1 Year FA philosophy - risky?

[chris98251]

I think it's fine for teams that can compete and are paying the second contract on a lot of player, it can keep you in the hunt and hedge your bets on draft picks to replace the second contract players, if you hit on the draft you are able to trade and or cut guys not performing rather then keep them longer then you should.

Now if they perform you can try to extend, if not cut your losses.

 

[HawkRiderFan]

Is this what the Patriots have done to fill gaps in their roster? Were Browner and Revis both on one year deals? Then this year I believe Bennett and Long both were.

 

[A-Dog]

My take on NE is that they have Brady and spend a bunch of money on their defensive front 7. Of course we also know they're not afraid to cut bait on top players before they have to pay them.

Pete and John are similar but tend to be more loyal to their top players, but now that we have RW getting paid like Brady was that might have to change.

 

[jammerhawk]

The two best posts on this thread are differing but both thought provoking. I find PH's post more in line with my thinking, but ADog has a really interesting and thought provoking theoretical. Interestingly both could be right. Time will tell. These 1 year deals are interesting and may just mark a sea change.

There will need to be a rebuild of the team soon as it is getting old at a few key positions. Don't agree with ADog on the need to hit on 6 position in the draft but some critically important pieces need to be added this draft. I think the best players for us are defensive players.

Even if the team finds two players with talent this draft who can add significant minutes this season they improve.

One year deals are a new wave until an advantage exists for them not to be. This is a direct consequence of the draft advantage of tradeable comp picks.

 

[RiverDog]

Sort of where I'm at. Big picture I think it makes sense and even helps us to avoid the big Cary Williams, Percy type stuff and to sign the guys we know can play.

Absolutely, particularly as it concerns Lacy and Joeckel, who really do have to "prove it".

With the situation we're in, we really can't afford a lot of big, long term deals as we have a considerable number of veterans on long term deals with several (Kam, Graham) that are on a little bit of a 'prove it' condition themselves that we'll want to have the flexibility to resign next season if we so choose and still leave enough room to sign a very desirable FA should they come walking our way. That's where the Cowboys have, in so many cases in the past, painted themselves into a corner.

I have no problems with one year deals regarding players like Lacy and Joeckel. It makes a ton of sense. Now, if we were to sign someone like Russell to a one year deal....

 

[Uncle Si]

The benefit of the comp pick is simply part of the asset the FO has gained when they signed the player. The player was not signed for the pick exclusively. All of these deals were given to players who willl and competition (and flexibility) to positions of need. These are not game changers. They fill a role that may be supplemented by draft picks in April as well.

Their is littke risk (outside Joeckels contract). The comp pick is just part of the benefit of signing the player. Nothing more than addressing depth without taking a huge risk.

 

[Seahawkfan80]

I think it's fine for teams that can compete and are paying the second contract on a lot of player, it can keep you in the hunt and hedge your bets on draft picks to replace the second contract players, if you hit on the draft you are able to trade and or cut guys not performing rather then keep them longer then you should.

Now if they perform you can try to extend, if not cut your losses.

This concept also allows teams that have very little chance of making it to the post season over a period of years to let their free agents walk into a situation with a better fit for them to excel. The former rookie may have only one fit position and were never able to achieve satisfaction in that position. Their current team may not like that idea of checking the waters, but it is not really their choice when free agency comes around if they are unrestricted or not tagged.

 

[mikeak]

The org wants to figure out what it has in the young OL it's invested all this time developing. We no longer have the underpaid RW advantage with contracts. If the young OL pans out, and I actually think it will (Fant and Gilliam included), we'll have a similar advantage via OL. Last year's sucktitude was a high price to pay, possibly costing us a strong title run, but that investment may start to really pay off this year. If they sign a prime vet to unequivocally take one of those spots for 3+ years and the young guys develop as expected, you waste that advantage.
.

I agree with this and actually wrote it in a different thread after the Joeckel signing, but the attempt at signing Fant kind goes against it a little bit. But at least for the core the signal I get from the FO is that they think it will be a good OL core but need stability from veterans if for nothing else to be able to handle injuries

good post

 

[mikeak]

I knew having 20 expiring contracts in one-offseason would spell trouble and it did.

.

Which is my concern for next off season

The other thing I find interesting is this "we don't want to sign the wrong guy to a bad long term deal" (which I get) so instead we want to "spend a lot of money each year on a bunch of guys and do it over and over again"

The chances of failure doesn't decrease by signing 5 guys to 1 year deals this year and 5 guys to 1 year deals next year vs signing 5 guys to 2-year deals this year.......

and again Cary Williams was a bad deal because he was a bad player - the 2nd and 3rd year really didn't hurt us much

 

[Uncle Si]

I knew having 20 expiring contracts in one-offseason would spell trouble and it did.

