NFL offseason discussion (up to but not including draft)

I may be wrong then. As I said, I’m not doing much studying this time around.

I’ve heard some discussion on different message boards about various aspects of the draft. From several sources I saw people saying that Long may project better as a RT in the NFL. I haven’t watched any tape of him to confirm that for myself, just repeating what I heard.

I do seem to recall that he wasn’t really in consideration for a very high pick until Miami started sending out feelers to see who’d take the cheapest contract. I have nothing against the guy though and if he gets drafted into the NFC I wish him well.

This raises one thing that has been kicking around in the back of my brain for a few years now. Having the number one, or even many of the top 5, is no longer a benefit anymore because of the huge investment of money it takes to sign a top 5 pick. Given the inherent risk in selecting players in the draft and the increasingly large signing bonuses, it actually makes much more sense, to me, to almost always trade down if possible. Sure if there is a Peyton Manning (not a Ryan Leaf) it can change your entire franchise, but it’s still incredibly high risk/high reward.

I’ve wondered why, in the last few years, there hasn’t been a shift toward trading away the top picks, even to the point of requiring a shift in the treasured “draft value chart” to reflect it. If I were Miami, I’d happily accept a lot less than 1,300 to move from 1 to 5. If I were Atlanta, I’d certainly let a team swap up 3 or 4 or 5 spots if it let me get their second and fifth rounder too. And I’d do that in almost every draft I can remember.

Any thoughts?

For the same reason that people want to trade out of the top 5, no one wants to trade up into it.

It’s a penalty that no one wants. The current state of rookie contracts in the NFL is ridiculous. Who does it benefit? Not the owners, not the players as a whole, not the agents as a whole (those few agents that get the big payday do well, but if there was more money to spread around, more agents could make a nice payday). The current system is basically good for no one but the top 5/10/15 picks themselves and their agents.

I’d like to see the rookie salaries flattened. I wouldn’t mind if teams still spent the same money on their draft, with lower picks getting a pay raise. It’d be better for every fourth round pick to have who might flame out of the NFL after taking a brutal beating to have a nice payday to show for it instead of having the #1 pick to get a ridiculous $30m signing bonus. It works better for the team, too - your investment is more spread out and one single bust isn’t going to wreck your finances for years.

This addresses the issue:

In part my concerns were about the stupidity of the draft value chart in the modern draft. There is no way the top spots are properly ranked, they’re way too high. As the ESPN article said: “In Miami, Parcells has the power to evoke change. If he’s truly the freethinking lone wolf he wants us to believe he is, he’ll tear up his draft-value chart, take the best trade-down offer he can find and resist the lure of the fan-pleasing fix.”

Thanks, that’s kinda what I was thinking. Giving the worst teams the top picks in the draft only works if there is not a correspondingly gigantic paycheck that needs to be paid out. The more I think and read about it, I think a rookie salary cap is what is needed. I really liked Polian’s comment: "The idea that the worst team would get help from a good player or players is out the window because you are saddled in salary cap hell if the guy is anything but an almost immediate Pro Bowler. And it must change.

“The union has to give us a firm, definitive, rookie salary cap. We’re perfectly willing to have the money that does not go to the rookies go to the veterans. Nobody is looking to save money. But we’re sick and tired of giving exorbitant, incredible sums of money to players who haven’t proven they can do anything but play against Eastern Michigan.”

Upshaw has said the union won’t budge on the issue. It looks more and more like we’re going to have to deal with a possible work stoppage. That would suck.

Well, the draft value chart is of course unofficial. It’s something Jimmy Johnson came up with to use as a personal guide more than a decade ago. I don’t know how seriously GMs take it, it might be mostly a fan thing.

I do think GMs are worried about fan backlash if they aren’t seen getting proper value, though. For example, Miami might be more comfortable paying a #10 contract than a #1, so really, they should take anything substantial to go there - say, a third round pick. Miami gets to the slot they want, and a third round pick - win win. But their fans would tear them apart for not getting proper value according to a draft chart that has very little applicability to the current situation.

I don’t understand the NFL player union. Isn’t Upshaw a guy that’s basically in the owner’s pockets and has major conflict of interest issues? I’m often hearing things out of the NFL player union that just seem stupid.

