Rebuilding strategy, forty-niners or saints?

[St. Geezy]

These team are all doing to the samething, the 49ers are riding the wave of the salary cap just like the Saints, that is why they are dumping contracts in anticipation of giving big money to their QB, they are no different than the saints or any other team in this league.

We have to stop this narrative that the Saints are the only team managing a fluctuating cap and big salaries year in and year out.

Exactly…it’s what I have been preaching all this time. Same problems, different window dressing and cosmetics.

Bottom line is if you draft well, plug a couple of holes in free agency, stay healthy, and coach well, you win.

Too much time spent worrying about accounting ledger management strategies.

 

[Sumdude34]

Well the 49ers are about to throw a lot of money at a QB who is not worth a lot of money. The Saints already threw a lot of money at a QB who is not worth a lot of money. But at least we are closer to the end of that bad decision.

Bad money decisions at QB take a while to recover from. So my bet is on the Saints rebounding faster for that reason.

 

[guillermo]

These team are all doing to the samething, the 49ers are riding the wave of the salary cap just like the Saints, that is why they are dumping contracts in anticipation of giving big money to their QB, they are no different than the saints or any other team in this league.

We have to stop this narrative that the Saints are the only team managing a fluctuating cap and big salaries year in and year out.

I respectfully disagree, they are not doing the same thing.

San Francisco let Talanoa Hufanga, a former all pro at only 25 years old to leave as a free agent. Same is with Dre Greenlaw, who is only 27 years old. They could have committed future cap considerations, but they didn't.

New Orleans had to consider the dead money they will incur by letting Chase Young and Juwan Johnson go. They decided to extend them as a better option for the future.

My point is, New Orleans is reacting to the circumstances they are facing because of their cap strategies. San Francisco have decided they will not incur on a similar situation when it is time to rebuild.

You are right that more and more teams will use a similar strategy as New Orleans (never wrote the saints are the only team doing so). Just by looking at the contracts of the last 3 days, you realize more teams are using the cap credit on the future.

Both strategies have their merits.

My preference? I do prefer to have options. To have cap available at the beginning of the year to be able to prowl on the players released, or to be able to trade late picks for proven players that have to leave their teams because of cap constraints.

 

[TribuneUK]

LOL Cam was just a stop gap for them he was never going to be their serious QB of the future.

They tried Mac who ended up failing and back to square one and tanked for Maye/whoever they pick at 4. They cleared their cap space out and where pretty active during FA.

Two completely different strategies it'll be interesting to see how it works out for both teams.

Your stop gap is my retread. It's semantics, perhaps, but Bill and the Pats didn't do anything that different to the Saints IMO.

 

[St. Geezy]

Well the 49ers are about to throw a lot of money at a QB who is not worth a lot of money. The Saints already threw a lot of money at a QB who is not worth a lot of money. But at least we are closer to the end of that bad decision.

Bad money decisions at QB take a while to recover from. So my bet is on the Saints rebounding faster for that reason.

Yeah, everyone can see the disaster coming to SF. They’re about to really overpay for a guy that needs a lot of help to succeed.

Their run of success is coming to a very screeching halt.

What’s crazy is they’ve been one of the best teams of the past 5+ years, but will end up without a single ring to show for it. Just goes to show how hard winning it all is.

 

[BoNcHiE]

All that sounds good, but at some point, you have to ask what you're even rebuilding.

Get rid of every good player? Okay, and then what? You can't solely rely on the draft because only 2-3 players a year will turn into viable starters. So you have to go out and sign good players to fill out the roster, which costs money. At which point are you truly rebuilding, or are you just shuffling the chairs around?

Everyone loves the rebuild in theory, but done too aggressively and you can end up the Panthers for the last seven years.

 

[WhoDat?DrewDat]

Of course Cam wasn't the QB of the future, but they were trying to get a winning season and a playoff appearance with him. So it wasn't an attempt to tank.

Sure they weren't trying to tank. They grabbed a stop gap QB to help reset their cap and roster situation. They where not trying to get into the playoffs and make a run.

Frankly, NFL teams just don't tank. The NFL is just different than the NBA or MLB. The only team I recall that truly decided to tank was the Colts who chose to "suck for Luck", but that ended up not working because the terrible team they had after they drafted Luck ended up getting him hurt and causing him to retire early. Now they are back in hell trying to find a QB and taking shots on guys that were never going to make it.

Luck absolutely worked out for the Colts. I guess if you only count SB as working out then no.

If an NFL team ends up being bad and getting a high draft pick it's because they made bad decisions that lead to them sucking, not because they chose to lose games.

That's just not true. Plenty of teams clear their cap space on purpose and play stop gap QBs for the sake of tanking.

Fitz has talked about this when he was the QB for the Dolphins during tank for Tua.

The Pats made a conscience decision to trade a few key players and not spend in order to clear their cap and lose some games.

 

[St. Widge]

Yeah, everyone can see the disaster coming to SF. They’re about to really overpay for a guy that needs a lot of help to succeed.

Their run of success is coming to a very screeching halt.