.

Which is my concern for next off season

The other thing I find interesting is this "we don't want to sign the wrong guy to a bad long term deal" (which I get) so instead we want to "spend a lot of money each year on a bunch of guys and do it over and over again"

The chances of failure doesn't decrease by signing 5 guys to 1 year deals this year and 5 guys to 1 year deals next year vs signing 5 guys to 2-year deals this year.......

and again Cary Williams was a bad deal because he was a bad player - the 2nd and 3rd year really didn't hurt us much

How many expiring contracts are on the roster right now?

 

[Seymour]

I knew having 20 expiring contracts in one-offseason would spell trouble and it did.

.

Which is my concern for next off season

The other thing I find interesting is this "we don't want to sign the wrong guy to a bad long term deal" (which I get) so instead we want to "spend a lot of money each year on a bunch of guys and do it over and over again"

The chances of failure doesn't decrease by signing 5 guys to 1 year deals this year and 5 guys to 1 year deals next year vs signing 5 guys to 2-year deals this year.......

and again Cary Williams was a bad deal because he was a bad player - the 2nd and 3rd year really didn't hurt us much

How many expiring contracts are on the roster right now?

Every one of them. Which season are you asking for the expiration? The 2017 ones are not even on the roster anyway??

 

[Uncle Si]

OK... anyone else?

How many players on the team for 2017-2018 have one year left?

 

[DJrmb]

At this time Seattle will be projected to have 17 UFA's next year per Spotrac.com:

Jimmy Graham
Luke Joeckel
Kam Chancellor
Eddie Lacy
Bradley McDougald
Luke Willson
Garry Gilliam
Deshawn Shead
Blair Walsh
Oday Aboushi
Justin Britt
Perrish Cox
Demetrius McCray
Pierre Desir
Cassius Marsh
Kevin Pierre-Louis

 

[mikeak]

I knew having 20 expiring contracts in one-offseason would spell trouble and it did.

.

Which is my concern for next off season

The other thing I find interesting is this "we don't want to sign the wrong guy to a bad long term deal" (which I get) so instead we want to "spend a lot of money each year on a bunch of guys and do it over and over again"

The chances of failure doesn't decrease by signing 5 guys to 1 year deals this year and 5 guys to 1 year deals next year vs signing 5 guys to 2-year deals this year.......

and again Cary Williams was a bad deal because he was a bad player - the 2nd and 3rd year really didn't hurt us much

How many expiring contracts are on the roster right now?

For 2018 season copying from my OP ". We have 37!!!!! players that will be in one sort of Free Agency (16 of those are UFA)"

 

[Uncle Si]

Thank guys.

That's an absurd amount. But of those 16... how many in your opinion are resignable assets? I could see Chancellor getting a restructure. Britt and Marsh? Not sure about Jimmy.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

I think it speaks more to this not being a great FA group, as well as our tight cap situation.

Lang was the only player we were willing to give a multiple year deal to, and that's a good thing that we didn't overpay or extend years onto a possible bad deal like so many teams.

But the negative is one year deals for marginal players can backfire if you're counting on them to be starters, and they suck or get hurt again. Then we're back to depending on unproven project rookies playing major roles.

It's all about what it's always been about, drafting well. We need to get back to hitting on 75-80% of our draft picks so that we don't have to keep going through these band aid free agent signings year after year.

 

[DJrmb]

Thank guys.

That's an absurd amount. But of those 16... how many in your opinion are resignable assets? I could see Chancellor getting a restructure. Britt and Marsh? Not sure about Jimmy.

That's the thing. Some of those guys won't even make the team THIS year... It's not as scary a number as it looks.

I could see Jimmy getting extended (and also lowering his cap number possibly)

Also Britt will be extended at some point. Kam I think they'll try to work out a deal to have him finish his career here.

The rest aren't all that important or are going to be evaluated over this season. Lacy and Joeckel are the only other guys that will cost some decent money if we want to bring them back. Maybe Luke Willson but I think they are ready to find his replacement which is why they only gave him 1 year this year.

 

[Attyla the Hawk]

I knew having 20 expiring contracts in one-offseason would spell trouble and it did.

.

Which is my concern for next off season

These situations may or may not be equivalent. It really depends on how well one is set up to replace these players (comments in red).

