i'm not sure how good hamlin is. the reason why i say this is because roy williams was so bad teams just kept targeting him instead of going after hamlin to see if he could be exposed. I would imagine there is a reason that seattle replaced him with deon grant. this is not to say that hamlin didn't make an impact on the dallas secondary. but this is about the same amount of money that gibril wilson got and hamlin was as effective as gibril wilson was so maybe dallas got a discount.

Gibril Wilson much better player than K Hamlin. You Will ees this this season. Hamlin is okay S, but Wilson is a guy other teams have to pay atenntion to. Raisers have best secondary in league. Cowboys not really,. Hamlin and Roy Williams are average players. Henry is okay, Newman is good Cb. So 1 out of 4 wont cut it.
raiders have solid 4 players in secondary- Juff, Wilson at safeties and Hall and Asomugha at cornerback. Asomugha only true shutdown corner in league. C Bailey used to be one but he stinks now.

I remain unconvinced that Hamlin is worth that kind of money if he continues to play out of position. He's not young, and he was basically a freebie last year. You're saying that 30 teams missed out on a top Safety for dirt cheap money last year? I think he played well at times last year, but mostly was pretty average. Maybe if he moves back to SS like he theoretically should, he'll be worth the money. But that won't happen this year (barring an injury to Roy Williams).

PS. Was anyone else thrilled that RaiderJoe got "Asomugha" correct?

Hey, Hamlin may be one of the better strong safeties in the league. It's not his fault that Roy Williams is inexplicably in his spot (Why do Dallas coaches refuse to bench his hideously underperforming ass?). I find myself really hoping this is the last year with Roy and we can get a real strong safety (Hamlin) in his place after this.

Ham is arguably top 10 safety, and that seems to be the going rate for them. He's very comparable to Gibril in everything but Having a Great First Name, Joe's omnipresence notwithstanding.

But this is crazy money. Again, I hate the Raiders for setting the bar at this level. It's simply asinine to commit 40 million dollars to a safety in his late twenties who has a track record this limited. If I didn't have so much faith in The Double-J, I'd be really, really worried about the Cowboy salary cap situation.

Incidentally, the Cowboys now have over ten million in cap room.

I love Roy Williams! The Cowboys just need to man him up on Kevin Curtis and Reggie Brown.

Hmm, I just found out that Hamlin made 2.5 mil last year. This I did not know. Looks like he didn't come free, just wanted to sign the 1 year deal to try and hit it rich. Which he did. Still don't like the deal, but whatever. It doesn't look that bad now.

So I was wondering this with the Raiderjoe thing... we all know there has been a packerjoe, broncojoe and every joe in between....

I was wondering if it is the same guy doing Raiderjoe everytime? Or some other schmoes that wanna be funny and change the name to that?

Just curious I guess.... doubt we could find out for sure

Take it from this Seattle fan who's watched Hamlin for years - Hamlin actually sucks. He played decent last year, but I think that was a lot of luck and other players helping him out. No way he deserves this contract, or to be a franchise player.

I would say that Wilson and Hamlin are comparable in skill level, but Wilson can reasonably be expected to improve or maintain his level of performance, whereas Hamlin will never again play like he did last year.

gogo-gadget raiders!

Well, I've always been a fan of the secondary. When the Raiders win three games this year, it looks like I'll have to re-evaluate my plans.

Back to punters for me.

8

I asked this before and was told that one of the guys who writes for the site said it was always the same IP posting comments. So consider this third-hand confirmation ... I'm a little dubious myself, but there's no way for me to prove it.

Raiderjoe -- "Juff" has not been that good so far. And Hall will always be the overpaid guy who can blow any play at any time.

Where Hamlin is concerned, you just have to pay the piper.

Raiderjoe has had a lot of imitators, to the point that people forget there's a real Raiderjoe sometimes.

It's one of the more unusual forms of success I've ever seen.

