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I wanted to say something about the Tampa Bay Rays to end this week and they offered me a good place to start when they finalized a Scott Kazmir-to-Angels deal today.  This has all the makings of a salary dump, but the Rays don’t see it that way, at least publicly.  Rob Neyer is all over this:

It’s not really fair to describe this deal as a salary dump, because the Rays are getting far more than just $21 million of financial relief. They’ve also picked up at least two solid prospects, and it’s not all that unlikely that one of those prospects will wind up helping the Rays as soon as next season.

He goes on to point out that the deal is completely defensible from the Rays perspective because it doesn’t do much to cut their playoff chances, but it gives them some future pitching help by way of prospects, as well as the salary dump.

Kazmir hasn’t pitched nearly well enough to be considered an irreplaceable part of the Rays rotation.  In that respect, the deal is very easily defensible, if you think you have a pair of prospects that will contribute one day, dropping a guy who cleared a majority of teams in the waiver process and his contract on the large-market Angels is a sound financial strategy.

There’s another financial strategy that could help balance the Rays’ books: making the AL playoffs for a second consecutive year.  Sure, they’ve fallen to 4.5 games behind Boston for the wild card, and they’d have to overcome both Boston and the Texas Rangers to make the playoffs.  I don’t think getting Kazmir out of the rotation really hurts their playoff chances, but I don’t want to let Kazmir distract from the main point of me writing this article:  The Rays should be more active in trying to close the gap in the wild card race, and they are letting a golden opportunity slip by.

I’m not buying the fact that they can’t compete with the Red Sox.  They are every bit as talented as the Red Sox, and have a such a huge offensive advantage over both the Red Sox and the Rangers this year that all they have to do is shuffle some chairs in the rotation and they become the most dangerous of all the wild card suitors.

Yeah, B.J. Upton’s age-24 season has been an offensive disappointment.  Yeah, the Catcher position has been a gaping hole in the lineup.  But when you can be as loaded 2-6 in your lineup as Carl Crawford, Evan Longoria, Carlos Pena, Ben Zobrist, and Pat Burrell, you are going to score a lot of runs.  And they have, scoring 657 runs through August 28, which puts them fourth in the AL, behind the Yankees, the Angels, and perhaps most significantly, the Red Sox.  But with the Rays waiting on a few young players to produce at the levels they are capable of, it’s the back end of their rotation (which included Kazmir) that has left them behind the Red Sox in the wild card race.

Simply put, both the Red Sox and the Rays have enjoyed underwhelming results from the back of their rotations.  Both teams are currently using their super prospects (Clay Buchholz and David Price, respectively) to try to limit some of the bleeding.  But for the Rays, here I think is a spot where they could completely close the gap on their AL East brethren by being aggressive in their August waiver moves.  4.5 games is not a lot, especially when you have multiple series to decide it on the field.  But, while I like the Kazmir deal in a vacuum, I think the guy the Rays will replace him in the rotation with, Wade Davis, is not the kind of move that makes sense for them right now.

The Rays should have (still can?) make a move for the type of league average veteran who can help them get over the top and back into the playoffs for the second consecutive season.  I’m going to cite the Rockies here as a rare team that looks like they have beaten their small-market status and are on their way to return to the playoffs in the NL for the second time in three seasons.  The Rockies are a better team right now than they were two seasons ago, although their contributions are coming from many of the same sources: Troy Tulowitzski, Todd Helton, and Brad Hawpe.

But part of the Rockies’ success is attributable to the relative open-ness of the NL Wild Card.  If they were in a division where they had to win it to get in it, they’d be more of an underdog than the Rays currently are.  Furthermore, as the team’s 2008 season shows, there’s nothing the Rays can do to even ensure that they’ll be back in the same position they are right now next year.  They might finish in a distant third or even fourth next year, which (if they miss the playoffs this year) probably kick starts a lengthy rebuilding process in the AL East.

Baseball is not a fair game, and when the Tampa Bay Rays are even given a fair shake, like it appears they have this year, they have to do everything they can to make the postseason.  We know how much it hurts large market teams to miss the playoffs, but in this division, it’s probably more crippling to a team like the Rays to not capitalize on what they built last season, and return to the playoffs.

There is nothing they can do to guarentee a playoff spot, but they are hardly making it difficult on the Red Sox right now.  I say: load up the roster this September with everything you have, and do whatever you can to close the gap.  If it fails, then you haven’t lost too much additional money, in relative terms.  If you succeed, it probably makes the Rays a legit contender in the AL East for another two or three years, and puts them ahead of the curve financially while Boston might not be able to expand payroll next season without all that playoff revenue.  Cutting payroll is not difficult, but getting back to this level of performance is not something that many small market franchises have solved.

The reward for the Rays of going-for-broke seems to fair exceed the risk of actually going broke.

9.5 wins.

In this over/under series, we’ll preview some of the top college football teams with BCS aspirations, and set an over/under win total, discuss the relative pro and con arguments, and then get off the fence and pick a side.  Today: the Fighting Irish.

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The number one argument both for, and against, the Irish this year has to do with their schedule.  It’s notably softer than in any of the past seasons.  I mean, just look at preseason top-25 teams they have played in past seasons:

2005: Pitt, Michigan, USC, Tennessee

2006: Penn State, Michigan, USC

2007: Penn State, Michigan, UCLA, USC

2008: Pitt, USC

2009: USC

What was once a tough road has significantly softened.  Or has it?  What exactly makes a top 25 team a quality team, while a top 35 team is simply a rollover opponent?  The truth is nothing.  A “ranked” team is in no way better or tougher than a non-ranked team of similar quality.  Sure, this year’s Notre Dame schedule has Syracuse on it, and without reading too much into their upset win in Notre Dame Stadium last year, they figure to be a W.

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But the rest of the bunch might not have a pushover in it.  Both Washington and Washington state are games the Irish should win, but neither figures to be Syracuse bad.  But after that, where are all the Armys, Indianas, Iowa States, and Dukes we would expect to be on the softest schedule in the history of Notre Dame football?  They’re absent.  Even if you don’t give Washington or Washington State a fighting chance, Notre Dame will take the field nine times this year against teams that have a chance to beat them.

Maybe if they were a real program, like Florida, they could schedule Charleston Southern, Troy, and FIU.  Oklahoma will attempt to handle Idaho State.  Or, like everyone’s favorite Pennsylvania program, they could open against Akron, Syracuse, and Temple, and then throw in a mid season battle with Eastern Illinois for good measure.

The cold, hard truth is that Notre Dame will line up against 8 opponents this year who fully expect to be bowl eligible.  No team, not even from a major conference, will face a similar schedule.  Every conference has it’s pushovers to play, and when teams start scheduling Division 1-FCS teams on their schedule, the regular season seems to lose a lot of it’s meaning.  As an independent, the Irish typically see a harder schedule than most teams, and this year is no exception.

With that said, the stigma of the “winnable game” will weigh heavily on the Irish.  10 wins will probably get them to the BCS, hence the 9.5 over/under from the top of the article.  But with top 35-40 opponents in Michigan, Michigan State, Pitt, Boston College, and perhaps Stanford as well, not to mention the one game it seems like they’ll never win, USC, 10 wins is guaranteed to no one, least of whom the Fighting Irish.

So what do they have going for them if not the schedule?  Well, for one thing, Jimmy Clausen has been statistically more impressive in his development than Brady Quinn to the same point.  Subjectively, however, Clausen’s jump from mechanical, fundamentally-sound pocket passer with poor field vision to playmaking super star quarterback at ND is going to be a lot more difficult than simply “being Brady.”

Head Coach Charlie Weis expects his running game to handle most of what opposing defensive coordinators can throw at it.  It was a major weakness last year after being the only way they could move the ball in 2007.  Tailbacks Robert Hughes and Armando Allen will carry the load, which is an improvement over those two and former five star recruit James Aldridge playing situationally, with no one playing well in any situation.  With Aldridge’s move to fullback, you’d have to think he’s going to make a bigger impact then in past seasons, if for no other reasons than playing time and questionable fullback play in past years.

Notre Dame’s best chance to win though is to use it’s receiving duo, among the best receiving tandems in the country with Michael Floyd and Golden Tate.  A lot of Clausen’s high YPA numbers were actually adjustments to the ball by Tate, who often makes defensive backs look foolish for trying to cover him.  Floyd was inconsistent as a freshman, but as far as true freshmen go, he was among the most prolific receivers in school history.  The third target is tight end Kyle Rudolph, who is a receiver first and a blocker second, and is only a true sophomore.

Don’t count out the defense either, particularly the run defense.  For the first time in seemingly ever, the defense was the better of the two sides of the ball, and with top recruits maturing, looks to only be stronger in 2009.  The best players are DT Ian Williams, LB Brian Smith, CB Robert Blanton, and 5 star Hawaian recruit, LB Manti T’eo.

Given Notre Dame’s schedule and talent, not to mention the positive indicator of a veteran offensive line, a large jump in team quality seems almost inevitable.  The problem is that even while improving to a top 15 or 20 team, 10 wins is still a tough feat for an independent who plays as many competitive teams as Notre Dame.

So on the Irish, I’m going to take the under and predict 9-3, with losses to Michigan, USC, and Boston College.  That won’t get them into the BCS, but a four game winning streak to close out the regular season should give them a nice shot at the Gator Bowl, Cotton Bowl, or Capital One Bowl, and with a strong showing in that game, the Irish should be noticibly improved enough to earn Charlie Weis an extended stay, and a run at the BCS next year with the current group.

Previous Roster Roundouts: Bills, Rams, Bengals, Chiefs, Saints, Jaguars, Packers, Raiders, Vikings, Browns, Buccaneers, Dolphins, Colts, Lions, Cardinals, Chargers, Eagles, Titans, 49ers, Panthers, Giants, Texans, Falcons, Jets, Ravens, Broncos, Redskins, Seahawks, Bears, Cowboys, Steelers

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Roster Roundouts didn’t forget the New England Patriots.  I just saved them for last.

