You are not the only one confused.

after i’ve read every single comment on these transactions. but i’ll try.
gandy, paymah, and shaw ready to break out this season? hmm. roster sabatoge for a better draft selection next year(because we’re not going to go to the sb this year, anyway-see plummer, ‘06)? nah. improve locker room chemistry? uhh… need better gunners and practice squad players in ’09 and ’10? eeh… with 2 smart picks, we can get much-needed help 3-4 years from now? urr… the regular season is just an extension of the pre-season? guh… they all knew too much about the system we were running, compared to all the new guys? doi… if you want to start and you can’t, you will play like a backup, because you are? oii… because they played well in the past means they can’t play well in the future, also? kjqwx… we don’t need solid veteran role players, and we won’t stop until we have a roster full of potential starters? vxcqzywyjka…i don’t know, this is the best i can do right now. anyone else care to contribute?

we are trying to confuse our opponents by our players on the field being confused themselves. see. we’re outthinking them before they think. if we are confused, they must also be. there also is no game tape to go on with players like shaw, and people will often line up incorrectly before plays, further enhancing said confusion. that’s it!

I think NE might have drafted O’Neal for ST ability as well…

I know one of the two guys we signed today will be cut after week 1 when BMarsh is added back onto the roster. So don’t be too upset about that.

My best guess is that Shanny is getting guys onto the team that are truly team players. Holland showed he was not committed to the team when he showed up overweight. As for Foxy, I think we knew we would lose either Foxy or Paymah and Shanny wanted to get something out of him other than just losing him to FA. Foxy is better than Paymah now, but consensus believes Paymah to be the better CB long term. As for Peterson, I have no idea…best guess would be he found himself in Shanny’s doghouse and that door is mighty small as we all know.

if New England could sign Deltha without giving up a draft pick, why in the world would they give up a 4th or 5th rounder for Foxworth? New England, who has been one of the most successful franchises at drafting players? They value draft picks quite highly, just as the Broncos seem to be doing now…Seriously, would YOU trade a 4th or 5th round pick for someone of Foxworth’s caliber? I wouldn’t, not in a million years.

and that’s an average backup swing defensive back. They’re a dime a dozen, and I agree with what Mike Lombardi said on NationalFootballPost.com yesterday, that he applauded the Broncos for being able to trade Foxworth at all. The guy’s film says he is not one iota above average.

I predicted that the Broncos would be picking up more players if they didn’t feel comfortable with their depth, much like last season although not to the same degree.

The ‘final’ cut (so to speak) is a great opportunity to acquire players, and historically speaking we’ve seen a lot of movement at this time. Final cut acquisitions are the third major way of adding players after the draft and free agency, which is expensive and, particularly in our case, not always reliable.

Most of the recent movement points to weaknesses.

Our depth was still poor at Safety so the Lowry pickup made sense. Rogers was the 4th best Safety in an ordinal ranking but he failed to meet the minimum level we’d like to have for that position.

Clearly we still have depth problems at DT so the McKinley cut made sense. Oddly, the speculation over a possible Ekuban cut didn’t extend to likewise speculation about cutting McKinley. Again, being better than one’s competition doesn’t mean you’re good enough and it was only the lack of depth at DT that led people conclude McKinley was a keeper even though he was only marginally better than completely inexperienced competition. The Shaw pickup is probably not a final move, I expect we’ll being seeing further auditions at DT and Shaw is likely a placeholder for the position for now. However, we freed up salary rather than paying a player we were apparently going to cut.

The Gandy pickup made sense from a depth point of view since there were no backup Guards (apparently they consider Lichtensteiger a Center despite the what it says on the depth chart). There are a number of posts outlining the logic of trading Holland and I agree with those, what I would add is that the final cut at OL dictated keeping a large number of OLs, partly because on inexperience at OT and partly because of the overall quality. Cutting Gandy initially confirms what many of us have been saying about Lichtensteiger, whom they see as the future Center, but they’re also uncomfortable relying on him as a backup at this point. Exposing Gandy tells us he’s unlikely to be picked up and allows us to protect Lichtensteiger.

The Foxworth trade has been discussed at length and I don’t have much more to add. I would have liked more for him but I can also understand why he didn’t yield much. He wasn’t going to be around after this year and I see his leaving as mostly addition by subtraction.

One important thing to remember is that there are 8 inactive players each week, so the inactive list is a little like the Practice Squad. The inactive list players should be; developing players, players who provide meaningful depth (at not too high a price), players who excel at Special Teams, players who provide a unique contribution (like a heathy Alridge).

Also, I don’t doubt that Shanny has been disguising his appraisal of some of the players and that this accounts for — for example — cutting Barrett initially rather than Rogers. I’m not sure how effective these attempts to disguise motives are, but I’m certain that Shanny is aware of this strategy. Moreover, considering the Broncos take pains to disguise their interest in potential draftees, it’s quite likely that there’s some gamesmanship afoot.