The Lakefront Pipeline
February 28, 2014
Plain Dealer editorial board joins anti-Wahoo chorus
February 28, 2014
Just days after the Cleveland Browns released their team captain and leader in tackles in D’Qwell Jackson, reports are circulating that they may do the same with 27-year-old Ahtyba Rubin.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk suggests that, with Rubin entering the final year of a four-year, $27.6 million contract, the defensive lineman’s $8.175 million cap number may be a bit too much for a new front office to take on. Having a boat load of cap space, it is not as if the Browns are handcuffed in a financial sense, but they could save themselves $6.8 million against the cap by releasing Rubin, a former seventh-round selection who started 14 games at left end last season, tallying 52 tackles and two sacks.
Rubin’s best season arguably came in 2011 (then in Dick Jauron’s 4-3 defense), recording 82 tackles and five quarterback sacks, playing in all 16 games. The Browns, as discussed within a recent WFNY podcast, are rife with depth on the defensive line. If the team felt they could better utilize their funds, or that he is not a fit for their defense going forward, releasing Rubin would make sense. To say that the 330-pounder has—to borrow a phrase—”diminishing skills,” however, would be a vast understatement.
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(Image: Candice Vlcek/WFNY)
25 Comments
Speculaaaaators… mount up.
It makes sense. Likely trying to restructure right now, but Rubin can find more than we would probably want to pay him on the open market (for a 4-3 DT needy team who needs him to play a higher % of snaps).
Just hoping that we are opening up cap space to utilize and not to just “have cap space.”
Groan…not more underpants. :/
For some reason, I read this comment as if Warren G said it in my head:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00IpNWoaXiw
turns out you can have too many pass rushers, huh?
this is just super. banner over-spends on 28 yr old/ heart surgery/ mug shot and therefore now we’re cutting –not trading, cutting!– the 27 y.o./ missed-only-5-starts-in-4-years/ /homegrown/ superior interior d-lineman.
1. last year’s banner offseason was a fail rivalling anything in the past decade;
2. don’t eff this up farmer, if you HAVE to choose one, choose the right one.
makes sense from the perspective of the box banner put the team in with the irrational pass-rusher quest. i’d like to know tho, exactly how much cap space they need and what theyre going to do with it before i get behind cutting our best defensive lineman (in his prime mind you) in since… jerry sherk?
I wasn’t happy with last offseason either, but nothing will ever rival the Mangini offseason.
we still don’t know if we are cutting (or trading) Rubin. but, we are NOT cutting Desmond Bryant. It would literally not help us at all. His “dead money” is $4mil. His cap number is $4mil. So, unless we get a medical waiver, it does us absolutely no good to cut him.
http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cleveland-browns/cap-hit/
yes, as I mentioned, I can understand parting ways with Rubin. But, I can only get there if we have a stringent plan on using that money for something else worthy of such a move.
If we do cut Rubin AND we end up with more than $6.8mil in cap room, then I will not be happy. I am a big fan of “Attaboy”
wrong. the mangini fateful 2nd round draft still at least yielded a pro bowler (mack).
no starters in last year’s draft; overpay for kruger; bess; and now bryant signing forcing waiver of better/younger player all while not executing on year one of a rebuild plan and leading directly to the firings of CEO, GM, HC, OC, DC.
how can you possibly suggest anything from mangini era compares to that?
ugh. how did I get to be the one defending Banner/Lombardi? I am not a fan of them overall and am not sad that they are gone.
still, they did some decent things while here…
while overpaid, Des Bryant and Paul Kruger are still useful players who are not on their last legs like previous regimes have signed. Armonty Bryant was a nice find in the draft and we don’t know what Mingo will bring (many of us said he was going to need to have an offseason to get stronger, let’s see that happen now — we shouldn’t have used him as a 3down guy though injuries forced our hand).
also, I was worried that Banner would overreact and get rid of some of our young talent. I am giving him a slight nod towards keeping guys like Sheard, Taylor, even was able to resign Greco to a good contract (his starter/backup pay plan is the reason we likely keep him now, which I like). and, despite rumors he didn’t trade our star WR in-season.
the one young “talent” that we had on the team he was able to surmise that was not worth being on our roster and somehow managed to get a 1st round pick back. have to give him some credit there.