Does that make them the best?  Not necessarily, although QDS is quite a fan.  No team scored higher than a 16, and two teams reached that mark in the metric: the Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots.  But what’s more surprising is that it prefers the defense to the offense.

QDS doesn’t know that Tom Brady is better than, say, Eli Manning, it views both of them through the same “quality QB” lens.  If that’s any reason to believe that the Chargers, Colts, and Patriots will make the AFC their own personal playground this year, then I fully support that notion.

What’s remarkable to the Patriots compared to the other elite teams is that their roster is ridiculously loaded at every position.  There’s a certain set of qualifications a team has to meet at a position to have “quality depth”, and the Pats meet it a very respectable 5 different positions, one of the key factors is a player’s track record.  Well, the Patriots have a bunch of highly touted young players such as Brandon Merriweather, Patrick Chung, and Pierre Woods whom they will rely on, and none of them qualified due to limited playing time.  With a good year in player development, the Patriots could be better than in 2007.

The defense wasn’t very good last year, you might have heard.  Down the stretch in 2007, it didn’t help the cause either.  The Patriots completely overhauled their cornerback position, bringing in two very good starters: Shawn Springs and Leigh Bodden.  Nothing like players with a proven past for a good coaching staff.  They’ll be supported by two second year players, Jonathon Wilhite and Terrence Wheatley, and a rookie, Darius Butler.

They’ll be backed up by a young, proven safety in James Sanders, and Merriweather, who will be on a short leash.  The Patriots have been carefully phasing out their veterans on defense over the last two years or so: Rodney Harrison and Mike Vrabel this year, Tedy Bruschi next, and who knows about Richard Seymour, now in his 8th season (and a contract year).  At corner, they went with the stopgap choice in Springs, and he’s about as good as it gets while still qualifying as a stop gap.  Bodden is nominally a stop-gap, in the fact that his contract is only one year, but he’s a very young 27, and is going to get paid next year elsewhere.

The point is, the Patriots have no depth issues on defense.  The only way a problem arises is if a player like Springs, or Bruschi drops off a cliff and becomes a complete liability, in which case the team can replace him with a plan B option, but then is playing multiple players ahead of predicted roles.  It’s a completely loaded roster from the offensive line to the defense, to the tight ends and running backs.

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The place where the Patriots might actually struggle in 2009 is in the passing game, believe it or not.  This is not to predict that the Pats should expect to pound the rock 35 times per game to make up for a passing deficiency.  This is very much still an air it out team with Tom Brady, Randy Moss, and Wes Welker leading the charge.  But of those players, only Welker is theoretically still in the middle of his prime.  Brady is on the back-end of his, certainly something that his knee injury might have sped up, and Moss could begin the decline phase of his career within the next two seasons.

Brady’s knee is going to generate a lot of attention, probably more than it deserves, but it’s a serious issue.  For one thing, there’s hardly any margin for error when you’re always in the media spotlight, and while Brady has been effective, if not completely comfortable in the preseason, the Patriots offensive line has not helped his cause, and it’s possible that it might have an adverse effect on his performance.

The flip side of that coin is that Tom Brady continues to be, in my opinion, a remarkably overrated player.  He’s on anyone’s list of the best five quarterbacks in the game, and is probably one of the two best QBs of this decade, but you can’t call his 2007 season anything but a complete statistical outlier at this point.  Brady has never, ever come close to that kind of his production in his career before that.  The assumption that Brady should get credit for another season just like that in 2008 drives me a little crazy.  Granted, I feel bad for the guy for losing his opportunity to return to and win the super bowl, but Brady has to show to us that his record setting season where he averaged 3.5 TD’s per game wasn’t just catching lightning in a bottle for 10 weeks, and then Brady-ing it to the finish.  This is not a given on that gimpy knee by any stretch of the imagination.

The Patriots also have depth issues on the outside.  Undrafted WR Juilan Edelman has flashed the skill to back up Wes Welker in the slot, but the team is going with Joey Galloway as a starting receiver.  Galloway is 76 years old and last played well for Tampa in 2007.  This is not anybody’s idea of a solution to the loss of…Jabar Gaffney, mind you, but the depth behind him at WR is more frightening.

The Patriots traded a second day draft pick for Greg Lewis, in one of the more baffling, but yet, knowing-that-he-has-a-hand-picked-offensive-niche-already moves of the year.  3rd round pick Brandon Tate is on the roster, but he tore his ACL last year returning a punt for North Carolina against Notre Dame.  Basically, Randy Moss’ role on this team is completely irreplacable, and if the Patriots lose him, they go from a likely 13-win team to maybe a 9-10 win team.  That’s the difference between being a super bowl contender and a nominal division winner who is likely to get crushed in the playoffs by a better team.

Brady’s success depends heavily on Moss’ health, but at least he has a running game to lean on that he hasn’t had in years.  The Patriots will probably keep four TEs as opposed to three TEs and a fullback, and then they’ll have four running backs.  Three of which will be Sammy Morris, Kevin Faulk, and Fred Taylor.  That leaves 2006 first rounder Laurence Maroney on the bubble, but he could earn his keep by returning kicks for the Pats.  The Patriots offensive line is primarily concerned with keeping Brady clean, but these guy will enjoy opening up some large holes this year.

Overall, you would expect the Patriots to completely run through their schedule.  5 wins against the AFC East this year is hardly unreasonable.  They also get to play the Broncos, the Falcons, and the Bucs, and none of those teams figure to be able to run with them.  So we’re looking at a team that could get 8 wins handed to them by a simple gap in talent, and then against the quality opponents of the AFC South, and the Baltimore Ravens in inter-divisional play, they figure to be favored between 14 and all 16 games they play.  The Patriots always do well in big games, and unlike last season, there will be no games (such as the Chargers or the Colts) where they are major underdogs.  That means that, potential injury luck aside, the Patriots are again a major threat to win the super bowl, and are basically already playoff bound.

Pats Headquarters: Foxborough, MA

The Patriots never seem to have a lot of camp battles, but always seem to find the most intriguing players via superior scouting.

-QB Brian Hoyer out of Michigan State is just trying to make the team.  The Patriots backups are completely unproven in this league, which didn’t hurt all that much last year, but Hoyer knows that getting onto the field in the NFL is a two step process.  Making a roster is the supremely important first step, but even as a third quarterback for the Patriots, you’re not guaranteed anything except one year in that role.

-WRs Julian Edelman, Brandon Tate, and Matt Slater all bring very different skill sets (all of which involve some PR/KR value) to a Pats team that is really looking to fill out it’s roster at a position where it is not deep at all.  Tate is a PUP candidate, and might be awarded Greg Lewis’ roster spot upon activation.  So if it comes down to Edelman and Slater, you have Slater’s kick return skills, best on the team, vs. Edelman’s value in the slot, a valuable buffer against a Welker injury.

-G Rich Ohrnberger is a rookie out of Penn State who had an impressive college career, but is on the bubble as a pro prospect.  If he could show value as a backup Center, it would exponentially increase his chances of making the roster.

-DT Darryl Richard from Georgia Tech is a mammoth nose tackle who is behind about three guys on the depth chart, including 2nd round pick Ron Brace.  For him, the key thing he needs to show in the final preseason games is the versatility to succeed in this league at defensive end.  If not, then he’s a practice squad candidate.

-Safeties Brandon McGowan and Ray Ventrone are former roster fillers on super bowl teams (McGowan was a rookie on the 2006 Bears, Ventrone on the 2007 Patriots) who are deadlocked with each other for the right to play on this super bowl contender.  McGowan seemingly has more to offer: he can start in a NFL secondary, but Ventrone is a very good special teamer.  McGowan’s special teams skills, or lack thereof, will likely decide this battle.  The Patriots love to be loaded at all positions, and having McGowan as a 4th safety is key.

Surprise Cuts?

• WR Greg Lewis
• TE Ben Watson
• OT Wesley Britt
• DT Mike Wright
• LB Tully Banta-Cain

Previous Roster Roundouts: Bills, Rams, Bengals, Chiefs, Saints, Jaguars, Packers, Raiders, Vikings, Browns, Buccaneers, Dolphins, Colts, Lions, Cardinals, Chargers, Eagles, Titans, 49ers, Panthers, Giants, Texans, Falcons, Jets, Ravens, Broncos, Redskins, Seahawks, Bears, Cowboys

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The Pittsburgh Steelers won the super bowl last year.  If this article was written by Jeff Chadiha, it would end there.

The Steelers were probably the favorite of the 12 teams who made the playoff field to win it, but considering that all 4 of the teams’ losses were to teams who made the postseason, it’s pretty fortunate that the Steelers road to the playoffs went the way it did.  If you assume a 50% probability for any game to be won or lost in the playoffs by any team in the postseason, there was a 7/8 probability that the Steelers would have had to face at least one of the Colts, Titans, Eagles, or Giants.  As it worked out, they got to play the Chargers and Ravens, who they had already beaten in the regular season, and the Cardinals in the super bowl, who that had not seen in 2008.

Favorable postseason schedule or not, the Steelers were not a surprise to win their division, nor to do well in the postseason.  It was a little surprising that they put it all together, as we generally don’t think of teams who get knocked out in the playoffs in the wild card round as preseason super bowl favorites: yet, in the AFC, the Titans and Steelers were the best two teams in the regular season this past year.  The Redskins and Buccaneers weren’t so lucky, although there was a time last year where those two teams looked like the class of the NFC.

The whole year, Steeler detractors were waiting for the other shoe to drop.  What would happen when someone FINALLY figured out the Steelers defense.  How would they be able to trust an offense that ranked in the 20’s in most categories to come bail out their super bowl hopes?

It didn’t hurt that the defense was dominant into the playoffs as well, but in what should have been a Steelers’ rout on paper, the Cardinals solved the Steelers defense late in the second half.  The difference in the game was one play; the James Harrison interception return for touchdown (the for touchdown is such an important part of that equation), and the final, game-clinching drive by Roethlisberger and Santonio Holmes.