What’s crazy is they’ve been one of the best teams of the past 5+ years, but will end up without a single ring to show for it. Just goes to show how hard winning it all is.

And maybe I'm wrong, but I think the choices the 49ers are making are bad decisions that could lead to them being bad for a very long time. They are more or less doing this to pay a big contract to Purdy who I think is a Carr level QB or maybe slightly better. That's a lot of money to pay for that kind of QB and the same reasons I think having Carr for this team are bad I think are the same for the 49ers. They aren't going to have the money to build around him.

I get that that is the reason they are not paying their good vet players and traded Deebo (they need the money to pay Purdy and will need more to build around him), but they are going to have to really be nearly perfect in the draft for this to work out for them. It could easily blow up in their faces.

Not that the same is not true for the Saints, they are going to need to do much better in the draft than they have in the past, but at least they have a solid based for the team and they aren't locked into a mid-level QB at $40 million plus AAV for 4 or 5 years. At least not yet anyway.

 

[DerrickB]

All that sounds good, but at some point, you have to ask what you're even rebuilding.

Get rid of every good player? Okay, and then what? You can't solely rely on the draft because only 2-3 players a year will turn into viable starters. So you have to go out and sign good players to fill out the roster, which costs money. At which point are you truly rebuilding, or are you just shuffling the chairs around?

Everyone loves the rebuild in theory, but done too aggressively and you can end up the Panthers for the last seven years.

Fair but at some point you have transition. The Niners got expensive real fast and no title.

 

[WhoDat?DrewDat]

Your stop gap is my retread. It's semantics, perhaps, but Bill and the Pats didn't do anything that different to the Saints IMO.

They did though. The saints chose to sign players to extensions, restructuring aging players, and spending 40min on mid tier QB like Carr in the hopes of competing.

Our situations are completely different.

 

[St. Widge]

Sure they weren't trying to tank. They grabbed a stop gap QB to help reset their cap and roster situation. They where not trying to get into the playoffs and make a run.


Luck absolutely worked out for the Colts. I guess if you only count SB as working out then no.

That's just not true. Plenty of teams clear their cap space on purpose and play stop gap QBs for the sake of tanking.

Fitz has talked about this when he was the QB for the Dolphins during tank for Tua.

I don't count getting close to being a really good team but having your star QB retire because he got hurt behind your terrible OL working out. They had one good year getting to the conference championship game in 2014 and it was downhill after that to the point of being mediocre for many years. I can't imagine that was the goal when they sucked for Luck when post Luck they have basically had the same amount of success that we have had for the last 4 years.

NFL teams occasionally do it, but it's not the norm and it fails miserably more often than it succeeds. It's just that you remember the times it works more than all the times it failed.

And again, tanking for Tua didn't actually turn into a great result. They are a mediocre team and have been since they got Tua which is what the tank is supposed to be avoiding.

Anyway, the point is that tanking isn't the only way to turn a team around and staying mediocre is just as successful of a way to eventually become an elite team as tanking is. Tanking occasionally works to one degree or another, but it hasn't shown to be the only way or the best way to turn a team around.

 

[WhoDat?DrewDat]

I don't count getting close to being a really good team but having your star QB retire because he got hurt behind your terrible OL working out. They had one good year getting to the conference championship game in 2014 and it was downhill after that to the point of being mediocre for many years. I can't imagine that was the goal when they sucked for Luck when post Luck they have basically had the same amount of success that we have had for the last 4 years.

That's fair. Your view is Super bowl or bust then.

NFL teams occasionally do it, but it's not the norm and it fails miserably more often than it succeeds. It's just that you remember the times it works more than all the times it failed.

Not even. I completely understand it's not a guarantee that it will work. Just that this FO has shown they are incapable of building through drafting in the mid to late rounds. The higher you draft it significantly increases odds of drafting pro bowl/all pro talents. If we drafted well currently I would think different.

And again, tanking for Tua didn't actually turn into a great result. They are a mediocre team and have been since they got Tua which is what the tank is supposed to be avoiding.

Anyway, the point is that tanking isn't the only way to turn a team around and staying mediocre is just as successful of a way to eventually become an elite team as tanking is. Tanking occasionally works to one degree or another, but it hasn't shown to be the only way or the best way to turn a team around.

I agree it's not the only way. You can draft normally and turn around but that requires elite talent evaluation which we have shown we do not have.

It'll be interesting to see how the Pats vs Saints futures play out.

 

[Rexman100]

Patriots vs Saints is another one.

Both moved on from their all time great QBs and choose two completely different directions.

And neither method worked, why? Becaue the true method is, bide your team, keep a competitive team together, until you run across your franchise Qb. Then do what the Commanders are doing, going all in on pieces that make it a Super Bowl competitor. And that they will be,

 

[WhoDat?DrewDat]

And neither method worked, why? Becaue the true method is, bide your team, keep a competitive team together, until you run across your franchise Qb. Then do what the Commanders are doing, going all in on pieces that make it a Super Bowl competitor. And that they will be,

But HOW did the Commanders land their franchise QB?