Salary Cap Era / Free Agency Fallacy

[Reaser]

I prefer to view this in two seperate ways ....

1) It is as wide as it is long. The Pats would not have obtained Darelle Revis without free agency. Today, a team may lose a top notch player at one position but sign two quality players at other positions.

2) A differentiation between team and franchise. Perhaps the Patriots, with six AFC titles and four Super Bowl championships in fourteen years, are the best franchise of the Super Bowl era. As for a team, the Steelers of the '70s, with four Super Bowl titles in six years, are nonpareil.

1. Exactly.

2. Makes sense, though wasn't the point I was getting at. Don't really care if someone says the Patriots are or aren't the best dynasty (I don't think they are), the point is the reasoning given, which is almost always "because they did it in the salary cap/free agency era", which the statement doesn't quite mean what people imply it to mean, not even close actually.

[rhickok1109]

I prefer to view this in two seperate ways ....

1) It is as wide as it is long. The Pats would not have obtained Darelle Revis without free agency. Today, a team may lose a top notch player at one position but sign two quality players at other positions. In the pre- free agency days, a team was limited by what it had. Trades were quite uncommon and usually a team had to rely on the draft.

I don't think trades were uncommon before free agency. Norm Van Brocklin, Y. A. Tittle, Bobby Layne, Tobin Rote, and Sonny Jurgensen were starting QBs who were traded between 1957 and 1964; Rote is the only one who isn't in the Hall of Fame, but he is the only one to win championships in both the NFL and AFL. How often does a starting QB get traded today?

Lombardi inherited some great players when he took over the Packers, but he also traded for Fuzzy Thurston, Emlen Tunnell, Henry Jordan, Willie Davis, Don Chandler, and Carroll Dale. Tunnell's chief contribution was teaching Willie Wood how to play safety, but the others were all major contributors to Lombardi's championship teams.

That's just scratching the surface of the trading that was done before free agency. There was a lot of it.

[7DnBrnc53]

You specifically mentioned the Denver Broncos, and they're a great example. In 2013, they had nine players who counted for a total of over $33 million in cap space that they let go for 2014 -- Champ Bailey, Domenique Rodgers-Cromartie, Robert Ayers, Chris Kuper, Matt Prater, Wesley Woodyard, Knowshon Moreno, Mike Adams, and Joel Dreessen. Each individually counted 2 million or more against the cap, Bailey was $10 million. (Decker, by way of contrast, was only $1.5M.)

So it's true, they were able to add Talib, Sanders, DeMarcus Ware, absorb Welker's increased cap hit, Ryan Clady's $10 million cap number coming back from IR, and some others. But are they going to be able to do that again? Other than Wes Welker, there doesn't appear to be much easy fat to trim from that roster to make room for the raises they'll have to give the two Thomases and whoever else is due for a bump.

It doesn't appear that Julius Thomas, Welker, and Rahim Moore will return. LG Orlando Franklin is up in the air, as is Knighton. As for Demaryius, I think that he should be franchised, and TE Virgil Green could take J. Thomas's spot. He is a much better blocker (and a key to the run game), and he has the potential to be a good receiving TE.

[Reaser]

It doesn't appear that Julius Thomas, Welker, and Rahim Moore will return. LG Orlando Franklin is up in the air, as is Knighton. As for Demaryius, I think that he should be franchised, and TE Virgil Green could take J. Thomas's spot. He is a much better blocker (and a key to the run game), and he has the potential to be a good receiving TE.

Assuming Manning is back they'll be fine. They have cap room, they have carryover, they have replaceable OL they can dump for more cap space, a punter they can dump and replace, and as always there's restructures and extensions (Miller?) to push money into future years. Plus the cap could easily be higher than is being projected. They'll likely have the room to essentially do what they want. Anyone they lose won't be because they can't make it work cap wise, it'd just be strictly a decision on worth. Not forced to lose anyone, but choose not to overpay should someone like Moore get overpaid by another team. Or of course if a player just wants to leave.

Welker isn't/wouldn't be a meaningful loss and assuming Wade runs his defense - which is a fair assumption - then Knighton's worth (to the Broncos) isn't nearly as much as it would appear to be - at least in my opinion I'm not sure he's the best fit or that the eventual starting NT is even currently on the roster. So if they did lose Knighton - as much as I like him - I don't think it's really a big deal. Moore was good this past season but I don't view him as irreplaceable either.

I doubt they'll lose DT (franchise or a deal) and I'm assuming Denver will run the ball more like they did the latter half of this past season which with Julius being useless in the run game, Green (or some combo of a blocking TE and a receiving TE) can replace him, too. If needed.

People might get caught up in names, but production wise they're unlikely to lose anything of significance other than possibly Julius Thomas, which he's a better fantasy TE than anything - though scores TD's and great red zone target so he's valuable, but not irreplaceable, especially for the money he's apparently talking about.

Denver has proven to handle the cap well (like most good franchises), they'll be fine. Most of the movement will be OL, dropping dead weight, moves accounting for the switch to Wade's defense and easily replacing any replaceable players they lose.

[Veeshik_ya]

Great article, Matt. I love it. My opinion, I HATE free agency. It has ruined the game.

Yeah, it's a debacle. A group of average to above average guys that have played together for years, forming cohesion and chemistry, will beat a team of purchased all-stars most of the time. The wise teams dally in it very little, for that reason.

I was going to add that because of free agency it's not likely we'll see a team like the 70s Steelers or 60s Packers again, teams with a core group of players who played together long enough to dominate over time. Yet...here we have the Patriots winning four titles in six appearances with a revolving cast of largely unknowns, the more or less one constant being Tom Brady.

So...I've contradicted myself and am left scratching my head.

[James]

Great article, Matt. I love it. My opinion, I HATE free agency. It has ruined the game.

Yeah, it's a debacle. A group of average to above average guys that have played together for years, forming cohesion and chemistry, will beat a team of purchased all-stars most of the time. The wise teams dally in it very little, for that reason.

I was going to add that because of free agency it's not likely we'll see a team like the 70s Steelers or 60s Packers again, teams with a core group of players who played together long enough to dominate over time. Yet...here we have the Patriots winning four titles in six appearances with a revolving cast of largely unknowns, the more or less one constant being Tom Brady.

So...I've contradicted myself and am left scratching my head.

I totally agree. There is no team loyalty anymore, it's all about money and it seems like an auction, signing with the highest bidder....