i did conceed he was an elite back i said his lack of fumbling was elite. however your list is not correct the following backs need to be excluded : T.Henry - less yards per carry 4.1 to 4.2 last year he had more yards solely on more carries, he fumbles WAY more, which is condusive to losing. if he were good bills would not have used pick on mcgahee F.taylor - i am not sure he is head and shoulders above, when healthy a way better back, but how long can he stay healthy? warrick dunn - huh? are you on crack, A-train is halfway to dunn's 8 year total in three. dunn isnt even a feature back, he is useless without a power back to come in for him and spell him. sorry but a water bug scat back is not better bennett/onterrio - technically that is two backs garner/alstott - see above d.staley/pitt - uhhh are you saying there are 20 backs or 23? or are you planning a genetic experiment westbrook -806 career yards, he is the man, 117 carries 3 fumbles, yep way more productive. kevan barlow - 2200 career yards, he has had more time to develop, and he is a good back but had 5 fumbes in 200 carries sorry another loser in the race to make your list seem long to piss me off garrison hearst - split time has good numbers for career, but is 33 has undergone major surgery and rehab and is on downside of career(backs dont last forever) So in closing, even after conceeding A-train wasnt a "dominant back" but a good one you decided to put a post to try and draw my ire well you have, Congratulations!! bottom line is you did not put Thomas Jones who i hate and said should not be starting in front of him. They signed Thomas Jones because supposedly he can catch better, even though he never proved it. My guess is you put every back you could think of on that list. you definately did not research it because the following backs werent on it 1)Curtis Martin (Future HOF) 2)Ricky Williams 3)Tiki Barber 4)M. Faulk 4 backs who are miles ahead of several backs on your list, yes you just want to say something to be right, you dont actually no anything about the league other the what you read in the bucs weekly newsletters, like AARP's monthly edition(yes they got that old) You are upset that i know the facts and you make them up and cant support them that is fine but everytime you type something on here again be ready to back it up with fact instead of speculation for once cuz i will be challenging it if it is stupid like this post
What is this a Knight's Tale? I don't know how I missed this thread, but I have to agree with the 49ers having the worst offseason. They haven't recovered any losses really. And I don't really think much of the HC, so there's no intangible there to make up for lost talent. Tennessee has had a rough offseason, but they were the most over cap, so it was expected. I think the Redskins & Eagles are a "wait & see" type situation. It might work out for them, it might not. Throwing money on the problem doesn't always solve it.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Cadillac)</div><div class='quotemain'>Fact of the matter is: Tampa Bay got older, NOT better.</div> Fact of the matter is we got older not better? Tell me where we got worse? Look at the defense caddy and tell me if you see 1 player older then 30 years of age. We do not have 40 old players on our team. Our oldest two players are brad johnson and mccardell, and last i checked both are still very good players in the nfl. Garner is a upgrade over pittman/jones He knows gruden offense and he is speedy and a great receiving rb. Galloway is a upgrade over whinniny key with no speed. and cheaper and what 1 year older? deese,stinchcomb,stuessie difintely upgraded offensive line players, better then we ever had here. Just for that fact we have improved our team and thats something all teams should fear in the nfc. Tampa's weakness last year and the year they won the superbowl. Offensive line and special teams. Improved this offseason.