He believed in some of our youngsters that I was worried about (Skrine, Cameron, Schwartz – lesser extent Gipson), though others he believed in failed him (Robertson, OG situation).
Also, he did properly surmise that last year’s draft was pretty bad. The guys drafted with those middle round picks we gave up are not helping Miami, Indy, Pitt either. This year’s middle rounds is “supposedly” much better.
finally, he did bring in Hoyer (and to a lesser extent Campbell). if Hoyer ends up being our QB, then he gets credit (or Lombardi – regardless, that FO). at least cutting Campbell will balance the cap-sheet when we also cut/trade Weeden.
Nice! Someone got it!
“Aww gee whiz. Our secret is safe forever, mg. xoxo <3"
yeah you dont want this job. you just gave an nfl front office credit for not getting rid of jabaal sheard.
i guess not cutting joe thomas was smart too.
ok, i’m convinced me. 😉
Btw, I hate you a little for making me relive this offseason (I know, my fault for bringing it up):
Mangini:
had 8 picks. Mack was great (even in the 1st round despite what others say). only Maiava is still in the NFL and was a ST injury fill-in for the Raiders last year.
The Mack trade however was really bad. We did not get value as the Julio trade would show and the guys we got back (Elam, Coleman, Ratliff) didn’t do anything great for us. They were marginal/fringe guys that relative value could have been obtained in FA.
Here are his FA signings:
Good: Re-signed Mike Adams, stole Brian Schaefering (he wasn’t special, but getting a contributor like him late August was a nice find).
Pretty Bad: Womack, Royal
Yuck: St.Clair, Barton, Poteat, Bowens
Not including the others as none were expected (nor did they) really contribute much.
when compared to a NFL FO that stripped away any semblence of talent, it’s grading on a pretty steep curve.
http://www.bmwmoa.org/forum/images/smilies/tongue10.gif
well i’m stuck defending the mangini/kokinos regime so it’s no picnic here, either. but mangini’s cupboard were bare unless you wanted to build around braylon and kellen and DA. banner had (as you and i well know) only six holes and plenty of cap space. at least five senior people weren’t fired within 12 months.
re not getting value: we won the trade as mack >>>> sanchez. and value was there (see attached), so the trade wasn’t bad; the talent eval tho.. oof. anyway who’s to say leon mcfadden’s career arc won’t resemble david veikune.
he took me to a nice seafood dinner and never called me again 🙁
Bastage!
guys, STOP! This is like a battle to see which guy has the worse smelling stuff on the bottom of their shoes. Don’t you see that’s what Jimmy wants, to make you think the (relative) geniuses are finally in place?
[I don’t get the Rubin thing, if true. There’s no cap squeeze here. Maybe they’ve identified a very high priced FA and decided the d-line is overloaded? But can’t think of a high-priced FA since Reggie White who’s worked out that well. C’mon Farmer, you’ve bred a good one, keep him and let some shallow roots finally take hold in Berea]
ok, I’ll take Harv’s advice after one more note. We “won” the trade as Sanchez was terrible (except he did actually win a playoff game, he was fantastic against the Colts for one weird day). But, we didn’t get the value we should have to drop AND we wouldn’t have taken Sanchez there (as if we believed in Sanchez, then we wouldn’t have traded him).
Yes, that 2nd round was a good one. somehow, despite that fact, we had 3 prime picks in it and missed on all of them.
Oh, and noone will be as bad as David Veikune 🙂
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ok, both FO suck, they both got canned after 1 year (the FO portion) and we can be happy to be rid of them. Now, let’s see if we just have more of the same now or actually have a competent team leading us.
Let’s not forget Magini following the 08 offseason with the the DISASTROUS Braylon Edwards trade in Oct 09 — Edwards for Stuckey, Trusnik, and a 3rd & 5th rounder. His infatuation with below-average Jets players set this franchise back — and made it OLDER.
There was no other way to read it my friend. Great song off a soundtrack from a great movie. Nutsooooooo!
I can’t believe you guys are arguing which turd smells the best.
😛
Wasn’t it Nate Dogg?