Staying put

Several players recently showed they realized just that fact. Cowboys LB Dexter Coakley, Giants RB Tiki Barber and Dolphins CB Patrick Surtain all re-signed with the teams they played for last season.

Smart moves.

Sure, the opportunity to change uniforms makes sense for some players. For this trio, however, I think it was a very wise move to stay put. Coakley and Barber were free agents who re-signed with their clubs. Surtain, who was already under contract through 2001, signed a four-year extension.

In each player’s case, the situation with their existing team was perfect for them. Thus, why changes cities?

Coakley is a personal favorite because I was way ahead of the pack on him. It’s always fun to be right about a player. When he was coming out of college, I said his grade should be much higher than it was in the scouting community, if he went to a team with a scheme that was ideal to his talents. I felt he could be a Pro Bowl player on a team that emphasized speed at linebacker. I’ll admit, I was thinking the Dolphins, who were then coached by Jimmy Johnson. Instead, the Cowboys, Johnson’s previous team, took Coakley. This was still an ideal situation.

The Cowboys’ scheme is perfect for him in that it takes advantage of his great speed — he is probably the fastest linebacker in the game — and keeps blockers off of him. The result is that he has become a terrific player who has been to the Pro Bowl.

For once the Cowboys shelled out top dollar to sign one of their linebackers, so Coakley would have been making a mistake to go elsewhere. At only 5-10, he isn’t a perfect fit for a lot of defenses. So why go somewhere else, even if the money was better, and take a chance of not being the impact player he is in Dallas?

Barber is another guy who wouldn’t be a perfect fit everywhere. At only 5-10, he’s not exactly a big back. If he signed somewhere where he had to completely carry the load he would have worn down as the season went on and seen his production suffer. With the Giants, he has Ron Dayne to do the power running. Dayne didn’t exactly set the world on fire as a rookie, and I’m not a huge fan of his play, but the bottom line is that Barber doesn’t have to fight for the tough yards that over the course of a long season would wear him down and probably lead to injury.

With the Giants, Barber can do the things he does best which is provide juice to the offense and be a poor man’s Marshall Faulk. Nowhere is Barber better set up for success than with the Giants.

Surtain is in an ideal situation in Miami. He had a breakthrough season last year and became a top-flight cornerback. The talent surrounding him makes this an ideal situation. He gets to play alongside Sam Madison, who many think was the best cornerback in the AFC this past season. As long as his ego can handle being second-fiddle to Madison, which obviously it can since he re-upped, Surtain gets to enjoy the glory that goes with being part of a 1-2 punch that can shut down opposing receivers.

More importantly, Surtain gets to play on a defense in which the pass rush can help him mightily. Nothing makes a cornerback look better that heavy pressure by the defensive line against a quarterback. Even though Trace Armstrong left this offseason via free agency, the Dolphins have a ton of pass-rush firepower left. Assuming the Dolphins are able to re-sign DE Jason Taylor, there is every reason to believe the pass rush will wreak havoc.