The Cardinals more than overcame the talent gap between the teams, and for every play the Steelers made in that game, the Cardinals had an equally impressive play.  But the Steelers benefited from leading the whole way until the final three minutes, and being able to drain the clock on a methodical drive to go win the game.  That was the ultimate test.  And maybe in an alternate dimension, that game ends differently.  But, with their backs against the wall, the Steelers won a game in a way they would not have prefered to, but have proved able.

It’s something for the Steelers offense to build on going into 2009, because last year’s effort simply isn’t going to cut it this time around.  The passing offense can’t wait until the last five minutes of every game to move the chains.  The rushing offense cannot be as painfully ineffective in power situations as it was last year.

The hope is that the latter issue can be solved by Rashard Mendenhall, the second year player out of Illinois who had his season cut short by injury in the season’s fourth week.  There’s concern about the legitimacy of Mendenhall pro prospects, just one season after his record-setting campaign in Champaign, he didn’t make much of a dent even before his injury.  Mendenhall’s skills are undeniable, but it’s really not a good sign when a player with one pro-prospect type year in college doesn’t do anything as a rookie in the pros.  For Mendenhall and his fans, a best case scenario involves his injury being just that, an injury, and he can hit the ground running so to speak this year.  1,300 rushing yards are not out of the question, but if he doesn’t win playing time with 3rd down abilities, it’s hard to imagine him getting even a single start.

The Steelers have an interesting issue, in that their biggest question mark going into the season is who they will have to start…in 2010.  The following players are free agents at the end of the season: RB Willie Parker, DT Casey Hampton, DE Brett Keisel, and S Ryan Clark, all starters.  The Steelers are theoretically limited in their ability to spend, even in an uncapped year, so Parker and Keisel might be the odd men out.  We’ve addressed what the Steelers would like to see from the running back position, so now they need to see rookie DE Ziggy Hood step up and flash some ability as a defensive end.

It’s not like the Steelers to be forced into making some changes, as the team usually beats the free agency system with contract extensions to it’s talented players.  In this sense, they are victims of their own success.  So much quality talent throughout the defense means that you have to choose to pay James Harrison over a guy like Keisel, or a guy like Polamalu over a guy like Clark, or James Farrior over Larry Foote.

The Steelers should be fine in the long run, but this years’ defense is thinner than the team is used to.  Lawrence Timmons will be stepping into the starting lineup finally, and he’s got all the talent in the world, but the team wants to see him improve the run defense.  The team lost corner Bryant McFadden in the offseason, and while they’ll be able to field a pair of very good corners, McFadden’s departure thins out the secondary to five good players: Clark and Polamalu at safety; Deshea Townsend, Ike Taylor, and William Gay at corner.  It’s not a defense that can suffer injuries like the Ravens did last year, and remain near the top of the league in all categories.

Given that, can the offense be expected to pick up the slack?  If Ben Roethlisberger is who we think he is, then yes, we can expect him to rebound from his performance last year.  His play in the playoffs was much more in line with who we believe he is, and less like the player he was for most of last year.  Secondly, Santonio Holmes did not make the jump as the third year receiver we all expected, but if the playoffs are any indication, he’ll make that jump to a top tier WR this year.  Holmes may never be an elite player, but he’s not the next Deion Branch either.  Hines Ward is probably staying right at this level of production for another 2-3 years, and it looks like the team found a keeper in WR Mike Wallace in the third round.  He’ll win the 3rd WR job if last year’s 2nd rounder Limas Sweed doesn’t win it, but it may only be a matter of time anyway.  The odds on Limas Sweed’s Steelers tenure with the Steelers outlasting Hines Ward’s is at even, and dropping every day.

The guy I like is unheralded second TE Matt Speath, who sees the field plenty already, and could replace Heath Miller in the lineup with absolutely no drop off in production.  Guys like Speath are the steals who will buffer against players like Mendenhall and Sweed not panning out, should both fail.

The Steelers have issues like any other team, and this team will not be a favorite to repeat as champs, but they actually have a schedule advantage over the Ravens.  The pitfalls could include a vastly improved AFC North this year, and a struggling offensive unit being unable to pick up for defensive drop-off.  The Steelers’ roster is still talent loaded, but not quite as deep, and being a preseason favorite means nothing come the season.  Yet, you look at the AFC North, and the Steelers are the easy pick, not because of who they have been, but who they are.

Steelers Headquarters: Pittsburgh, PA

As part of their organizational philosophy, the Steelers don’t view their undrafteds as roster longshots, so there’s quite a few with chances to be on the 53-man.

-RB Issac Redman has dominated in the preseason, probably the surprise of camp.  His questions have to do with his blocking or receiving, you know, those critical things that keep veteran RBs in the league and young ones out of it.

-WR Brandon Williams has looked good in camp, and might be a front-runner over Shaun McDonald for the 5th WR spot.  He was a third round pick of the 49ers in 2006, so he didn’t come from nowhere, but he didn’t play last year.  He’s never seen action on a team outside of the NFC West, so he becomes a developmental target on the Steelers.  The guy adds value as a punt returner.

-TE David Johnson, a rookie 7th round draft choice from Arkansas State, could join two mammoth tight ends at the position if he can bounce incumbent Sean McHugh from the 53-man roster.

-OT Jason Capizzi has suddenly become a favorite to make the roster as a backup tackle.  This is the way the Steelers have chosen to build up their OL, they fixed the starters last year, and they are trying to be patient in developing backups.  Capizzi might be verification of their strategy.

-C A.Q. Shipley was a 5th round draft pick who was anointed the center of the future in OTA’s, but his training camp hasn’t gone as planned.  The team has signed Alex Stepanovich to provide depth on the interior OL, which means that they’ll stick Shipley on the practice squad if he can’t shape up.

-CBs Keenan Lewis and Joe Burnett are deadlocked in a battle with journeyman Keiwan Ratliff in an attempt to be the guy who wins Bryant McFadden’s spot on the active roster.  Lewis, from Oregon State, has the name recognition, and was the third round pick to Burnett’s 5th round pick.  The Steelers apparently couldn’t afford to miss, but now they just have to make the right call.

Surprise Cuts?

• G Trai Essex
• C A.Q. Shipley
• DE Travis Kirschke
• LB Andre Frazier
• CB Anthony Madison

Previous Roster Roundouts: Bills, Rams, Bengals, Chiefs, Saints, Jaguars, Packers, Raiders, Vikings, Browns, Buccaneers, Dolphins, Colts, Lions, Cardinals, Chargers, Eagles, Titans, 49ers, Panthers, Giants, Texans, Falcons, Jets, Ravens, Broncos, Redskins, Seahawks, Bears

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For all the daily rhetoric that the Cowboys generate–Jerry Jones famously said, “no publicity is bad publicity”–you can’t blame the media firestorm for sweeping the general public under the rug regarding the weaknesses of the 2008 Cowboys.  That’s a cop out.  Not “everyone else” thought the Cowboys were a likely super bowl contender.

Here are some other poor excuses for the Cowboys dropping to 9-7 last year: Tony Romo is a bad leader.   Terrell Owens divided the locker room.  Jason Garrett isn’t the offensive coordinator we thought he was.  Wade Phillips didn’t have control of the locker room.  The team couldn’t deal with adversity.

None of those things are necessarily incorrect, but they distract from the actual problem in Dallas, which is that this is a very mediocre team in a top-of-the-line division.

The fundamental issues with the Cowboys run very deep, from offensive line play, to terrible coverage units year in and year out, to downright embarrassing run defense, and even include an offensive identity crisis.  Talent cures most ills, and the top end talent on the Cowboys is as strong as any other team in the NFL.  That’s what you can see, that’s what I can see, and that’s what overshadows the problems.  The Cowboys scored 9 quality starters, which is as many as the Redskins and one more than either the Giants or the Eagles.  There’s your talent.

Yet the Cowboys QDS figure comes out to only a relatively weak 11, lowest in the NFC East, thanks to a thin offensive line and defensive unit.  The team doesn’t have very many holes, but you win in this league by having quality talent throughout the roster, not stars and serviceable stop gaps.

The Cowboys didn’t get the memo.  They struggled with offensive line quality, and did nothing to assist it, losing the only lineman they drafted–Ball State’s Robert Brewster–to a season ending injury.  Flozell Adams absolutely cannot handle modern pass rushers at the LT position anymore, but they can’t swing him and his contract over to RT because they just extending Marc Columbo over on the right side, and he was never capable of handling left tackle.  Kyle Kosier was injured most of last year, and when he was, Cory Procter and Montrae Holland were horrific replacements.  Kosier returns this year, which should be a boost to the line, until something else inevitably goes wrong.

Depth on defense was, and continues to be enemy number one for this team. So when the Cowboys traded their decent No. 2 CB, Anthony Henry, to Detroit for…Jon Kitna, you have to wonder exactly what the Cowboys learned from last year.  Henry was the team’s best corner when Newman went down, and while I can understand how opening up a spot in the starting lineup for the young talent to compete for can be beneficial, other teams have enjoyed success by moving a veteran corner to safety and filling a hole there.

Instead, they traded him for another quarterback who wont be able to provide vertical offense if the team loses Romo.  They do have Orlando Scandrick, a 5th round pick from Boise State in 2008, who played very well as a rookie, but might be under pressure to push 2008 first round CB Mike Jenkins onto the field.  Either way, it’s going to be a learning experience because behind them are two functional safeties who offer little pass support.  Former pro bowler Ken Hamlin has decent range for a free safety, but is not good enough in coverage to take the tight end away.  Gerald Sensabaugh, signed away from Jacksonville in the offseason, is a perfect example of the team’s stopgap attitude.  He does a lot of little things well, and he will look professional while chasing Kevin Boss and Chris Cooley into the end zone this year.

