The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

For me it's replacing the player type of player that has been missing for a long time......... The ballhawk safety. For me that guy is Dashon Goldson.....

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

He'd fare no better than what we already have if we don't fix the front 7 first.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Jairus Byrd - proper ball hawk

Address pass rush in the draft, tons of OLB's and DE's in this years draft, hopefully we can land a playmaker

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Like Danno said; fixing the defense starts with the line! We get a dominant D-Line and our secondary will surprise A LOT of people!

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Michael Bennett from Tampa Bay
or
William Moore from Atlanta

I know, the thread was for one, but I didn't want tick off Danno by listing a safety without listing a DE first. Really, I'd be happy with either one. Not only do I think it would be an upgrade at either position, we would get the bonus of downgrading the position of a division rival.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

The proper defensive draft should fix the d line.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

We have close to zero money for free agents. If we sign any high priced free agent, it should be front seven IMO.

Both San Fran and Seattle didn't get much pass rush this past weekend and two of the best secondaries in football looked positively ordinary.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Osi would be nice. Did they sign him to an extension last year? I can't remember.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

JJ Watt would be nice.

Ain't happening, but it would be nice!

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

For me its DT Henry Melton.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

I could easily live with that.:cool:

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

That would be another great pick up.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Me. They should sign me. For what I don't know, but I'm available.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Lovie Smith, Lovie Smith, Lovie Smith!

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

We keep signing free agent DTs and they never pan out. What's up with that?

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

They keep falling into the human abyss known as Sedrick Ellis. He's enough to suck the life out of anyone.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

There were reasons why these DT's weren't with their original teams, past their primes perhaps?!

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Pat Swilling

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Anyone who is not named: Will Smith, Sedrick Ellis and Brodick Bunkley.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Bushrod

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

We are a year behind on d line help we should have Chandler Jones!!!

This front seven first talk is hogwash, you can draft your D.line starting with Dion Jordan. you know we will have money to sign our wanted free agents back, none of which are big contracts, re-do jimmy's contract , resign bushrod for the right price and go after maybe one or two high priced guys, and that's even with us being up against it.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Sean Rogers was just too far past his prime, but was a cheap gamble.

Abreuo Franklin played OK, but he's a 3-4 NT we forced into a 4-3DT. (square peg round hole, seems we do that a lot).

Bunkley graded out as our best D-Lineman and about middle of the NFL pack. Which is quite an accomplishment considering the players around him.

Bunkley is definitely a keeper.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

really? wow so the blame must rest with ellis for a weak mid section of the defense.

he gets a nice bump in salary this year so i have to wonder

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

IMO Ellis is definitley the weak link in the middle. And I think most of the gashing that was done to us was on the edges, not up the gut. That points to DE, OLB's and even CB's.

Since Jordan graded out OK that leaves Mr Smith directly in the crosshairs, then our OLB's.

All this of course depending on the accuracy of PFF grades, which I'm very skeptical of.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Oh i agree with Ellis. I do not know what happened him in the past two years. He just seems to be playing without any fire. He is just out there.

Bunkley i was not happy with for the first 6 games. he just looked like he could be handled to easily. he was brought in to tie up two blockers and free up ellis. well that did not seem to happen. so i will go back and re watch the last 8 games he played in.

Grading things like this is really hard. i look at DT in a simple fashion.

if he gets driven to the pancake factory how many players did it take to get him through the drive thru.

Same with not collapsing the pocket

over all hustle when the play is away from them

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

The Pass Rush needs help and Michael Johnson added to Cam Jordan, Broderick Bunckly, Akiem Hicks would make a four man rush respectable...

But FS Jarius Byrd would make the biggest difference, sliding Malcolm Jenkins to SS or RCB with fewer responsibilities and allowing him to improvise and make more plays...

We should have all linebackers back - healthy and competing...

Release the salaries of Smith, Harper, and Vilma - but I'd love to have Vilma back as a two-down LB to limit wear, stress on his degenerative knee...

But Byrd relieving Jenkins at FS would have a major impact on the worse stat of this defense - Yards after the Catch...

If money, salary cap wasn't an issue - I get Jake Long in at LT...

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

i have had a change in heart at DE i want a DE that does more than speed rush. containment IMO is the key. speed yes but bull rush like Jordan will be more important in the NFC with the new QB styles. So another Cam style DE on the other side would work

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Harper needs to go. The LBs are set, but we must have some impact-full d-line players. Here is to hoping Romeous can get healthy lol.

Hicks is our best D-line player and will have a break-out year. Put another stud DT from the draft next to him and it gets easier for Jorden and JR on the ends. (Jorden and JR should be the starters this year)

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

# 1 Byrd
# 2 Albert
# 3 Melton or Johnson

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

The LB's are set? We have the worst unit of LB's in the NFL.

Why do you think the LB's are set?

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

I'm sorry, but is an overstatement if I ever saw one.

