Redskins give tight end Cooley six-year contract extension

[PaCkFan_n_MD]

Man I was hoping he would be available next year, to bad.






Redskins give tight end Cooley six-year contract extension

Associated Press


ASHBURN, Va. -- Funny that a player nicknamed "Captain Chaos" would be seeking stability. Tight end Chris Cooley got just that Saturday, signing a six-year, $30 million contract extension with the Washington Redskins.

The contract includes $14 million in guaranteed money for the player whose colorful outfits and antics are matched only by his reliability and strength as one of the Redskins' best offensive weapons. Cooley caught 57 passes for 734 yards and six touchdowns last season and led all NFL tight ends in yards after the catch (7.35) and yards after contact (4.1).


"It feels so good," Cooley said. "My biggest worry was that I just wanted to be here. I can play my whole career with the Redskins; that's an unbelievable thing."

A third-round draft pick from Utah State in 2004, Cooley has 165 catches for 1,822 yards over three seasons and has yet to miss a game. His rookie contract was due to expire at the end of this season. He and the Redskins have been talking about an extension for months without much progress - until Cooley pressed for a resolution over the last four days.

"I'm very happy that it's not a worry once the season starts," Cooley said. "Even last season, I thought about it a lot. You're thinking about your whole future and your life. Now I can focus on playing football, making the Pro Bowl."

Cooley's production dropped last season as he and the rest of the offense adjusted to the schemes of new assistant coach Al Saunders, but Cooley is now poised to put up the numbers of his career. He looked more comfortable in training camp and has developed into the second option in the passing game behind wideout Santana Moss.

Saunders, a former offensive coordinator with Kansas City, said he plans to use Cooley the same way he used Tony Gonzalez with the Chiefs.

"It's great to get this done and get this out of the way," coach Joe Gibbs said. "He's earned it. He's always been one of our hardest workers."

Cooley took the backdoor route to get his contract talks resolved. He said he started discussing the matter with assistant coaches earlier this week, and they sent the word along the pipeline, through the Redskins hierarchy and all the way up to owner Dan Snyder.

"I really tried to push it from my end to have it over with," Cooley said. "The Redskins made it easy. I think it was understood that I had outplayed my rookie contract."

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press

[BallHawk]

Smart move by the 'Skins.

[retailguy]

Smart move by the 'Skins.

yep, sure is.

Now that's a guy who came out of nowhere.

[gbpackfan]

Great players rarely become available in FA anymore. That is why it is so important to have a GM who is willing to make things happen when they do. TT forgot how to make things happen in 2007.

[BallHawk]

Great players rarely become available in FA anymore. That is why it is so important to have a GM who is willing to make things happen when they do. TT forgot how to make things happen in 2007.

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

[retailguy]

Great players rarely become available in FA anymore. That is why it is so important to have a GM who is willing to make things happen when they do. TT forgot how to make things happen in 2007.

I don't think he forgot, I think either he truly thinks we'll win with this team, OR he doesn't care if we win this season or not.

I lean towards #2, but really don't have any idea.

[Lurker64]

Great players rarely become available in FA anymore. That is why it is so important to have a GM who is willing to make things happen when they do. TT forgot how to make things happen in 2007.

I don't think he forgot, I think either he truly thinks we'll win with this team, OR he doesn't care if we win this season or not.

I lean towards #2, but really don't have any idea.

Really, there weren't any amazing things you could have done in free agency this year. I suspect at the leading up to FA TT had his eyes on two potential FA: Tony Gonzalez and Adalius Thomas. Gonzalez got extended before FA started, so TT didn't have a shot and Thomas got signed almost immediately by the Pats (who could put together a better pitch than Thompson, as in "Hey, come win a superbowl.") Sometimes guys have objectives like "win a superbowl" or "play in a certain environment" that GMs have limited control over. All Thompson can really do is throw money at people, since we're not obviously close to a superbowl, people aren't banging down the doors to play with Favre anymore, and a lot of players would prefer to live somewhere more happening than Green Bay.

But beyond those guys, there weren't a lot of players who would have helped a lot. A few players who would be incrementally better than people we have on the roster, but nobody really special. I think he likely made a passing attempt at a few of those "incrementally better" guys, but those are the kinds of players that it's not really worth it to cut a big check for.

I'd rather Thompson sit on some money so he can make big things happen when a FA who will genuinely make an impact comes onto the market. But a lot is eplained this year by the fact that nobody available available in FA after the first couple days or so was really a difference maker. Since really all Thompson can do is throw money at people, it's probably safer to not spend money on those guys that are only incrementally better than the guy's you've got so that you can spend a ton of money on the rare FA that hits the market who is a difference maker.

