1 Year FA philosophy - risky?

[DJrmb]

You don't get comp picks for guys who leave in FA after being on a 1 year deal...

You most certainly do. In fact, you don't even have to be on the team for a year. NE will get a comp pick for Michael Floyd who they claimed off waivers with 3 games to go in last season.

Doesn't look like he will qualify for anything considering he's still unsigned and will undoubtedly be suspended to start the season.

But either way, Floyd counts because the contract that he was under and expired this year was a multi year deal before his contract expired. Single year deals do not qualify.

Your understanding on compensatory picks is incorrect. There are many examples but even just this year the Kansas City Chiefs received a 6th round compensatory pick for Tyvon Branch who was in Oakland in 2014, signed a 1 year deal with KC for 2015, and then signed with Arizona the following year. So single year deals do indeed qualify for compensatory picks.

 

[A-Dog]

IMO the reasons for the Seahawks in particular signing a lot of one-year players has nothing to do with motivation or comp picks.

There is a sea change coming, so to speak, over the next two years. The org wants as much flexibility as possible to carry out this change to maximum effect.

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.

This draft has a very deep talent pool. It's critical the Hawks pull out a good draft. If they do it's very possible we get 6+ future starters out of the draft and UDFA this year. We nail this draft and keep Wilson healthy and we have a Patriots-like SB window. We just need enough to get us through 1-2 years of transition while the young guys turn in to starts and pro bowlers. So these 1-year guys hold things down and give the rookies a year to develop before they're thrown in to prominent roles.

Lastly, the big contracts are ending - either they expire, are extended, or terminated a year early to open cap space, all dependent on the performance and prospects for future performance of each individual player. JG, Kam, Avril, Sherm, KJ, Earl... along with mid-level contracts like Kearse and Lane. The team will keep who they want, let the ones they want go. They can open up oodles of cap space if they want to splash in FA - not on the Cary Williams of the world, but top players who carry little risk of performing poorly.

It's gonna be big. This is the last year the team will make a run before big changes happen. The Seahawks have a solid chance but they weren't gonna mortgage the future for 2017. Title or no, everything will start changing dramatically after this year.

It's brilliant planning by Pete and John - lining all this up perfectly. The key is pulling it off, and the first big part of that is this draft.

It's interesting looking back on this thread. A few things happened since I posted this - most prominently the injuries to Fant and McDowell, and the subsequent "panic" trades for Richardson and Brown. The Hawks had a really solid plan to not mortgage their future but it was undone by those tragic injuries, and in the end they traded away significant draft capital to patch the holes, to no avail. Additionally, the young guys on the OL didn't pan out as hoped. The Hawks can save a little face by re-signing Richardson and Brown, but safe to say plan A didn't work out and neither did plan B.

At any rate, it was a good run, but the Sea Change is upon us.

 

[mikeak]

Injuries happen. If the "key injuries" (I don't agree that those were the key injuries) are to a guy that was awful last year and secondly to a rookie then the team gambled it all on predictable injuries. They simply will happen. It is one thing to have a sack leader or QB that you can't lose but that is about it for allowable injuries you can't overcome.

We did 1 year deals and we did short term trades in the hope of winning it all. It failed and while we don't have to rebuild it directly lead to having to shead players and create cap room

 

[Uncle Si]

Injuries happen. If the "key injuries" (I don't agree that those were the key injuries) are to a guy that was awful last year and secondly to a rookie then the team gambled it all on predictable injuries. They simply will happen. It is one thing to have a sack leader or QB that you can't lose but that is about it for allowable injuries you can't overcome.

We did 1 year deals and we did short term trades in the hope of winning it all. It failed and while we don't have to rebuild it directly lead to having to shead players and create cap room

I'd like to see the team take on a few 1 year contracts to vets to remain competitive as they find long term replacements for the key players who are gone or going

 

[A-Dog]

Injuries happen. If the "key injuries" (I don't agree that those were the key injuries) are to a guy that was awful last year and secondly to a rookie then the team gambled it all on predictable injuries. They simply will happen. It is one thing to have a sack leader or QB that you can't lose but that is about it for allowable injuries you can't overcome.

We did 1 year deals and we did short term trades in the hope of winning it all. It failed and while we don't have to rebuild it directly lead to having to shead players and create cap room

You don't think your left tackle and 3-tech are key? How are the injuries in any way "predictable?" This was not a CJ Procise situation. If your point is that the team lacked depth, then sure. At any rate, those players were key enough that the team traded away high draft picks to replace them without them seeing the field in the regular season.

The team did not go all in on trying to win it all in 2017... they signed the one-year deals to have at least a minimal chance at competing. And signing the 1-year deals in no way led to having to shed players - in fact it makes it easier to keep players because we no longer have guys like Joekel and Lacy eating up cap space.

Everything in last year's offseason was done with a clear focus on 2018 and beyond.

 

[mikeak]

I think a guy that was AWFUL as a rookie can't be the difference between being a contender and not making the playoffs

The signings this past year spent a lot of money that then don't roll over to the future. They were in general bad deals for bad players..

The money spent on Joeckel and Lazy is why we don't have Sherman on this team any longer.

 

[A-Dog]

I think a guy that was AWFUL as a rookie can't be the difference between being a contender and not making the playoffs

The signings this past year spent a lot of money that then don't roll over to the future. They were in general bad deals for bad players..

The money spent on Joeckel and Lazy is why we don't have Sherman on this team any longer.

1. Fant being Awful is your opinion, not a fact. He showed a lot of promise, improved as the season went along, and had a great offseason. I do not accept this premise.

2. How do you mean "money that don't then roll over?" Do you mean we could have rolled over unused cap space? So you are suggesting that, rather than sign 1-year contracts, sign nobody? You are suggesting, in 20/20 hindsight, that we should have not even tried to compete in 2017? I don't see how that would go over with the fans, or within an organization that stresses "always compete?"

3. Sherman is not on this team because a) he had an $13M cap hit and could save the team $11M in cap space by cutting, b) was in the last year of his deal going in to his age 30 season, c) had a major season-ending injury. It was always questionable whether Sherman would be around for 2018 - this is pretty much true of any player at his age at the end of a huge contract, and the injury made the decision easy for Seattle.

I don't see any stretch of logic that could connect losing Sherman with the 1-year contracts given to Joeckel and Lacey.