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.

Tom Curran of NBC Sports makes an excellent point about the relationship between the Dallas Cowboys and Adam Jones, and how the team is essentially just using “Pacman� as their circus “freak show.�

Given the pain Jones has caused himself and others and the limb the Cowboys made the rest of the league climb out on for a guy who’s a lock to offend again, the honorable thing would have been for the Cowboys to somehow shield Jones’ re-entry into the NFL from the cameras.
Would HBO have like it? No. Did it make for great TV to see Jones dumping trash cans filled with water from his balcony on unsuspecting teammates, catching six footballs at once, saying about T.O., “That boy crazy!” and sending correspondence to the league to ask for reinstatement? Yeah.

But the whole operation served to give Jones — someone not mentally equipped to deal with the severity of his situation and the reality of the expectations set upon him — the perception that he wasn’t a person or an employee of an NFL franchise but a reality TV star.

And what do reality TV stars inevitably do? They melt down. And then they land on the scrap heap with the rest of pop culture’s discards to go and do whatever it is they do until they make their next and final headline (before their obit) with an arrest in a Target parking lot.

But that’s OK with Jerry Jones, the NFL’s P.T. Barnum. Think P.T. cared if The Bearded Lady had esteem issues and a drinking problem that raged? Not if she showed up lookin’ freaky.

So today, now that Pac is back in the news for public stupidity, we’re supposed to cluck-cluck at how stupid he is. Sorry, I’m not with that program. To me, that fact was already clear. Instead, I shake my head at the team that’s exploited him.

Outstanding points. I’m guilty of using Pacman in my, “He’s just an idiot posts,� but Curran makes the first spot-on assessment of this whole situation. When the Cowboys first signed Pacman everyone said, “Now see – they want to help him. They’re keeping tabs on him and trying to clean up his image.� But as Curran points out, Jerry Jones and the team has just been exploiting him for exactly who he is – a guy who, in Curran’s own words is, “intellectually overmatched by the simple workings and expectations of society.