Veteran DB Shopping

earlier in the offseason we know they visited 2 veteran corners - both of whom who got cut so weren't part of comp pick formula:

1. darious williams, age 31, got 3 years 22.5 from LAR, 7m gtd
2. tredavious white, age 29, got 1 year 4.25m from LAR, 3.25m gtd

if they weren't averse to paying around $3-5m for an older veteran corner then, id imagine phillips isnt enough to change that.

right now the top veteran CBs on the market by snaps played last year are:

3. patrick peterson, age 34, played 97% snaps for Pit, made $7m
4. akhello witherspoon, age 29, played 93.5% snaps for LAR, made 1m
5. steven nelson, age 31, played 89% snaps for Hou, made 5.5m
6. stephon gilmore, age 34, played 87% snaps for Dal, made 10m
7. adoree jackson, age 29, played 70% snaps for nyg, made 13m

i think the adoree ship sailed and after that you are basically into fabian moureau territory.

witherspoon, nelson, and gilmore are interesting. all 3 started and played almost all year for playoff teams. gilmore is the best player but also the oldest and probably still most expensive. peterson is somewhat interesting too, he had a good year 2 years ago in MIN and pit was also a playoff team.

i looked at some younger options likely to get their 5YO's declined as well like eric stokes and caleb farley, but they dont really seem like good fits. farley had trouble cracking the field for bowen in TEN even though their corners werent great. stokes had a promising start to his career then regressed.

with the current corner back room all young guys i think one of these stop gap vets could make sense once the comp pick period is over. once waller retires they get another $6.5m of cap room, spending $3-5m of that one of these guys seems like a good idea, then let flott/phillips/mccloud compete for CB3 in slot.

1 other DB direction they could go is for more of a hybrid S/slot like Micah Hyde (age 34). he played 74% snaps last year and made 9m. was a captain in BUF. an outside corner may be more ideal, but hyde getting the chance to play all over and in a defense that uses a lot of 3 safety looks could work. other than mills safety room is also very young.

i agree with those who suggest adding DL too but there arent really any obvious FA names other than calais campbell and at 37 my guess is if he continues playing it would be for a contender. there are some ex-titan DL out there on the market, maybe they bring 1 or 2 of them to camp on minimum contracts. a rashaad penny type would make sense as well but that wouldn't be too expensive. he basically made the minimum in philly last year and they never played him.

so TL:DR if they spend on 1 more starter level player before camp, DB seems like the place to do it whether it's someone with position flex like Hyde or a more traditional outside corner with size like Witherspoon. he is 6'2 with 33 inch arms and has basically played for playoff teams his whole career (SF, SEA, PIT, LAR). great athlete too, was supposedly a good mentor for the young guys on LAR last year.