Quote:
Originally Posted by papabear
I get your point, but I don't agree with it. The cap numbers for most teams aren't that far apart. There's a few with a bunch of room, and a few barely squeaking under. Everyone else generally falls in between. Plenty of them don't have anything to show for it either. It's not like we are that much worse than the majority of teams in the NFL.
You do have to pay for talent, and we have. We just haven't been very good at judging talent. I get the feeling that you want the team to have sexier free agents signings. The kind of guys who are considered the best available at their position. Haynesworth, Clements, etc. The fact is that the teams who spend for the mega bucks free agents rarely show much improvement. Cowboys, Redskins, 49er's, and Jets are all teams who have spent heavily for the big guns but didn't get that much better on the field. The cap is set up so that most teams do end up with cap decisions to make at some point. Spend 100 Mill on Haynesworth or sign 4 or 5 guys for about the same amount of money who still give you an upgrade at several positions and/or great depth at others. Then draft well. I prefer the second option, but it comes down to how well you judge talent. We haven't always done a great job at that with FA. Hopefully Smith changes that. If you dump most of your free resources at a big name free agent and he fails you are screwed.
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You are right-on, Papabear. I would much rather hope we get lucky signing lower level guys than hope these megabuck superstars live up to their gigantic contracts. And I don't mean just for the first year or two. Signing guys to their last contract is a risky proposition.