Dean? AJ? Norv? Post It Here

[Strife9878]

There will be a lot of 20/20 hindsight... I am going to try to remember how I felt at the time as well... but I don't have the time to dig through all the pages of the CMB so...

Originally Posted by Weddle46

People always grade drafts and what not, so I think its time we grade our free agency period from last year.

Lets start off with signing Jared Gaither to a huge contract. MEGA BUST and is no longer with us.

Gaither: Mega Bust... agreed.

At the time: I remember last off season saying that Gaither was a necessary gamble. The sudden losses of McNeil and Dielman has to be on the list of most painful career ending injuries (for the team, not the player.) I was not leaping in the air cheering, but I felt it needed to be done because there weren't any better options. If we didn't have a quality LT in place we weren't going anywhere. After Gaither got hurt/quit... I was proven right. Sometimes I hate when that happens.

20/20 hindsight: Mega bust... absolutely. Acee said something like Spanos felt he was defrauded of his money, the team felt robbed of the chance to be as good as they could have been.

Forward: We are on the hook for some money this season and next... and this really stinking sucks that the necessary dice roll landed on an ugly set of snake eyes.

Originally Posted by Weddle46

Signing Atari Bigby to a 2 year $2.5 million deal. BUST and is no longer with us.

Atari Bigby: Neutral... can't call it a boom or a bust.

At the time: I figured Bigby was a veteran filling a position of need. I was excited about this one but didn't feel that he would be an all pro. The contract was not expensive, and not going to cost us another player. Definitely seemed like an upgrade.

20/20 hindsight:Bigby gave us some starts and played well enough. Money wise, it wasn't much... I can't find his pre release contract info... but cap hit wise it doesn't seem like it was a horrible pickup considering the other options we had.

Forward: Only 150,000 cap hit on the books for 2013. Not bad at all for a player that gave us 11 starts before a season ending injury.

Originally Posted by Weddle46

Signing Jarret Johnson a 4 year deal. BOOM, he's been a big part of our defense and we actually had a pretty decent run defense for first time in what seems like forever because of Johnson. Plus he brings a lot of intangibles like leadership etc to the table.

Jarret Johnson: Cautious Boom.

At the time: I didn't know much about him... but when people were saying he was a probable starter I was very thankful to see Travis Laboy leave the team.

20/20 Hindsight: Probably our best FA pickup. Huge upgrade in run support. Good leadership qualities. Not the pass rushing OLB that people love... but a very good pickup.

Forward: With the loss of Phillips, it is good we have a veteran like him in the LB room. With that said, he is 31 years old, has 4.5 million cap dollars that need to be paid. (Cap Dollars, not real dollars). At his age, he could suddenly decline... and he is scheduled to make some good money. Looking forward is the reason I have to say I am cautiously saying he is a boom, instead of simply saying boom.

Originally Posted by Weddle46

Signing Robert Meachem to a ridiculous contract 4 year $26 million contract. MEGA BUST

Robert Meachem: Mega Bust pending 2013

At the time: Teams pluck from teams deep at a position all the time. I was glad to see us do that with the loss of Jackson. (this is not the tread to argue him, so I am just going to deal with what happened instead of what should have).

20/20 Hindsight: Horrible Horrible pickup... dropped some key balls, beaten out by off the street midseason pickups. Never developed anything with Rivers.

Looking Forward: He is getting a major raise this year... and the salary is guaranteed. This is the kind of contract that gives fans nightmares... not to a Gaither level but shoot... After this season, he will still have 3,750,000 cap dollars owed because of the signing bonus. Looking forward I felt I had to say pending 2013... because if somehow the new coaching staff and system and people around him help him play better then we may forget the mess of 2012... But I am not holding my breath that he can be anything more than a #3 if that.

I will write up the rest later.

[Bolt4Life]

I would like a thread to compare the people who praised AJ for the moves to themselves now as they bash AJ and act like they weren't on cloud 9 with all these pickups. I've noticed a few people on this forum who were making tons of posts last year about how great AJ did and those same posters are now bashing him for those moves.

[Weddle46]

Originally Posted by Bolt4Life

I would like a thread to compare the people who praised AJ for the moves to themselves now as they bash AJ and act like they weren't on cloud 9 with all these pickups. I've noticed a few people on this forum who were making tons of posts last year about how great AJ did and those same posters are now bashing him for those moves.

I don't think anyone can dispute the fact that AJ did pretty well during his first years here. It was these last 3-5 years that he really lost his magic.

And of course people are going to say a signing was good if they felt like it was a good signing and then later if it turns bad, they will say it was a bad signing.

