Gross, Suggs, Clark Tagged

[Bar-bq]

Jordan Gross (Carolina) Terrell Suggs (Baltimore) and Dallas Clark (Indiannappolis) have all been given the Franchise Tag, according to NFL.com.

So that's Suggs and Allen gone from the DE fishbowl, Andrews, Lilja, Wharton and Gross from OL, and one more in TE Clark to exhaust from your lsit of nasty Linehan fettishes.

One thing's for sure. Alan Faneca, Justin Smith and Jacob Bell just got a whole lot richer, as they are now the fast rising cream of the free agency crop at their respective positions.

[TekeRam]

And what do we learn from this kids? Teams are built in the draft, and then maintained by careful cap management and retaining the best players that you draft. Every year it looks like doom and gloom for the Colts as they lose major free agents(maybe this year will be the first they don't?), but then every year a young player, be it a rookie or second year player steps up and does just as good of a job as his predecessor. Last year was a prime example where they drafted Ugoh as an eventual replacement for Tarik Glenn, only then to have Glenn spontaneously retire. The Colts could have tried working out a deal to make him stay, but they let him walk away and wished him well while Ugoh stepped right in and did amazingly well for a rookie that was expecting to wait 2 years for his shot at protecting Peyton's blindside.

That's why drafting smart is so important, and even more so, then getting ahead of yourself in your drafting. Drafting next years needs this year so that the new guys generally have a year to get situated and learn.