Difficult Truths About Free Agency

[Khyber53]

1. If you aren't a solid starter, you're at risk of getting cut to make room. A seven year player even at vet minimum is more expensive than a UDFA rookie. 

2. FA guards are always over-priced, especially if you've ever heard their name mentioned before.

3. The good tackles stay on teams, even when there is a cap crunch. The tackles on free agency/trades you know of are probably sporting some long term injuries or have some locker room issues. If there is a unicorn OT out there, particularly a left tackle, you can't afford him without losing a lot of your future cap space.

4. If a player has been in the league for more than three seasons, particularly if they saw the field regularly, chances are they have some lingering injuries. All vet players have lingering injuries, some worse than others, some more able to cope with it than others. They all have hard miles, but its the quality of the maintenance that often matters.

5. Some teams have bad position coaches and they can ruin some players beyond redemption. More importantly, some teams have terrible trainers/conditioning coaches and those teams often spin out players with lingering issues that will spring up. It wasn't that many years ago that the Bengals facility had MRSA issues that spun out with almost all the free agents that came from that team.

6. If the average fan knows a free agent player's name, you can believe there is an entire hype machine out there working to gin up interest in them. Some are legit, many aren't and some are just looking for one more good paycheck before they pack it in and call it a career.

7. Beware of guys coming from a team that had a "players' coach." These vets are often used to just rolling up to the trough and feeding while not being required of much. Giving one of these guys a big contract can produce a whale you're stuck with.

8. The draft is still the best building tool out there. There's a whole legion of agents, bloggers and Twitter artists that want you to think otherwise.  Many of them are happily paid to lie.

9. There are always a handful of bad players who blossom into something great with a new team. It's worth it to try and snag a couple of them on the cheap.

10. Top quality scouting departments are very rare (maybe only four or five in the league right now). Really bad ones can cripple a team for a decade or more as their bad evaluations are often blamed on the players and then the coaches. (We may be suffering from this.)

[Hoenheim]

#9 is every panther free agency ever lol 

Needless to say more often than not it hasn't worked out for us 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Hoenheim

[IceWhiteice]

Well said, we need to focus on the trenches on both sides through the draft and go from there. 

[WarPanthers89]

I don’t want to hear any logic around here. GTFO and never come back to the Huddle. 

[Khyber53]

5 minutes ago, IceWhiteice said:

Well said, we need to focus on the trenches on both sides through the draft and go from there. 

That's how great teams are built. Been true since 1957 or thereabouts.

[kungfoodude]

It's gonna be a long offseason, I suspect. I hope we don't go wild on the spending after creating all this cap space.

[Rickson]

I want every big name in free agency no matter how they’ve performed.  I want them all at vet minimum.  I want to be way under the salary cap.  I want answers!

[Jon Snow]

16 minutes ago, Rickson said:

I want every big name in free agency no matter how they’ve performed.  I want them all at vet minimum.  I want to be way under the salary cap.  I want answers!

People in hell want ice water too.  The odds are about the same.

[Mistuh Jones]

He was joking Lord Snow! 

[Jon Snow]

8 minutes ago, Mistuh Jones said:

He was joking Lord Snow! 

So was I Sir Jones.

[Khyber53]

1 hour ago, kungfoodude said:

It's gonna be a long offseason, I suspect. I hope we don't go wild on the spending after creating all this cap space.

Spending sprees in free agency ... nothing says desperate like that. Hope we don't head that way.

 

[kungfoodude]

2 minutes ago, Khyber53 said:

Spending sprees in free agency ... nothing says desperate like that. Hope we don't head that way.

 

The history of big free agency spenders isn't very promising, despite what Tampa did this past offseason.

[Mr. Scot]

29 minutes ago, Mistuh Jones said:

He was joking Lord Snow! 

I think there are a fair number of people with similar sentiments who aren't.

[Mr. Scot]

Just now, kungfoodude said:

The history of big free agency spenders isn't very promising, despite what Tampa did this past offseason.

Dream teams.

That path has been trod several times since unrestricted free agency began.

It doesn't always work. Honestly, I've probably seen it not work more times than I've seen it work.