FrankRizzo
Cheesehead
49ers defense has Justin Smith, Ahmad Brooks, Donte Whitner, Carlos Rogers, and Glen Dorsey as starters, all free agent acquisitions.Woodson and Reggie were both great signings. Now, take a look at free agent signings around the NFL. VERY VERY few end up as home run signings like those two. That's just a fact. Even if a signing looks decent on face value, look closely at it and usually it's a negative.
A perfect example of the "normal" status quo free agent signing is Peppers in Chicago. This is exactly how 90% of free agent signings end up. Now the Bears are on the hook for his remaining contract, he's been grossly underperforming...and most importantly, they are starting from square one now at that position instead of having somebody growing skills at the position! Bears fans, as is often the case with NFL fans, almost have no problem at all that they're pizzing millions away of salary cap space by most likely, letting him walk now!
Bottom line... free agent signings can work out but it's got to be the right situation. History proves that big name big contract signings don't pay off most of the time.
And guess what? They also participate in the draft. By them adding key pieces via free agency (and trade market, which is how they got Anquan Boldin) they were allowed to draft whoever they felt was the real BPA.
It allowed them to take a swing at Kaepernick in the 2011 draft even though they were good with Alex Smith and he was not old.
Teddy is certainly feeling some heat right now about his 100% draft method, gambling on McMillians and MD Jennings and Terrell Mannings, etc. when veterans in free agency could fill those holes and know what the hell they are doing instead of feeding Capers nothing but amateurs and except him to field a top notch defense.