http://bleacherreport.com/articles/485083-nfl-trade-rumors-new-england-patriots-looking-at-deion-branch

"New England is reportedly interested in orchestrating another reunion and trading for Branch.  The question is how much of an upgrade, if any, would the 5'9", 193-pound, brittle Branch be to the rebuilding Patriots."

Heard on the radio that John Clayton says we might get as much as a third for him if we include a fifth back to New England?  

I'd lose my mind if we get a third round pick out of this guy, but that's just me.

TWO AND ONE! TWO AND ONE!

and we play THE FREAKING RAMS next week?! and then a bye week for Okung and Curry and MeBANE! to get healthy?!?? 

YESSSSSSS!!!! TWO AND ONE! TWO AND ONE!

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Part of the offseaon process is clearly the idea of moving players with expiring contracts. 

Guys like Rob Sims, Josh Wilson, and Tapp were FG favorites but they were also only under team control for one more year.  As part of a calculated rebuild, the front office apparently decided that the 2010 season of each of these guys is worth less than the value of a future draft pick.  Q/PM don't seem to have any interest in winning this year, just clearing out the bad contracts and getting some future value in exchange for wins this year.

I don't think I like the strategy, and they haven't stuck to it in every case, but I can at least appreciate that there is some logic behind ditching the 2010 seasons of good, valuable, young players in exchange for mid/late round picks going forward.

The one move that just does not fit with this plan is the Charlie Whitehurst trade.  Giving up a 3rd round pick for two seasons of CW is the opposite of a lot of these moves.  Without that trade, this offseason would be a pretty constant story of trading expiring assets and cutting bad contracts.  When you look at the Whitehurst trade and VJax rumors in the mix with everything else it shows signs that the front office either didn't have a plan when the offseason started, or has dramatically changed course. 

Thoughts?

Honestly I had a great time enjoying the sun and watching football yesterday. I didn't take notes, and wasn't planning on writing one of these. Off the top of my head, here is an amateur's take on Seahawks practice #5, Monday August 3rd:

It was hard to get a good feel for the lines and running game, players were in shorts and shells and clearly playing at about 75%. Both Bryant and Vickerson made several big plays in the backfield. It was good to see, but I don't want to read too much into it as they could have just been hustling harder than the guys opposite them. Forsett looked quick, a couple times juking and stutter stepping guys in space. Julius Jones caught a screen pass and ran untouched for a TD, but I don't know if that is the offense looking good or the defense looking bad.

The backup quarterbacks were concerning. A couple times in 11-11 drills Whitehurst couldn't find an open man downfield and then under threw his checkdown, one time he just plain didn't see Mike Williams beating single coverage deep. Didn't see which corner that Williams was dominating on that play, but it wasn't Trufant or Wilson.

The offensive personnel on the field for most of the first team 11-11 drills was Housh-Tate-Butler at WR, Carlson at TE, and Forsett at RB. When we went to an I formation the WRs were Butler and Housh.

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I've noticed the Hawks lining up with fullbacks split outside as WRs quite a few times this season, which I've NEVER seen our team do before and haven't really noticed anybody else doing it.  Why do you think they do this?

I figure its sort of a read/audible situation: see if a CB goes out to cover, leaving a LB mismatched on one of our WRs, or if a LB goes out to cover its pulling one of their guys outside of the box. 

Does Owen Schmitt or Justin Griffith have much value as a pass catcher that far out?

Can we nerd out for a while about the possible and likely offensive line combinations our Hawks will use?  I don't think we have much sabermetric-type data about individual linemen, but if anyone knows ways to quantify this I'd love to use it.

1) Best Possible Combo - Assumes everybody's healthy and Spencer continues to progress

LT - Walt, LG - Sims, C - Spencer, RG - Willis/Wrotto/Unger. RT - Locklear

This feels like an above average offensive line, depending on what shakes out at Right Guard.  If Wrotto puts it all together or Unger is able to step up right away we should be league average or better at every position. 

2) Let's Hope Not - Assumes Walt is not healthy and Spencer either regresses or reinjures himself.

LT - Locklear,  LG - Sims,  C - Unger, RG - Wrotto, RT - Willis

I originally titled this 'Worst Possible Line Combo...' but I don't really want to go into exactly how bad things could get.  This starting five would be servicable, but would have almost no depth.  If we saw this combination a couple times through the year I wouldn't be worried.  If we see it Week 1 I think the team is in trouble. 

What are some other reasonable combinations?  What do you see as the strengths/weaknesses of our Right Guard position battle?

So over at www.mockingthedraft.com (where JM has set our Hawks up with Stafford and Britton) FS and SS are starting to fly off the board.  William Moore went at 34, but then the Browns picked Patrick Chung at 50, Cowboys selected Louis Delmas at 51, and Michael Hamlin was picked by the Falcons at 55. 

Do we see a run on safeties in the mid second round?  If so, do we need to 'reach' for Chung at the top of round 2, or is it worth packaging (for example**) our third, fourth, and fifth together to move up into the 50s and ensure we get Brian Russell's replacement? 

IMO taking a solid safety to take over for B-Russ is almost as important as our first pick.  Blowing either would significantly hinder the Hawks in 2009 and beyond. 

**Using the *potentially irrelevant* trade value chart, pick number 50 is worth 400 points.  Our third, fourth and fifth add up to 386.  Throwing in our seventh would bring it to 399.  Yuck.

It seems like there has been a lot of turmoil about late round picks here, one comment said we would be a 'laughingstock' for drafting another long snapper in the 7th, and there has been a whole string about todd boeckman being a potential franchise QB getting drafted in the 7th.

Another example might be all the late round WRs that the team has picked up, and a lot of angst that our 6th and 7th round picks have been 'wasted' on Obomanu, Kent, Taylor, et al. 

I definitely understand that its a no risk/potentially infinite reward pick, but is there any data on what a reasonable expectation is for these picks?  for example how what percentage of 7th round picks ever start a single game?  I've always seen everything after the 4th round as scratching a lotto ticket; its awesome when you get something but i'm not worried if it turns out to be a total blank.

So what does the data say?  How does Ruskell match up to league average?  Obviously the data range goes from Tom Brady and Marques Colston down to "cut from the practice squad" and everything in between, but what should we be expecting out of these picks?

Thanks in advance!

am i the only person who thinks that there is exactly zero chance that the Hawks take Crabtree with the 4th pick?  I know that he's a sexy pick and tons of national analysts think he's our obvious pick there, but I just cannot see it happening.  Maybe I'm crazy but I would be $1000 against it, or more. 

A few reasons:

1) Ruskell seems to show a little bit of disrespect to the WR position, trying to pick up replacement level talent or projects in the late rounds rather than early or mid round picks.

2) While WR is a need, i think that it can be addressed later in the draft while superstar LT, DT and Franchise QB are almost all taken in the top half of the first round. 

3) Seems to me that the league in general has moved away from WRs in the first round, notably how every receiver fell out of it and into round 2 last year.  With guys like Heyward-Bey, Maclin, and Harvin all likely to be available at the top of round 2 it seems hard to devote top 5 pick and money to a WR.  While productive starters (with superstar potential) at WR should still be on the board in round two, I doubt any likely franchise Left Tackles will still be available.