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Cotton said:
True, but Pickens took it from great to elite, and I don't want to lose that. Like Ace said, unless he falls apart mentally, you have to find a way to sign him.
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The elite offense was one catch from being beat by Houston and if Daniels hadn't got hurt we could be sitting here with 0 wins.

I dont necessarily say that we should but I can see the reasoning behind doing it.
 
Rev said:
The elite offense was one catch from being beat by Houston and if Daniels hadn't got hurt we could be sitting here with 0 wins.

I dont necessarily say that we should but I can see the reasoning behind doing it.
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I mean, we can play what-ifs all day. What if Durant, Thompson, Revel, Tyler Smith, Hooker, and Overshown hadn't all gotten hurt? Our offense is elite with Pickens. It is great without him. I would rather our offense be elite.
 
I don’t agree with this notion that we don’t need Pickens. We traded for him for a reason, there was a gaping black hole at #2 WR that guys like Brandin Cooks, Jonathan Mingo and Ryan Flournoy are incapable of filling.

We need Pickens. If he’s traded or allowed to leave, we need to spend assets to replace him immediately. That’s a first round drafted rookie, or at least a second round, albeit with much less certainty that pick works out then, or an impact free agent, or go find another veteran you can trade for. But if they think they’re just gonna pull Stefan Diggs off the free agent pile at the end of the offseason, they’ve shown they have no luck with that. They’ll have to go trade for a guy LIKE PICKENS again. Like when they went out and traded for Amari Cooper. They need the second high end WR.
 
Smitty said:
I don’t agree with this notion that we don’t need Pickens. We traded for him for a reason, there was a gaping black hole at #2 WR that guys like Brandin Cooks, Jonathan Mingo and Ryan Flournoy are incapable of filling.

We need Pickens. If he’s traded or allowed to leave, we need to spend assets to replace him immediately. That’s a first round drafted rookie, or at least a second round, albeit with much less certainty that pick works out then, or an impact free agent, or go find another veteran you can trade for. But if they think they’re just gonna pull Stefan Diggs off the free agent pile at the end of the offseason, they’ve shown they have no luck with that. They’ll have to go trade for a guy LIKE PICKENS again. Like when they went out and traded for Amari Cooper. They need the second high end WR.
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I wouldn't trade him, personally. I think we can keep him and still have enough resources to build the defense into something that's good enough to win a Super Bowl with an elite offense, especially now that Guyton is a reliable starting LT.
 
Smitty said:
I don’t agree with this notion that we don’t need Pickens. We traded for him for a reason, there was a gaping black hole at #2 WR that guys like Brandin Cooks, Jonathan Mingo and Ryan Flournoy are incapable of filling.

We need Pickens. If he’s traded or allowed to leave, we need to spend assets to replace him immediately. That’s a first round drafted rookie, or at least a second round, albeit with much less certainty that pick works out then, or an impact free agent, or go find another veteran you can trade for. But if they think they’re just gonna pull Stefan Diggs off the free agent pile at the end of the offseason, they’ve shown they have no luck with that. They’ll have to go trade for a guy LIKE PICKENS again. Like when they went out and traded for Amari Cooper. They need the second high end WR.
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Yeah you're just robbing Peter to pay Paul. If at the end of the day you're not paying Pickens because you need that money to "improve" the defense it first requires you to use the money to improve the defense. I'm not talking about using the money to resugn Porter or someone else already on the roster. I'm talking about using the money to go get a 30 mil a year impact player in free agency, which this team has never done.

Whatever draft pick you get back is nice but the draft pick is basically burned up just hoping to get a player as good as Pickens. Even with a first round pick that's no guarantee. So it all feels like a short term net negative.
 
Rev said:
The elite offense was one catch from being beat by Houston and if Daniels hadn't got hurt we could be sitting here with 0 wins.

I dont necessarily say that we should but I can see the reasoning behind doing it.
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Yeah, but it's way too early to know how much better this defense is or isn't which is why I think it's way too premature to start talking about getting rid of Pickens in favor of defensive help.

One, we haven't had our best 11 on the field together yet and still won't till roughly 4 games from now.

Second, we have a bunch of new players on that side of the ball trying to learn this system as they go. And three of those players that we're really counting on are rookies (Barham, Downs, Lawrence) -- so on top of the fact that they are trying to learn the system, they're simultaneously having to adapt to the NFL level of play.

And lastly, Christian Parker.

Is he good? Is he bad? Like the defense as a whole, it's too early to say because he is also trying to learn as he goes.

So when you take all of this into consideration, I think it's way too early to make any sort of definitive conclusions about the defense.

I think we have a good amount of legitimate talent on that side of the ball so it stands to reason it will get better. By how much remains to be seen, but my point is, it's too early to either discard them or crown them and we'll have a much better idea of who and what they are a month or so from now....and that's when we can start having a more informed discussion about what areas we need to address and which ones we need to sacrifice.

For all we know, this could end up being a pretty good unit by December and we won't feel the same urgency to add this player or that player like we do today.
 
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I'll say this, whether or not the defense improves significantly I'm fairly certain we'll be in strong position to win the division.

Much of the trade chatter has been around a big fish like Crosby, but they should make a more mid tier move for a guy like Sweat (maybe a 2028 4th) or Mack (2027 or 2028 5th/6th).
 
Texas Ace said:
Is he good? Is he bad? Like the defense as a whole, it's too early to say because he is also trying to learn as he goes.
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This is sort of my thing as well. He has plenty of talent right now to get this defense to average in my opinion. If we can't get this defense to average with this talent, I'm not selling off the offense in hopes of giving his more talent to get to average.
 
Cowboysrock55 said:
This is sort of my thing as well. He has plenty of talent right now to get this defense to average in my opinion. If we can't get this defense to average with this talent, I'm not selling off the offense in hopes of giving his more talent to get to average.
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Yeah, I think we've assembled the most defensive talent than we've had in quite some time, but there's so many new faces that everyone is having to learn how to play together on top of all the other things I pointed out.

For once, I agree with something Stephen Jones said and that was that most of us were guilty of expecting a bigger jump so soon into the season. Given all of the factors, I think that's an accurate statement.

The encouraging thing is that there have been incremental improvements in every game in different areas of the defense, so I really do think they're going to continue to improve.

Now, with that being said, if you can't get this unit with that many solid players to at least be middle of the pack by Thanksgiving, then either we missed on some of these players, the DC isn't good enough, or both -- but again, it's too soon to know any of that just 4 games into the season.
 
Its really a moot point anyways. Jerry isnt trading him and hes definitely not trading him mid-season. They will just let him walk after the season.
 
Rev said:
The elite offense was one catch from being beat by Houston and if Daniels hadn't got hurt we could be sitting here with 0 wins.

I dont necessarily say that we should but I can see the reasoning behind doing it.
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It’s easy to play the what if game. What if a play or two goes in our favor? We could be sitting here at 4-0.
 
NoDak said:
It’s easy to play the what if game. What if a play or two goes in our favor? We could be sitting here at 4-0.
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Yea we outplayed Baltimore from basically start to finish if it weren't for our HC going braindead.

I think 2-2 is fair right now.
 
Simpleton said:
Yea we outplayed Baltimore from basically start to finish if it weren't for our HC going braindead.

I think 2-2 is fair right now.
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And if the Giants fumbles bounce the other way, who knows. At the end of the day we are 2-2. The defense needs to be better. And the head coach needs to be way better. Stop giving away points with stupid decisions.
 
Add sweat and I think we would be in business. Not sure how much he would cost but hes a guy that could push us to middle of the pack.
 
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