Thoughts on Ted Washington

The Stillers have expressed a fair amount of interest in Bills UFA NT Ted Washington.

For a small cap hit and a short-term deal of 1 or 2 years, I might be able to live with acquiring Ted. The team is in near-desperate straits in manning its defensive line, and Washington is a true NT who has skill and experience.

For once, the Stillers have leverage, and need to use it. No other team stubbornly uses the 3-4 defense, so we should be in a position to dicker with Washington�s agent and drive down the salcap cost of the deal.

Why aren�t I as excited about acquiring Big Ted, as a kid in a candy store?

For starters, the guy is 33 and weighs about 340 pounds. In sports, I simply despise fat, lard, and sloth. Watching Fat Joel Steed literally steal paychecks from the Stillers his last couple of seasons, in which all he did was literally lay on the ground and waddle, made me sick. And when you have a team like the Stillers, whose collective team speed is amongst the worst in the entire NFL, I get queasy thinking about adding yet another player who lacks speed and quickness. Sure, NT is not a speed position, but if the mindset allows for a man to do little more than just squat on the ground, you lose something when the opposing offense runs wide or passes on "running downs". This also leads into the salary-cap problem of spending too much money on a 2-down player.

Then there�s the issue of Big Ted�s weight. On a team that has been entirely unable to control the weight of, just to name a few, Tub Kirkland, Doughboy Bettis, and Fat Joel Steed, I�m legitimately concerned as to exactly how this team would manage to keep Big Ted from ballooning to Dumbo-sized proportions.

The one thing the staff should consider, is asking themselves, "Is Kendrick Clancy ready to take over the NT job?" Frankly, I don�t know. The guy played only sparingly last year. He did seem to possess some solid skills. Yes, I know, he wasn�t very large last year � about 275 pounds. However, gaining weight is always much easier than losing weight. Ask Kirkland or Steed � they were able to gain weight as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. It�s not unreasonable for Clancy to add 20 pounds.

For the right price, I could live with Big Ted. However, I�d just as soon wait for the draft, and see what we are able to select. I�d also like to see ILB addressed before NT, because it�s a glaring void right now. And, I�d also like to save some cap money so that at least 2 of the DeWayne-Chad Scott-Holmes trio can be extended before they reach UFA status next March.