CBSSports' Pete Prisco's rankings: If Houston signed Nnamdi Asomugha it "would move them to second place in the rankings"

Well, I think we’ll be “just fine” with what we got right now.

Even with Nnamdi our pass defense will have problems. Our #2 will be a liability depending on who is playing there and if they can handle being the target a majority of the time. Whether Kareem steps up BIG time or some one like Allen behind him takes the spot and lives up to HIS 1st round pick selection is going to be the most important part of the pass defense. Because that’s where teams will go if we have a guy like Nnamdi on the other side.

We also will need another safety to complement Quin, who may or may not be a good player for us there. We are going to need at least average safety play because teams will be attacking us down the field. Or at least trying to.

The front 7 looks fantastic on paper but paper projections don’t win games. We will have several new players playing as well as two guys we are dependent on coming back from injuries last year and playing at a high level. Not to mention a new system everybody has to learn no matter how simple we’re being told it is to learn.

So ‘m not buying this. I’ve still got us penciled in with a 11-5 record but the defense won’t magically become dominant if we sign Nnamdi. It will take 2 maybe 3 years before we have the experience/talent for something like that. Realistically I see the defense at average or at best above average.

So not the second best team in the league. 12-9th sounds about right for this year.

There’s some guys that could be cut that add a few more million to that, but that’s before signing our rookies(which should be cheaper with the new rookie scale) and any fill out the roster type free agents. I’m not seeing how we can sign Nmamdi, or even a Jonathan Joseph, with that little space available if they really did cut out a lot of the little tricks to manipulate the cap number. We’ll have to see if some of the big name free agents are willing to come down on their asking price, or are forced to come down because there are no takers. I seem to remember something about a one year $3 mill exception, but still. Of course I still don’t know enough about the details of the new cap rule to know if I’m reading this right or not.

I imagine every team has their cap guys furiously looking for loopholes already….and Tampa Bay HAS to spend big just to get to the cap minimum.

*I’m assuming that is at least fairly accurate.