Earl Thomas: “I know I’m hot” in response to free agency.

[hawknation2017]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/jonmachota/status/944604015995867141[/tweet]

Earl Thomas is a freak.

Jeremy Lane was on the ground. :?

 

[massari]

Trade Sherm and Earl? :34853_doh:

Sherman has zero trade value atm and if they feel Thomas will wanna play elsewhere after next season, then this off-season is the time to trade him.

I think Sherman has trade value its just not 1st round value. 11 million savings if he gets released and either the same or more if he gets traded. I doubt hes on this team next year either way. Trade him to the raiders for a 3rd round pick and move forward.

Earl Thomas should atleast get you a 2nd rounder. Hes still only 28 years old.

You're probably right. Revis was about Sherman's age coming off ACL surgery and was traded for a 1st (13th overall) and a 4th rounder. Don't know how much worse the Achilles injury is though.

I would've thought Thomas would fetch along the lines of a 1st+3rd.

 

[Lords of Scythia]

As well he should, he deserves it. He has busted his ass here and done a great job for us. He is one of my 4 on the defense that I think we pay their worth as he is hard to replace, a leader and very durable. It is hard to find all 3, and we saw what we looked like without him.

Wagner, Thomas, sherman in my mind are the guys you FOR SURE retain. They are consistently top rated in there position and rarely get hurt comparitively. I would put Bennett in this group as well, that way you have all 4 levels of the defense with one vet that is good and knows the system. They can communicate with each other and convey that to the newer guys. This helps a ton with consistency as we are going to have to allocate more money away from the defense and into OL, general offense, kicker and maybe Special teams. Have to save somewhere if you need to bolster other areas. We have given away a lot of picks this year hoping for a run that didnt happen. Even if we had those picks we have shown for years that our pre draft grading and scouting as well as draft pick development hasnt been that great. We are going to have to hire a lot of udfa's and fa's to fill out the team and the backups, at least for a year.

I would say also that looking at the draft busts we have had the last few years, we should maybe keep or even trade up in the first round for a good RB for the future. Someone like zeke elliot. If we had our franchise qb and rb sealed up, we would be in a much better position to build around them rather than having to sign 6 running backs every year and play roulette with them. If we had Carson, Davis, and a high draft young guy to develop it would free up the 2019 draft for other positions. I hope we dont trade our 1 good chance to get a franchise back away for 6 5th rounders of guys we end up releasing even before the really hit the field as starters, which has been kind of our MO.

If you want to see what the team would be like, just look at last year when he was injured.

GO HAWKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[olyfan63]

If Carroll has Marcus Burley active on game day, instead of an injured Tharald Simon, we don't give up those long drives to Brady and the Patriots. What was Pete thinking?? Burley was a healthy scratchl

Pretty bold assertion to suggest a guy that's not even on an active roster right now would have stopped the greatest QB of all-time and one of the best WR's in football (Julian Edelman) dead in his tracks.

Not that bold, Burley at the time was a perfectly serviceable NFL slot corner and all Burley had to do is suck a bit less than an injured Tharald Simon. Burley now? NFL = Not For Long, so Burley's current roster status is irrelevant 4 years later. Simon had neither the body type/quickness nor the smarts to keep up with any of the Patriots' small jitterbug-quick WRs. Pats/Brady knew this mismatch and targeted and abused Simon repeatedly. People here are calling for Jeremy Lane to be let go, the same Lane that picked off Brady early in SB49, but got his ACL and forearm blown out on the INT return. The game changed with Lane out, without any of our smaller quicker corners to match up with Edelman and co, Lane out. Now Lane is back because nobody else wanted him. Failed physical? Sure. Really bad hangnail will do it every time.

Anyway, back on topic, for sure we agree ET is the key player in our scheme, IMO, even more so than Sherman and Kam. McDougald has done a nice job covering for Kam. Earl came all the way back from that horrific broken leg, to be the same impact player he was before. With Earl cleaning up the mess, our secondary did a really nice job on the Dallas passing game, between the rooks (Griffin) and scrap heap veterans (Lane, Maxwell, McDougald.) The DL abusing Dallas's nicked up OL sure didn't hurt.

How will Earl's body hold up? Where will we find a player to plug in (not necessarily at Safety, an Aaron Donald clone would do nicely) who can give our D that type of impact? I hope we keep ET one more year for sure, but then either franchise him for one year or do a sign-and-trade that gets us younger, cheaper players. In two years, I think a dropoff is likely. Earl's excellence is a huge part of this team's "window" right now, along with Bobby Wagner and KJ Wright and the level they play at.

If Sherman makes it all the way back... wow, mad props to him. In any case, I don't see how paying him the same money he's getting helps the Hawks be in position to compete; the Hawks won SB48 due to a large number of young players massively outperforming their contracts. He wasn't the 2013-2014 Richard Sherman this year or last.