NFL News NFL Free Agency 2022 edition

[JarOfMayo51]

No they won’t because they value depth in receivers over top end talent.
It’s the system. Overspending on one player means you need to complete the position group cheaply or short another one. The model does not believe in sacrificing one position to beef up another and the offensive scheme relies on spreading the ball around. If you pay a WR 25 mill you need to get 1500 yards out of them. People mistakenly think that is additive, but it’s not. Spreading the targets between 5 players somewhat equally is the system rather than forcing the ball to 1 and reducing the other 4.

This assumes that you have 4-5 solid depth receivers for one, and also an elite QB that can make decisive reads to quickly and accurately get the ball out to those wide receivers

If it was as easy as having a bunch of jags at WR and just spreading the all around to be successful, lots of other teams would be trying to replicate it and I can’t recall very many teams that neglect and/or fail to develop the WR position the way the Patriots do

 

[Ring 6]

This assumes that you have 4-5 solid depth receivers for one, and also an elite QB that can make decisive reads to quickly and accurately get the ball out to those wide receivers

If it was as easy as having a bunch of jags at WR and just spreading the all around to be successful, lots of other teams would be trying to replicate it and I can’t recall very many teams that neglect and/or fail to develop the WR position the way the Patriots do

It doesn’t assume anything, it’s the approach and system the Patriots choose to implement.
It’s not a matter of easy, it’s a matter of having an approach to complementary football. Yes, many teams do it differently. Whatever team pays Metcalf 25 mill a year will be choosing to either pair him with jags or overspend on the WR position at the express of others.
That is not how the patriots do it.

I’m not sure how you figure the Patriots “neglect or fail to develop the WR position” when in the last 20 years their average rank in passing yards is 8 (7 if you discount the newton debacle) were in the top half of the league every year but the newton debacle, were top 5 40% of those years, top 10 60% of them and had an average ranking of 6 (5 if you don’t count the newton debacle) in points scored.
Someone was catching all those passes.

The point isn’t that they don’t field an effective receiving squad, it’s that you don’t like the way they do it.
The larger point is that by doing it the way they have, they also have more resources to spend on other areas of the team, such as OL,DL,RB,TE,LB,DB which has resulted in the most balanced and dominating run in the history of the sport.
Yes we don’t have gaudy WR stats. We don’t draft WRs in the early rounds every year. But we use resources to build a better team overall.

The real proof of the system is last year. With a ROOKIE QB we had an offense that was top 10 in virtually every metric, #6 in scoring and #2 in % of drives scoring on. Arguably if not for the rookie mistake Ints that largely cost them the NO, Miami, Buffalo and Indy games they would have been a 1 seed. With THOSE WRs.
Hopefully Mac learns to not throw the back breaking Ints in year 2.

 

[JarOfMayo51]

There’s no way the Bucs take him back (Antonio Brown) after he openly quit on the team and publicly rooted for them to fail on social media

Also, interesting strategy to not deal with his ankle injury in the offseason, and instead expecting a team to sign him just to have him immediately go to IR….

This guy is something else lol

 

[Guts]

 

[Guts]

Woods was a cap casualty, yet they manage to sign Wagner...I don't get it

 

[venecol]

Woods was a cap casualty, yet they manage to sign Wagner...I don't get it

They're not f*king around. Good signing by them.

 

[Guts]

They're not f*king around. Good signing by them.

Great signing..still playing at a All Pro level

 

[Sicilian]

Directed to that first rumor site:

 

[Steve102]

Woods was a cap casualty, yet they manage to sign Wagner...I don't get it

Yeah same. I know cap is crap but these guys are just loading up like they are the Yankees. I can't figure it out.

 

[VectorPrime]

Woods was a cap casualty, yet they manage to sign Wagner...I don't get it

He wasn’t a cap casualty. They had the chance to take his money and pay a guy who has almost identical production and is nearly the same age but isn’t coming off a torn ACL and took it. Rough business but that’s sports.

What eventually happens with OBJ is far more interesting.

 

[SHOWTIME15]

Great signing by the defending champs. Wagner is only 31 years old and had 170 tackles last year.

 

[Deus Irae]

Yeah same. I know cap is crap but these guys are just loading up like they are the Yankees. I can't figure it out.

There are going to be some huge cap jumps coming up. So you sign a player now, backload the deal, and adjust as you need to in 2023-2025.

 

[Hyped]

Yeah same. I know cap is crap but these guys are just loading up like they are the Yankees. I can't figure it out.

