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Replacing Derrick Dockery -- UFA Guard Rankings

By Skin Patrol

It's dated but James Alder had his Offensive Guard rankings up in mid February and I'm going to list the top 10 available Unrestricted Free Agents from there here:

  1. Cosey Coleman -- 28 year old Guard drafted by the Bucs 2nd round of 2000. Has played both left and right Guard. Has only missed 3 games in the past 4 years.
  2. Cooper Carlisle -- 29 year old Guard drafted in 4th round by Broncos in 2000. Started every game for the Broncos for the past two seasons.
  3. Chris Gray -- Uhm. 36 year old drafted in 1993 by the Dolphins. Entering his 15th year in the league. Can play Center as well. He did start 96 straight games from 2000-2005 and 15 of 16 games last year. How I haven't the foggiest.
  4. Lennie Friedman -- Drafted in the 2nd round by the Broncos in 1999. 30 years old. Played for the Redskins in 2003 and 2004 though has only started 12 games in the last 5 years.
  5. Sean Mahan -- 26 year old drafted in 5th round in 2003 by the Bucs. Started 28 games in the past two years including all 16 in 2004.
  6. Leander Jordan -- Offensive Tackle but he's 320 and is listed as a Guard FA prospect by ESPN. Drafted round 3 of 2000 by Carolina. 29 years old, didn't play in a single game last year.
  7. Lewis Kelly -- 29 year old Giant drafted by the Vikings in 2000. Hasn't seen significant playing time throughout his career. Backup at best.
  8. Ruben Brown -- 35 year old Guard drafted in 1st round by the Bills in 1995. Been to 9 Pro Bowls, including last year while playing for the Superbowl bound Chicago Bears.
  9. Rick DeMulling -- 29 year old drafted in 7th round by the Colts in 2001. Has started 12 games the last two years for the Lions and looks like a backup.
  10. Cornell Green -- Drafted by the Jets in 2000, 30 years old, hasn't started a game in the past 3 years. Looks like a backup. On his 4th team (Bucs) in his 7 year career.

    Update [2007-3-6 17:25:27 by TexSkins]:

  11. Matt Lehr -- Drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in the 5th round of 2001 out of Virginia Tech, 27 years old, started 11 games last year for the Atlanta Falcons. According to ESPN.com he also started (or at least played in) all 16 games for Dallas in 2003. He's 6'2, 304lbs. and from Woodbridge, VA. I'm not exactly sure how far away from D.C. Woodbridge is, but I mean... how big is Virginia really?
I won't bore you with the rest. Ruben Brown looks like the best of the above list but is only a temporary solution. Might give us time to draft an OG in 2008 and can be backed up by Mike Pucillo. I still think Pucillo deserves an honest chance to be viewed as a possible Dockery replacement, though the Coaching staff is in the best position to make that assessment and a FA Guard acquisition would be damning evidence against him. The above list might be leaving off some valuable UFA Guards or perhaps might include people already signed. All apologies if that is the case.

I invite reader(s) to evaluate the above list and post your own thoughts and notes. I don't know much about these guys and have not closely followed FA Guards to any significant degree because I honestly thought we would retain Dockery -- before I knew his asking price.

One way or another we will have to fill the hole left by Dockery on our offensive line.

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