Pete Prisco of CBSSports.com ranks his top 50 NFL free agents and to no one’s surprise, he has Titans’ defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth ranked No. 1. No other free agent should be ranked ahead of Haynesworth given his age and talent. But anyone that thinks he isn’t a major risk is fooling themselves.

Haynesworth wants $72 million, as in, seventy-two million dollars. He would be the highest paid defender in the league and while his talent is unquestioned, he’s coming off a career season in a contract year. Would anyone be surprised if he caught Tommie Harris’s disease and his production drops off after he gets paid? I wouldn’t, and I firmly believe that if he winds up signing with the Redskins, there’s a great chance he’ll be a major disappointment considering Washington is the black hole for defensive linemen.

I think Prisco hit the nail on the head by ranking Ravens’ center Jason Brown No. 2. Even though guys like Matt Birk (Vikings) and Jeff Saturday (Colts) will be available, Brown is the best center on the market and can help anchor the interior of somebody’s line for years to come.

Where Prisco loses me is his ranking of the cornerbacks.

5. Bryant McFadden, CB, Pittsburgh Steelers: He’s a solid starter and teams are always looking for corners. Plus, his best football will come in the next three years.

8. DeAngelo Hall, CB, Washington Redskins: He’s not nearly as good as he thinks, but he played well for the Redskins after the Raiders let him go last season. But how does he play after he gets paid? He had to play well in Washington to get another big contract.

12. Philip Buchanon, CB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers: He started last year for the Bucs, and at 28 he still has some good football left. He’s another player who is a perfect second corner.

31. Chris McAlister, CB, Baltimore Ravens: He’s getting up in years and has injury issues last season, but he can still help a team for a year or two. When he’s healthy, he can still cover well.

33. Ronald Bartell, CB, St. Louis Rams: He’s a young player who emerged last year in his first as a starter. He’s the kind of rising player teams need to sign.

McFadden is a good young player, but I don’t know if he should be listed in the top 5 of available free agents. Hall proved last year in Oakland that he’s an overrated and overpaid, while Buchanon is a classic underachiever and McAlister (as Prisco noted) is getting up there in years.

But how is Bartell the fifth best cornerback on the market? There’s no way. He’ll be overpaid (he’s likely to command $40 million over five years), but he offers more upside than every free agent Prisco rated higher outside of maybe McFadden.

Notable Free Agents: Nnamdi Asomugha (re-signed), CB; Shane Lechler (re-signed), P; Chris Johnson (re-signed), CB; Jake Grove, C; Cooper Carlisle, G.

Projected 2009 Cap Space: $4,000,000

Draft Order: 7

Top Needs: Not unlike other teams selecting at the top of the draft, the Raiders are mostly in need of offensive line help. Defensive line, wide receiver and linebacker could also be addressed.

Offseason Outlook: The Raiders’ top priority was to ensure that cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha didn’t hit the open market, and they accomplished that by inking him to a new three-year, $45 million contract. Asomugha’s deal is complex and you can read more details here, but the bottom line is that he’ll once again anchor the Raiders’ secondary in 2009.

Al Davis also re-signed punter Shane Lechler to a four-year, $16 million contract. That might not be big news to some, but considering how much the Raiders punt during the regular season, re-signing Lechler was a wise move.

The biggest challenge Davis now faces is how will he free up enough cap space to address other needs. The Raiders were sitting at $4 million under the cap before the re-signings of Asomugha and Lechler. Are cuts coming? If so, who will be shown the door?

One name that has recently come up in trade speculation is defensive end Derrick Burgess, who the Raiders are rumored to be shopping. Burgess becomes a free agent after the 2009 season so it would make sense that Oakland would trade him now in order to gain compensation. If they were able to trade him, they would free up $3.5 million in cap space, which isn’t a huge amount but it would help.

The 2008 NFL Season has entered its second half and while some teams are rejoicing over the moves they made this past summer in either signing or trading for players, others are wondering what the hell they were thinking.

Below are five of the best acquisitions from the 2008 NFL offseason, as well as five of the worst. Granted, these moves might look differently at the end of the season or in a year or two, but for now, these are the best of the best and the worst of the worst from the 2008 offseason.

Five Best Offseason Acquisitions:

1. Michael Turner, RB, Atlanta Falcons
The Falcons handed “The Burner� a six-year, $34.5 million contract in early March and while some pundits loved the move, others thought it was too much for the unproven Turner, who had spent his entire career backing up LaDainian Tomlinson. But the signing has paid huge dividends for a Falcons team that ranks second in the league in rushing thanks to his bruising running style. He’s formed a nice “Thunder and Lighting� combo with Jerious Norwood and more importantly, has taken a lot of pressure off rookie Matt Ryan by demanding opponents to focus on taking away the run. He hasn’t fared well against top defenses this season, which is a concern, but outside of that he’s been everything Atlanta had hoped for. He has rushed for 890 yards on 203 carries and has scored seven times.

