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With the Redskins interested, London Fletcher-Baker will get paid.

Jason La Canfora suggested and now PFT is talking about it; London Fletcher-Baker is a marked man by the Redskins and Detroit Lions:

The winner in the process will be Fletcher-Backer.  We don't want to knock the guy's abilities, and we're impressed that he has never missed a game in nine NFL seasons.  But the apparent fact that two teams who are notorious for overpaying in the early days of the Super Bowl supermarket plan to make a run for him means that he'll likely end up with far more money in his pockets than he objectively would merit.

Statistically, Fletcher-Baker had one of his best years of his career in 2006, his fifth season with the Bills.  He registered 104 tackles, 42 assists, two sacks, four interceptions, seven passes defensed, and a touchdown.  He also spent four seasons with the Rams, and started all 16 regular season games as St. Louis made an improbable run to the NFL Championship.

I am skeptical about Fletcher due to his age (31) as well as the considerable sum he will command in free agency. He had a big year and will likely not take much of a pay cut, if any at all. According to Ian Whetstone he's currently a 5.9M annual cap hit. So you have to imagine he is looking at a contract between 5-7M a year, especially if multiple teams are after him.

That's the bad news. Here's some of the good:

  1. Familiarity with the staff. Not that it matters much, but Saunders was on the St. Louis coaching staff with Fletcher in '99 and '00. More importantly, Fletcher knows the defense as he played for a Gregg Williams Head Coached Buffalo Bills in 2002 and 2003. I don't know how the two faired personally, but an acquaintence with our Coach is the kind of thing that can sway a player towards us. If that doesn't work we'll just overpay him.
  2. His age sounds worse than it is. 31 is old, but Lemar Marshall is just 7 months younger.
So where do I stand? Hogs Haven Votes No. Not because I don't like Fletcher, or that I don't think he can immediately contribute to this defense. He would be an instant improvement over Lemar Marshall.

Ultimately I vote no because it is an expensive bandaid. London Fletcher-Baker is not the future in Washington. He has 2-3 years at most to contribute to the team, which means even if we do get him we'll need to draft an ILB either this year or next (if we have any picks remaining).

While Fletcher would be an improvement over Marshall, he also drastically increases the cost of that position. Fletcher is an around 6M player, Lemar Marshall will cost the team around 800K next year (last year of his contract). I don't think London is 6+ times better than Marshall, so from that perspective alone I cannot justify the move. It's ok to overpay a player to improve a position, but not if he's over 30 and represents a temporary solution anyways. And not when you're having to restructure current contracts just to get your own Free Agents signed.

Regardless of what I think should happen, it is clear that the Washington Redskins want Fletcher-Baker and are thus going to get him one way or another. So Skin Patrol, you might as well Stop Worrying And Learn to Love Him. In which case I'm looking forward to happily cheering for him loudly come Sundays.

Post your own thoughts below.

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HERE WE GO AGAIN!
Does anyone know the actual definition of insanity? Maybe we should inform this teams insane coaches!

Its doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results!(i.e. paying free agents on the back end of their careers alot of money)

Its starting to bite us in the rear now and in a few years when Mr. Dan promptly aleviates most of our high paid coaches well be staring all over again.

by Sincethebeginning on Feb 15, 2007 11:28 AM EST   0 recs

Discussion at Extreme Skins
about how those of us concerned with the Salary Cap are just chicken-littles, because Dan figures out a way to annually avoid the Cap.

The truth is he doesn't. He "signs whomever he wants" annually, but those contracts are always backloaded to hell so the consequences won't be felt for years. We can get whomever we want, so long as we offer them a low base salary next year and load up on signing bonuses. What kills us is 2-3 years down the road when our hands are tied because of those contracts. We won't know the err of this strategy for some time, as it just started coming to fruition this year. We're still 2-3 years away from disaster (I think) though we can either expedite the speed or else increase the precipitousness of the fall with continued bad decisions. I think paying London Fletcher 7M a year would go a long way towards both.

by Skin Patrol on Feb 15, 2007 12:15 PM EST to parent up   0 recs

If Fletcher gets 5-7 mil...
what's left to sign Doc?  Or our draft picks for that matter?

How much room does the team have, exactly?

I mean, the Giants have been cutting players all week, and I've yet to hear the team cut anyone.  This really worries me.  I can see the day when the team has 49 guys and is still over the cap.

by TexSkins on Feb 15, 2007 1:10 PM EST to parent up   0 recs

The obvious answer
is that we mortgage our future, meaning disaster strikes in 2009. Note that constantly postponing the disaster so we can sign 30+ year old linebackers only makes the disaster that much less mitigated when it strikes.

by Skin Patrol on Feb 15, 2007 1:28 PM EST to parent up   0 recs

same old same old
Yeah he may figure out how to just get under the cap every year but lets look at what that is actually accomplishing.

1)overpayment(this team doesnt seem to think so) of players on the backside of their careers does not provide much incentive

2)it leads to keeping and playing sub par players because of the big cap hits we will take for how many number of years i.e arhuletta

3)developing players is basically out of the equation,BECAUSE WE DONT HAVE MANY DRAFT PICKS!

when you put these points together your basically taking a pot shot every year, and it will continue to snowball downhill every year

I still say we trade down to get two good picks in the draft and cut brunell

did you look at what kind of trouble we are already in for the 2008 season, we will no doubtly be cutting some high priced players(which is supposed to be our talent on this team) and we dont have many players in the draft, so there's not much potential of player development, it is a simple equation!

by Sincethebeginning on Feb 15, 2007 1:14 PM EST   0 recs

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