NFL 2017-2018 Season

[Guard Dog]

The Patriots have bought Tom Brady a new weapon: Brandin Cooks from the Saints. They gave up a 1st & 3rd in the dradt to do it. Not a bad return for New Orleans who really are coming up on a rebuilding season or two: http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/saints-trade-wr-brandin-cooks-to-patriots-for-1st-and-3rd-round-picks/ar-AAo7Ou2?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp

[Gfted1]

Welp, the entire Dallas secondary has been poached. I'm pretty sure I could be a walk-on starter at this point.

[Bartimaeus]

My only regret is that the Packers didn't poach one of them...especially because we'd get all 4 compensatory picks even if we had taken two of them because of how many UFAs we've lost.

[Flouride]

Sweet, Ravens added a CB and a safety that should be upgrades over the guys they cut.

[Gfted1]

Sweet, Ravens added a CB...

 

 

[Bartimaeus]

What's weird is that cutting Tony Romo could've covered both Carr and Claiborne. Sure, there would have been some heavy dead money this year, but getting them both on 3 year-contracts would've made it workable. Instead, he's still being held on to on the hope of trading him, and free agency has passed the Cowboys by.

[Gfted1]

Meh. Claiborne has been a career disappointment, the first half of last season notwithstanding. Carr was the bigger loss just with his ability to never come off the field. Anthony Brown was a pleasant surprise for a 6th rounder though. There's a lot of holes to fill...

 

And iirc, cutting Romo wouldn't have freed cap space until 1 Jun, right?

[Bartimaeus]

For this year, more or less. Like I said, there'd have been a hefty dead cap penalty for this year...but if you sign your guy(s) on a 3 year deal and push their cap hits a year or two off into the future (which would be easy to do, and would make sense to do, because cutting Romo pre-June 1st means less cap space this year...which means more cap space in the next year or two, because his dead money would've normally been spread over the next couple of years instead of the majority of it hitting immediately like it would with a pre-June 1st cut). It being a pre or post-June 1st cut is not really a huge limiting factor EXCEPT for guys you might only want to sign for one year instead of multiple.

Edited March 25, 2017 by Bartimaeus

[Guard Dog]

Sign on a church in San Diego:

 

[Bartimaeus]

https://mobile.twitter.com/SlaterNFL/status/846512375729672192

 

"Tony Romo has taken situation very personally in Dallas and has distanced himself from teammates and coach who were "Team Dak" per source."

 

YO, WHEN ARE YOU GONNA LET HIM GO, GUYS

 

do right by tony, my foot

[Volourn]

It's a NFL team. What did you expect? This is the league that the owners don't even have to honour signed contracts (NFLPA deserves blame too for being annoyingly weak in negotiations).

 

Sign a guy for 7 years. that guy is stuck with you for 3 years no matter what. You can dump him after 3. LMAO

[Bartimaeus]

Technically, it's in their contracts that the teams can dump them. But yeah, it's a crappy player's union...and more, it's a crappy sport to be a player in, period, due to how many players are needed to fill out a roster. Football is too physically demanding, which means you have to have more players, which means you need to spread the money around in order to pay those players, which means those players get paid less, and it means they individually have less power, etc., etc.

 

Anyone who has options in multiple major sports should go anywhere but football - with brain (and other physical) damage, less pay, less guaranteed pay, and the possibility of being thrown out the door at almost any given second, it's just a no brainer to go elsewhere. Relatively speaking to the rest of us, though, it's not a terrible deal...but it could still be better.

Edited March 28, 2017 by Bartimaeus

[Gfted1]

Cowboys extend contracts of Scott Linehan, Rod Marinelli, Rich Bisaccia.

 

Interesting to nobody except me (), I think this is a nice move. 

[Volourn]

"Technically, it's in their contracts that the teams can dump them."

 

I know. That's why I didn't agrue the legalities. It is legal by the rules but it isn't honourable. And, like we both said, the NFLPA is at fault too.

