teams who wouldn’t be instantly improved by adding him.
Heck you just mentioned Lynch, Seattle should be calling too. In most cases the devaluation of backs is for good reason, but the pendulum has swung a bit much. Many are replaceable, but there are a handful who are special. Forte is one of them, and should be for at least another 2-3 years.
Given the current offensive line needs, and a promising duo of Rawls and Michael, I can’t imagine Seattle will be willing to spend much at all on a RB in free agency, rather than grabbing some in the draft.
I’ll take your word for it. I just know they are a would be contender who lost their lead back, but I’ll admit I’m not very familiar with their roster.
I doubt Carolina would be interested in Forte either, even with them being the most run-oriented team these days. They may be looking to move on from Jonathan Stewart for age and salary cap reasons, plus he tends to be a bit injury prone. Fozzy Whitaker and rookie Cameron Artis-Payne looked pretty good during the games Stewart was out this year and I’d imagine the Panthers would just roll with them along with some younger, cheaper free agents / rookies.
Carolina will be paying a good bit to CB Josh Norman, either with a new contract or with the franchise tag, and will probably also spend a good bit on DT Kawann Short to extend him since his contract is up after 2016. As exposed in the Super Bowl loss, their main problems are wide receiver and offensive tackle, and I look for a decent amount of money to be spent on a new right tackle to replace Mike Remmers, who got abused by Von Miller, and add some more depth to the OL in general. Michael Oher of “Blind Side” fame turned out to be pretty decent at left tackle for the most part, and the interior guys are quite solid. Wide receiver should be helped quite a bit by the return of Kelvin Benjamin, but it sure wouldn’t hurt to add a good veteran here if the price is right.
The Panthers have a much more difficult schedule for 2016, with 2 road trips to California, 1 to Seattle and 1 to Denver, since they play the NFC and AFC West. Even if the team fixes the holes from this year and Cam Newton bounces back from that Super Bowl performance, I’m thinking this is a 11-5 or 12-4 team due to the schedule. I don’t see the Saints doing much this year, Tampa Bay is a question mark with the new coach and Atlanta could be great or horrible, as they showed this year. I’m thinking Carolina will win the division again, but not nearly as easily as this year. As to the rest of the NFC, the East looks to remain a dumpster fire, sending only a weak division winner to the playoffs. I think Arizona will be good but Seattle will win the West and that Minnesota wins the Central, with GB probably squeaking in as a wild card. Atlanta may get a wild-card if they play more consistently, but unless someone hits a homerun in draft or free agency, or Carolina / Seattle / Arizona fall way off, I don’t see a tremendously different playoff picture in the NFC.
If Seattle can fix their O-Line, watch out. There was a 5-6 game stretch where Russell Wilson put up league historic numbers when he got a couple of seconds in the pocket to set and release. And this was after Thomas Rawls, Jimmy Graham, and Marshawn were all injured. He’ll get Rawls and Graham back.
Carolina will have a much harder schedule, if for no other reason they no longer get to play the dumpster fires that were the NFC East and the AFC South. Those latter were about the 4 easiest teams as you can hope for in the NFL, especially the 2015 editions. Now their schedule cycles and they have to play the NFC West and AFC West. Those are a lot of long road trips against a lot of really good teams and fierce defenses.
Interesting article on Peyton Manning. Apparently he sexually assaulted an athletic trainer/professor back in college. And then both agreed to stay silent about the incident and went about their lives. She went onto a successful career in athletics until 2003 when Peyton and his dad wrote a book where they made up all kinds of lies about her and destroyed her reputation and it got her fired from her job. Sheesh. That is the worst part of it. In college, he did something foolish, they both moved on, that would have been that. But to go after her years later and ruin her career, it just seems so mean spirited and horrible.
Between that and the stories about him sending “private investigators” to basically harass people it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. In both cases Manning probably would have been absolutely fine doing nothing, but instead he seemingly chose to be vindictive and petty.
Man, the Cam stuff. I don’t know what it is* that just drives racists crazy about him. I ran out of time for any of the dog-whistle racist bullshit about how he’s not appropriately humble or respectful or whateverthefuck months ago.
(* I do. He’s a successful, charismatic black man. Let’s not pretend that it takes anything more than that.)
Yeah I saw this…boys will be boys, right? What a dick. Not sure if this article mention it or not but apparently there was some other incident a year or two earlier (not related to Naughright I believe) that the Manning side had redacted. So who knows how bad the hidden bit was since he was fine with the balls on face act getting out there.
Exactly. I liked Cam before, as the Panthers are my #2 team behind the Seahawks, but my respect for him certainly took a hit seeing his behavior during and after that game.
Manning stuff: This happened 20 years ago. Sexual assault? Worst case he tea bagged a trainer…not cool. But sexual assault? I think we need a different term.
There is also a money grab title nine lawsuit against U-Tennessee now that references the incident, and others. Go lawyers.
And that’s the issue right there…sexual assault? For putting your balls in a female trainer’s face? YES, it’s fricking sexual assault. What if your spouse’s co-worker put their genitals on your wife’s face…you’d simply say ‘not cool’ and go your merry way? Except this is worse because it was a popular student athlete with all the power in the world at that university, assaulting a girl who was not the starting QB on the football team.
It’s against the University of Tennessee and it’s a pure money grab/shake down for a settlement. If there is such widespread institutionalized discrimination happening at Tennessee then it ought to be pretty easy to come up with some examples from the last few years.
Yeah, in a way I think that’s what the Bears are going to miss most. Without him, we really don’t have any depth in the receiving roster, at least not with experience. Double team Alshon and you’ve pretty much got our number.
Shaun King is a fucking fraud and a conman. He is a black lives matter shill and a race baiting piece of shit. Google him. He is absolutely not an actual journalist. The legal document that is the centerpiece of his ‘article’ is a fucking plaintiff’s motion from a defamation lawsuit in 2003. So yeah, it’s gonna paint Manning in a bad light.
