Johnson is worse than all the TEs at STs. The guy can run over people but can't catch and has troubles pass blocking and ST blocking (too much space for him). He seriously needs to loosen up the hips with a lot of stretching over a long long long time.

Johnson is worse than the #7 LB and I'm not sure he's better than the 8th LB.

But Johnson sure can rub block. But seriously needs to improve and I don't think he did this off season. Try to find a spot for him on the 53 man roster because he's run blocking but he might be cut next year if he doesn't improve...

---

The coaches have a lot more time observing and a lot more tape.
But consider Special teams contributions of the following Bubble players.
Lumpkin Starks Porter (1)
Hall, Johnson (1)
Quarless, (?)
Spitz, Deitrich-Smith, Lang, Giacomini (3)

Harrell, Wynn, Wilson, Toribio (2)
Bishop, Zombo, Obiozor, Francois (1 or 2)
Shields, Lee, Bush (1 or 2)

---

I'm not talking about our team, but an average players per position graph for a 3-4 team is this:

QB - 3
RB - 3
FB - 1
WR - 5
TE - 3
OL - 9

DL - 7
LB - 9
DB - 9

K - 1
P - 1
LS - 1

That's 52. The last player you can put anywhere you want, like if you feel the need to take 5 safeties, then 10 DBs.

---

7 DBs? Just about every team carries 5 CBs, alone. Even if you carry just 4, that leaves you with just 1 back-up S. One injury and you can't even make a single substitution in your dime package anymore.

Oh sorry, fucked up there. That's 9 DBs. Fixed it now.

---

2 QBs
2 RBs
3 FBs
4 TEs
9 OL
5 WRs
6 DL
9 LBs
6 CBs
4 Ss
3 STs

You might think I'm a bit nuts only keeping 2 RBs, but Grant and Jackson are really the only RBs who have shown worth keeping to this stage imo. With a good receiving FB like Kuhn who could act as the 3rd RB, that pretty much solves your conundrum of keeping two out of three FBs. Someone like Porter could probably pass through waivers and be stashed onto the practice squad. Bigby will probably start the year on the PUP allowing the team to keep Collins, Burnett, Blackmon, and Martin as your 4 safeties. Starks probably goes on the PUP too.

---

Here's the 53 I would keep if I had to pick today (Plus names):

QB: 2 (Rodgers, Flynn)

RB: 3 (Grant, Jackson, Porter) Cut: Lumpkin IR: Starks

FB: 2 (Kuhn, Hall) Cut: Johnson

TE: 4 (Finley, Havner, Quarless, Crabtree) Cut: Lee

WR: 5 (Jennings, Driver, Jones, Nelson, Swain)

OL: 10 (Clifton, Colledge, Wells, Sitton, Tauscher, Bulaga, Lang, Spitz, Newhouse, Dietrich-Smith) Cut: Giacomini, Barbre

DL: 6 (Raji, Pickett, Jenkins, Neal, Wynn, Harrell) Practice Squad: Wilson

LB: 8 (Barnett, Matthews, Hawk, Jones, Chillar, Bishop, Poppinga, Zombo)

DB: 10 (Woodson, Williams, Collins, Burnett, Underwood, Lee, Shields, Blackmon, Martin, Peprah) PUP: Harris, Bigby Cut: Bush

K: Crosby
P: Masthay
LS: Goode

Some of the hard choices were TE / FB (Keep TE Crabtree and Cut TE Lee and FB Johnson) and P (Masthay got the nod because of his holding for Crosby). Some of the easier choices were Cut Bush

I would have a problem when Al Harris and Atari Bigby returned, but I'm counting on Harrell going on IR by then and freeing up one slot... :wink:

edit: split my RB & FBs up.

Very good list Macbob. Only beef with it is not a beef I'd have but probably a beef the coaches may have is you have 26 O, 24 D. But then again, you may be right at Game 1 because when Al Harris comes back from the PUP list, the 54th player would probably be on O, not D.

---