SnyderSucks wrote:I was including Clark and Pierce the first time, just forgot to say free agents.
OK, but if you include free agents then your original argument doesn't stand. We've signed and re-signed plenty of players.
Of the players listed, only smoot was replaced with a player as good or better. Pierce was replaced by a stopgap until Fletcher was signed. Dockery was supposed to be replaced by Wade and they had to make an emergency trade to get a player capable of playing the position.
You said that "the team was unwilling to spend to retain starters, while giving big contracts to players from other teams who weren't as good as those they let go." That's a little different than saying that we didn't replace the players we let go with better ones.
Gardner averaged over 50 catches until they let him go. Who replaced him? Taylor Jacobs? Nobody yet.

Taylor Jacobs and Rod Gardner have been cut from more than one team for a reason. . .
(BTW, in case your question was serious: Gardner was replaced by Patten and then ARE the following year. We went from Coles-Gardner in 04 to to Moss-ARE in 06.)
Bailey could have been resigned but the team decided they weren't going to invest in both Arrington and Bailey.
No, he wouldn't. As I mentioned before, Bailey left as much for personal reasons as he did for $$$. He wasn't coming back to Washington.
The "among others" includes others but I didn't feel like doing an exhaustive list, but it could include Thrash (which year did he leave?),
Thrash is like Smoot. Our FO did a good job of
not paying him #1 money, since he wasn't worth it, but also keeping an eye out for him and re-signing when he became available.
Robert Royal
Isn't a very good TE. We let him go on purpose.
Walt Harris
I'm assuming you didn't see him play for us. Are you saying you would have dished out millions to him based on his play here?
Demetric Evans
That was a smart move by our FO this offseason. You must read JLC a lot, because I don't know where else you'd get the idea that Evans was our best DL last year.
I'll defend this one any day. (By the way, Evans is yet another player that we re-signed after he showed promise. So he's actually an example
against your main argument.)