[moloch41]

Originally Posted by TekeRam

Yes, you should. Because you call yourself a fan. Look at the Phillies. The game they lost their 10,000 game or whatever was sold out! The Philly fans are great because they cheer even when it's futile. You'll never see bag heads there, and anyone who speaks bad tends to get an icicle in the back.

Hey, I'm still watching the games- I'm just not going to root blindly for them and "being a real fan" doesn't mean you don't have to right to criticize the team or speak realistically about their chances. Besides for draft order, does it really matter if a team finishes 4-12 or 1-15- no. In a couple of years, all anyone remembers is that it was another horrible season and a losing record.

Originally Posted by TekeRam

By your logic we should just go 0-16 until Manning, Brady, and hell, Big Ben retire. We won't get anything for trying, because we won't win a super bowl.

No, that isn't what I said at all, so don't misquote me. We are 0-8 THIS year and the season is already over and has been for a while now. As you know from last year- winning a bunch of worthless games at the end of the year does not necessarily give a team something to build on. If we are competitive and winning games, then great- but when we are playing poorly and beating teams that are playing even worse, I don't really see the point once the season is over.

Originally Posted by tekeram

Now, to clarify my points for you Moloch, since you obviously didn't understand.The draft is a rotating one, as opposed to a snake-like one used in fantasy football. The last pick in the first round(held by the superbowl winner) is the one just before the first pick of the second round(held by the worst team). This goes on through the whole draft. Thusly, when you look at it, the difference between the best team and the worst team is that the worst team gets 6 players one spot "worse" than the best team and gets one player who is supposed to be the best in the draft, but has no guarantee to be such, as well as a huge guarantee-laden contract for that player, which is now approaching top quality free agents' money. The best team also gets a 7th rounder who has less of a possibility to work out, but for pennies on the dollar.

Yawn. You have much more flexibilty with higher picks- including the ability to trade for more picks later in the draft. I really think there will be teams hungry to move up and make sure they get a player like McFadden from Arkansas- including the Cowboys who currently own 2 first round picks. Personally, i don't think we need to guy, but if we can can move down, get another first round pick or more later round picks and still get a player like Jake Long, that would be a bigger bonus than beating a lowly Falcons team.

Originally Posted by TekeRam

The quality free agents that you missed were Bennett, McMichael, and Draft. Meanwhile the only free agent I can think of for the Raiders was Dominic Rhodes. Oh, I'm sorry, they also got Culpepper. The Lions had TJ Duckett, Shawn McDonald, Travis Fisher, and Edwin Mulitalo. Baltimore's Mulitalo is the only real quality guy I see on those lists.

Through 8 Games

McMichael- 19 receptions for 248yds and a TD

Bennett- 14 receptions for 157yds and a TD

Draft- 18 Tackles, 0int, 0FF

Not exactly the biggest difference makers in the world. And that's not to say that I don't like them- I do and actually believe that Draft should start ahead of Pisa, who plays very erractically. I also think that McMichael is one of the better tight ends in the league, but it's clear that this coaching staff doesn't know how to use him. But alas, my point was that winning those last few games to go 8-8 didn't convince any big name free agents that they have to come here. Money is what convinces free agents. If we would have went to 5-11, Bennett still would have come here if the contract was right. Just as I'm sure if the Raiders have offered Bennett a few more dollars, he would be wearing Black & Silver right now.

Lastly, I understand how compensation picks work, do you? They're not done by how big the contract is, or how many offers the guy gets, it's done by production in the first year on the other team. This year we'll get credit for Curtis(hopefully a 4th), McDonald(7th?), and probably no one else. Meanwhile, the top teams tend to have better quality free agents leave, and so they'll get better compensation picks than us. Indy will probably get a 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th, at least due to their free agents.

I'm sorry- isn't this what I said? I said teams that finish with better records do not get the better compensation picks- the teams that lose the best free agents to other teams do- so winning the last few games would not effect our compensation picks at all either way.