[SDfootball61]

Its really hard to call this offseason, the only really bad move he made was to sign Meachem. In hindsight the Gaither move is awful, but it was a move that really HAD to be made. We were in huge trouble if we didn't, it was worth the risk.

I cant call Bigby a bust when he was playing for barely over 1 mil and was an average starter for the entire year pretty much.

Hardwick was in a bad position, having to play with a new OL around him, and clearly missing Dielman, but he's a leader on this team, makes all the calls for what was an EXTREMELY young OL that was completely lacking in veteran knowledge that could actually do that. He's a guy that we really needed to hold on to, i dont call him a bust necessarily either because of that.

Also you have to add the draft to this as well, where Reyes was a HUGE boom, Ingram showed promise, and Taylor played well until his injury when he got a chance.

AJ new this was his last chance, and he went all in trying to win now, last year, and the Gaither bust hurt us insane amounts.

[DieHardCharge]

Knowing what we know now with the players we acquired through the off season last season I graded it as a Low C to High D. Back around this time last year and so on i had graded it as a B.

[Game3524]

Originally Posted by SDfootball61

Its really hard to call this offseason, the only really bad move he made was to sign Meachem. In hindsight the Gaither move is awful, but it was a move that really HAD to be made. We were in huge trouble if we didn't, it was worth the risk.

I cant call Bigby a bust when he was playing for barely over 1 mil and was an average starter for the entire year pretty much.

Hardwick was in a bad position, having to play with a new OL around him, and clearly missing Dielman, but he's a leader on this team, makes all the calls for what was an EXTREMELY young OL that was completely lacking in veteran knowledge that could actually do that. He's a guy that we really needed to hold on to, i dont call him a bust necessarily either because of that.

Also you have to add the draft to this as well, where Reyes was a HUGE boom, Ingram showed promise, and Taylor played well until his injury when he got a chance.

AJ new this was his last chance, and he went all in trying to win now, last year, and the Gaither bust hurt us insane amounts.

I would say McClain was worse then Meachem. Meachem at least fulfilled a need at the time, while McClain didn't offer us anything that Hester could not do.

Just a really strange signing by AJ.

[perryao]

Originally Posted by Weddle46

People always grade drafts and what not, so I think its time we grade our free agency period from last year.

Lets start off with signing Jared Gaither to a huge contract. MEGA BUST and is no longer with us.

Signing Atari Bigby to a 2 year $2.5 million deal. BUST and is no longer with us.

Signing Jarret Johnson a 4 year deal. BOOM, he's been a big part of our defense and we actually had a pretty decent run defense for first time in what seems like forever because of Johnson. Plus he brings a lot of intangibles like leadership etc to the table.

Signing Robert Meachem to a ridiculous contract 4 year $26 million contract. MEGA BUST

Signing Eddie Royal to a 3 year $13 million contract. BUST

Resigning Nick Hardwick to a 3 year $13 million contract. BUST (even though I know some may disagree, he has not played like a player that should be making that kind of money)

Signing Demorrio Williams to a 1 year contract. BOOM, he played pretty good last year

Signing LeRon McClain to a 3 year contract. BUST

Letting Vincent Jackson go elsewhere for a 5 year $56 million deal. BUST
Chargers hit on just 2/8 of their free agent signings from last year. The amount of money that has been wasted is unbelievable. A lot of people (including me) hated on AJ because he never signed big $$ FAs during his time here...but maybe the reason he didn't do it is because he knew he was bad at it and didn't want to have the Bolts locked up in such big wasteful contracts.

I see people ripping on Telesco for not spending money but the reason is, AJ screwed this team over last year and the Chargers are still paying for his mistakes. But whatever I don't want want to get too much into that.

2/8 percentage wise is 25% and that is exactly what I am going to give it...an F!

So what grade do you give the '12 Chargers free agent signings?

AJ was fired. What other grade do you need????? Old news. New era.

[perryao]

Originally Posted by cmfrenchiecm

The vast majority of everyone here would have given it a B if not an A at this time last year.

Hindsight makes it all seem so easy doesn't it?

You nailed it.

[Weddle46]

Originally Posted by perryao

AJ was fired. What other grade do you need????? Old news. New era.

So? We still grade previous drafts so just grading last year's off season.

This isn't about how good of a GM AJ has been during his time here, its about last year's free agent signings.

[perryao]

Originally Posted by Weddle46

So? We still grade previous drafts so just grading last year's off season.

This isn't about how good of a GM AJ has been during his time here, its about last year's free agent signings.

I liked your write-up on the different players and their relative performance. Not the poll. It's obvious what his grade was now, F for FIRED.