Rick Gosselin: Smart NFL teams spend little in free agency (1 Viewer)

bergeaux

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I agree with this article whole heartedly. The smart way to build a franchise is to save your $$ to retain your own people and pay them. You know what you are getting from them and what they are truly worth. If we just keep drafting like we did in 2006 (what happened in 2007?) and resign our good players, we should be pretty good. Also, if you let some of the OK ones go in free agency or trade them, you end up with more picks for more good young players.



http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/d...elin/stories/031808dnspogosselin.28cf9c5.html


Gosselin said:
There's a frenzy in the fan bases of 32 NFL teams each off-season. Spend. Buy free agents. The bigger the contract, the better the signing. If you're not spending, you're not trying to get better as a football team. Au contraire.


The Cowboys, Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks each signed a free agent to a contract in excess of $39 million last off-season. In addition, the Washington Redskins gave aging middle linebacker London Fletcher a $10 million signing bonus, and the Jacksonville Jaguars gave journeyman offensive tackle Tony Pashos another for $9 million.

All the while, the New York Giants were sitting out the spending spree. To borrow a Jerry Jones term, the Giants were "keeping their powder dry."

I would even throw in the Packers in with the Giants. There was a lot of talk about how they weren't chasing Free Agents last year, yet they improved mightily because their young players stepped up.
 
Everyone except the patriots. They went ape *** on getting new players a couple years ago. Addalius Thomas, Donte Stallworth, Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Kyle Brady, Etc. Now some were trades but Welker and Thomas got some big Bucks
 
I agree for the most part... the ONLY problem that I have with retaining your own is... if you could get a player of equal VALUE, but better PRODUCTION... then why not make a change? As said... "you know what you're getting" when you resign your player, but why not upgrade if "what you're getting" isn't good enough?

Take Devery for instance... we all know what we're getting with him. he's a deep threat that will scare the beejeezus out of a secondary with his speed, but when the ball is in the air you hold your breath in hopes that he catches it because of his hands (or concentration lapse).

I hope we can stay healthy this year. That's the diff between 06 and 07... we avoided the injury bug in 06, but it bit the hale out of us this past season. Lets hope it passes us up this season and bite somebody else in the division.
 
Everyone except the patriots. They went ape *** on getting new players a couple years ago.

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This is a "easier said then done" article. The first thing you have to remember when you talk about free agency is that clubs HAVE to spend money. By rule they have to spend at least about 85% of the cap. So what are bad teams supposed to do? Should they spend the money on the bad players they already have just because they were drafted by those teams? Isnt it smarter to go out and sign a "proven" player from another club?

Its very easy to point out that some of the good teams didnt sign any major free agents. But thats because they drafted well. If you do draft well you simply can spend money on your own players. But what if you don`t draft well? Then you just cant. You have to spend money on other team`s players. Gosselin makes things look simpler than they are.
 

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