Free Agency Moves
9:28 PM EST Tuesday, March 14 2006
So there has been quite a bit of activity in the free agent market in the past few days. First, on Saturday, the Vikings signed Chester Taylor. This came has a surprise to me. The Ravens had shown little interest in re-signing Jamal Lewis, and the feeling seemed mutual. So I naturally assumed Chester would get re-signed. I wonder if this caught the Ravens off guard too? It seems that they then scrambled, realizing they may end up with no running backs instead of two, they signed Mike Anderson. In the meantime they continued discussions with Jamal, and ended up re-signing him. Ok, so now we have two similar running backs and still no quarterback. Well, since then Culpepper has signed with Miami, and Brees with New Orleans. Arizona, what happened? I thought this would be a no brainer for you guys?
So the two big name QBs are off the table, but a few lesser names are officially on the table. Kerry Collins, who was already released, then un-released, has been released again. Also, the Saints move for Brees pretty much guarantees the Saints will release Aaron Brooks. Also, there may be some QBs available in draft. The 1st pick will be Reggie Bush, then the Saints at 2 could be looking to trade down, now that they have Brees. The Titans at 3 are definately taking a QB to be Steve McNair's successor, following the decision to pay him $1 million to keep him through 2006. The Jets are keeping Pennington, and after that God only knows whats going to happen. I seriously doubt that the Ravens will try to move up to 2 to get Leinart ahead of the Titans, but you never know.
Given the current state of affairs, I'm now moving my support behind Aaron Brooks. If you compare Collins and Brooks, first of all throw out last season for Brooks, which was literally a disaster. But in 2003 & 2004, Brooks had a better completion percentage, more TDs and less INTs. I know Fassel is familar with Collins, but I see more upside with Brooks, espcially since he will be assumingly playing with a chip on his shoulder next season due to the fact the New Orleans basically gave up on him in a year that was clearly tough on everybody. If Collins and Brooks are both signed by teams that do not play in Baltimore, I'm going to be very upset. That would basically mean we end up with Brian Greise, Gus Freotte (I'm not even going to waste the time to look up how to spell their names correctly, they're not worth it) or Kyle Boller.