With little depth in the secondary, you’d hope that with all the Cowboys picks over the last ten years on the defensive side of the ball have developed into quality starters plus depth on the defensive end, but only three players drafted by the team in the first round are penciled into start.  One, LB DeMarcus Ware, led the league in sacks last year.  He’s not a complete player yet, but he’s only 26, and few doubt that because of his talent, that he will one day win a few defensive player of the year awards.  The other is DE Marcus Spears, who is now in the last year of his rookie contract, and just hasn’t developed.  A lot of observers felt that he needed to be replaced, but the team lost their other, much stronger, DE Chris Canty in the offseason, and replaced him with Igor Olshansky, a 2nd round pick of the Chargers in 2004 who hasn’t lived up to the hype.  Olshansky is fine, but again, another stop gap on the side of the ball where the Cowboys have spent all their picks of value in the first round over the last ten years.

What’s remarkable is that the third player, DE/OLB Anthony Spencer, is now the unquestioned starter in his third year, and he has about half a season of starting experience under his belt, and the Cowboys need his timely development.  They took him with the idea of having bookend pass rushers, but he hasn’t done anything in his first two seasons.  No cause for alarm just yet, the Cowboys really think he’s ready to make the jump, but if he’s a hole in the defense this year, this is a weak unit at every level.  If he breaks through, the Cowboys feature a strong four-man group of LBs: Ware, Spencer, a quality starter in Bradie James, and Keith Brooking, who is a nice scheme fit and probably the best of all the Cowboys signings–a big upgrade over the aging Zach Thomas.

One place where the Cowboys are strong, despite losing Terrell Owens, is at the skill positions.  Marion Barber, Felix Jones, and Tashard Choice make up a proverbial three-headed monster at tailback, and while Roy Williams is a little bit over his head as a No. 1 receiver, Miles Austin, Patrick Crayton, and Sam Hurd all provide excellent options for Romo to go with the football, and great depth at the position.  The Cowboys starting offense features not one, but two excellent starting TEs.  Jason Witten is widely regarded as the league’s best TE, and rightfully so, while Martellius Bennett would be one of the 10-12 best tight ends in the league on any team, and on the Cowboys, he’s simply that guy who lines up on the left side.  Rather than award a point of depth, I gave the Cowboys two quality starters at this position.

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The passing offense is as versatile as it is powerful, but unfortunately limited by the quality of it’s offensive line.  The rushing attack does not seem to be hindered in any way, the Cowboys have a chance at producing two 1,000 yard rushers, and maybe another 300-400 yards from Choice.  That would certainly help the defense if the Cowboys could control the clock and limit the amount of possessions an opponent gets in a single game.  The decreased sample size would help the Cowboys win games.

Turnovers have always bitten Tony Romo, and that’s a personal adjustment that he’s going to have to make now that he’s lost his go-to deep threat and will be under constant siege this year.  Romo often lets his footwork decide where the ball is going, and never seems to not know where his outlet receivers are, but has thrown up his share of picks and fumbles over the years by making gambles of questionable reasonableness.  If Romo doesn’t cut down on the turnovers, it’s hard to see an improved offense.  The pressure is on him, maybe more than any quarterback in the league.

The Cowboys were able to enjoy a 13 win season in 2007 with relatively poor depth because the starters stayed remarkably healthy through 16 games, although less so at the end of the season and into the playoffs.  A natural regression to 11 wins was likely, until the injuries struck last year, keeping Tony Romo out of action for 3 games, Terence Newman out for 5, S Roy Williams out for the season (he was released), and knocked Felix Jones out at midseason.  The result was a 9 win season, and they significantly outperformed performance indicators such as Pythagorean record.

If everything goes right, the Cowboys are still a playoff contender behind their talent, but this team isn’t all that different from the 2008 team.  It’s weaker in some places, stronger in others, and the performance is linked strongly to Romo’s personal improvements.  A 61.3% completion isn’t getting it done at this level for this offense.  He has help, but at 29, he’s no spring chicken, and improvements in his game will be marginal.  Can the Cowboys re-invent themselves as a grind-it-out, stretch them wide, throw it deep type offense?  They have the talent, but have to prove they are disciplined enough to beat different opponents in different ways.  I’m not writing them off yet, I’m just less than convinced.

Cowboys Headquarters: Valley Ranch, TX

For a 9-7 team, the Cowboys don’t have a whole lot of promising camp rookies.

-WR Manuel Johnson has looked very good in camp, and appears to be a trendy pick for the 5th wide receiver spot currently held by former Washington quarterback Isaiah Stanback.  Stanback’s impact has been mostly on special teams to date.

-G Greg Isander is running with the second teamers, and trying to show that he can offer more to the Cowboys than any of the other backup lineman they’ve trotted out there in recent seasons.  He’s competing with Ryan Gibbons for the ninth lineman spot.

-LB Matt Stewart has his work cut out for him.  The Cowboys like to keep between 8 and 9 linebackers, which puts him on the bubble.  If he can prove his worth over a veteran such as Stephen Hodge or Victor Butler, he’ll add some much needed youth to the ILB position for the Cowboys.

-S Michael Hamlin from Clemson, no relation to Ken Hamlin, is a talented four year college starter who is pushing veteran Pat Watkins for everything he has.  Not to go overboard with hyperbole, but Hamlin is probably the best safety prospect on this team to pair with the other Hamlin, and I don’t see how you keep him off the roster.  You can probably keep five safeties, if you’re the Cowboys.

Surprise Cuts?

• WR Patrick Crayton
• G Montrae Holland
• C Cory Procter
• DE Marcus Spears
• LB Bobby Carpenter

Previous Roster Roundouts: Bills, Rams, Bengals, Chiefs, Saints, Jaguars, Packers, Raiders, Vikings, Browns, Buccaneers, Dolphins, Colts, Lions, Cardinals, Chargers, Eagles, Titans, 49ers, Panthers, Giants, Texans, Falcons, Jets, Ravens, Broncos, Redskins, Seahawks

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The Bears won’t argue that either of the last two seasons have lived up to the lofty expectations set by a super bowl appearance in 2006.  In fact, if you get the chance to ask him, Lovie Smith will probably agree with you that his 2008 team had every chance to make the postseason in some capacity, and failed to get back to a place that they most likely belonged.

But the Bears don’t need your pity.  They have Jay Cutler.  You have to admit, he’s a worthwhile consolation prize.

In our Denver Broncos’ Roster Roundouts, I looked at the complicated equation of what the Broncos would have to get from their haul to justify the trade, and determined that they needed multiple stars from their 2009 draft, specifically 2 or more.  For the Bears, the trade equation is a lot simpler.  If you assume an average drafting ability for Jerry Angelo picks, the combined total draft value of all the picks given from Chicago to Detroit is valued at roughly 10 wins above replacement over the life of the rookie contracts.

For the Bears, it would take 5 years at the current levels of play for Cutler to accrue 10 more wins than Orton, according to a regression run by Brian Burke at Advanced NFL Stats that used adjusted yards per attempt as it’s value metric.

The key phrase of course is “at current levels.”  It appears to be a very even trade based on expected development paths, but the Broncos have a much higher upside prospect in Orton than the Bears are getting in Cutler.  Orton might completely bust out of Denver, but he’s pretty replaceable: from Denver’s perspective, the success or failure of the deal doesn’t hinge on Orton.  He’s just one piece of four.  If the Broncos get a franchise quarterback in Orton, they likely win this deal going away.  If they don’t, they probably lose the deal, but they can still win it if they get major contributions from this draft class.

But Cutler is the trade from the Bears perspective.  And now that he’s switching offenses, switching offensive lines, and will throw to a completely different group of receivers, the Bears are asking a lot from the guy to have him produce immediately.  The seeds of failure have spiked the kool-aid in Chicago.

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And yet, this appears to be a great situation.  When LiveBall looked at the Bears Defense last month, the conclusion was that the Bears defense is a very dangerous unit once again this year, and that an analysis of the Chicago Bears has to start there.  Last year in Denver, Jay Cutler had one of the worst defenses in the NFL.  This year in Chicago, he’ll have one of the best.  It’s such a radically different team that we don’t know how his personal style will translate.  He figures to benefit a lot from playing with a lead, but in the last three years, the Bears defense hasn’t had to deal with a high turnover defense.  Every once in a while, Rex Grossman would throw up a classic six turnover game or so, and once or twice, the Bears have even overcome it.  But Cutler turns the ball over on a more constant basis, more like a time or two every week, and that might be a tough adjustment for a defense that is used to leading the charge with scoring.

The Bears can cut down on the turnovers by letting Matt Forte handle the load.  The rookie exploded last year for more than 1,600 yards from scrimmage, more than Chris Johnson, Jonathon Stewart, Kevin Smith, or Darren McFadden.  The advanced numbers suggest he’s a better pass receiver than a runner, but that he’s capable of carrying the load again.  There’s nothing wrong with letting Forte touch the ball 350 times this season, or about 22 times per game.  The offense will be better for it.

The Bears did a pretty remarkable job piecing together a offensive line on the cheap.  Chris Williams looks good at the RT–he was the 14th overall pick in 2008 out of Vanderbilt (the Bears have four Vandy players!)–and the team found a serviceable one year LT in former pro-bowler Orlando Pace.  Pace has missed significant time in each of the last two seasons with injury, but the guy is only 33 years old, and can still play.  They added Kevin Shaffer from Cleveland for depth, and he’s probably better than the guy who Cleveland signed to replace him, former Bears LT John St. Clair.  The final piece to the offseason OL puzzle was T/G Frank Omiyale, who was a valuable depth lineman for the Panthers last year.  He starts the season on the bench, but could play guard right away if necessary.

