***NFL Free Agency News & Signings Thread***

[Soonerpeace]

(03-13-2024, 12:58 PM)Isaac Curtis: The Real #85 Wrote: Yep. Clear FA winners so far. Falcons also come to mind. 

Wish we'd have signed Townsend. 

I do not get the point of playing hardball with Tee & Reader if you big signing is gonna be Geno Stone at $7.5 APY. With all our space? 

I have been pretty negative on everything save the Stone signing. I think Moss is, at best, a lateral move from Mixon. We could have had Eckler or Swift or Henry for $3-$4 mil more. I don't think Sample or Gesicki are starter level players. Both are one-dimensional guys who give the play away with their presence/absence. ADG is a backup LB. I'd have signed Hudson + Townsend instead of Gesicki. Or let Sample walk, $5 mil this year? 

These are small deals. Nothing backbreaking, cap wise. 

But we have done nothing in the trenches. Reader is not locked up. Higgins has requested at trade (though his leverage is nada). Chido has not been replaced. Boyd has not been replaced. 

Some of it will have to be draft. But in my mind, we still need: DT/NT, DT/3T, RT, WR3, CB4, TE1, and P. IOL upgrades and a stud RB would not hurt, either. 

Now, we do have 4 top 100 picks. Say you pencil in RT at #18, and 3 others with the other picks: WR & CB classes are deep. Take those. We still need NT/DT (Reader), DT/3T, and TE. The TE FA market was poor, so think Sinnott/Johnson/Stover. We still need DTx2. 

There is still help out there. Reader & Armstead at DT. Smith & Brown at OT. Fuller at CB. Rankins at DT. But the Day 2 stuff has me gloomier than after Day 1. 

Issac I like your post but I think we will find out Gesicki is a fantastic get. Bill Belichick on the Bengals’ new tight end: “The player that’s part receiver and part tight end. Those are the kind of guys that, do you treat them as a receiver or do you treat them as a tight end?”

“Guys like (Mike) Gesicki, players like that. They’re really not tight ends, they’re really not receivers. They’re good players. Those are the types of players that really create the conversation because they can split out, detach from the formation, be in tight end locations but they’re very good receiving tight ends at that position relative to what your normally see there.”

“Those are, I’d say, the hard game plan questions to answer with those type of hybrid players.” More from a 2022 Bill Belichick interview: “Gesicki is a problem.”

“He’s a hard guy to cover. Long. He’s a good, crafty route runner. He’s slick, but he can get down the field. Very good hands, makes some acrobatic catches. Has enough quickness to separate. That’s another hard guy to cover on third down, well on any down. But when you talk about those possession downs, he’s effective.”