Re 6: My favorite Roy Williams moment from 2007 remains when he horse-collared McNabb RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE REFS, and then was shocked, SHOCKED that they threw a flag!

Um, Roy, they put the rule in effect BECAUSE OF YOU, you dumbass!

Gibril Wilson is much better than Hamlin. Before the SB, GW and Justin Tuck were the 2 of the most underrated players on the Giants and in the league but have recently got pub with this big contracts. I don't blame Gerry Reese at all for not spending that kind of coin on a Safety, but Wilson was pro bowl caliber last year, and Hamlin was not. Wilson was a flat out ball hawk last year and led all safeties with 78 solo tackels. Ken Hamlin had 45. One of my favorite GW games was the week 1 loss against Dallas where it seemed like he was the
Giant defender that showed up. He will be missed.

Not only did Gibril Wilson lead the entire NFL in Solo tackels by a safety, he missed 3 games! So with 13 games under his belt, he still led the league at his position and he finished 3rd in tackels for any position in the playoffs.

I wouldn't say he is a coverage leader, but his 4 picks (in 13 games) and coverage are respectable. He and Corey Webster defended Tom Bradys hail mary at the end of the SB, where Moss really did have a step on Webster.

Also, Hamlin has character issues. Does this contract mean Hamlin will stay out of Bar Fights so he doesn't get hit in the face with a street sign again? He was close to having the same fate as one of his unlucky friends and lucky to be alive.

In general, isn't it a bad when your S is making a lot of tackles? Like, isn't that the job of your LBs and DL? I'm just not convinced that solo tackles is a great way to measure how good a S is (BTW, nfl.com says that the leader in solo tackles among safeties was Sammy Knight of JAX (but now with NY?), with 79). Indeed, I'm skeptical that the average fan can really judge how good a team's defensive backfield is. From the way a typical NFL game is shown on TV, it's impossible to see how well a safety is playing most of the time, since he's not on camera.

When I was in grad school, I'd go to their D-III games (hey, it was free!) and sometimes I'd spend a series just watching the secondary, or just watching the o-line, and maybe figure out who was good and who wasn't (and I played TE/DB in HS, so I have some feel for the receiving game). But even then, it's hard to tell. And ultimately, I am a fan and just want to watch the action. For those people saying that Hamlin is no good-- How many many Dallas games did you watch, and how many plays were you able to really follow him?

I think I know more than the "average" NFL fan (don't we all?), but I certainly don't think that I know more than coaches and GMs who have access to game film and who have coached or played at the professional level for years. And while I think that as a fan it's not too hard to get a fairly accurate feel for a QB, RB, or even WR (they're always on TV), it's much harder to look at other positions and confidently say that player X is not good (or really good).

RE13 You are wrong. Hall will be shutdown corner which means Raiders will have shutdown corners at bath corners. Teams will not be able to pass against Raiders except for 4th quartrs wen Raiders have big leads like 34-6 and 30-10 and dont care if tesams throw ball cauase Raiders just looking to control clock. Give up yardgae and maybe even a Td just to get game over with fatsre. Good teams do this when leading big late ing ames. Only time when Hall and Asomugha will give up and not play hard but also might not be playing then anywya. Raiders probably go with bacups htne.

sorry about bath corners. meant to write both corners. hitting the Sierra Nevada pale Ale hard tonight.

18,

Great post Lance, couldn't agree more. I'm a Cowboys fan so I watched every game Hamlin played, but I still wouldn't be able to evaluate Hamlin well. There's no way I could judge him compared to someone like Gibril Wilson, who I only saw a few times.

Not to mention, Hamlin played FS and was in charge of stopping deep passes (which there was a HUGE improvement over 2006), while Wilson is a ball-hawk who plays near the line of scrimmage, so it figures that he would get a lot more solo tackles.

Hamlin was tagged and signed to a big deal because the market this offseason for safeties is soooo thin and there were very few in the draft. Hamlin had the Cowboys where he wanted them, they simply couldn't replace him without spending a 1st or 2nd round pick and they couldn't afford to let him leave with Roy Williams failing to convince at the other spot.