But a discussion of the Bears offense can’t ignore it’s talented tight end duo, which includes Greg Olsen and veteran Desmond Clark, who are really the point-men in the passing offense.  Eventually, the discussion drifts to the receivers, a group known to many as “Devin Hester and the scrubs.”  That’s pretty charitable to Hester, who would probably be one of the scrubs if not for his contract, which he earned with his punt return abilities, not his receiving skills.  Hester is the kind of player who can frustrate Cutler to no end, with his dynamic talent earning numerous looks, and his lack of discipline and discernible route running ability wasting downs.  Still, if you want to go vertical, Hester is the man for the job, while guys like Earl Bennett, Brandon Riddeau, Juaquan Iglesias, and Rashied Davis are the guys who will work the underneath role in the offense.

Without re-hashing points already made about the defense, the Bears feature a re-tooled front seven with Pisa Tinoisamoa as a quality addition to an already fantastic linebacker unit.  You can make the argument that the weak link of the group is now MLB Brian Urlacher, but you know what kind of player you are going to get from him on a week to week basis.  Urlacher’s days as an elite player may be in the past, but there’s some degree of leadership and continuity value that you get from having him running your defense, and he’s still capable of putting up numbers and making pro bowls.

It’s the secondary that is most unsettled.  There’s no shortage of talent throughout the roster: there’s about 10 guys on the Bears defensive back depth chart that could start somewhere in the NFL.  Problem is, the Bears are working with one experienced Corner (Charles Tillman), and zero safeties with more than a year’s worth of starts under their belt.  What the Bears do to improve at this position could make the difference between being the best defense in the NFL, and the 11th best.

No matter how well the Bears defense does this year, it won’t overshadow the Jay Cutler media circus.  But in the 12 years since Erik Kramer took his franchise records and left town, the Bears have needed a quarterback to whore attention as badly as they’ve needed a strong head coach figure or a G.M. who could draft an offense.  They’ve rolled through Moses Moreno, Cade McNown, Shane Matthews, Jim Miller, Kordell Stewart, Chad Hutchinson, Chris Chandler, Rex Grossman, Brian Griese, and Kyle Orton.  Jay Cutler is a fantastic diversion not only from the rest of the team, but from the team’s past.  Bears fans can only hope that the team will capitalize on the opportunity.

Bears Headquarters, Lake Forest, IL

The Bears usually save a bunch of spots on their active roster for undrafted players who impress, so this year’s roster fillers are perhaps as exciting as any team in the league.

- RB Adrian Peterson has been a fixture on the team since 2003, but his days as the divisions’ “other” Adrian Peterson might be numbered.  The Bears figure to only need three RBs with Matt Forte as a feature back, and the team likes Garrett Wolfe.  A lot.

- WRs Johnnie Knox (Abiliene Christian) and Devin Aromashadu (Auburn) have fallen behind Brandon Riddeau in the contest they are having to prove that you too can play receiver for the Chicago Bears.  Riddeau is getting reps ahead of former arena star Rashied Davis, who now finds himself on the bubble.

-DEs Ervin Baldwin and Henry Melton find themselves with a real, live roster spot available for the winning now with the season ending injury to DL Dusty Dvoracek, who is now on IR for the fourth consecutive season.  Boomer Sooner.  If the season is lost, Melton can return kicks at least as well as Devin Hester  can, and would you not pay to sit in 15 degree weather and see number sixty-nine sprinting up field with a football?

-S Al Alfalava is a 6th round pick from this year’s draft for the Bears, and he’s been so good that he might be the team’s starting strong safety on opening day.  I don’t know if that needs additional comment, but it does seem to call for a nickname.

Surprise Cuts?

• RB Kevin Jones
• WR Rashied Davis
• LB Hunter Hillenmeyer
• S Craig Steltz
• S Josh Bullocks

Previous Roster Roundouts: Bills, Rams, Bengals, Chiefs, Saints, Jaguars, Packers, Raiders, Vikings, Browns, Buccaneers, Dolphins, Colts, Lions, Cardinals, Chargers, Eagles, Titans, 49ers, Panthers, Giants, Texans, Falcons, Jets, Ravens, Broncos, Redskins

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West coast sports fans are quick to note that media is largely east coast biased, and there’s some validity to this principal.  Every individual major sport began in the east, and migrated west, leaving it’s historically most rabid fan bases in the east.  These franchises are the cash cows of the professional league, and so it makes sense to promote your biggest teams, and often, west coast teams are limited in their coverage.

It’s not an east coast bias as much as it is a big market bias.  But in football, a remarkable trend has occurred regarding super bowl winners: the St. Louis Rams won Super Bowl XXXIV.  The next nine super bowl winners have come from the eastern time zone.  Roughly about half the franchises play their home games in the east, so it’s not like it’s completely circumstantial: the dominant teams of the era have been the Steelers, the Patriots, the Ravens, the Colts, and the Giants to a lesser extent.  Even when other teams have broken through to win their conference: the 2002 Raiders, the 2005 Seahawks, the 2006 Bears, and the 2008 Cardinals, none have won the big game.

So it’s with complete respect to this history that I make the prediction that a west coast team is winning the Super Bowl this year.  If not the Seattle Seahawks, someone who outlasts them in the NFC West.  And if not them, why not the Chargers?  But since this article isn’t about all the other West Coast teams, allow me to make a case for the Seahawks as the best team in the NFC West, and maybe even the NFC.

First of all, the Seahawks QDS of 12 is the second highest of any team in the wide open NFC-other-than-East, second only to division rival Arizona.  The 4-12 record last year is irrelevant.  No one blames the Seahawks for the offensive injuries, and while you can make a case that the defense should not have collapsed like it did last year, dropping the team to the depths of the league’s worst, in a season where they expected to be one of the very best.  It was a humbling experience for all involved, but you can’t argue that the team didn’t make the necessary defensive changes to fix what ailed them.

Is there reason to believe that the necessary changes won’t work?  Well, the team didn’t replace S Brian Russell yet, and he was a major coverage issue last year.  But they’ve all but given up on Kelly Jennings, who was another major coverage issue, and they’ve brought back a proven cover man in Ken Lucas rather than push nickelback/return man Josh Wilson into a role where he could potentially fail.  It’s hard to imagine CB Marcus Trufant having a worse year in coverage than he did last year given his impressive track record, and with Patrick Kerney returning from injury, and given the depth that the Seahawks feature on the DL, this breaks down to be a great coverage team.

There’s cause for concern though.  One of the things that the Seahawks can’t expect to improve to the mean is their pass rushing numbers.  The trade for Cory Redding pulls two pass rushers off the field: Julian Peterson, who was traded to Detroit for Redding, but also the LE position, which is where Kerney had been playing, as Redding is only a pass rusher in the nominal sense: he plays a position where they make him do that.  But the trade off is that they should see a boost in the run defense when blockers are not getting to superstar LBs Lofa Tatupu and Aaron Curry, and mere mortal LB Leroy Hill.

Tatupu isn’t much in coverage, which is where Curry will help the team the most.  Linebacker coverage was a major issue last year, and Curry and Hill offer two very strong coverage options for linebackers.  This is not your father’s cover two defense; Tatupu isn’t going to be running vertically here.  The other thing Curry will help is that when he gets enough experience so that he doesn’t have to come off the field in third down, it will virtually eliminate the need for a dime back in the Seahawks defense, which is good, because safety is one of their thinnest positions.  DT Brandon Mebane is a largely unheralded tackle against the run and the pass.  While it’s not certain that they’ll have a top 5-10 defensive unit, it’s certainly looking good.

The veteran offensive line collapsed last year, and it’s really hurting right now.  Walter Jones’ status for the season is very much in question after arthroscopic knee surgery, he might miss the rest of the preseason, or the entire regular season.  The team already released veteran LG Mike Wahle earlier this month due to health concerns and performance issues.  C Chris Spencer’s performance is a major question mark, and you have to be disappointed that a 2005 first round pick as an interior lineman has not become a force on the the inside.  Rob Sims and Manfield Wrotto are no ones idea of a top guard tandem, though they might end up being the strength of the offensive line.  If Walter Jones is healthy enough to play, they’ll have their bookend RT back in Sean Locklear.

Other than that, the Seahawks will plant their franchise (Matt Hasselbeck) behind Center, and ask their very volatile skill position players to help them win games.  The tight end position is the most solidified, where John Carlson was everything the Seahawks wanted coming out of Notre Dame.  He’s the ideal west coast tight end: a blocker who is functionally athletic and is better in the red zone than any other part of the field.

They made a brash signing in T.J. Houshmandzadeh.  He has a contract that may look bad in three or four years depending on the outcome of the CBA negotiations, but in the immediate, gives the Seahawks exactly what they need on the outside.  He makes the Seahawks better at three positions, because now Nate Burleson is not out of place as a complementary target, and Deion Branch is a functional number three receiver.

Where you could argue that the Seahawks are weakest is behind Matt Hasselbeck.  Not on the depth chart.  In the I-formation.  Julius Jones will look to start 16 games this year for the Seahawks.  He’s not your ideal feature back, but in an era where everyone is sharing the load, Julius Jones is basically a lock for 300 carries this year, and he happened to put up a very respectable 4.4 YPC last year behind a mess of an offensive line.  Jones only has one 1,000 yard season to his name in the NFL, but he’s not a bad player.

The problem is that he’s not the kind of player you spend a lot of time trying to work him into space.  He’ll be plugged into this machine, and if he doesn’t fit perfectly, the Seahawks will just throw the ball 45 times a game.  Can this team win like this?  Yes, but only if it doesn’t result in Matt Hasselbeck being injured again.

So, a likely top ten defense combines with one of the most efficient passing games in the NFL, and a functional running game, and you have a super bowl contender.   This is a stronger t0p-to-bottom, September-to-January team than the Cardinals are, in spite of the higher QDS rating, and it’s a blessing that this team does not play in the NFC East.  While the East will produce at least ONE team capable of winning it all in January, the Seahawks figure to show up in the playoff field in pretty much all scenarios, and in many of them, are capable of riding a west coast home field advantage back to the NFC Championship game and a favorable strategic match-up.

That’s why a 4-12 team from last year is perhaps the safest pick to win the NFC and play in the Super Bowl.

