BRANDSTARTER!

they will probably [hopefully] use the top picks next year to shore up the defensive front seven, the interior of the o-line, and maybe snag another playmaker at WR

but this management team is just not going to use a first-round draft pick on a quarterback. No way. You’ll have a much more pleasant offseason if you reconcile yourself to that fact early on.

I’m with the ’copter on this one. They will clearly follow the best-player available approach. In addition to the D-line, I would be thrilled if they used an early draft pick (a 2nd) on an interior OL. The quality of play has been declining their for a long time.

but I also like our own Tom B – who won’t cost us nearly as much as TT will, if we even draft high enough, which I doubt. Losing Urlacher is a blow to Chicago and Cutler will lose as many games for them as he’ll win, but I doubt they’ll be a top-ten pick next year.

Their schedule is as so:
Steelers
Seahawks
Lions
Falcons
Bengals
Browns
Cards
Niners
Eagles
Vikings
Rams
Packers
Ravens
Vikings
Lions

They’ve got some tough battles, particularly in-division with the Vikings, and already a loss to the Packers. And the Steelers are formidable as ever. But you can’t tell me, with the Lions, Rams, ect they will be a top-ten pick in 2010.

I might be reading a bit too much into this, but we all know NE’s viewpoint towards top-10 draft picks (with which I agree wholeheartedly) So why did they trade Seymour to Oakland for what is likely to be a to 10 pick? My guess is that Bob Kraft expects a Rookie wage scale to be in place by then. in realitly, Not even Kraft knows if that will be the case, but he probably has a good idea how hard the owners will push for it, so I’d bet there’s a decent chance that a wage scale will be in effect within a couple years.

As to our remaining #1 next year, that won’t be affected. my guess is that if Chicago’s pick ends up being in the top-ten, they’ll try to trade down into the middle third of the first round. IMO, if that were the case I’d throw the draft charts out the window (they were created well before top ten contracts began to get out of hand) and do anything nessecary to get out of the to 10. For example, i’d go so far as to trade a #5 for a #15, even steven.

Another possiblity would be holding on to the pick and not using until a few other teams have gone, then only offering a player a contract commensurate with the resulting draft slot. This would be a sure-fire way to cause a holdout, as the player and agent would be under HUGE pressure from fellow agents, players and the NFLPA to go after a contract
conmensurate with the original draft slot. But the message it would send would be enourmous – the resulting controversy would lay bare the truth that the top of the NFL draft truly has no clothes. not even the agents could credibly ignore it then (although they’ll surely try). i wouldn’t put it past Bowlen to send just such a message – remember that he was the first owner to start cuttting veterans when the labor deal looked like it was collapsing a couple of years ago.

Very nice gesture for a tough first week.

In case Roach, Hillenmeyer, or Williams goes down.

Floyd is a man among boys.

maybe he can throw the ball with ‘better than Elway’ armstrength and bruise his chest.

Caught me on that one…