Add a rookie salary cap or slotting (including more pay for later picks), increase the salary cap floor so that teams can’t use it as a way to keep money out of the players’ hands, and everyone wins.

Eh?

Tom Brady, Tony Romo, Drew Brees, Marc Bulger, Matt Hasselbeck, Jake Delhomme- all franchise QBs (and they’ve all posted at least one season with a passer rating over 100), and all drafted outside the first round. Three of them came as free agents, in fact- didn’t cost a draft pick at all. If we project a little, David Garrard, Matt Schaub and Derek Anderson may well both end up being excellent starting quarterbacks.

Top-flight quarterbacks come through free agency or the middle/late rounds. That’s partly because the NFL braintrust doesn’t know what makes a good NFL quarterback, but mostly because they have the freedom to do what they like with them.

If you draft a QB in the top ten, if he isn’t starting by the middle of his rookie year it’s a surprise and if he isn’t starting by the start of year 2 it means something has gone badly wrong (or you have a franchise quarterback and wasted a pick). They don’t get time to learn, because you can’t afford to pay a guy $20 million a year to learn the offense, at least not for more than a season (two at the most).

Then, once he becomes the starter, your team is effectively in limbo for at least two years: you need to give him that long to evaluate him, and chances are you aren’t winning much during that time.

If we go back a little further you could include Trent Green, Kurt Warner and Brett Favre (although Favre did admittedly cost the Packers a #1 pick).

Jonathan Ogden had the same rap coming out - monster strength but questionable speed - and he seems to have done alright.

I think you’re right. Like almost all things about the draft, fans need to be able to break it down into measurables.

I think GMs should care less about the immediate reaction to the picks they make in the draft. Although I love, as do many others, immediately breaking down the draft, in all honesty, you’re not going to be able to judge a draft for a few years at the least. (Mario Williams v. Bush) And fans, once again, are first and foremost going to be concerned about wins, not drafts. So if you think your draft plan (even if it is going to get the Jet’s level boos) is going to make your team better and result in wins, the immediate reaction of the fans shouldn’t kill it.

I’ve heard so many conflicting things about the union and Upshaw that it’s impossible to get a good read on them.

Your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

This is just brain dead logic. You trotted out 6 guys who fit the “not first round picks” definition and completely disregard the fact that there have been literally hundreds of other guys in that not-so-select classification that have never been heard from again. The success rate there is probably somewhere in the 5% range and that being pretty generous.

There are a lot of first round busts but there are also a lot of successes. The success rate is probably close to 50% which, while expensive, is a hell of a lot cheaper than hoping and praying that you get lucky in the 7th round for 2 decades.

As for free agents…um, who would you have suggested the Bears sign this off-season? Um, Cleo Lemon? Todd Collins? Mark Brunell?

Trust me on this one, I know what I’m talking about, the Bears have used your logic of never drafting a QB in early the first round and we can see how that’s worked out over the last half century.

The biggest problem with the rookie salary cap is that the average length of a NFL career is like 3 years. The union would fight anything that restricted their earnings for the first 3 years in the league if they tried to adopt something like a NBA system. Additionally different NFL positions are compensated so differently that a simple slotting system would not make sense. A rookie cap wouldn’t really change much and all it would do in lead to team fighting over length of contracts.

A slotting system is going to need to be somewhat complex, but a well thought out plan could work well. Here’s what I would propose.

Each draft position is slotted as a percentage of what the average of the top 5 salaries are at the players position. For example, a QB drafted 1st overall gets 50% of what the average of the top 5 QB’s cap number is. A QB drafted 10th overall gets 35% of that average. A QB drafted 25th overall gets 15% of that average and so on. In contrast a OT drafted 1st overall gets 50% of what the top 5 OTs cap figure is etc. It’s essentially an extension of what they do for the Franchise tag.

Now, to address the length of contract complaints the union is likely to have they create a special cap exemption in order to resign 1st round picks. Say every 1st round pick is signed to a mandatory 3-year contract but when that contract is up for renewal the team that drafted him is allowed a cap exemption in order to resign him at whatever his market value is. This effectively increases the amount of money that teams are allowed to spend on salary and it also have the added benefit of allowing more players to remain with the teams that drafted them.