They might not be the best LB corps in the league, but they're far from being the worts in the league.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

I should clarify, they graded out as worst in the league. according to PFF.

And if they aren't the worst in the league, they're very close.

We have...

MLB- Lofton - Good LB but with limited range in coverage.

SLB - Hawthorne, so far he hasn't played well at all, graded out horribly (102nd OLB in the entire league). Has looked OK at times but overall not a solid SLB. Could be because he played MLB in Seattle and now shifted outside.

WLB- Shanle? Herring? Casillas? Vilma? Not good. Maybe Vilma can restructure and learn OLB, but so far he looks terrible at WLB.

I don't think I overstated the issue at all.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

This would help the team the same as making Godhell the freaking GM. :love:

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

I don't know about grades, but I was only going by my own perception of seeing the Saints' LB corps play and then also seeing other teams' LBs play - in very small samples I admit, but nevertheless.

I think Lofton is much better in coverage than he is given credit for - much like a certain #41 - and I do think that he is in the upper tier of the league when it comes to MLBs. What I saw out of him was solid tackling all through the year and not many missed assignments. Granted he might not have been a "defensive QB" similar to, for example, the Super Bowl winning Jonathan Vilma, but I think he will improve on that front in the coming season when both he and Spags become more familiar with each other and the limitations/strengths of the defensive scheme as opposed to opposing offensive alignment.

Hawthorne is more difficult to evaluate, but given his body of work in Seattle, I'm inclined to think that the Saints do have a really good LB in their hands with him. His major problem this season was that he picked up that nagging injury which kept him out of the starting line-up for six games. He is a real thumper of a LB and that is what Spags probably wanted to introduce to the line-up with his signing. He is a natural MLB - which is a good thing considering that if something should happen to Lofton, Hawthorne could step in to that position with a bit of ease. He has been one of the leading tacklers in the league for the past few years: from 2009 to 2011 he played in 47 games while recording 338 combined tackles, which is 7.2 tackles per game; in 2012 he played in 11 games while recording 38 combined tackles, which is 3.5 tackles per game. So that to me says that either his injury affected his game much more than we have discussed on these boards or that his game was affected by the fact that he was played out of position... or both. We have to remember that while he is a natural MLB, he did play some WLB (successfully) in Seattle, but no SLB as far as I'm aware of. So, to make a long story short, I do think that Hawthorne is definitely an above average LB, and in some areas he is probably near top tier, but he should probably be placed indefinitely in the WLB position and as the back up to Lofton as the MLB. Another year in the system and without any significant injuries, and I think he'll be a really good player for the Saints in 2013.

So, to me SLB is the problem position, but that can be "easily" changed via draft or the free agency. I think players like Casillas, Herring, and especially Chamberlain (if he can fully recover from his severe injury) can provide nice depth and special teams play, but they do definitely need to address the SLB position regardless of what happens with Vilma's future with the Saints.

So, maybe the grades do place them in the bottom end of the league when it comes to LBs around the league, but playing in the defense that allows the most yardage ever in the history of the league probably will affect every players' grades negatively no matter how well they actually performed in their own individual roles. I'm not saying that they played stellar or that they didn't miss some tackles and assignments along the way, but I do think that they weren't the reason why that defense allowed so many yards this past season. So, I'm still very upbeat about the LBs the Saints have at the moment (Shanle removed of course) and with the introduction of an OLB who'll fit the SLB position and especially what Spags requires out of that position - I honestly think that they can be a top 5 LB corps in the league.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Seeing how this game is going getting another huge weapon would help us get away with things for one season. I want Wallace or Bowe.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Here let me say it, we have the worst set of OLB's in the league. I agree Danno.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

IDK, I still think that Lofton and Hawthorne are an well above average pairing when it comes to 4-3 LBs and if you could pair them up with an energetic SLB who could eat some space and shed blocks... they could be formidable.

If the Saints could get someone like Chase Thomas from Stanford in the 3rd round it could make a world of difference coupled with an improved front 4 line-up. I know that SLB is not a key position to fill since they rarely are consistent 3 down guys because of the opposing offenses more often than not force a nickel CB on the field on 3rd downs, but someone like Thomas could really make a difference in that front 7.


Chase Thomas, OLB, Stanford, 6-4, 248 lbs.



Chase Thomas, OLB, Stanford, NFL Draft - CBSSports.com - NFLDraftScout.com

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

anyone will do better when eliss is gone...having sed on the d-line guarantees that bunkley or hicks will get double teamed on every play.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

Chamberlain is a wild card though, I feel like he could step up and make a difference.

Re: The one free agent you would love to see us get
 

I'll give you Lofton, but not in this scheme. His coverage responsibilities are a bit too deep for him. He's not bad at all, just not great at it like Vilma was.

I'll concede the jury is still out on Hawthorne. Injuries, new system, new position, sucky front four.

I hope he improves, but it still feels like square peg round hole to me.