Equally as baffeling is a guy that is comfortable with Matthews and Fackerell as your complete list of pass rushing specialists on the entire roster as of now.
Which goes back to 'hey, maybe it's pass rush that's the #1 priority'.
Look, we're not getting the answer at CB in the draft at #29. You draft one, but you get a top CB in FA.
A lot of people here have suggested what I'll call a game of shuffle the dollars. It goes like this;
Take Shields money, give it to a top FA CB.
Let's expand on that.
A) Perry prices himself out of here by demanding to be paid like one of the game's top LB's - which he's not.
Take his money give it to the Pat's Donte Hightower.
B)Cut Thomas, don't resign D.Jones or Peppers, take the savings and give it to Hightower.
C) Cut Matthews, give the money to Hightower.
See how it works? Ain't this fun??? And you could do it in other parts of the roster, too! You can even combine other tools like trades, getting creative with the cap through many of the tools designed to do so, waiver pickups in season, on and on!
Then, instead of a bunch of JAGS, never were's/never will be's, experiments and trying to shove round pegs into square holes, or keeping the same dead weight on the roster year after year, or rolling over $10M a year never to be used, we could actually use the money, cap and roster space to sign better players! Impact, big play type of guys instead of a bunch of JAGS and schmos and reaches in the draft.
Then - looking at you guys, TT and MM- maybe we could actually be legitimate SB contenders and- OH MY GOD!- actually win titles instead of just talking about it every year!!!