Seahawks Headquarters, Kirkland, WA

Lets look at some of the players on the Seahawks who are still fighting and clawing to make the roster.

-QB Mike Teel is in a tight QB battle with former Nevada QB Jeff Rowe, and holds a slight lead in that he usually gets to play before Rowe.  I think Rowe is the better player of the two, but the Seahawks will probably give Teel a year on the roster based on his draft status as a 6th round pick.

-RB Devin Moore is a smaller sized running back with explosive skills.  Unfortunately, the Seahawks are already trying to feature Justin Forsett in their offense and special teams, and that makes Moore expendable no matter what he does.  There’s diminishing returns to having multiple diminutive backs.

-WR Jordan Kent is trying to make the Seahawks roster AGAIN this year after falling victim to the same voodoo that cost Ben Obomanu, Courtney Taylor, Nate Burleson, and Logan Payne their 2008 seasons, and give refugee to Koren Robinson, of all people.

-TE Cameron Morrah is a rookie tight end from Cal who looks like he’s going to be able to hold onto the third tight end job.

-DE Michael Bennett is the brother of Martellus Bennett, and like his brother, he’s making a lot of noise in August.  He combines an impressive frame with really good athleticism and is making it very hard on the Seahawks’ brass to make a decision on their defensive line personnel.

-CB Travis Fisher is a cast off from last year’s Lions who is trying to push Kelly Jennings for a roster spot in training camp.

Surprise Cuts?

• RB Justin Forsett
• WR Deion Branch
• OT Walter Jones
• C Chris Spencer
• S Brian Russell

Previous Roster Roundouts: Bills, Rams, Bengals, Chiefs, Saints, Jaguars, Packers, Raiders, Vikings, Browns, Buccaneers, Dolphins, Colts, Lions, Cardinals, Chargers, Eagles, Titans, 49ers, Panthers, Giants, Texans, Falcons, Jets, Ravens, Broncos

Camps around the NFL have broken, and so roster roundouts is going to move into full-on regular season focus.  Major unresolved camp battles will be examined, but since almost all of the remaining teams are among the contenders, it’s time to turn one eye to the prize at the end of the long road.

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The relatively low expectations around the 2009 Washington Redskins are a result of their own actions.  In the NFL, perception often equals reality.  While there are 31 teams putting on a happy face about all of their issues, selling optimism to their fan base in order to ensure ticket sales, the Redskins are doing their own thing, letting everyone who will listen to them know that they don’t know if they have the right pieces on offenses, and that while they don’t deserve to be called a top defense yet, there’s no problem that Snyder-bucks can’t fix.

It’s a fascinating technique.  The Redskins, thanks to their own efforts, are universally viewed as a non-contender by most observers, with a few people seeing them for what they really are, such as ESPN’s John Clayton.  The sheep mentality is strong in this league, but it’s not all that hard to fathom the Redskins as a completely forgettable 8-8 team with sky high expectations and a megalomaniac owner and powerless V.P. of Player Personnel.  As the narrative goes, the firing squad will hit head coach Jim Zorn, quarterback Jason Campbell, and cornerback Carlos Rogers, not to mention holdovers from the Gibbs era such as Phillip Daniels, Antwaan Randle El, Andre Carter, and defensive coordinator Greg Blache.  Let the destruction commence.

Destruction of this Redskins team is far from certain.  Rather, self-destruction appears to be the only means to the end that destroys a team still very much built on Joe Gibbs’ principles.  The Redskins were mostly unquestioned winners of this years’ NFC East “arms race”.  While such terms as “off-season champs” and “March super bowl winners” have been used in a derogatory way to describe this team’s shortsighted tendencies, few seem to see a difference between Albert Haynesworth and Adam Archuleta in terms of relative value.

All one had to observe was the way that Haynesworth’s perceptive value tanked after he signed with the Redskins.  Here was a guy, universally considered a top three defender in the NFL with Tennessee, but simply by changing his digs and signing with Washington, Haynesworth is now a massive contract, a guy who doesn’t belong the top 25 players in the league, an injury-prone player.  These people will not likely be standing in line to taunt the offensive guards and centers that Haynesworth embarrasses this year; heaven forbid someone actually stand behind their words.

The Redskins have a few fundamental issues that are not related to their player acquisition methods that need to be fixed.  For the Gibbs years, management stood out of the way while the Redskins rebuilt towards respectability, earning 10 wins in 2005 and 9 more in 2007, and made the playoffs both years.  Then Gibbs retired, and the team hired Jim Zorn to take over the offense, and install the west coast.  After about a month-long search, the Redskins couldn’t find a better man for the job, so they promoted Zorn and stayed mostly out of his way.

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The team was rewarded for it’s inactivity by a quick start, exploding to 4-1 and a share of the division lead before quickly establishing themselves as a mid-tier team, slugging it to a 6-3 record at their bye week.  Needing reinforcements in the defensive secondary, the team signed maligned cornerback DeAngelo Hall to bolster them for a playoff run.  But two divisional losses in the next three weeks crippled the Redskins, and sent them spiraling into the month of December at a very mediocre, but salvagable, 7-5.

However, the Redskins would not be salvaging anything.  It’s powerful zone running game was already distant memory, the pass defense was leaking and wouldn’t hold throughout the season, and all it had left was an inconsistent passing game.  The Ravens swooped in for the kill shot, and when Chris Samuels tore his triceps on a block of Terrell Suggs, that was it.  Try as the Redskins might, they ended up losing to Cincinnati and San Francisco in their final two road games of the season, and were torched by the likes of Ryan Fitzpatrick and Shaun Hill.

As much as the offense needed help, the Redskins could only address so many holes in one season, you know, being a team that decided to trade for Jason Taylor first and ask questions about his viability in their defensive scheme later.  After releasing Taylor and vets Shawn Springs and Marcus Washington, they re-signed Hall, and added Haynesworth and drafted all-world DE Brian Orakpo, and picked up a nice developmental DL prospect in the supplemental draft: DE Jeremy Jarmon.  The rebuilding of the defensive unit appears complete.

So the Redskins enter 2009 with offensive questions.  The team feels that the re-signing of Derrick Dockery should help, and the early returns in the preseason have been fantastic.  But no one cares in the least about the development of line, except in the sense that it may make or break QB Jason Campbell.

You may have heard: the Redskins aren’t enamored with Jason Campbell.  That’s not a complete crime.  On a level, it suggests inadequacy of the teams’ self-judgmental techniques, but reasonable people can disagree on the quality of a developing player.  But reasonable people don’t try to replace their unproven developmental prospect with a limited track record of success with another teams’ much pricier prospect with a limited track record of success.  And yet, the Redskins were perhaps minutes away from trading most of their future for disgruntled quarterback Jay Cutler.

Then again, the Redskins haven’t established much of a track record of being reasonable.

After Washington decided the price on Cutler was too high (“were not in the business of trading first round picks,” said Dan Snyder, who has traded the team’s first round draft pick no less than three times in his ten year run as team owner), they decided to turn their attention to USC QB Mark Sanchez, who would have likely cost them multiple first round picks to trade up and get at the top of the draft.  The Redskins never made a formal offer for a pick that would have secured Sanchez, and drafted Orakpo at No. 13, but the Redskins showed the world that they have little idea how to market and value their own players relative to the shiny objects that everyone else has.

The Redskins could have handled the situation intelligently with a little history lesson.  In the 2007 offseason, a playoff bound franchise became quietly disenchanted with it’s franchise quarterback.  No one caught wind of this: the Jacksonville Jaguars never tried to make a blockbuster trade with the Bills for JP Losman, nor did they threaten to trade back up into the first round for a shot at Kevin Kolb, Brady Quinn, or John Beck.  They actually drafted S Reggie Nelson just one pick before the Cleveland Browns traded up for Quinn.  But in a coaches decision of epic proportions, Jack Del Rio decided to release Byron Leftwich, and make David Garrard his starter.  Garrard has been excellent over the last two seasons, but Leftwich is just now getting back on his feet.  That’s not fair to the incumbent, but life is not fair.  The point is that the Jaguars did something controversial and handled it properly.

The Redskins made a mockery out of the process.  They didn’t develop a viable second option, they just up and got pissed off with their current situation and tried to act like a quarterback upgrade would fix all ills.  Throughout, management has maintained a series of public backhanded complements to their current passer.  This, and all the while, they have not left the final decisions up to their coach, nor have they given him a viable second option to develop.

That situation is water under the bridge now: Campbell actually survived where Leftwich failed, he’s still a quarterback on a super bowl contender in the NFL.  He doesn’t have to worry about a quick hook, he just has to win games at the beginning of the season, in the middle of the season, and at the end of the season.  And behind an improved offensive line, a rejuvenated running game, and a well-oiled version of the west coast offense, only the lack of a viable downfield threat could de-rail the Redskins offense this year.

There’s a worry that if things do go wrong, they’ll go sour fast, and that management will be more worried about saving face than correcting the issues.  It’s a legitimate concern.  The Redskins are a dysfunctional organization that doesn’t follow a consistent standard or process, and always acts in it’s short term interest.  Given the firepower on offense and defense, their short term interests appear to be throwing their feeble support behind Zorn and Campbell and riding a powerful defense to represent the NFC in the super bowl.  The Redskins’ overall score of 14 QDS ties them for the best figure in all of the NFC, although their score of 5 depth puts them in the middle of the pack there (which is actually an improvement in the team philosophy thanks to the Gibbs years).  Clearly, they do have the horses to compete, and their schedule is the softest it’s been in years.

The wins figure to come cascading down for the Redskins, and the limit is the Lombardi Trophy.  If the success dries up too soon though, there’s not enough goodwill remaining in the bank to save the Redskins’ brass from themselves.

Redskins Headquarters, Ashburn, VA

There’s about three or four camp battles that are legitimately up in the air, although if Chase Daniel has another great week of practice, he could steal the third quarterback spot from Colt Brennan.  Team hopefuls include:

- QB Chase Daniel, whose dynamic performance against the Steelers second teamers has earned him a shot at Colt Brennan’s stranglehold on the third quarterback job.

