That is something that is hard to quantify, lets say your a team that finishes 10-7 and you sign a FA D-lineman, he has a pro bowl season but you finish 10-7, was the FA signing not successful? How do you know he didnt result in wins? Maybe you would of been 7-10 without him that season?
Individual cases probably give questionable results. But averaging results over 32 teams and 4 seasons should be useful in trending.Originally Posted by Mr.wizard
And to those suggesting signing one premium FA player at the expense of lesser players I would say that teams in general fail at the weakest link. In this case, do you want to have to plug multiple holes caused by signing one premium player while the bargain basement guys at other positions are failing?
its how you win the offseason., lol
Find my post for me and help me prove I’m Black
I think making a splash in free agency can make a huge difference, and there are a few cases just last season to show it. I'll just list those that made the playoffs;
Geno Smith was huge for the Seahawks, Reddick and AJ Brown to the Eagles, Za'Darius Smith to the Vikings, Kirk to the Jags, Tyreek to the Dolphins, Ward to SF. I'm sure there's more if I dig further, but the point is FA signings can lift teams to new heights. A team does need to draft well first and foremost.
Yep, it's not black and white. Some of those teams in the mid-2010's could have used a bump to get over the top, but The Steeler Way, 'n'at.
Well I'm guilty of the wanting the 1 stud player. In this case for me Orlando Brown would have been like getting another 1st rounder for us imho. And obviously fill an area of need. Brown in his prime with his talent was a rare f/a at such an important position. Didn't mean we couldn't get anyone else but I understand the value of others would be less because of less assets left.
Steelers went down the "multiple solid player road". I'm okay with that n the players we picked up.
My guess is that this is survivorship bias.
To understand if making big splashes in UFA is good, we'd want too look at all "big splashes" in UFA and see how all of those teams did.
My guess is that picking players is like picking stocks. A small number will work out fantastically well. But it's very hard (maybe impossible) to consistently pick which ones are the ones those are. And unfortunately, you can't sign an index of the top 20 UFAs to play on your team.
Another reasonable strategy is to just not play the game at the top of the market for guys who will come from different teams and different systems. At least I think that's a reasonable strategy.
But we were always up against the cap.
You can manipulate that a bit by pulling future cap space forward (or kicking cap hit down the road if you prefer). We were already doing that pretty heavily with Ben's contract, particularly after the big short-term extension.
If we went and signed a big name UFA on top of all that, we'd be doing some version of the Ram's strategy. Which probably does increase your probability of winning in a specific season, while shortening the window that you're competitive in. It's pretty clear that the Steelers run the team in a way to try to have a long window to be competitive.
I think a good FA signing will make a bigger difference for a team on the cusp of being better than average over those already at the bottom looking to climb out of the cellar. Guys like Brissett and Adams were great FA signings but those teams were lacking more than just a piece or two to get to the next level.
Tell that to Jax who spent the most and ended up not only IN the playoffs, but won a game in the post season - something Pgh hasn't done in 6 years. Oopsie. Poopsie, have a sip of soupsie.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks