Edge, Hood, LaBoy cut

[IAWarnerFan]

Why cut Hood??? Didn't see that one coming and it doesn't make sense.

 

[40yearfan]

I think that Whis decided this board was becoming too complacent, so he made some cuts that would liven things up a little.

Anyone who thinks the Bidwills had anything to do with these cuts needs to have their heads examined. It's obvious who is running the personnel on this team and it ain't Mr. B or RG. Can we at least give Whis the benefit of the doubt and see what he has planned?

 

[Zeno]

I think that Whis decided this board was becoming too complacent, so he made some cuts that would liven things up a little.

Anyone who thinks the Bidwills had anything to do with these cuts needs to have their heads examined. It's obvious who is running the personnel on this team and it ain't Mr. B or RG. Can we at least give Whis the benefit of the doubt and see what he has planned?

If we don't miss Hood this season thats fine. Ralph Brown is nowhere near as good but if Toler is further along then anyone imagines and proves capable of the nickel role then the bitching will prove unfounded. If DRC or McFadden gets hurt or McFadden doesn't prove it on the field we will have every legitimate reason to bitch.

Travis Laboy was nothing special but his cut just doesn't make $$ sense.

 

[LVCARDFREAK]

Although suprising on the surface, this is probably par for the course. Whiz is a student of Bill Cowher and the Steelers are notorious for taking starters-cutting them or lettign them walk- and filling holes with *seemingly* lesser talented guys. Thats they system approach.

Joey Porter, Kevin Green, Larry Foote, Antwan Randel-El. All high priced talent that the Steelers let walk because they believed in their system and their coaches ability to take these 3rd, 4th, 7th round guys and turn them into system players.

I trust Whiz on this and see this as just another cog in the "Pittsburg-West" machine.

 

[HookemCards]

Although suprising on the surface, this is probably par for the course. Whiz is a student of Bill Cowher and the Steelers are notorious for taking starters-cutting them or lettign them walk- and filling holes with *seemingly* lesser talented guys. Thats they system approach.

Joey Porter, Kevin Green, Larry Foote, Antwan Randel-El. All high priced talent that the Steelers let walk because they believed in their system and their coaches ability to take these 3rd, 4th, 7th round guys and turn them into system players.

I trust Whiz on this and see this as just another cog in the "Pittsburg-West" machine.

I suppose I could accept this if there was a significant cap savings, or we had people ready to step in that weren't drafted 2 days ago. Lets also not forget that Whiz isn't infallible, and while by far the best coach we've had since Coryell, he was still only 8-8 and 9-7. Also if we are to believe Whis has complete control over personnel, then he's responsible for the Johnson, Hood, Laboy, and Holt signings.

 

[pinnacle]

LVCARDFREAK - wanted to point out..how many of us thought letting al johnson go and replacing him with Lyle Sendelin would work out last year?? Did not seem like good move at ALL. The steelers cut joey porter..and they won the superbowl the same season. Go figure.

My opinion is that it is NOT about the money. If it was about money...chike okeafor would have been cut....he is one of the highest paid players on the team next year. Laboy was either not a fit for what they want to do or he has an injury. I dont have much logic on Hood -other than to say two things 1) We had pretty horrible pass defense - especially in the super bowl. and 2) there is probably more to the story we will never know.....there are tons of things it could have been a) attitude/philosophy differences b) not a match for our schemes, etc. I probably believe Jurecki - the cardinals were not sure Laboy would even be able to play this year.

heck....think about it...if Bill Bidwill is sitting there trying to save a few bucks and caused all of this...which is pretty far fetched...don't you think he would say...no way are cutting laboy kid - I gave him $10 million last year...we ALREADy paid him the big bucks last year...tell him to get his a$$ on the field!! He would have said...hey..Chike has a higher payment due this upcoming season - cut him......we need to get our moneys worth out of Laboy. It was a football decision..not exactly sure why...but it was....

 

[WildBB]

Don't sound too happy about yourself there, buddy, because if you're right, then this team has seriously regressed. If the team doesn't have the cash on hand to keep talent on this team while still under the cap, and still conduct other business, then this franchise hasn't made nearly the strides we think they have.

I wasn't referring to my feelings on the subject of letting him go, just what the front office intends to do with the payroll $$$$. They have some plans for the payroll savings no doubt about it.

Now you might not like the way they are going about it, but the bottom line is results which we need right now regarding the signings of some of the most important players, including AW and AB. If it helps these get done, I'm for it and realistically the loses are not devastating as say Boldin potentially could have been, for many reasons.

 

[WildBB]

Why cut Hood??? Didn't see that one coming and it doesn't make sense.

Here we go again.

 

[40yearfan]

If we don't miss Hood this season thats fine. Ralph Brown is nowhere near as good but if Toler is further along then anyone imagines and proves capable of the nickel role then the bitching will prove unfounded. If DRC or McFadden gets hurt or McFadden doesn't prove it on the field we will have every legitimate reason to bitch.