-RB Dominique Dorsey, a kick return specialist from the CFL who offers a dimension not currently offered by the Redskins: A punt returner who runs forward.

-WR Marko Mitchell, the team’s seventh round draft pick who has been absolutely electric in camp and the preseason games.  He’s become the favorite for the 5th WR spot, but he’s not likely to stop there.

-TE Robbie Agnone, whose massive frame and relative athleticism would make him a fantastic option on the goal line and a vast offensive improvement over Todd Yoder, if they could just find him a niche on special teams.

-C/G Edwin Williams, the consensus best of the remaining Centers who were undrafted, the Redskins have slid him over to left guard in an attempt to find him a spot where he can stick.  It’s not looking good right now.

- LBs Cody Glenn and Robert Henson, who are competing against one another as well as holdover Alfred Fincher for the last LB spot.  Henson did not appear in the second preseason game, and he wasn’t too happy with Greg Blache, according to Twitter.

-S Lendy Holmes, whose intelligent and football instincts have made him a really dynamic player in the Redskins’ secondary.

Surprise Cuts?

• QB Todd Collins
• G Randy Thomas
• DE/DT Lorenzo Alexander
• LB Robert Thomas
• CB Justin Tryon

flickr.com/Jeffery Beall

This team is, um, not what we were expecting to see.

The cold, hard truth though is that the Denver Broncos team everyone expected to see in March wouldn’t have gotten any closer to winning a championship than this team will.  The Broncos were heavily flawed, and the free agent signings that new head Josh McDaniels and G.M. Brian Xanders recommended to fix the defense were questionable moves.  They signed Andra Davis, who couldn’t play in Cleveland.  They signed Andre Goodman to replace Dre Bly, but he’s 31.  And, in an absolute stunner, they gave Brian Dawkins 18 million reasons to ditch the Eagles.

This was not change that the Broncos fans could believe in.  So then, McDaniels curiously contacted organization members from his old digs with the Patriots, and inquired sheepishly on the price of backup QB Matt Cassel, who in the right situation, in the right offense could thrive under him in Denver.

The theoretically harmless inquiry sent franchise quarterback Jay Cutler into a complete spazz-out, demanding to the organization that McDaniels apologize to him or give him his walking papers.  A face-to-face meeting between the two egos did not help anything, and after Cutler ignored calls from his owner, Pat Bowlen, for three days, Bowlen made the brash decision to deal his franchise quarterback.

The decision is not nearly as wrongheaded as you think.  Despite everything that suggested that the Broncos had no leverage in the situation, Cutler’s value will never be higher in the future than it was this offseason when the Broncos traded him.  He still had three years remaining on his rookie deal.  He was 25 at the time of the trade, and is currently 26.  He’s coming off a pro-bowl year, one in which he threw for more than 4,500 yards, best in the AFC.  Oh, did I mention he’s only 26, and well-established?

But Cutler has some serious flaws in his game that may prevent him from taking the otherwise obvious leap to stardom anytime soon.  For one thing, Cutler has a terrible issue with locking on his number one receiver and ignoring the progression on certain plays.  No player was targeted more in the NFL last year than Brandon Marshall was, and he didn’t even play in week one.  In Chicago’s first preseason game, Cutler threw half of his ten passes at Devin Hester.  Some habits die hard.

The other thing is, Cutler was playing behind a cushy line in Denver with two developing receiving options, and a tight end who could stretch defenses vertically.  For their efforts, Denver had the 7 most valuable passing attack by DVOA (although, significantly above the average).  Something doesn’t add up here.  If Cutler is so great, why is Philip Rivers doing more against similar competition with less?  If Cutler is so great, why does he have quarterback ratings of 88.5, 88.1, and 86.0 in his three years as a starter.  Where the hell is all this greatness?

flickr.com/SquaredB

Cutler’s allure is in the prospect of his future value.  The Chicago Bears dealt two first round picks, a third round pick, and Kyle Orton to the Broncos for Cutler, and they feel like they are getting a franchise quarterback.  They probably are.  But the Broncos dealt a prospective talent at the height of his value when they felt like the team was too flawed to make it to the playoffs in the next season.  There is little doubt that Cutler would have continued to flourish in Denver, but there is doubt that he will do so in Chicago.  But the price was so obscenely high, it’s hard to blame the Broncos for moving Cutler when they did.

What’s less defensible is the moves the Broncos have made since dealing Jay Cutler.  Their draft was less than stellar.  They landed a wide range of talented prospects, boom or bust prospects, and situational players with their massive Cutler haul.  At this point, the cost of the Cutler trade has completely come off the books from the Broncos perspective, thanks to a draft day trade that will cost them a first rounder in next year’s draft, likely in the top five.

So, counting Denver’s own first day picks in the consideration of total trade value, here’s a complete list of all the players picked by the team, or made possible for selection by the team:

1. QB Kyle Orton
2. RB Knowshon Moreno
3. LB Robert Ayers
4. CB Alphonso Smith
5. S Darcel McBath
6. TE Richard Quinn

And that’s it, including two picks the Broncos already had in that draft-frame.  This is the Jay Cutler haul in it’s entirety.  If we be like Brian Burke, and estimate the difference between Cutler and Orton at 2.1 wins per season (which is quite substantial), it’s easy to see a scenario where the Broncos win the trade, but it’s far from certain.  When you factor in that estimates have a value of an average first round pick at 4-5 wins over the life of the rookie deal, and a second round pick at 2-3 wins over the life of the rookie deal, Denver needs to get 3.5 wins per year (over replacement) out of the total combination of players 2-6 in order to “win” this trade.

Is this possible?  It’s not possible without significant contribution from players in premium positions.  This is completely oversimplifying, but the Broncos win the Cutler trade if two players out of this group: Moreno, Ayers, and Smith become stars at the NFL level, while McBath and Quinn simply fill holes.  Anything less, and the Broncos probably lose the Cutler trade.

Because of the fact that the Broncos dealt a likely top ten pick for Smith in the second round, you have to treat him like a third first round pick, since that’s obviously how the Broncos view him.  It’s admirable that the Broncos gave up their own draft choice instead of Chicago’s, which is almost certain to be higher, but it may prove to be simply foolish.

The Broncos can’t compete with teams who didn’t tear down their rosters because they didn’t improve their defense in free agency, they just got older.  Their defensive line is purely replacement level, they are undergoing a scheme change while understaffed, and this defense features all of three players who have ever been successful in this league.  One is Dawkins.  The other is all-pro corner Champ Bailey.  The last is linebacker D.J. Williams. None of those players know how to play the defensive line, so teams will gash Denver with the run early and often.

The Broncos will bank on the fact that a high scoring offense will force opponents to put the ball in the air against guys like Bailey, Dawkins, and Smith, and that Nolan can do something to force pressure on the quarterback.  If they force offenses to be one-dimensional, the defense will have a shot, although that didn’t make a difference with Bailey injured last year.

But that’s where they needed Cutler, and now, as it looks like they will pound the rock with Moreno and Correll Buckhalter and Peyton Hillis and Lamont Jordan, they have to be beyond efficient for this offense to work?  Can it?  Probably not.

But given where the Broncos would have been had they kept Cutler, you could argue it was worth the shot.

Broncos Camp, Englewood, CO

The Broncos feature a can’t miss TV battle at wide receiver, a quarterback controversy that is not yet worth mentioning, completely pointless defensive camp battles, and head coach smarm and arrogance the whole way though.

Wide receiver (flanker): Brandon Marshall vs. Brandon Lloyd vs. Kenny McKinley

If Brandon Marshall wants to see himself in five years, he needs only to look at Brandon Lloyd.  With McKinley as a second day draft pick, Lloyd’s career might be over.

Wide receiver (slot): Chad Jackson vs. Nate Swift

Jackson, the second round picks of the Patriots in 2006 is getting a second chance here with the Broncos as a slot receiver.  He might be able to succeed in his new role, but he’s fallen behind the undrafted Swift who has better special teams value.

Offensive line: Clint Oldenburg vs. Mitch Erickson vs. Blake Schulueter

One of these guys will help fill out the roster, and it’s Schulueter who leads because he was chosen by McDaniels in the 7th round out of TCU as a potential replacement to Casey Wiegmann in a year or two.

Defensive line: Matthias Askew vs. LeKevin Smith vs. Carlton Powell

The Broncos will likely keep Powell for his size, which makes this an athleticism (Smith) vs. consistency (Askew) battle as the final DE on a complete no-name line.

Linebacker: Jarvis Moss vs. Mario Haggan

The ballad of Jarvis Moss ends with the name Mario Haggan.  Clearly, the Broncos have no use for Moss, and he’s only at training camp because it allows him to keep the bonus money paid to him as a 2007 first round draft pick.

Safety: Josh Barrett vs. Vernon Fox

Barrett, a physical safety from Arizona State with good speed, offers more upside than the journeyman Vernon Fox.  Both are solid special teams players, and if all the Broncos are looking for is a ‘teams guy, Fox offers a small edge there.

Punter: Brett Kern vs. Britton Colquitt

The Colquitt’s may be the Manning’s of NFL special teams, but Brett Kern was the one who performed well last year.

Surprise Cuts?

• RB Lamont Jordan
• RB Correll Buckhalter
• TE Tony Sheffler
• LB Andra Davis
• S Renaldo Hill

Previous Roster Roundouts: Bills, Rams, Bengals, Chiefs, Saints, Jaguars, Packers, Raiders, Vikings, Browns, Buccaneers, Dolphins, Colts, Lions, Cardinals, Chargers, Eagles, Titans, 49ers, Panthers, Giants, Texans, Falcons, Jets

flickr.com/Phil Romans

Since football returned to Baltimore, it’s hard to pick a single word that describes this Ravens franchise.  It’s much easier to just use bone crushing highlights and no words.  The team has relied on brute force ever since re-inventing themselves as the Ravens, and that force shows up in everything the team does: the power running game, the stingy run defense, the hard hitting style they’ve employed since 1996, and the emotion that is funneled down through the team leaders and permeates the roster.

