Not at the table, Karlos: Browns ink Dansby for four years, $24 million
March 11, 2014
2014 NFL Free Agency – Browns Day 1 – Dansby, Whitner, more – WFNY Podcast – 2014-03-10
March 11, 2014
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The Browns have reached an agreement with free agent safety Donte Whitner on a four-year contract worth an estimated $28 million.
Former 49ers S Donte Whitner reached agreement on a four-year, $28 million deal with the Browns, per sources.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 11, 2014
The move means that the Browns are willing to say goodbye to free agent T.J. Ward. Whitner is a Cleveland native and an Ohio State Buckeye alumnus.
Whitner was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in 2006. He was an anchor of the San Francisco defense for the past three seasons. The 28-year old has been to a pair of Pro Bowls.
O-H-…….
— DonteHitner31 (@DonteWhitner) March 11, 2014
[Related: Karlos Dansby signs with the Browns]
26 Comments
-I-O
Whiffner/Hitner’s 2011 reputation is a bit above his current play, but they had money to burn, and the non-guaranteed nature of NFL contract’s makes the numbers generally meaningless, so why not spend it.
I am a little sad as this most likely means Ward is gone and I believe Whitner is a bit of a downgrade.
But, if we are going to lose Ward, then we are still getting an above average SS back. That is a good thing.
Yeah, I’d rather see if Ward can improve than watch Whitner continue to decline, but this should be a fine move.
Only 1.5 years older, better in coverage and probably end up being cheaper. The guys wants to play here and has a better injury history. Im not sure whats not to like. Im not putting Ward down, who is coming of his best season and has steadily improved. Just dont see this as an outright downgrade.
Memo to Berea: The idea is to sign better players, not cheaper players.
Also, you build through the draft and supplement with free agency, not the other way around.
the Broncos want to stake the claim to former Browns by pairing TJ Ward w/ Mike Adams in 2014
we shall see. I see them as similar players but Ward is a bit better and younger, which is why Whitner was a bit cheaper. Glad that it’s a hometown guy and I’ll cheer for him loudly.
After Dansby, I was going to pencil in AFC Championship game, but you may as well hand me the pen at this point.
what will it take for you to use permanent marker and throw away the white-out?
wow.
Not terribly excited about this move. My initial take was that the Browns got a lot older at a position where you don’t want to be old. But Whitner will be 29 on Week 1 this year while Ward turned 27 last December, so they’re basically 1.5 years apart. I forgot how young Whitner was when Buffalo drafted him. Still, mileage-wise, he’s been around a lot longer than Ward. I wonder how deep safety is in this year’s Draft…
Obviously, this (and the Revis rumors) puts the Browns out of the Byrd sweepstakes, which is very disappointing. I’d take Byrd over Whitner and Revis, but that’s just me. Maybe it has a lot to do with watching Polamalu and Ed Reed torment Browns QB’s the last decade but a ball hawking safety in a (all together now) passing league seems like a pretty nice asset to have, even if it’s an expensive one.
Sorry, didnt see that. My bad.
Byrd doesn’t have a home yet. He may be finding out that noone wants to pay a safety $9-10mil/year. Still time to come back around on him and we need a FS. I’d rather have Revis than Byrd, but I don’t know that I’d rather have Revis at $16mil/year than Byrd at $7-8mil/year.
FWIW, saw this from DawgsbyNature (from PFF): “Whitner has a tackling efficiency of 30, meaning for every 30 tackles he makes, he misses 1. To compare, Ward was 9 — for every 9 tackles, he misses 1. Crazy, right? Ward played a ton of snaps up as almost another LB in the box, part of the reason why he racked up so many tackles, but still, 9-to-1 is bad. Whitner is far better vs. the pass, and thus my guess as to what the team prefers to spend the $ on for that position — somebody who can tackle and play the pass. It sounds like Ward will be gone, but I am exited about Whitner because he is more diverse and is only 1 year older than Ward. Losing Ward hurts, but Whitner is an excellent replacement, IMO”
encouraging. though strange/confusing as PFF had Ward rated higher than Whitner in most every metric that I had seen.
ah well, let us hope for the best here.
Peyton Manning.
Free Safety /= Strong Safety. In case ya’ll didn’t notice – we can’t stop teams from scoring 14 points in 2 minutes when they want to because we can’t stop PASS PLAYS. So if we lost the best run defending Strong safety, why is that a problem? Gipson is a stong safety so I think this should be OK.
can I interest you in Cooper?
I really don’t get the TJ Ward boners in these forums. Dude was forever missing tackles and the ones he did make were typically 3-5 yard gains for the opponent because he took terrible terrible routes to get to the ball-carrier.
Whitner has played 8 full seasons in the NFL to Wards 4. I’m really hoping there is still some tread left.
https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2014/02/21/ranking-the-2014-free-agents-safeties/
He was credited with 29 stops on running plays, five more than any other safety in 2013. To further display his strong all-around play, quarterbacks had just a 61.3 rating when throwing his direction.
29 “stops” for 5 yard gains is not a good stat. Two of TJ Ward’s “stops” = first down for the oppnents.
first, where does it say for 5yd gains? also, safeties should be making stops further from LOS than LBers as they are further back. it’s just how that works. it would be interesting to see the average yardage gained on a Ward stop compared to other safeties though, yes.
http://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/player-stat/defense-tackles-for-loss
He ranked 62 out of 83 in tackles for loss.
2nd in NFL among DBs (Eric Berry)