2. Asante Samuel, CB, Philadelphia Eagles
There was a lot of talk last offseason that Samuel would never live up to the hype that surrounded him in New England. But through 10 games this season, it’s hard to argue that the former Patriot hasn’t lived up to his big play billing. Samuel has recorded three interceptions on the year and has fit into Jim Johnson’s defense better than most expected. He’s not a shutdown corner, but he plays well in zone and rarely gets burned deep. He has also helped the Eagles rank sixth in the league in pass defense and ninth overall in yardage allowed. He was pricey at just over $57 million for six years, but so far Samuel has been worth the money.

Listen in as Anthony Stalter and I discuss all of the Week 10 happenings, including the DeAngelo Hall release, Brady Quinn’s first start, the Denver and Baltimore running games, and Larry Johnson’s possible return to action. I also throw out a few waiver wire quarterbacks that would be good pickups this week.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

(The opening and closing music is Devo’s “Girl U Want“)

The Oakland Raiders officially parted ways with cornerback DeAngelo Hall on Wednesday.

Hall admittedly struggled to adapt to the Raiders’ style of man-coverage defense, enough so that Raiders owner Al Davis decided he’d seen enough. Hall is due $16.5 million next season in injury-guaranteed bonuses. Davis would rather take that money and load up a long-term contract offer for cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, according to a league source familiar with the situation.

The Raiders could have let Hall play out the season, but if he gets hurt, they could be on the hook for the injury-proof portion of his deal.

Will wide receiver Javon Walker be the next high-priced player to be waived?

Hall isn’t the only Raider under consideration for release. Wide receiver Javon Walker received an $11 million signing bonus and a $1 million base salary this year, but he has only 13 catches in his first seven games with the Raiders. The other players on Davis’ list are unknown.

This is shocking to say the least. Kind of ironic how Hall was considered by many to be one of the only true “cover corners� left in the league and he couldn’t hack it in man coverage.

Regardless, Al Davis has officially lost his mind. You don’t revive a sinking franchise by paying free agents gobs of money only to release them half way through the season in efforts to hit the reset button and start over. This is Madden 09.

The Raiders are going to be in cap hell for a long time and things only get worse when they have to add another top 5 pick to the roster.

In a surprising development, Adam Schefter of NFL Network is reporting that the Oakland Raiders could release cornerback DeAngelo Hall as early as Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.

If they do — and the team was planning on doing it Tuesday before it held off — Oakland will have paid Hall $8 million for eight games and Atlanta a second-round pick for the cornerback’s services.

Oakland is planning to waive him now so as to avoid paying Hall the $16 million worth of injury-guaranteed bonuses in his contract. It is too much of a risk for a Raiders team that still needs to do more rebuilding.

If Oakland follows through, Hall would be placed on waivers, leaving playoff contenders with the question of whether they should put in a claim for him. If Hall goes unclaimed, he would be free to sign with any team.

This is absolutely shocking. Schefter doesn’t say why Oakland would be parting with Hall, but one has to wonder if he’s become a distraction not worthy of his play and price tag. Word has it that he was running his mouth off on his former Atlanta teammates in the tunnel at halftime last Sunday, but he would have to have done more than that to deserve a release.

Hall was absolutely abused by Eddie Royal on Monday Night Football in Week 1 and rookie QB Matt Ryan and former teammate Michael Jenkins made him look silly on Sunday, too. But still, Hall is coming off his best year as a pro and it cost the Raiders millions of dollars and multiple draft picks to acquire him from Atlanta. Strange.

The Browns suspended tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. for one-game following his verbal bashing of GM Phil Savage and head coach Romeo Crennel in the wake of what he felt was the team’s mishandling of a staph infection. And as Patrick McManamon of the Akron Beacon Journal writes, this could be the beginning of the end for Winslow in Cleveland.

This comes from nothing anyone said privately or publicly, but from the occurrences of the past few days and from the statement released by General Manager Phil Savage that was so cold it had icicles dripping from it.

This clearly is one angry GM.

Savage has always been restrained with announcements and news. That he was blunt and direct in the statement about Winslow speaks volumes.

Savage called Winslow’s comments ”unwarranted, inappropriate, and unnecessarily disparaging to our organization.” He said the comments ”brought unjustified negative attention to our organization, and violated the team-first concept of our football squad.”

…But Winslow undercut Crennel twice — first after the game on Sunday, then Monday morning when he had more to say after meeting with Crennel on the team plane Sunday night.

Winslow cares about the team. But he also believes that he is better than most anyone and that is why he expects the ball.