Bearsfan with no eyes! HERES A STAT FOR YA READ CLOSE! Bearsfan, by the way anthony thomas isnt even a ellite rb not even close. I can name 20 other rbs who i take over atrain for ff that will get me better numbers. 1.holmes, 2.tomlinson 3.portis 4.a green 5.s alexander 6.d mccalister 7.j lewis 8. e james 9. t henry 10. f taylor 11. w dunn 12. s davis 13. bennett/o smith 14. westbrook 15. barlow 16. hearst 17. garner/alstott 18. domnac davis 19. d staley/ pitt 20. c dillon new raider. LOOK AGAIN CLOSLEY BEARFAN AS I PROVE LIKE I ALWAYS DO THAT I AM A MAN OF FACTS. READ WHAT I WROTE: Bearsfan, by the way anthony thomas isnt even a ellite rb not even close. I can name 20 other rbs who i take over atrain for ff that will get me better numbers. KEYWORD: I CAN NAME 20 OTHER RBS WHO I I AS IN ME! TAKE OVER ATRAIN FOR FF ... DO YOU KNOW WHAT FF MEANS? FANTASY FOOTBALL THERE YA GO. ANTHONY THOMAS DOES NOT GET GREAT NUMBERS FOR FF (FANTASY FOOTBALL) EVEN IF HE DOESNT FUMBLE. As for your statement i dont back what i write with stats or info. We all know thats total bullshit. In fact i always go the route to shut you up with facts, when it came to the salery cap of the buccaneers and there cap problems to there age and why they improved there team. KID YOU ARE GOING ON THE DEFENSE CAUSE I FINALLY TOOK A JAB AT YOUR ATRAIN RB WHO IS BACK UP RB TO THOMAS JONES NOW. I know you wanna go personal with me and thats fine bearsfan, I have been entertained by the fact that every comment or thread i post, you are the usually the first to respond with your disagreement or your view. To some its annoying, but to me i like it. Shall we grab the last 2 years in ff magz and see where anthony thomas ranks for ellite rbs in ff? I challenge you bearsfan espcially when this wonderful forum has our fantasy football league i challege you to join and i wanna test your brain vs mine. Im looking foward to the challege as well as alot of people in here. Ps. Dont hate so much, anthony thomas can learn a few things on the bench watching thomas jones. Sorry kid but atrain is done its why chicago signed jones and why lovie will make them contenders. Im just gonna sit back and watch you come around on jones doing great there. As your boy sits and fills the gateraid cups as his days in chicago as the feature back are coming to an end. Guess them fumbles he didnt have convinced the bears org to go out and get a starter in jones. lol. Dont hate the player, love the bucs bearsfan haha.
Bucs, you changed the arguement....FF has nothing to do with the NFL...just cause a back doesnt post good fantasy numbers, doesnt mean hes not good, or even dominanting, fantasy football has nothing to do with winning football games....and even after changing the argument to FF, you still named several backs that were not as productive as A-Train...
No, actually it isnt personal its a fact. Fact is anthony thomas is not a good rb period. Kinda like alstott is not a good full back. My statement beef was to point out that anthony thomas is not ellite, not even for ff period. Fantasy football rb's are judged on there yards,tds and receptions so ff rbs do account for my statement. Does some of the rbs names i mentioned have better numbers then atrain last season. No Bennett was out for what 10 weeks? O smith didnt start he sat behind moe williams were prime examples. Garner was hurt, in a jacked up screwed up callahan dismantled offense. Bearsfan, nah its not personal not at all. I wish your bears much luck for the season. Im gonna make a prediction tho. Thomas jones will be the man in chi town. FACT.
Well now, this turned ugly rather quickly. I can't believe you guys are arguing over whether or not the A-train is an elite running back in the NFL or in Fantasy Football. I read this thread twice and couldn't even find where he was called elite. The only comment I saw from BF1 was that his ability to hold on the ball was "elite". Now my opinion of A-train as far as the NFL goes, I think he still has some potential. The Bears didn't play well last year, but when they were playing well, Thomas did play well. He's too young to discount and say he'll never be good. He has struggled at times and has yet to match his prowess that he showed his rookie season, but he could still be a rather productive running back. I think they brought in Jones to challenge and motivate A-train. I think that Anthony will win the starting job and have a decent season with Jones spelling him when he needs a break. So on that Bucs, I disagree with you. I don't think he'll be the man anywhere. If he couldn't be the man in Arizona or Tampa, what makes you think he'll do better in Chi town? As for Fantasy Football, he's certainly a late round low risk, high reward pick. He's probably a 7th-10th round pick in a 10 team league and would be your 3rd back in your depth chart. But he has enough potential that he could break into the starting lineup. You were right IMO that he isn't a top 20 fantasy back. Not with the risk of him splitting carries with Jones.
quite the diplomatic response SF, not to mention mostly accurate, only thing about the top 20 thing, is he has never had full season to prove himself, and that bucs put 3 "pairs" of backs on his list, along with several who career numbers did not equal A-trains best year.
I could probably name 20 backs I would draft first and not use pairs. Hmmm.. let me see. 1. Tomlinson 2. McAllister 3. A. Green 4. Lewis 5. Holmes 6. Portis 7. Alexander 8. R. Williams 9. E. James 10. Martin 11. Faulk 12. T. Henry 13. S. Davis 14. K. Barlow 15. F. Taylor 16. D. Davis 17. Bennett (I think he'll be the man) 18. Dillon (OAK) 19. R. Johnson (CIN) 20. T. Barber Now for arguements sake, I would say that Thomas could be mixed in there somewhere. It's all about individual taste. I left out some good backs like Hearst, Dunn, and Staley. So you can see that Thomas is floating around the 18-25 range IMO. Yes, I am usually the diplomatic one around here, but I feel as though as a moderator of most of the forums I need to be. Besides, I can't say as though I'm passionate about A-train's eliteness.