At this time Seattle will be projected to have 17 UFA's next year per Spotrac.com:

Jimmy Graham - none (Rookie option this year in strong class, or resign)
Luke Joeckel - (hedge for Glowinski/Odhiambo development)
Kam Chancellor - none (Rookie option this year, also extention candidate this year or next)
Eddie Lacy - none (likely not resigned. Also generically available UFA talent in any given year)
Bradley McDougald - none (possible Rookie option this year)
Luke Willson - Vannett
Garry Gilliam - Ifedi
Deshawn Shead - Elliott, Lane or likely rookie option
Blair Walsh - none.
Oday Aboushi - Glowinski/Odhiambo or rookie option in 2018/19)
Justin Britt - none. Priority resign
Perrish Cox - easily replaced with street UFA
Demetrius McCray - easily replaced with street UFA
Pierre Desir - Likely replaced with dev CB in draft 2018/19
Cassius Marsh - possible resign. Should be under 2m
Kevin Pierre-Louis - easily replaced with street UFA

When you break down the list, now it looks downright manageable. Seattle has really only three guys they have to truly consider resigning: Graham, Chancellor and Britt. Of those three, there are elite draft options available in 2017. How we predraft for need next month will give us a clue to what our future intentions are for these three. And in the cases of Graham and Chancellor -- those guys are getting into their third contracts. Teams have to tread carefully with those deals, since decline to age and injury is at an elevated risk. But just as important -- Chancellor and Graham are already on high value deals. Resigning them is a negligible bump (if indeed a bump at all) from their current cap figures.

The only hard must resign in this entire list is Britt as of today. Many of these UFAs are simply hedges for guys we just added last year. Meaning that draft strategy for 2018 probably rests on how those guys develop. Most of these UFAs we've added are merely bridge options to allow flexibility in the upcoming draft. And their quality is of a pretty generically replaceable level (Gilliam, Aboushi, McCray, Desir, Pierre-Louis, McDougald, Cox).

And we do have flexibility in dropping some contracts in 2018. Lane (should he again suffer a bad season), and Kearse. Those 2 contracts alone would account for Britt's increase and then some.

It looks like we've established a better bridge option for the OL this year as opposed to last year. Which is smart considering the lack of talent in the OL class this year. With the cap flexibility we enjoy -- we can still resign one or even two new faces if they should have standout seasons.

I am not intimately familiar with how Arizona was set up to account for their cap defections this year. Maybe they had guys waiting in the wings. Maybe not. Seattle added a LOT of talent last year. Eight rookies and 4 UDFAs made the active roster. We should assume about 8+ make it from this year's class. Seattle is setting themselves up well to reload with players steeping on the depth chart.

Overall, the # of players seems daunting. But on closer examination, it's really not at all that scary.

 

[mikeak]

Graham, Chancellor, Willson, Gilliam, Shead, Richardson, Britt, Joeckel, Lacy / Rawls -- total of 9 key positions that have to be replaced with good players for next year

Sure some of the others may not make the roster but a large group will and would have to be replaced so even if we say half - that is another 12-14 "less important" players needed to be added

 

[Attyla the Hawk]

Graham, Chancellor, Willson, Gilliam, Shead, Richardson, Britt, Joeckel, Lacy / Rawls -- total of 9 key positions that have to be replaced with good players for next year

I'd take serious issue with this characterization of key positions. The green players I'd deem key. Everyone else is pretty much not a key player. Richardson probably will end up an RFA, given the lack of accrued years due to injury.

I could see Joeckel being a resign. Maybe also one of the RBs. But that position is so generically replaceable with either day 2 rookie talent, or another garden variety UFA in 2018. The position is pretty undervalued and if we have to plow Lacy's cap number to a different UFA, then it's impact is nil. Joeckel, if he pans out, isn't going to be getting Okung money. So even if he gets a 3m bump from this year, that's not undoable.

So even if we assumed Lacy and Joeckel were key guys -- getting them back into the fold would not cost much more than we're already paying them. Similar could be said for Chancellor and Graham. The new money is pretty light.

Sure some of the others may not make the roster but a large group will and would have to be replaced so even if we say half - that is another 12-14 "less important" players needed to be added

Maybe. But many of those already have mirrors on the club. Their replacements are already here.

From an increased cap spend for this list of 2018 UFAs, we're probably talking about less then 10m in additional spend required to keep all of the players we want to retain. And if you were to just replace ONE of Chancellor or Graham, that cap savings would basically pay for the entire list. The rest of the roster spots will be plowed under with 2017 draftees or equivalent generic bridge UFA options in 2018.

You're definitely fixated on the # of UFAs. Those less important players are imminently replaceable, with very little expected cost in quality. Every team has to bridge holes. Luckily, our next years holes are either key guys already on high value deals, or guys who can be plowed under for virtually zero net cost.