Revisiting The Dawkins Discussions

Since it's Denver week, I thought it might be interesting to roll out the wayback machine and take a second look at all the things that were said around his departure.  What came true?  What didn't?  And what looks sort of dumb right now?

For my research, I'm mostly relying on old IB posts.  During the slow time of year, we pick up most of what everyone else says too, so it's not a bad survey.

As I'm reading the old stuff, a few key themes and points of disagreement emerge:

• The Eagles will / will not replace Dawk's leadership.
• The Eagles will / will not replace Dawk's production in 2009 and / or the Eagles are / are not hurting their immediate Super Bowl chances in pursuit of long-term success.
• The Eagles will / will not put the salary cap dollars saved to good use.

Leadership -- At the time of Dawk's departure, many, many fans were banging this drum.  I was less concerned:

And for those who say his value goes beyond his on-field performance, you're right.  Dawk is one heck of a person, leader and mentor.  I even changed "hell" to "heck" in that last sentence out of respect for his personal aversion to cursing.

The problem is that leadership really only goes so far.  And the Eagles have other leaders.  Are they all of the stature of Dawk?  No.  But, collectively, they're good enough to get the job done. 

At this point, even the most fervent leadership acolytes -- with one exception, I'm sure -- would have to concede that inasmuch as the Eagles may have a diminished store of locker room leadership, the challenges have not so far exceeded their capacity to handle them. 

Issues that could have come up:

• Playing through injuries
• Young / old competition and mistrust
• Offense / defense
• Asante Samuel's tackling

The Eagles have been just fine on the first three.  Asante's tackling sucked just as much when Dawk was here.

Immediate Production -- This was a theme I hit a few times.  I figured to let Dawk walk in a year they could be Super Bowl contenders, they had to be feeling pretty good about his possible replacements:

There is actually one scenario in which I could see the Eagles not stepping up.  And that's if they think Quintin Demps has to get on the field because he'll be better than Dawkins next year.

I do not envy that young man if this is the case.

From the "leadership" link above:

But the key point here is that this was a football -- not a business -- decision and if you want to scream at the organization about it, you're basically arguing the Eagles should have entered next season NOT doing everything they think they need to do to win.

If you're ok with that, great.  I'd rather win a Super Bowl.

Finally, this beaut (mine) from the comments on that post:

Unless they think it's time to get Demps on the field. That guy was fantastic on STs last year, showed unbelievable speed, and was a serious ballhawk in college.

I hope all those things translate, because he just moved to #2 on the list of philly athletes most under the microscope in '09.

And you all thought I was going to go easy on myself.  Anyway, no, it hasn't exactly worked out this way.

I really haven't watched Dawk much in Denver this year, but having seen his every play for the past decade, I think we have a pretty good handle on what he's probably doing out there.  Given that our replacements have been:  1) benched, 2) a college cornerback, and 3) a veteran who hits hard but makes no one forget Dawk, I sorta doubt we've fully replaced his production. 

Of course, assembling an NFL roster is first and foremost a resource allocation problem, which means maybe you slide a bit at safety and make it up somewhere else.  However, considering just how many salary cap dollars we entered the season with, I don't think you can argue that signing Dawk would have precluded any immediate 2009 help.

Sean Jones better not miss any tackles in the playoffs.

Salary Cap -- This, of course, is where the discussion started to get a bit stupid.  I'll let you read Sal Pal's idiotic missive here.  That's by far the worst.  But there were others:

The fact that Dawkins went to Denver means that the Eagles wanted him, but only on their terms. That just isn't good enough, not for a franchise with so much money it cannot possibly spend it.

Bowen's version, which is true in the short term, but ignores the long-term opportunity cost:

Reid implied the Eagles could not have made such an offer, though all available estimates say they have salary cap space to do just about anything they want this year.

Those are just the ones I found quickly.  Many people all over the Internets were saying the same thing.

Here's the problem, though.  All those folks were wrong:

So despite Joe Banner's insistence that with the massive amount of cap space the Eagles had at the beginning of the off-season, "you couldn't hope to spend it all", he has done exactly that. Well done. As Eagle fans, we should root for a CBA extension in the off-season, because this team will have a huge competitive advantage in 2010 from a cap perspective if we avoid the Uncapped Year. Of course, we have the financial muscle to have the same advantage regardless, but it would really stand out with an extension.

So that answers the question of whether or not the Eagles were leaving money on the table by not signing Dawk.  They weren't.  The next question, though, is if they spent that money wisely.

There are a couple different ways to look at that question, but I think the best answer depends upon what you think of Winston Justice.

We know Brent Celek was going to get a new deal.  That would have happened no matter what they did with Dawk.  So to say, "Well, we used Dawk's money on Celek," is bogus.

Justice, however, was a much more marginal case.  We don't know what the organization is thinking about the Andrews brothers.  Maybe they still think there's a possible future there, once they get their medical issues cleared up.  And Todd Herremans remains a possible RT starter in the future (although I'd hate to move him from guard).  So Justice was definitely not a "need" signing.

The other thing that's interesting about Justice is that he got a four-year deal for ... $18 million.  That's intriguing because Dawk's deal is -- if reports are accurate -- two years for $9 million, i.e., exactly what Justice is getting paid (albeit with a one-year time shift). 

That really ends up being a bit of a thinker, doesn't it?  If the completely unexpected happens and the Andrews brothers magically return to dominating good health -- which could relegate Justice to the bench -- I'm not so sure it's worth losing Dawk for the benefit of having an experienced backup RT for two years.  Although, if the starter is Shawn, then, um, yeah, an experienced backup is probably a requirement.

On the other hand, in the far more likely scenario that Justice is still starting at RT next year, I think you have to give him the nod in that value equation.

Losing Brian Dawkins to keep Winston Justice -- and being happy about it.  This is a crazy game.

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As an encore, here were some other interesting links I came across as I was digging around for Dawk posts:

The worst draft day evaluation in history

The one in which I argued Sheldon Brown was headed to FS (This could still happen.  And this is also the post where I started to realize the Eagles actually weren't that fired up about Quintin Demps.)

The one in which I predicted Leonard Weaver would carry the ball a lot if he came here (sort of :-)

The one in which our failure to sign Weaver (yet) was making me come a little unhinged

Turns out sources A and C were right