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, it'd be neat to see how contracts would work if the players could opt out at any point, too. Of course, if that were the case, the league would probably want to get rid of guaranteed money entirely to make it a more equal playing field...if the players want something, they always have to give something up, unfortunately. I'm pretty sure they'd prefer to have more guaranteed money than being able to opt out of their own contracts for seeking not totally significantly more money - outside of a few cases where players are getting criminally underpaid outside of the rookie contract, anyways; also, the crappy rookie wage scale is a thing the NFLPA argued for in order to benefit veterans...but the situation hasn't honestly changed that much, because it's just made rookies that much more valuable by guaranteeing that they're cheap - but that's just conjecture. Teams would fight back that on anyways by only signing shorter deals with players "known" to be money-seekers, I think.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Bartimaeus

[Hurlshort]

Football seems to have the worst contract system for players in pro sports, which is crazy because it is the most lucrative to the owners and dangerous to the players.

[Gfted1]

I dunno. You cant give a 5-10 year guaranteed contract to someone whos career could be over in one play.

[Bartimaeus]

Football seems to have the worst contract system for players in pro sports, which is crazy because it is the most lucrative to the owners and dangerous to the players.

 

Players made roughly 4.96 billion of 6 billion revenue last year. That's not quite right, because that assumes that every team spent to their cap limit, but it is, at the very least, what is allocated to the players. That's roughly 83% of the NFL's revenue. I'm not sure how this compares to other sports, but it's not like it's INSANELY out of whack to split the last billion between 32 different owners. That's only 30 million per team per year.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

On a side-note, the split being so relatively small also explains why owners don't feel like paying for their own stadiums: it would take decades to pay off stadiums with the money they actually get from their NFL enterprises - never minding any other costs. Obviously, that doesn't make the NFL making cities pay for it instead any better, but it at least explains part of it.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Bartimaeus

[Volourn]

"I dunno. You cant give a 5-10 year guaranteed contract to someone whos career could be over in one play.     "

 

So.. are you suggesting that a player gets crippled working for the NFL they should be just thrown in the trash? If a team is worried that a player may not be able to get through a full 5+ year contract then sign him to a shorter term but don't sign someone for 5 years than go 'oops' half way through it. 

 

Look at AP as one exmaple. After his legal troubles were resolved he felt   let down by MINNY, he asked for his release, he was attacked for trying to get out of his contract, MINNY bullied and shamed him and forced him to stay on. He played well. Now, after a year wiped out by injury they uncermeoniouly dumped him no questions asked and everyone praises them for it.

 

 

EVIL.     

[Gfted1]

So.. are you suggesting that a player gets crippled working for the NFL they should be just thrown in the trash?

What's the alternative? Can a crippled player suit up? You going to carry a non-contributor on your books because your a good guy?

 

If a team is worried that a player may not be able to get through a full 5+ year contract then sign him to a shorter term but don't sign someone for 5 years than go 'oops' half way through it.

Personally I agree. However, the actual length of NFL contracts are smoke and mirrors. The true value can be seen in the guaranteed monies. Everything else is fluff.

[Volourn]

"You going to carry a non-contributor on your books because your a good guy?"

 

No. You pay him what you owe him (btw I think insurance and what not covers this already in most sports - see Chris Bosh in the NBA). It wouldn't count against your cap (for sports that have caps which pretty mucha ll major team sports have now one way or another even thoguh MLB is a 'soft' cap).

 

 

. "However, the actual length of NFL contracts are smoke and mirrors. The true value can be seen in the guaranteed monies. Everything else is fluff."

 

Yup.

[Gfted1]

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo set to retire.

[Bartimaeus]

Probably didn't like sitting around for a couple of months not knowing what was going to happen. Take the easy job at CBS, Tony: may you be a better announcer than awful Phil Simms.

[Gfted1]

Cowboys officially release Tony Romo.