Posts tagged AdamArchuleta at FanHouse

FanHouse's Matt Snyder made an impassioned plea to get his shot with the Raiders since, well, they'll apparently sign anybody off the street. While we await word from Al Davis, Snyder might have another opportunity to show how four years of high school football translates into a wildly successful NFL career.

Vikings head coach Brad Childress, miffed that some media types have referred to his training camp as "soft", has thrown down the gauntlet.

This year, he had the Vikings in full pads four times out of the first 26 sessions, but he feels it's been anything but soft. Childress was perturbed enough to challenge any media member to take part in one of his practices, making reference to author George Plimpton spending time in Lions training camp in the 1960s and writing about it in his book "Paper Lion." No one took Childress up on the offer to sign an injury waiver and join running back Adrian Peterson in the huddle.

Unfortunately, Snyder wasn't in the room because that would be the story of the preseason. Sure, there would be detractors (like this buzz kill), but for all the talk about moms, basements, translucent complexions and minimal athletic ability, there really is no measure of a blogger's heart.

Here's to hoping Snyder eventually gets his shot at glory; partly to fulfill a week-old dream, and partly to show Childress that bloggers are much, much tough than your average beat reporter.

That's right. You read the headline correctly.

As a Bears fan that sat through Adam Archuleta's futile attempt to play football last year, I have to put my foot down. The Raiders signed him today ... as a linebacker? You have to be kidding me.

Sure, he was once a good -- at best -- player. So was Donnell Woolford. He hasn't collected paychecks in the NFL since 1997, which is about as long as it's been since I played football. Did I play in the NFL? Of course not. I am, however, just as qualified as Adam Archuleta to be compensated for attempting to play football.

Want proof? Let's go to the proverbial tale of the tape:

Size
Archuleta: 6' 223 lbs.
Snyder: 5'8" 165 lbs.
Advantage: Me, of course. I'll be really sneaky instead of stomping around like a Clydesdale out there.

Experience
Archuleta: Seven NFL seasons, age 30.
Snyder: High school ... making me quite the unique American, also age 30.
Advantage: Think about all the wear and tear he's put his body through in seven seasons of the brutal grind. I'm fresh, baby. Sitting around at home blogging keeps a body fit. A spry thirty, to say the least.

Speed
Archuleta: No way he can break five-flat in the 40.
Snyder: Despite having a surgically repaired ACL, I could without breaking a sweat.
Advantage: You know the drill by now.

It sucks to be Greg Wesley today. The Raiders released the safety just a few weeks after signing him to make room on the roster for Adam Archuleta. And, yes, that would be the same Adam Archuleta who spent two inglorious seasons with the Redskins and Bears before mercifully getting released.

Well, he's back in the league, not as a defensive back, but at his old college position: linebacker. No, really. I suppose this could be worse -- I mean, the Raiders could've signed Archuleta to play safety.

Luckily, Oakland's secondary is set -- on paper, they're one of the best units in the AFC. The linebacker position could use some depth, and, apparently that's what Archuleta adds.

The Oakland Tribune's Jerry McDonald has all the gory details:

Two years ago, the Bears signed Ricky Manning away from the Panthers to be the team's nickel back. Chicago front-loaded his contract, which, in terms of the salary cap implications, is good news should they decide to "Adam Archuleta" him in the coming months.

Manning currently finds himself on the third team, and last season, the Bears opted to go with rookie seventh-rounder Trumaine McBride when Nathan Vasher missed time with an injury.

The Chicago Sun-Times' Brad Biggs points out that head coach Lovie Smith is fond of using the depth chart as a motivational tool. Sometimes it works (Mark Bradley was allegedly the team's fifth wideout at the beginning of the '07 season), and sometimes it doesn't (see Cedric Benson ... any example will do).

Manning gives the response we've come to expect from players who could be losing their jobs:

'I try not to worry about things I can't control. What I can control is I will be out there making plays. I will be a playmaker in this league. Whether it's here or somewhere else, I can't control that. Whether it's this year or next year, I can't control that.''

You know, this wouldn't even be an issue if the NFL played it's games inside Denny's. When it comes to Moons Over My Hammy and nerds, Manning's unstoppable.

It looks like Adam Archuleta's NFL career could be nearing its end. The Redskins forked over $10 million guaranteed before the 2006 season for the former first-round pick only to see him lose his starting job in training camp before an injury put him back in the lineup. And then, last off-season, Washington traded Archuleta to the Bears, a team that had pursued him the year before.

Bears head coach Lovie Smith had coached Archuleta in St. Louis, and figured the safety would be comfortable in the Cover-2 defense he grew up with playing for the Rams. Didn't happen. And today, Archuleta is looking for work.

So what happened? No idea. But the Bears have a glut at safety and Archuleta became expendable. The team drafted LSU's Craig Steltz in the fourth round of the 2008 draft, and he joins Mike Brown, Brandon McGowan, Danieal Manning, and Kevin Payne.

Archuleta, 30, is an unrestricted free agent. And yet Rex Grossman, who has arguably been just as big a disappointment as Archuleta, is still gainfully employed. I'm pretty sure the Bears' '08 season wasn't going to hinge on Archuleta's role with the team; can't say the same thing about Grossman.

Hat tip: Pro Football Talk

And Vinny Cerrato continues to remake the Redskins into a championship football team. According to Mr. Sports Bog, the Washington Redskins announced today that they have released wide receiver Brandon Lloyd.