Re 14: Just brilliant.

18- I watch every single NFC east game so I saw all of Hamlin and Wilson. It isn't the most effective way to use your time, but I do it none the less. I'll be the first to tell you it is irrationale.

Solo tackles aren't a perfect stat but being the league leader in Solo Tackles for your position while missing nearly 20% of the season says something. It proves my point that he is a ball hawk and finds a way to be around the ball.

Gibril Wilson was everything Shaun Williams was supposed to be. That 1st round pick/difference maker at Safety. If you want a good test as to a defensive player, how often does the guy make you say bad words. Wilson was a stud against the run and didn't make the vital mistakes in the passing game.

Then again the Giants had much easier players to attack in zones/man coverage with K.Mitchell, Antoinio Pierce and James Butler. If and offense didn't pass and exploit them they were retarded.

21. I agree with you in one sense that a lot of effusive praise for Hamlin comes from seeing the dynamic duo of a young, raw Pat Watkins and Keith "Killer" Davis playing the FS spot the previous year.

But Chris (#23) it's one thing to "watch every single NFC east game" but obviously you weren't physically at every game. And given how the networks broadcast the NFL, it's difficult to see how Safeties do on a down-by-down basis. I'm not knocking you, I'm just saying that I find it hard to imagine how a fan-- even one who watches a lot of football-- can make judgments about someone like a Safety. Hell, I find it hard to often judge how someone plays on the OL!
And even when you watch a game-- how do you know that a guy isn't following the game plan? That is, if, for example, Safety X double-covers player Y, while the pass goes to player Z, we might hear from the broadcasters that this was a mistake on the part of Safety X when for all we know, his double coverage was what was called for in the defensive plan!I don't know. But this is why I only vote for QB and RB in the Prof Bowl. I watched 2-3 NFL games a week, and still don't feel like I can really say anything about most players beyond what the stats tell me.

Roy was shocked on the horse collar against McNabb because the rule stated that you couldn't horsecollar the QB. Although I think it's interpreted that you can't do it in the pocket. And Roy wasn't nearly targeted as often as people think. In large part because teams were targeting Jacques Reeves all of the time. Hamlin was pretty good last year and according to KC Joyner, has been really good for most of his career. Last season he had a couple of lapses in coverage and tackling, but usually got it straightened out immediately. Given the crap at that position Dallas has had over the years, I'm glad they re-signed him. He's only 27 years old.

#17
you're on the wrong website if you want to argue that solo tackles are the way to determine a saftey's value.

#26
you can't horsecollar anyone regardless of position.

this contract will seem like a bargain when the salary cap goes away after 2009.

#20: The key to raiderjoe's genius. He's awesome!!

27. Not true. The rule does not apply to QBs in the pocket or runners in the tackle box.

25. After most completed passes the TV cameras show a broader angle of the reception and previous play. If your safety of choice keeps getting beat and leaving a guy open, you can see that AFTER he gets beat. If he is quiet and not getting picked on, that is a good thing.

Granted the Giants had some really easy targets to pick on like Mitchell, Pierce and Butler.

27. Strawman argument. I was merely pointing out the Wilson is a ball hawk and very strong against the run. I guarantee you if posters here were pointing out how underrated Adrian Wilson was, they would throw in some traditional stats too.

Just because it isn't perfect, doesn't mean it is trash.

His traditonal stats are good, and it supports his contract, his pop opinion and everything else about him.

Spinach is to Popeye what Sierra Nevada is to Raiderjoe

I didn't see Hamlin last year, but while at Seattle he played on D's that gave up a lot of 3rd and 15+ for first downs. Maybe not all Hamlin's fault. He can dish the occaisonal punishing hit. I never felt like he was a top 10 guy tho. It really feels like the new safeties have prevented the home runs we used to give up.