Mike Florio: Ravens tackle Adam Terry to visit Colts

That’s right, “nothing substantial is going to change until they go get a quality free agent or draft somebody.” Since the organizational habit is to pass up on big name FAs (thus rendering that option unrealistic, therefore moot), and since the draft hasn’t occurred yet, the complaint is just a tad early, wouldn’t you say? If no potentially quality linemen end up getting drafted, then at that point your complaint gains validity. But until then, everything is still a work in progress.

And the “scrub linemen” may only be here for depth. Plus this Terry thing isn’t a done deal yet; I think it’s still only a visit, albeit a serious one, but still only a visit. And, as Ace here pointed out, the Jeff Saturday castoff – from Baltimore, too, oddly enough – turned out to be one hell of a signing for Indy.

You can’t find gems in unusual places if you don’t go looking for them. And the painful fact of the matter is, the way things are structured, Indy will not have an untouched mine to go seeking diamonds in as late as they pick in the draft. Furthermore, as Peter King put it, Free Agency is not all it’s cracked up to be:

For every Brees, there are 10 Javon Walkers. For every Warner (who could have been had three times in free agency in the last decade by any team in the league), there’s a bunch of Adalius Thomases. Big-money free agency is a lottery. Look at it over the long term. Look at the Redskins.

You have to look where others don’t. If you do not, your entire team will end up being defined against the league’s mean. And given that 1. Indy doesn’t have the free money that other teams, like Washington does, and 2. Indy doesn’t pick high in the draft at all, they’ll be on the backside of the mean if they choose to go where the rest of the crowd does searching for players. At Indy’s level, they have to find talent where others don’t. The lower rungs of free agency will be one of those places.

Indy has done well in both selecting good high draft players as well as scouring the middle and lower rounds, and undrafted (and castoff) talent. They got great performance out of some high drafted running backs like Marshall Faulk and Edgerin James. They also got some unexpected production out of James Mungro and Dominic Rhodes. They got wonderful performace out of a high drafted lineman named Tarik Glenn, and they also got wonderful performance out of a castoff mentioned already: Jeff Saturday. They got great years out of a first round pick Marlin Jackson, and so far have gotten an unexpectedly good season out of undrafted Jacob Lacey. And they have all these mid- to late-round draft picks – Bethea, Garçon (both from the 6th round), Austin Collie (4th round), etc. – that are also working well. And for every Mike Peterson (remember, he was once a Colt) drafted high, there’s a Gary Brackett who’s not drafted at all. My point is that it is not only the big money FAs and high draft picks that make a team better. It’s also finding the castoffs who were out of place elsewhere (for the third time: Saturday. He’s my poster child for someone who doesn’t fit in at first but then finds a home and excels) but for some reason fit in well in Indy.

These moves so far are low risk, high potential for reward moves. No signing of “scrubs” is that expensive, and those same guys can easily be let go if they don’t perform. I’m all for brining in some castoffs to compete against draft picks – and hey, even current starters – for jobs. Competition keeps everyone sharp. And on top of all of that, since Polian arrived, Indy has shown itself to be consistently good about digging up talent that others have passed over. If all they’re giving some of these guys is a chance – and yes, they still have to earn things in training camp – then I’m willing to trust them on their decision. They’ve been right too much more often than not to not give them the benefit of the doubt as far as player analysis.