I’m sure there’d be a ton of fine print in there and dealing with the signing bonuses would be tricky, but I don’t see any serious downsides.

Other than Cade McNown and Rex Grossman, you mean?

As far as who the Bears sign, why sign anyone? You certainly won’t be winning more games with a rookie than you would with Grossman.

Draft Chad Henne or Brohm and- here’s the key- let them learn for a few years before you throw them to the wolves.

Sure, but you’ve been paying them minimal money for however long they’re on the roster and you aren’t getting fired/“promoted” to team president if they don’t pan out.

If the kid turns out to be a weak player you can cut your losses and move on- something you can’t do with a high-first-rounder eating up cap space and “forcing” you to play him.

You won’t be a GM for very long if your QB corps consists of a couple mid-round players that never panned out. There’s another reason GMs so routinely roll the dice with their high picks on risky QB prospects: there’s substantial pressure to have a franchise QB. Just as you’ll get fired if your QB pick busts, you’ll get fired if your team never has a single QB option at all.

I didn’t say your QBs should consist exclusively of third-round rookies.

Sign a solid veteran - Jeff Garcia, anyone - and let him start for two years.

Anyway, when is there pressure to have a franchise quarterback? Brian Billick managed without one for ten years, and he’d still be the Ravens’ coach if the team had been any good last year. Jon Gruden has never had a franchise quarterback; he took Rich Gannon off the scrap heap and made him an MVP, and kept Brad Johnson upright for just long enough after each snap to direct a top-10 offense.

2008 Schedule is out!

Wow.

Bucs have three primetime games after not having any last year. Including the Chargers in Week 16. shudder

I don’t think I read this correctly. Are you saying there is no pressure to have a franchise QB? And you back this up by giving two unique examples where a coach succeeded (I’ll concede that one Super Bowl victory is a success, despite how many seasons each went without one.) without a franchise QB, that somehow proves your point? Seriously? You named the only two examples in the last fifteen years where a team won a Super Bowl without a franchise QB, and that’s how you prove your point? Do I really have to argue against this, because it seems like a waste of time.

You need a franchise QB to win, everyone knows this. Because everyone knows it, there’s a lot of pressure (from fans, media, front office personnel, etc.) to get one.

What do you do when your two years of a mediocre veteran QB are up? Rely on one of those low-chance third rounders? Sign another mediocre veteran QB? What if there isn’t a Jeff Garcia magic bullet that year (not that he even is one because he was so wonderful in Detroit and Cleveland, right?)? Sounds like an awful lot of losing, and a perennially pissed off fanbase to me.

Schedule day!

The Browns got at least 5 (!) primetime games.

Week 2, Sunday night at home vs Steelers
Week 6, Monday, home vs Giants
Week 10, Thursday, home vs Broncos (Nov 6. - looks like they’re starting the nfl network games before Thanksgiving)
Week 11, Monday at Buffalo
Week 15, Monday at Philly.

Leaves open the possibility of flex games too.

So… I hope we’re a good primetime team. I don’t actually know, having no primetime games last year.

The schedule isn’t too bad, the hardest games are spread out a bit. Not that enthusiastic about starting against Dallas, I’d rather have an easy team to get that win under the belt… but then again, beating Dallas in week 1 would be a great start.

Week 2 at home vs the Steelers may be the season right there. Perfect chance to finally get rid of the “can’t beat the Steelers” thing. If we win that, the AFC North is ours.

Week 5 bye is too early though.

I’m surprised at all the primetime games. I think it’s a good decision by the NFL - the Browns had a very high percentage of exciting, down to the wire games last year - I just didn’t expect them to give us as many as Dallas. Only one is a Sunday nighter unfortunately. I hope ESPN and NFL Network manage to suck less this year.

At first glance, the Eagles seem to have a fairly easy schedule, which makes for a great opportunity to overcome last year’s disappointing season.

