McFarland To Hold Private Workout June 4
by Michael Bean on May 13, 2008 11:40 AM EDT
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PrintAs was discussed in the comments section of our initial 53-man roster breakdown, Anthony 'Booger' McFarland would be a welcome addition to a thin Steelers' defensive line. McFarland, who missed all of last season with a torn patellar tendon, will be holding a private, individual workout in Tampa, Florda early next month, with the intention of proving to organizations that he's fully healed and ready to play solid football in 2008.
Because he's a free-agent, the Steelers will have competition in acquiring his services if they are sufficiently convinced he's recovered and ready to play. But having played for Mike Tomlin in Tampa Bay during the Bucs Super Bowl year might help our cause in courting him.
I'm going to hold off on speculating what McFarland could bring to the table until he has his workout, but there's several things to consider:
1) How much will he cost and what's our cap situation with and without him?
2) Do we need to start restructuring contracts and/or freeing up some cap space to get a fair deal in order before the workout?
3) Is there any way to know what we might have in our UDFA DL signings before then to help us make a determination of our immediate needs?
We'll see what happens but don't be surprised if we're able to add some much needed depth along the defensive line sooner than you might think. If so, perhaps some of us who are upset that we didn't address our needs in the trenches in this year's draft, can take a step back from the ledge and get excited about the explosive, if not overly physical, team we will be fielding in 2008.
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completely agree
its risky, yes, but i think if his workout meets or exceeds expectations, you sign him if the opportunity is there and the price is right. in any case they ARE going to address the d-line before the start of the season. it created a huge problem when smith went down and the steelers know it. this is a smart organization. they won’t just ignore the situation from last season hoping it doesn’t happen again. i have faith that they’ll find the best viable solution available to them.
DL Depth
I’d rather see Booger on the field at DE instead of Eason so if he’s healthy I hope they make a run at him. Any kind of significant injury to Smith or Hampton still sinks this unit though.
Booger and money
SalCap’s website isn’t working very well these days, but he says we’re under the cap by $1.682M minus Eason’s hit this year (maybe $800k?). That’s not enough to sign rookies, much less a FA. The obvious move is to give Starks a longer contract, which we could break down in a very cap friendly way, if necessary. If we had the balls to cut Mahan and Davenport in June, we would save something like $2M and $1M respectively, but they usually don’t do something like that until training camp. I don’t know what Eason is making, but cutting either him or Kirschke would give us a little more money as well.
If McFarland is healthy he’d be an upgrade over Eason/Kirschke, and if we can get him for fairly cheap, I’d go for it. The Starks mystery is the biggest obstacle to that happening for now.
look out for Dookie
The way I understand it they’ll save 1 million if when they cut Davenport. If he’s standing in the way of them signing McFarland, I sure hope they pick Booger over Dookie (sorry that was excessively lame).
Bad choice
From what I’ve heard, we’ve already brought in Booger several weeks ago and he failed a physical. I respect everything the guy has done in his career, but I don’t see us signing him if we’ve already been shot down by damaged goods. Good guy, not so good free agent.
Injury
I’ll agree that if he’s not healed from his injuries he’s not going to help us, but remember that he failed the physical in March and his workout is in June. He’s a mid-to-late career player trying to come back from an injury, so it’s taking some time. The Steelers didn’t close the door after he failed the physical, but they wanted to see him healthy before signing him. It’s definitely worth seeing how he does in his workout.
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