Large signing bonus and a low first year salary....along with voidable years. Wagner won't be a Ram in 5 years.

 

[VectorPrime]

Looking forward to the follow up to this Rams fan site article why it’s actually a good thing that the team doesn’t seem to be signing Wagner anymore.

Rams shouldn't lose too much sleep if Bobby Wagner signs elsewhere

Bobby Wagner’s free agency decision might be imminent, if Richard Sherman’s teasing tweet is to be believed. He’s drawn interest from the Rams, Ravens and Cowboys since the Seahawks cut him, though Dallas is reportedly out of the running now. So it would seem

theramswire.usatoday.com

 

[Ross12]

Per Overthecap.com, in 2024, the Patriots currently have 16 players signed and $71M in active cap spending. The Rams currently have 18 players signed and $183M in active cap spending. That doesn't include Wagner, so it's most likely 19 players and around $193M or more. Essentially, 3 more players signed for about 170% more cost.

I'm not necessarily knocking them - they are taking an interesting approach by essentially signing a ton of big deals that are backloaded into years with projected large salary cap increases. Once explosive salary cap growth cools off, they'll be in a weak position, but I would guess by that time they hope to have a few rings to show for it (already got 1).

 

[Ring 6]

Woods was a cap casualty, yet they manage to sign Wagner...I don't get it

The first year cap hit is very small.
Here is an example.
Judon signed a 4 year 54.5 million contract with a first year cap hit if 6.3 million.
Pre 2024 he will have a 15 million cap hit and a 4.5 mill dead money.
So if he was a 2024 cap casualty, he could be cut, and someone signed to his exact same contract and you would save 4.2 million on the cap.
10.5 mill savings by cutting him and 6.3 mill cap hot for the new guy. But you have also committed 48.2 mill in cap charges to the next 3 years.

It would be almost the same as extending him, converting most of his salary to signing bonus. In this case though you replace him and eat 4.5 mill.

This is how these teams do it. They release highly paid players in order to replace them with another.

Another example that the patriots could do now:

Allen Robinson signed a 3 yr 46.5 mill deal and the first year hit is 4.3 mill
The patriots could have cut agholor, are 10,000,000 but saved 4.8 and used that on Robinson.
But they would then be paying Robinson 42.2 for the next 2 years after effectively paying him 14.3 this year.

 

[Ring 6]

The “patriots system” is as obsolete as an Edsel now that TB12 is gone.
We captured lightning in a bottle with Brady. Now that he is gone its time to evolve as an organizatiion.

Need elite playmakers at a couple of positions

Absolutely not, it’s actually even more critical now.

That approach produced an offense that was top 10 in virtually every metric, 6th in scoring, 2nd is % of drives scored, with a rookie Qb, who was theb5th one drafted. It was among the few if not THE most productive rookie QB offense ever.
Had that rookie QB not made rookie mistakes throwing crucial Ints to cost them some games, they probably would have been the 1 seed.
The people here who say the team has no talent can’t seem to reconcile that. Either they are wrong about the talent or don’t understand just how effective the philosophy is.

Look at it this way.
They were 10-7 with a rookie QB.
8 teams were better.

These were those 8 QBs and hoe many games better
Brady. 3
Rodgers 3
Mahomes. 2
Allen. 1
Prescott. 2
Stafford. 2
Murray. 1
Tannehill 2

If you switch QBs how many of those teams won more than the Patriots?

So QB aside how many teams had better “other 52” players?

 

[mgteich]

Woods was a cap casualty, yet they manage to sign Wagner...I don't get it

Perhaps Wagner is preferred over Woods.

I also believe that there is savings in the 2022 cap.

 

[ashley]

And the rich get richer....great signing though.

 

[kennyb]

I do understand cap hit vs avg salary. I didn't realize there was such a big difference for these 2 jags.

And yes, godcheaux is the epitome of a jag. Bb was bidding against himself, buying a cheap vw for audi prices. Can't find a half dozen guys on practice squads etc as good as this huy?

Algohor is worse. A part time wr getting ",only 11m per year". To what? Alligator arm balls and play 50% of the snaps? 5% of the cap for that? Expensive alligator!

Smith was just a whiff. But a horrendous one. "Top o' the market stevie!" Too bad they didn't check to see if he could learn a playbook. Oh well. Not like he'd be hard to cut. Doh!

This is what you get when you can't draft.