I'm going to have to disagree with steelerfan on this one. I think Jones will claim the starting job over Thomas. It is possible that The A-train could re-claim his past form, but he hasn't proven too much to me this far. Jones finally got a chance to get some carries about halfway through the season last year. In the first 8 games he had 24 attempts for 79 yds (3.29 avg.) In the last 8 games he had 113 attempts for 548 yards (4.85 avg.) I think after he started getting enough carries to develop a rhythm, he was fairly productive. On the year his 4.6 avg. was almost a full yard better than any previous year he had. He also was beginning to see some KR duty. He tore that knee up early in his career and Arizona kind of "cooled" on him. I think he showed much potential at the end of last season and he has game-breaking speed that the A-train doesn't. I think either back will enjoy the improvements the Bears have made on their o-line in the off-season. That was definately an area of need for them, injuries had really hurt their continuity the past 2 years.
My only thought was that if Jones was so good, why did T.B. let him go? It doesn't really make any sense. I know the Bucs had some cap issues, but I hardly think Jones was commanding a huge salary.
SF. According to tampa with there cap they wanted jones to come back to them with a offer to there liking. He demanded a higher salery. Tampa did not wanna pay jones the money he wanted. Thomas jones has the talent from the games they seen him play, however they felt 4 games wasnt enough to pay him what the bears did. Tampa really beleived jones would be kinda loyal and stay in tampa for less money. In the end we got a perfect rb for our system and the bears have received a rb with new life. A thomas had his chance and its time to step aside. Watching both these rb's jones adds more speed and better ability to catch screen passes. Guess we will see, we all have our opinons on who's good and who's not. I just dont think atrain is worth anything but a third down back job. He's had his opps and nothing has come about it.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Steelerfan_2003)</div><div class='quotemain'>Well now, this turned ugly rather quickly. I can't believe you guys are arguing over whether or not the A-train is an elite running back in the NFL or in Fantasy Football. I read this thread twice and couldn't even find where he was called elite. The only comment I saw from BF1 was that his ability to hold on the ball was "elite". Now my opinion of A-train as far as the NFL goes, I think he still has some potential. The Bears didn't play well last year, but when they were playing well, Thomas did play well. He's too young to discount and say he'll never be good. He has struggled at times and has yet to match his prowess that he showed his rookie season, but he could still be a rather productive running back. I think they brought in Jones to challenge and motivate A-train. I think that Anthony will win the starting job and have a decent season with Jones spelling him when he needs a break. So on that Bucs, I disagree with you. I don't think he'll be the man anywhere. If he couldn't be the man in Arizona or Tampa, what makes you think he'll do better in Chi town? As for Fantasy Football, he's certainly a late round low risk, high reward pick. He's probably a 7th-10th round pick in a 10 team league and would be your 3rd back in your depth chart. But he has enough potential that he could break into the starting lineup. You were right IMO that he isn't a top 20 fantasy back. Not with the risk of him splitting carries with Jones.</div> Sf, No arguments brother i really do wish the bears much luck. I wont change my mind tho on how i feel about anthony. Like i didnt when i said curtis enis was gonna be a bust. Its all good. I respect bearsfan has his beliefs he does bring great views to the game. Respectible but ya know me, i will hold my ground for my bucs i wouldnt be a fan if i didnt.
Good stuff Bucs... you know I hear what you're sayin' and respect where you stand. We'll see about Thomas Jones. I will admit whole heartedly if I'm wrong.
TSN reported that Lovie Smith is installing the Rams offense in Chicago and plans to have Thomas Jones play the role of Marshal Faulk....if thats true, Mr. Jones is doomed to fail miserably, because his skill set is no where near as diverse or productive as Faulk....I like A-Train, and I think he can be a top 10 back in this league....his ability to control the clock with consistant 4 yard carries and no fumbles will make him a weapon in the right offense....Look out if Parcells ever got his hands on this guy, he would rush for 1500 yards....if I was starting an expansion team, the 1st thing I would do, on the 1st day of work, is call the Bears and guage thier interest in trading A-Train, becuase I know what he could do for a defensive minded team who is interested in clock control....
Back to the original subject, i thought Ramsey was decent as a first year starter last year. So the signing of Mark Brunell gets my vote as the worst off season move.
Cadillac i agree with you, this move made no sense period. Didnt ramsey have a solid year then he got hurt? Didnt patrick play the year all banged up from a offensive line that didnt protect him at all. Brunell must be a gibbs type player for this reason. Washington's weakness wasnt the qb postion. It was the defensive line and the running game in a jacked up spurrier offense.