[retailguy]

Lurker, to a point I agree.

However, I would maintain that becoming "incrementally" better at RB & TE would make this offense look A LOT different. There were players at each position that would've done that, without removing much of the surplus you are referring to.

"Incrementally" better players at a few other positions would have created "camp competition" such as we saw with Dave Rayner and Mason Crosby.

[Lurker64]

Lurker, to a point I agree.

However, I would maintain that becoming "incrementally" better at RB & TE would make this offense look A LOT different. There were players at each position that would've done that, without removing much of the surplus you are referring to.

"Incrementally" better players at a few other positions would have created "camp competition" such as we saw with Dave Rayner and Mason Crosby.

I think the real fact of the matter is that Thompson isn't nearly as perfect as some people here think, and he's not nearly as incompetent as some people here think. Figuring out how much to pay the guys that are just a little better than the guys you have is probably one of the tougher jobs a GM has. You can't just always pay them "what it takes to sign them" because then you end up like Washington who regularly spends "what it takes" to upgrade a position but the ratio of improvement to dollars spent is generally poor.

So really, if you're looking at guys that are just a little bit better than the guys you have, you can't afford to fall in love with them and cut a blank check. The really sensible thing to do is to figure out how much that improvement is worth to the team, and not deviate from that figure too much. I think Thompson certainly did that to an extent, but it turned out his figure was lower than most guys signed for (though we're not privy to the discussions, it's entirely possible that Thompson offered Griffith, for example, more money than Oakland did, but Griffith valued location more than money. I mean wherever he signed he would have been able to feed his family fairly well.) Time will tell whether he was right or wrong about this, but we're not really in position yet to praise his genius or decry his idiocy. I've scratched my head a little this offseason, but on the otherhand I'm confident that Thompson knows both our players as well as the players on other teams a lot better than I do. I'm sure a few times this offseason he guessed right, and a few times this offseason he guessed wrong. It's an imperfect science, whether you sign guys or you avoid signing them.

[retailguy]

Lurker, I don't think Thompson "falls in love" with anyone. That is surely one of his good qualities.

Put it another way... You bring in 4 guys that you think are "incrementally" equal, or just a bit better than what we've got. You give them a small signing bonus and a moderate 3 year contract.

If you've got $600K invested in this, I'd be shocked. What is $600K when you've got $15mil in cap room?

Wouldn't you feel better if we had one more TE to have looked at during TC? We just got another RB.

[Lurker64]

Wouldn't you feel better if we had one more TE to have looked at during TC? We just got another RB.

In a vacuum? Sure, I'd love to have another Tight End because I have an active imagination and I could imagine that player doing something amazing. But in reality, we don't sign TEs out of the Platonic Realm, we have to look at the guys that are available.

The actual decision tree goes sort of like this:

1) Would I like another TE?

2) Out of the pool of TEs available, would this one improve my team?

3) How much would he improve the team and how much is he worth to me?

4) Can I convince this guy to come here and sign this guy for something around the amount he's worth to me?

I would have been happy to get another TE, but of the ones available I can understand why Thompson didn't sign them. At times, I was a little puzzled why TT passed on some TEs in the draft (I wanted Scott Chandler out of Iowa). But at the same time I think that some times TT guessed right (Eric Johnson was separated at birth from David Martin, for example) and some times he guessed wrong (I wanted Daniel Graham, but I might not have $30 million wanted him). Thompson's job is complicated and subtle, it's not as simple as "Want x-player, go get x-player" even though as fans that's how we really tend to think about things.

[retailguy]

We're not dealing with a vacuum. there is plenty of talent available at any price you want.

What about Randy McMichael, Jerramy Stevens or Jemaine Wiggins?

None of those guys would've broke the bank. Yeah, they had issues, but so do Donald Lee and Bubba Franks.

Like I said, I see your point, but each point has consequences. Where we are now, is that we're entering the 2007 season with questions. Had we signed any of these guys we might still have had questions, but, we might have resolved some too.

No decision is "right" or "wrong". Except perhaps picking up LaDanian Tomlinson off of waivers. :wink:

[MJZiggy]

How on earth did a thread about a Redskins wideout become about TT?????

[BallHawk]

How on earth did a thread about a Redskins wideout become about TT?????

Everything is about TT, apparently. I could start a thread about world hunger and it'd eventually lead to Ted.

[retailguy]

How on earth did a thread about a Redskins wideout become about TT?????

Actually, I thought Lurker and I had a pretty good discussions about tight ends. Wasn't the thread about a tight end? :huh: