At this point in his career Joseph is a mediocre number 2 at best. Tru and Carr may play the same role, but Tru does it at a much higher level. If Joseph is still playing at such a high level why would they cut him when he makes a reasonable 6.5m for one more year with Bouye potentially leaving.
I don't think your information on Joseph is accurate. Here's what PFF had to say coming into the year:
After a torrid display against the Panthers in Week 2, Joseph rebounded with three pass defenses and only 24 yards allowed to the Bucs a week later, and he didn’t look back. Over the final 14 weeks of the season Joseph was the highest-graded corner in the league in coverage.
I'm not a fan of PFF's grades (unfortunately, there's not much in the way of CB metrics available), but I haven't seen Joseph's game decline much when I watched him. He's still a quality starting CB.
As for Carr, based on what I've read this year, he's performed about as well as Tru has.
Why cut Joseph? Because they have Kareem Jackson, Kevin Johnson, and will want to re-sign A.J. Bouye.
My point is no team started two 30 year olds. You wanted to replace Tru with a 33 and 31 year old. By my count 3 out of 32 teams got effective corner play from 30 year olds. The Texans (Joseph), Bengals (Pacman), and Vikings (Terrence Newman). What do all three of those teams have in common? Those 30 year olds they have are playing with 2 young first rounders at CB. Rams do not have that young talent base at corner or the resources to build it with all their other needs.
You're missing some 30-year old CBs.(Brent Grimes, Aqib Talib, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, William Gay, Darius Butler, etc.)
I don't think you'd have any sort of trouble starting DRC and Talib or Carr and Brent Grimes. Good players are good players.
Tru trailed some people at times like Brandon Marshall and definitely wanted to do it more, but Williams always makes his corners stick to one side even when we had JJ. Tru not trailing number 1s is more of indictment on the scheme than it is on his ability. He can only do what is asked and he did it at a high level. Last year teams actually threw at him and that resulted and QBs having a bottom 5 QB rating with his coverage this year they barely threw at him and he didn't give up alot of yards or TDs. IMO he is a number one 1 and you would be hard pressed to find many better than him. You can still use the strength of the draft to get Trus running mate, but the need is less dire.
Tru not trailing #1s made plenty of sense. Tru isn't built to stop every WR. Plus, allowing our CBs to stick to their side means less responsibilities to learn which makes it easier for them to react rather than think.
Trumaine is a good, maybe even a very good CB. But he's not a great or elite CB. If he's a top 10 CB, he's right on the fringe. I don't really consider him a #1 in the same vein as guys like Patrick Peterson, Janoris Jenkins, or Marcus Peters. I don't think he's quite that good.
I'm fine with Tru coming back. I've had us re-signing him in many of my mocks. But it depends on the price. Tru is more Brandon Carr than Chris Harris Jr. in terms of ranking among NFL CBs.