This time, though, he put himself ahead of the team. After a tough loss, he made it about himself. If his coach is not on board with the suspension — and does anyone expect Crennel to say anything today except ”we’ve moved on”? — Winslow need only realize he is the one who put his coach in this position.

McManamon goes on to note that the Browns were in no hurry to re-do Winslow’s contract this offseason and they even went as far to draft a tight end (Martin Rucker) in this year’s draft.

If the Browns do part was with Winslow, it would be another first rounder from the 2004 draft that a team has sent packing. The Lions recently traded WR Roy Williams to the Cowboys and released RB Kevin Jones, the Falcons dealt CB DeAngelo Hall to the Raiders this offseason and the Jets sent LB Jonathan Vilma to the Saints before the start o of the year. Interesting.

After adding quarterback JaMarcus Russell with the first overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft and explosive running back Darren McFadden in the first round this past April, many pundits were high on the Raiders entering the season. It also helped that the team re-signed DL Tommy Kelly and added Pro Bowl cornerback DeAngelo Hall and S Gibril Wilson.

But after Oakland was smacked 41-14 by division rival Denver on Monday night, it’s painfully obviously the Raiders are still a year or two away from competing.

Russell (17 of 26, 180 yards, 2 TDs) was under constant pressure and although his final numbers looked good, the Broncos never allowed him to get into a rhythm. McFadden chipped in with 46 yards on nine carries, but the Raiders fell behind so quickly that it was hard to stick with the run.

Perhaps the most staggering thing from the game was how bad Oakland’s defense looked. The front seven couldn’t generate any pass rush and Denver quarterback Jay Cutler completely picked apart the Raiders’ secondary, which was supposed to be a strength. Hall was absolutely abused by rookie receiver Eddie Royal, who amassed nine receptions for 146 yards and a touchdown. At one point Mike Dikta (who was in the announcers’ booth) said, “Hall wants no part of Eddie Royal,� and Da Coach was right. The Raiders gave up multiple draft picks in the offseason to acquire Hall and pair him with Pro Bowler Nnamdi Asomugha, but all the team got from him Monday night was multiple personal foul penalties and crap coverage.

While the Raiders still look a ways awhile, Cutler and the Broncos were outstanding. The defense was relentless, Royal and Cutler were outstanding and the running game was once again effective. Denver will get a great test next weekend when they host division rival San Diego. (A pissed off San Diego, that is.)

In the weeks leading up to the kickoff the 2008 NFL Season, I’ll take a look at position groups that could potentially lift teams to new heights, or bury them and their postseason hopes. Today I take a look at how the Oakland Raiders have built one of the better defensive backfields in the NFL.

He takes too many chances going for interceptions, is cocky and can sometimes be viewed as a selfish player.

He’s also one of the few shutdown cornerbacks in the NFL. He’s DeAngelo Hall, one of the Oakland Raiders’ newest additions in their secondary.

The Raiders acquired Hall from the Atlanta Falcons this offseason for multiple draft picks and immediately signed him to a seven-year, $66.28 million contract. While he’ll occasionally get burnt trying to jump a route for an interception, Hall has been one of the best defensive playmakers in the league. He’s also coming off his best season as a pro, hauling in five interceptions and amassing 63 tackles for the Falcons in 2007.

Playing opposite of Hall in Oakland’s secondary is the incredibly underrated Nnamdi Asomugha. Even though his interception total dropped from eight picks in 2006 to just one last year, stats don’t tell the whole story. Opposing teams often stayed away from Asomugha’s side, fearing his playmaking ability. But teams won’t be able to do that this year with the equally dangerous Hall on the other side.

The Raiders also signed Gibril Wilson this offseason, a talented safety who helped the New York Giants win a Super Bowl last year. Like Hall, Wilson is arguably coming off his best season as a pro, recording 92 tackles and four interceptions. Joining him at safety will be Michael Huff, the former top 10 pick who has come into his own despite having to play multiple positions in his first two seasons.

Even though there are some concerns about Hall having to play with a cast after breaking bones in one of his hands in preseason, Oakland has built one of the better defensive backfields in the league. It’s amazing to think that Hall will see plenty of action this season playing opposite from Asomugha, because Hall is incredibly skilled in coverage himself. And with Wilson now in the mix, Huff can concentrate on playing just one position and further developing his game.

The Raiders will rely on their secondary to set the tone for them on defense this year, but the front seven must get pressure on the quarterback. No secondary can be expected to hold up in coverage for long periods of time, so it’ll be up to Derrick Burgess, Gerard Warren and Tommy Kelly to get a good push off the line. Still, it’ll be fun to watch Oakland defend the pass this year with so many talented players in the secondary.