Old Man
Rivers comes to town:
The FO continues
to spend precious cap money on zero-impact veterans.�� Ron Rivers is a 30 year old, 7-year vet who has piled up 749
yards rushing on 175 carries, 264 yards receiving on 28 receptions and 477
yards on 24 kick-off returns.� Somehow,
he has found the end zone 4 times over the course of his career.
Rivers hails
from Fresno State, the same football powerhouse that provided the Stillers with
Jahine Arnold and Chris Conrad.� CNN/SI
describes Rivers as having functioned as the Lions short yardage back during
the Barry Sanders era.� Short yardage
indeed, 107 yards rushing to go with 38 yards in receptions per season. That�s
an average game for Edge James.� While
it is unreasonable to expect to get a James-type player in May, it is equally
unreasonable for the FO to spend real cap dollars on players who will make no
difference at all.�
Remember, only
the top 51 salaries count against the cap.�
This year, as every year, a couple of minimum rookies will not count at
all.� Given that no 30-year RB is likely
to have a break out season, why bother with a player of River�s magnitude?� With this signing, it is obvious that Hunt
is gone; what may not be so apparent is that Amoz could be out the door
too.� No sane executive would
commit� $477K to a training camp body; in
2001, we may see a Stiller RB corps of Bettis, Kreider, Fu, Witman and
Rivers.� Excluding Kreider, these men
could be described as old and slow or brittle.�
Fabulous.
Simmons is
worthless; Blackwell is worthless; Rivers is worthless.� Well, in a football sense anyway; in fact,
they are, in sum, actually worth $1.465M against the 2001 cap.�� Personally, I�d like to have seen that
money go towards retaining the D-side starters; failing that, I�d like to see
Kevin Colbert (the Lion King) fire up the �vette and roll down North Avenue
flinging fifties by the fistful out towards an adoring throng.� Used judiciously, this cash could hold out
to, say, Federal Street; for sure this would have no less effect on the Stiller�s
2001 fortunes than the set of signing recently reported.
Bad stupidity
stalks the Stiller manse; the FO is paying lip service to the D-side crunch
ahead but, obviously, is not willing to pay any real price.� Signings like this one are all about the
appearance of action; they will have no actual impact.� The FO has some hard decisions to make but
from recent events, it seems unlikely they will be up to the task.