And so ends another chapter in the forgettable 2006 Redskins off-season. Safety Adam Archuleta barely made it through one season before getting shipped to Chicago (after collecting $10 million in guarantees, of course), and now Lloyd, the guy some Redskins coach/front-office type thought would complement Santana Moss nicely and give Jason Campbell another deep weapon, is free to work on his freestylin' skillz 24/7.

That Lloyd didn't work out came as a shock to exactly no one outside of Redskins Park. Lloyd ends his Washington (and maybe NFL) career with 25 receptions over two seasons and zero touchdowns. And just like Archuleta, Lloyd got $10 million in guaranteed dough, although it's hard to say who was less deserving.

For Washington, the most amazing thing isn't that they even considered Lloyd a legitimate NFL wide receiver, it's that they're holding on to this weird misconception that the quickest way to the Super Bowl is through the wideout position. They've not-so-secretly coveted Chad Johnson this off-season. And while Johnson's roughly a billion times better than Lloyd, he'll have minimal effect on the 'Skins final record.

Which should make it all the more entertaining when Mr. Cerrato works his magic to acquire Mr. Cinco.

If there were betting lines on the NFL combine, I would have wagered a fair penny that the Bears would be spending their time putting safeties through their paces. As much as they need help on offense, their needs at the back end of the secondary are so glaring and so fixable that it seemed like the most obvious way to spend their time in Indianapolis.

The solution starts by ending your reliance on the always injured Mike Brown and totally incompetent Adam Archuleta and finding some good young athletes to throw into the mix. Easy peasy. Alas, the Chicago Sun-Times caught up with Lovie Smith at the proceedings today and he's singing a different tune.

Mike is another part of the core. Even though he has missed a lot of games, Mike means quite a bit. I'm a big Mike Brown fan. I always have been. Yes, we would definitely like to have Mike back with us ... Adam, just like some more of our players, didn't have the type of season we were hoping, he was hoping. But he's still a part of our ballclub and we're expecting him to come back stronger this year.

The only upside to this for the Bears is that Archuleta will make just $600,000 this year while, given his injury issues, Brown should be signable at about the same figure. They could also just throw the money out the window. Either route would improve the defense about the same amount.

NFL Offseason Roadmap is a series focused on the needs of NFL teams as they begin the offseason.

After the Chicago Bears lost in the Super Bowl to the Indianapolis Colts, they made several decisions before trying to defend their NFC crown. They gave Cedric Benson the starting tailback job, kept the quarterback position intact, signed Adam Archuleta to play safety and fired defensive coordinator Ron Rivera. It's hard to imagine any of them could have gone worse and each played a big part of the trip to a 7-9 record. The early word out of Chicago is that there won't be any big moves this time around but it's hard to see how such an approach would make for a markedly better 2008.

1. Quarterback – GM Jerry Angelo has been talking up a competition for the starting job in 2008 and that's certainly a good idea. None of the three quarterbacks who started for the Bears this season deserve an unfettered move to the top of the chain but the team won't do well to stand pat with the players they have. Rex Grossman is a free agent but unlikely to find big money offers and guaranteed starting jobs flooding his inbox.

With all the talk about Rex Grossman and Cedric Benson, the biggest underachieving Bears player has been overlooked: safety Adam Archuleta. After signing a huge deal with the Redskins two off-seasons ago, Archuleta promptly worked himself out of the starting lineup, only to be forced into to duty when Pierson Prioleau went down during Week 1.

Archuleta bumbled his way through '06, eventually getting benched for street free agent Vernon Fox, and only seeing the field on special teams. This off-season, much of the blame fell to defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who lobbied the team to sign Archuleta.

Whatever, Washington cut its losses after one disappointing season, and traded Archuleta to Chicago, reuniting him with his former defensive coordinator in St. Louis, Lovie Smith. So far ... so bad:

WBBM radio reported that strong safety Adam Archuleta will be benched Sunday in favor of Brandon McGowan. Archuleta has had a tough time all season, including missing a key tackle in last week's win over the Broncos.

Archuleta got benched last season while a member of the Washington Redskins. The Bears play the Redskins Thursday night.

Wow. So what happened to the Archuleta that dominated the strong safety position in St. Louis? Most people agreed he was misused in Washington last year, but Archuleta's basically in the same system that made him so successful with the Rams. Has his productivity just fallen off a cliff? Very weird.

The crew at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch put the bye to good use, compiling an extensive account of how the Rams, who in three years broke records, dominated the NFL, and won a Super Bowl, became the team -- term used liberally -- we see today.

There are the five most damaging decisions, all the money tied up in injured players this year (btw, Leonard Little is on the IR), Jim Thomas' lengthy and fascinating document on how Dick Vermeil's first retirement began the degradation of the franchise, and a few draft-day gambles that didn't pay off. Yeah, that about covers it.

Speaking of those draft-day gambles, here's what I found most damning from Thomas' must-read:

Only one player remains from the '00, '01, and '02 drafts - the three drafts that followed the Greatest Show seasons.

Even factoring in the rapid turnover rate of players in today's NFL, there should be four or five current starters from those drafts now in the prime of their careers, helping to form the backbone of the 2007 Rams. Instead there is just long snapper Chris Massey, a seventh-round pick in '02.

Fast forward through the '03 and '04 drafts, and only running back Steven Jackson, and linebackers Pisa Tinoisamoa and Brandon Chillar remain. So out of the five drafts following the Super Bowl XXXIV championship season, only four players remain: three starters and a long snapper.

Jackson is the only Rams Pro Bowler produced from any draft since Super Bowl XXXIV - that's a 1-for-63 batting average over the past eight drafts.