Travis Laboy was nothing special but his cut just doesn't make $$ sense.

It's on Whis's shoulders and I'm sure he is aware of that. Personally, I wouldn't want it any other way. He has the cajones to make these hard decisions and the confidence to know he is right in those decisions.

As you say, only time will tell, but If I was a gamblin' man, I'd be putting my money on the Whis.

 

[WildBB]

Although suprising on the surface, this is probably par for the course. Whiz is a student of Bill Cowher and the Steelers are notorious for taking starters-cutting them or lettign them walk- and filling holes with *seemingly* lesser talented guys. Thats they system approach.

Joey Porter, Kevin Green, Larry Foote, Antwan Randel-El. All high priced talent that the Steelers let walk because they believed in their system and their coaches ability to take these 3rd, 4th, 7th round guys and turn them into system players.

I trust Whiz on this and see this as just another cog in the "Pittsburg-West" machine.

There you go. The coaches trust THEIR abilities TOO. There's a novel approach.

I'll root for the 53 the coaches put out on the line, because of their abilities and the coaches confidence. There is a plan and we don't always see it or agree with it. If we go 11-5 and the D radically improves that's dandy for me. If we go 8-8 and the pass D is a big reason then the board has it's reasons to lash out......but now, I just don't think so. But letting old favorites go is somewhat controversial I guess and there will always be disagreements here because of those guys' contributions in the past.

 

[seesred]

I wish them all well. Now we move on. We have players to sign and it wont be easy. Looking at this year and next years possable mess. This is football and any team there is so much room. These guys weren't going to make the team in Whiz's mind. I believe in the wonderfull Whiz.

GBR
40

 

[az1965]

Not surprised at Hood's release but somewhat at LaBoy's... Edge is as expected.

 

[az1965]

BTW, there goes the "sack belt"

 

[MoeIsBetter]

I think the sack belt stays for good. I think Bert saw it as a good thing for the linebacker corps.

 

[ajcardfan]

Well, I get here after 214 posts, and i'm sure everyone is dying for my opinon....


I'm not totally shocked by any of the cuts. If you had told me on 4/27 that LaBoy and Hood would not be on the team when we took the field in September, I would've said, "We have some good young talent we want to keep. There are ALWAYS veterans let go than surprise people." What DOES surprise me is the fact it is 4/28 and the cut is made. I would've thought they would see how camp and preseason goes before letting 2 guys like that go.

That said, I have zero doubt that this is a football decision, not a money one. It takes a lot of confidence in your talent evaluation skills to make a move like this NOW. That's what we're seeing from Whis, confidence. Now, whether he turns out to be right or not... we'll see. If we continue to win, he's a genius. We have a bad year on defense, then all of the sudden his IQ drops about 80 points.

 

[bg7brd]

I think Joe had it right. The moves cost us cap space, but they still put $10 mil in the Bidwill's pockets. Money that can be used for signing bonuses...

(giggle) Congratulations. I was wondering how long it would take before somebody stated the obvious truth.

These are Whisenhunt's decisions. The man who took us to the Super bowl and has clearly been allowed input and major say in everything. The "cheap Bidwills" didn't chose these players to cut. Neither did Rod Graves.

Whisenhunt cut them. If cutting them are mistakes, as one or two might be, although I doubt it, the coach got to do it his way. That's how things should be but never were here before.

Hell, Boldin is still livid that Whisenhunt dared give input Boldin's renegotiations, overstepping what Boldin thought should be a coach's responsibilities.

What happened, as I see it, is we misread our team. These moves very much explain our draft and our FA signing.

(a) Whisenhunt disliked our secondary's coverage problems more than we knew and brought in three talented new guys in a short spring.
(b) Either LaBoy is still injured or is expected to under perform his salary again and/or simply does not fit into our expected increased use of a 3-4 defense. that simple.

Until proven wrong, I credit Whisenhunt with knowing his needs better than we do. He has the added advantage of knowing his plan for this year, while we can only guess. Clearly, in the cases of LaBoy and Hood, we guessed wrong.

It's on Whis's shoulders and I'm sure he is aware of that. Personally, I wouldn't want it any other way. He has the cajones to make these hard decisions and the confidence to know he is right in those decisions.

As you say, only time will tell, but If I was a gamblin' man, I'd be putting my money on the Whis.

I say all of the above. Management needed to free up some cash to get some extensions done and Whiz is making changes to a sub par defense. I'm quite certain there will be even more moves before we head into training camp.

 

[CardinalChris]

In otherwords, instead of having a better pass defense this year, we will have the same. Great!!!! Personally I'd like to see something a bit better than 22nd in passing yrds allowed, and dead last by a large margin in TD passes allowed. Especially since we didn't do anything to increase our pathetic pass rush.

