Originally posted by cutbarlow:
I began thinking about this question because I sort of remembered people talking about returners not maintaining top performance for a real long time. I looked at the stats for Devin Hester, Dante Hall, and Desmond Howard, for instance. I found that Hall only played til he was 30, Howard til 32. Also, I found that there was a point (around 29-30) that neither player was really getting TDs, nor were they getting a real high average per return. Thinking about this, I wonder if FA or RFA would really be the best bet for us. I mean, if we spend good money on a return guy who, say, is age 26-28, still relatively young, and give him a big contract to be a backup RB and a return specialist, will it be worth it? We might only get a good 2-3 years. I know nothing is definite, we could still end up with a heck of a player, but why spend extra money AND a draft pick when we could draft one and possibly pay less and get more years?
Brian Mitchell and Mel Gray are a couple of guys who seemed to be productive for an extended period of time. Still they are the minority. I think the info you presented about the age of return specialsts is valid, and is more of a reason to fill this spot through the draft.