Week 1- Home vs. St. Louis. This should be a winnable game and a good start to the season.
Week 2- @ Dallas on Monday Night. The Eagles won there last year, but I’d stay safe and call this one a loss.
Week 3- Home vs. Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is a tough team and my gut says this one is a loss too, but being at home for a tough game like this is really nice. Coin flip game to me.
Week 4- @ Chicago on Sunday Night. Should be a win, even if the Bears beat them on a fluke last year.
Week 5- Home vs. Washington. Split the series last year, safe to assume the same and a win here too.
Week 6- @ San Francisco. Win. If you’re going to go on the road, it’s definitely an advantage to have the easy games then and the tougher games at home. This is a very favorable schedule heading into the bye.
Week 7- Bye. At my count the Eagles should be around 5-1 or 4-2. I like having a mid season bye as opposed to an earlier bye (lots of consecutive weeks of games which cuts down on healing time before the playoffs) or a later bye (can disrupt late season momentum, but is better, in my opinion, than an early season bye because it can also disrupt bad momentum and gives a week of rest heading into the final stretch of games).
Week 8- Home vs. Atlanta. Win. Positive start to the second half.
Week 9- @ Seattle. This will be a very tough game as the Eagles haven’t had any success against them recently. Any prediction other than a loss isn’t genuine on my part.
Week 10- Home vs. New York Giants on Sunday Night. The Eagles lost both to the G-Men last year, but the home game was on a last second missed field goal by a historically excellent kicker. I assume a split this year and chalk this up as a win.
Week 11- @ Cincinnati. Tough game to read, but I assume a win here, even on the road. How good does Cincy really look this year?
Week 12- @ Baltimore. Longest road trip of the season for the Eagles, but they should get two wins out of it, and almost assuredly a win here.
Week 13- Home vs. Arizona on Thursday Night. Arizona is looking better each season, but I’m betting on a win here at home late in the season against a warm weather squad.
Week 14- @ New York Giants. Has to be a loss here. The Eagles were dismantled on the road against the Giants last year.
Week 15- Home vs. Cleveland on Monday Night. Cleveland looks good to me (I think they take that division), but they don’t have the defense to keep up with the Eagles at home. The notorious Philly pressure should get to whomever the inexperienced QB is for Cleveland. Win here.
Week 16- @ Washington. I’ll call this a loss, but I’m not convinced. If the Eagles are pushing for the playoffs this late, this will be a hard fought game.
Week 17- Home vs. Dallas. I call this a win, but I’m hesitant. Being at home makes it more favorable, but this is another really hard fought game to end the season. Coin flip game here as well.

The schedule seems favorable (five prime-time games!), but the last four games are all very difficult and I can see the Eagles going 2-2 or 1-3 there and missing the playoffs for it, and it isn’t unfair to say they could go 0-4. My final count puts the Eagles at 10-4 with two coin flip games (somewhere between 10-6 and 12-4, but 12-4 seems lofty for this team…). By my count they enter the final four weeks somewhere around 9-2 (with a coin flip game), so I think the worst case scenario for this team, without variables such as injury, is 9-7. I make my predictions based on most of the key players being healthy, but we all know McNabb will likely be out for the season before the bye. 12-4 wins them the division, I think, and I think they have a great shot at a wild card even at 9-7.

Obviously after those two years you should have a pretty good handle on whether one of your young players has what it takes.

You’re arguing a non-existent issue, anyway. My point is not that you don’t need a franchise quarterback. If you’d read the previous page you’d know that I’m just arguing that franchise quarterbacks are a lot more likely to come from the middle and late rounds than the first round, and that if you pick a QB in the top of the first round, he’s a) likely to be a bust, and b) likely to severely impact your franchise if he is.

What quarterback could have won ten games on those Cleveland and Detroit teams, anyway?

This is not even remotely true!!!

Living up to the username there bro.

While I agree that the Detroit and Cleveland teams were hopeless when Jeff Garcia was there, I don’t think there is any evidence supporting the quoted assertion.

Despite not having done any kind of rigorous analysis, I’d say that more franchise quarterbacks come out of the first round than all other rounds combined, and that the percentage of first rounders becoming franchise quarterbacks is way higher than all other rounds combined or even taken individually.