Man, go back and read how this started. I said we are in the same boat talent wise in the nickel as last year. You disagreed and said we were worse off, so I tried to explain why we aren't. That wasn't the debate. Of course we are not better and I have no faith in our front 7 in creating pressure. We missed a chance to improve, but we did not get remarkably worse. And unfortunately, since the Dansby deal seems to be stopping any sort of cap relief, the sacrificed an overloaded secondary to sign their rookies, IMO.

The real error here is LaBoy. Yes, he had poor production, but he had potential. Since it COST the team money to cut him and he has nowhere to go but up in pressuring the QB, it made no sense to cut him.

 

[CardinalChris]

http://www.arizonasportsfans.com/vb...n-3rd-round-safety-rashad-johnson-133690.html

So listening to Bill Davis talk about Rashad Johnson, he mentioned having Johnson in at nickle, and allowing Rolle to stay back at safety.

At the time, the comment confused me (I made a comment about it on the thread), but clearly now this was a slip and the decision to cut Hood had been made AND he's already been placed ahead of Brown in the coaches' mind on the depth chart.

Take a listen, if you haven't already.

Oh also, it's the timing of the moves that surprise me more than the moves themselves. I wouldn't have blinked if these were training camp cuts... but these made me blink.

The knock on Johnson was he was a tweener. But some teams saw value in this because he can cover like a corner in nickel and dime packages, despite being too small for a prototypical safety. Cover safeties are fast becoming the trend. And that they cut Hood now tells me how little faith they have in the extension process with Dansby. I am shocked he wasn't shopped during the draft after Johnson was taken. Teams don't trade much after the draft until camp, and that would be too late for AZ's rookies.

 

[phillycard]

For all of Hood's shortcomings (and I'll say to this day that I hated the signing) he was at one point our best corner. We actually worried what we would do without him for a long stretch over his injury. I'm puzzled. Sheldon friggin Brown anyone??

 

[Hypothesis]

Opening a roster spot on our 53 man roster might have been another important factor in making this decision. I suppose Whis might have high hopes for some of our rookies and wants to keep space open so we don't risk losing our PS players.

 

[Cody]

do you think rolle will be playing maybe some nickle or dime this year?

 

[Stout]

You forgot the last step...

Stout apologizing to the board for losing it!

Well, since I didn't lose it, I'll not feel a need to apologize. I still don't get the Hood cutting, and I don't think the blanket statement of 'In Whis we trust' should ever turn into a mere crutch. Do I trust our coach? Sure I do. Has our talent evaluation group (which includes our dear coach) have a propensity to screw up on occasion? Yep (Johnson, Laboy). Is it a fact that now we go from having depth to having to depend upon raw rookies for depth? Yep. I just don't think it was a good move. I didn't flip out about it in the least, and I don't feel the need to retract anything. Sorry, Cardlogic, but you'll get no laughs from me.

Question for Joe: does cutting Hood mitigate the cap hit for cutting Laboy? That would be the only thing that makes any sense out of this fiasco.

 

[Cbus cardsfan]

On Laboy, he was cut to keep the long standing Rod Graves tradition of releasing a player one year after signing him to a multi-year FA contract. Actually, it had to be the injury thing.

Hood is kind of surprising but there's alot of stress going on over a #3 CB. To me, they are replaceable. Chris McCallister is still sitting around as are other CB's like,Dre Bly,that can probably be signed to more incentive-laden contracts if needed. But that's not the Cards style. They'll be going with the youngsters. I think they are going to count heavily on Rashad Johnson because of him having the reputation of being so smart.

I can see Foote being brought in but they'll probably use those savings to get a deal done with AW. Boldin would move another step closer to the top but i don't think he gets done until Dansby is resolved. Plus, i still hvaen't ruled out Boldin being traded. If the Giants call and offer some kind of deal revolving around Kiawanuka,it could still easily happen.

 

[BACH]

Perspective, Perspective, Perspective....

Why do everyone feel the urge to jump off the cliff???

First of all. These moves have NOTHING to do with the Bidwills being cheap or whatever cliché you can find about the Bidwills.

This wasn't about being cheap. It's actually the other way around. This team just cut three players despite already forking over $41M to these three players over last couple of years. There's nothing cheap about that.

The cap implications with these moves.... We don't know! Under the new rules the team can "move" up to two players from the normal cap rules to the after June 1st cap rules. If Graves decides to do this, cutting both LaBoy and Hood could create space under the cap.

Edge was cut in a salary cap move. Nothing special about that.

The two other cuts were made IMO to send a message. This team has several pro-bowl caliber players that are not satisfied with their contract/seeking new deals. At the same time, Laboy and Hood had relatively big contracts without much production.

Laboy was often injured and the coaching staff chose to let him go. The addition of McFadden, Johnson and Toler pushes Hood down to the 3rd CB position and if the coaching staff think that Johnson will be the nickel-back (according to Bill Davis) then Hood became expendable.

 

[joeshmo]

Question for Joe: does cutting Hood mitigate the cap hit for cutting Laboy? That would be the only thing that makes any sense out of this fiasco.

See Nidans Thread for my response, That is exactly why we cut Hood.