Last year, the Ravens re-invented themselves as one other thing: thinkers.

Coming off a 4-12 season and an overtime loss to a hapless Dolphins team that was anything but scrappy, something had to be done.  They fired Brian Billick who was the team’s only super bowl winning coach in history: that’s a history that goes back to Cleveland, when they were the Browns.  One of the most successful pre-merger NFL franchises had only a few moments despite the fact that three of the greatest coaches ever were on this franchises’ sideline: Paul Brown, Marty Schottenheimer, and Bill Belichick.  When the Ravens hired Billick in 1999, they were expecting him to re-invent their offense to look something like the downfield, explosive, three receiver attack that was featured by the Minnesota Vikings.

Only problem was that, instead of finding the next Randy Moss or Cris Carter, the team ran out an endless line of Qadry Ismails, Travis Taylors, Brandon Stokelys, and Marcus Robinsons at the receiver position.  At no point were things more ridiculous than 2003 when the Ravens made the playoffs….with a base 1 WR, 2 TE, 2 RB offense.  The franchise’s leading receiver is TE Todd Heap, who is a blocking tight end with functional athletcism.  The team signed Derrick Mason away from Tennessee in 2005 and he really has made all the difference in the passing game, which went from inept to merely boring overnight.

So in place of Billick’s non-offense, the team hired young John Harbaugh, a man whose reputation is tied up more in his surname than by his past.  But Harbaugh was refreshing because he showed an adept knowledge of both offensive and defensive talent, and a creativity to use his players correctly without limiting two of the better coordinators in the game: Cam Cameron and Rex Ryan.

Ryan left for the NY Jets head coaching job, and took LB Bart Scott with him, so the Ravens are working a little shorthanded in the middle of the defense with an aging Ray Lewis and a developmental prospect (Tavares Gooden) at inside linebacker.  But how many years in the franchises existence has this defense been among the best in the NFL?  It’s not like Rex Ryan was reaching heights his predecessors had never seen, the Ravens defense incrementally increased from a league worst in 1996 (Lewis’ rookie season) to the league’s best unit by 1999.  In the last ten years, the Ravens have ranked in the top ten in defensive DVOA every season, in the top TWO 6 times, and I saved the most mind boggling stat for last…the last time the Ravens were a below average run defense–they were the Browns.

I’d venture to say there has never been a better defensive decade of dominance than the 2000’s Ravens.  Not the Steel Curtain, not the Doomsday defense, not the no-name defense, not the Ditka Bears.  No one in history has been this good for this long.  Just look at what’s happening to the Bucs.  In some ways, I think the case for the 2000 Ravens defense as the greatest of all time (it probably wasn’t the greatest Ravens defense of the decade) gets overstated, and it overshadows the fact that these guys are fantastic every year.

In short, they’ll do fine without Rex Ryan.  Haloti Ngata is scarier anyway.

What you can question, is the offense.  Last year, the Ravens figured out what the Ravens before them never could: you can shape a passing offense around the strengths of a flawed passer.  In previous years, Brian Billick wasted lots of time trying to shuffle quarterbacks in and out trying to find a guy who could run his system.  No one could.  So in comes Cameron, and he stripped down the offense to bare bolts.  The play design was basic, yet creative: unbalanced lines, two fullback backfields, primarily blocking tight ends, double moves and deep in routes from the receivers, and a quarterback who could fit the ball into tight spaces.  And the results were fantastic in the running game, and functional in the passing game.  It’s a combination that had not been seen since 2000 when Jamal Lewis was chewing up the yards despite no threat of the pass.  And more significantly, it clicked right from the first snap.

This year’s problem is two fold: there’s been some deck shuffling with the personnel, and at some point, young Joe Flacco’s development has to become a priority.  He got his feet wet in the NFL last year, and got valuable playoff experience, but he needs to show he can be successful with a higher pass to run ratio, and in a more wide open offensive scheme (i.e. anything).  Frankly, the Ravens still have no idea what they have in Flacco in terms of a franchise quarterback, and probably won’t until the end of this season.

What they will feature this year is the do-it-all tailback that Willis McGahee never was: Ray Rice.  McGahee will still have his niche in the offense, but this season will be about getting touches for the second year back, and about the development of Rice as a runner, a pass blocker, and a receiver.  This also represents a land mark in Flacco’s development: it takes great confidence in your quarterback to move in one offseason from a run-first, run-second, throw-third-only-if-unsuccessful twice mentality to one build around third and fourth reads (and running).  But Flacco executed so well in his first preseason game that there appears to be little to worry about.  This is what he did at Delaware.

So that brings us to the most uncertain of units going into this year: the offensive line.  It’s a young line that’s just oozing with talent: it features a fourth year player, two third year players, and a rookie.  But it lost it’s young Center to free agency (St. Louis), and in his place is former pro-bowl center Matt Birk.  With first round rookie Michael Oher playing the right tackle position, you could argue that they’ve universally upgraded the talent, but Birk is not as durable as the man he replaces, Jason Brown, and there are questions about the long term viability of RG Chris Chester, and that perhaps third year G Marshal Yanda would be a quick fix there.  Add in some natural rookie struggles against speed rushers from Oher, and you can see how this unit might have a limiting effect on Flacco.  But if they gel quickly, they have two future pro-bowlers on the left side in Jared Gaither and Ben Grubbs, and a unit-wide maulers mentality to boot.

The Ravens’ schedule this year is one they will find generally unfavorable, but with that said, they are probably the best top to bottom team in the AFC North.  I didn’t even mention the present day receivers, because they happen to be the same two guys that have graced the position since Mark Clayton broke into the starting lineup in 2006, and despite a quick bout with retirement from Derrick Mason, appear to be as successful a duo this year as ever.  If I’m wrong though, and they aren’t the best team, the Browns and Bengals are both good enough to the point where the fact that only one team in the division plays either the Patriots or the Colts (this would be the Ravens) could determine who gets the final playoff seed in the AFC.

But the Ravens have never been a team defined by their schedule.  Given the above, the word I would use to define them, simply: successful.

Ravens Camp, Westminster, MD

Camp battles are all the rage in Baltimore.

Running back: Jalen Parmalee vs. Cedric Peerman

Peerman, an explosive runner from Virginia will battle with Parmalee for the No. 3 RB spot, which isn’t just an honorary position this season.  With LeRon McClain back at fullback, doing the opening of holes, there’s going to be carries to go around.  Parmalee is ahead on the depth chart, but I think he’s a slight underdog, Peerman is just too good to be overlooked after being picked in the 6th round.

Wide receiver: Yamon Figurs vs. Justin Harper vs. Biren Early

The good news for Yamon Figurs is that while he struggled on kick returns for the first time in his career last year, there have been positive developments regarding his value to the Ravens offense.  He remains a favorite to stave off undrafteds Harper and Early.

Right guard: Chris Chester vs. Marshal Yanda

The contingency plan had Matt Birk re-upped with Minnesota would have ben Marshal Yanda at RG, and then a camp battle between Chester and a veteran center of lesser quality.  The team likes Yanda, and while Chester is a virtual certainty to win at this point, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to see the team let him walk in the offseason and see what Yanda can do in 2010.

Offensive line: Tre Stallings vs. Bryan Mattison vs. David Hale

The Ravens have roster filler lineman of the “you maybe have heard of these guys” variety.  As mentioned above, Chester’s versatility means that there is no telling which of these guys will make it though (Hale is nominally the no. 2 Center).  I think Mattison has the best chance, after that, your guess is as good as mine.

Defensive line: Kelly Tavalou vs. Brandon McKinney vs. Will Johnson

Some relative no-names are competing to fill out the Ravens roster on the defensive line.  Tavalou played well against Washington while McKinney appeared in 11 games last year.  Will Johnson may be the odd man out.

Outside linebacker: Prescott Burgess vs. Will VanderSteeg

Burgess has the versatility to hold his spot on the Ravens roster.  As a 6th round pick from Michigan two years ago, he played some special teams as a rookie in 2007.  Now, VanderSteeg tries to unseat him, though he’s not likely to make it past the third preseason game.

Inside linebacker: Jameel McClain vs. Jason Phillips vs. Dannell Ellerbe

This is the most fascinating of all the camp battles.  We have one or two inside linebacker spots available behind Ray Lewis, Brenden Ayanbedejo, and Tavares Gooden.  McClain brings experience, but is expendable.  Phillips and Ellerbe were both top draft prospects at the same position and Phillips slid to the fifth round where the Ravens took him as a developmental prospect.  However, they signed Ellerbe for competition as an undrafted free agent.

So how’s this for a camp battle.  The winner is the successor to Ray Lewis in one of the greatest defensive units of all time.  The loser is cut and risks becoming a nobody in the NFL.

Cornerback: Chris Carr vs. Frank Walker

Frank Walker was signed last year with some relative fanfare, but with Chris Carr coming over from Tennessee and the Ravens using their 3rd round pick on a corner, it doesn’t much look like Walker is in the plans.  The Ravens do like to keep 10 DBs, so he’s got a chance, but he won’t unseat Carr, and time is running out to hold his spot as the team’s dime back.

Kicker: Steven Hauschka vs. Graham Gano

This is a hardcore kicker battle to replace Matt Stover.  Hauschka had kickoff duties last year and attempted some field goals, but it’s hard to pass up the allure of a once-a-decade leg like Gano’s.  He’s got accuracy issues, and the Ravens perhaps cannot afford to go through this year with an inconsistent kicking game, but Stover’s not here which means that either way, they are venturing into the unknown.

Surprise Cuts?

• WR Demetrius Williams
• TE L.J. Smith
• G Chris Chester
• DE Dwan Edwards
• CB Samari Rolle