soxfan121 said:
1. Cheaper. Peppers is right in the Freeney/Abraham zone that ended up being 2 years and $6-8.5M total. Personally, that made more sense when I thought they would be hanging on to Vince (and still might, despite his request to go now).
2. Peppers is larger, physically, and while he's no Ty Warren he's also bigger (by an inch and 15 pounds) than Allen.
3. Ability to play against the run. I think BB is a genius and is adapting to the modern game but he's also got "stop the run" hardwired into his DNA. All else being close, I think BB prefers the guy who can play responsible gap control when necessary, as opposed to the guy who is getting upfield on every snap.
4. Allen isn't a football lifer; he seems to actually have interests outside the game and while his threat to retire instead of play for less than he's worth is almost certainly posturing, it also in some microscopic way knocks him down a bit with Belichick and his love of guys who eat, drink and sleep football. I could be entirely wrong about Allen and I don't particularly know whether Peppers is a lifer, but it is one of the little things that could be an entry in the "Con" list.
5. I think this is a rotational job. Allen may want to play all the time. And I don't think the guy they sign to rotate with Ninkovich and provide Jones insurance is going to play all the time. This was the problem with Abraham last season, no? Ninkovich is a valuable cog in the machine and can certainly move around if necessary to accommodate a talent like Allen but I also don't think the Pats paid Ninkovich $2.85M against this year's cap to be a backup to two full-time DEs (Jones & whomever).
1.) Yes he would (and should) be cheaper then Allen. I also think that the contracts of Abraham/Freeney would match up similarly. Still, I don't see a great parallel with Abraham. Abraham, had registered 10, 9.5, and 13 sacks the previous three years. His numbers never really showed any decline, and his contract was affected in a fairly depressed market. (He also had the mark against him that he was a pure pass rusher and couldn't/wouldn't stop the run).
Freeney, on the other hand, matches up to Peppers pretty well. A serious decline in his final year lead to a 2 year contract from the Chargers.
He played four games, registered half a sack, continued to suck against the run, and was IR'ed.
It may be BB's M.O. to offer these type of contracts, but it really doesn't interest me.
2.) His size can (obviously) be a good thing. But do we really want a 6'6, 290 lb defensive end who's on the decline? This guys build screams to me that he'll fall off a cliff to retirement, not gracefully trot down a hill.
3.) Again, I don't disagree that BB may want a guy that can play the run, but this thread is about
my FA/draft plan. Besides, don't we already have that rotational defensive end that can play the run (Nink)?
4.) Talking about Allen's love of the game is hearsay at best.
Doing so while we're comparing him to Julius Peppers is just
down right comical. The big knock on him before signing his monster contract was that he didn't give a shit about winning or football.
Now, i don't know if anything about Allen or Peppers is true, so using it as a talking point/bullet point in any argument seems foolish.
5.) This is a valid point, but I think it could be spun both ways. Jones/Nink/Allen were 1-2-3 in snaps at defensive end last year. There are a ton of ways to utilize all 3 players on the field at the same time. Jones had been shuffled to the DT spot to get more pressure last year. Allen has the size to play DT on occasion during pass rush situations as well, and could probably thrive there more so than Chandler did. Nink can easily play OLB in the base 4-3. The team can mix into a handful of different 4-3 strong, 5-2 type front's.
I think having Allen/Nink/Jones as a trio provides the team more options and more flexibility, and it could only affect their snap count as little as 8-10%. This, too, would be to the teams benefit. I got pretty sick of watching this defense run out of gas in the 4th quarter of any close game.
Tony C said:
All this stuff, the cost foremost. But would just add that when I've seen Allen it seems like he's one of those all in for the rush guys who doesn't care about the run and seems to get a lot of cheap sacks. Peppers is bigger and doesn't get pushed around in the run game, and seems to come up big in big moments. I say that while also acknowledging that this is based on irregular watching of the Vikings and Bears so may well be a small sample size impression.
I've never really heard that of Allen, but maybe it's true. Even if it is, so what? With Wilfork gone (maybe?), it certainly adds a wrinkle to the run defense we didn't predict. Still, do we really need another Rob Ninkovich on defense? It's great having the versatile players, but we've all screamed for a better pass rush. Now that the opportunity presents itself, we'd prefer the guy who doesn't get "pushed around in the run game"? I must have missed where the 6'6 270lb potential HoF defensive end is a pushover at the line.
People seem to be over-thinking this.