Grade the Patriots 2021 Free Agency

[venecol]

That's such a lazy take by Lazar. The question isn't how much they spent given they entered FAcy with about $65M, but how it was spent. It's an absolutely valid question so we can learn from this unique experience. Let's not forget, as has been repeated over and over again, the main reason for this cap wealth was not having Brady on the roster. Thus, all the interest in how they spent that money.

 

[amfootball]

Here is what Kraft said to Peter King this week. Pretty telling. He knows this is not the best way to build a team to contend.

“We’ll see,” Kraft said with some caution. “I do remember we always made fun of the teams that spent a lot in the offseason. So we know nothing is guaranteed, and I’m very cognizant of that.”

---

Also from King: Per the website Over The Cap, here are the five teams that spent the most in free agency from 2017-20, with the composite spending and their regular-season records over the period:

1. Jacksonville, $494.1 million, 22-42.
2. N.Y. Jets, $463.0 million, 18-46.
3. Buffalo, $457.1 million, 38-26.
4. Detroit, $444.7 million, 23-41.
5. Cleveland, $436.2 million, 24-39-1.

 

[Ian]

If you read the first post of the thread it asked like 10 different things. Questions too uncomfortable to ponder perhaps.

Also, I didn't put my "spin" on any video or link. Clearly you didn't watch them. Maybe it's that hard to imagine that everyone is finding BB's moves generally underwhelming. If you don't care about the opinions of the media idiots, then why be offended.

The reason my thread was locked, is because some BB uberfan mod has a beef to pick with me and is tracking me and locking/banning anything I post that is critical of his prophet.

It's OK if you don't agree with the signings, but for the sake of not flooding the board with "everything sucks" types of posts, the mods are just trying to keep things fairly open. It's not an easy balance but it makes for an unproductive group of threads if they're just negative one after the other, page after page, etc. So that's all we're trying to avoid there.

 

[Kontradiction]

From PFF article on most overrated and underrated free agent signings. They list the following 6 underrated: J. Johnson III (CLE), T. Hill (CLE), M. Feiler (LAC), K. Zeitler (BAL), M. Hilton (CIN), C. Davis (NYJ).

These are the 6 overrated: B. Dupree (TEN), N. Agholor (NE), L. Floyd (LAR), R. Jenkins (JAC), T. Hendrickson (CIN), K. Drake (LV).

The Agholor deal: 2-years, $22M (up to $26M; $16M guaranteed)

"Agholor is being paid under the assumption that he can replicate his 2020 production and then some. The Raiders used him in a far different manner than the Eagles, who drafted him in the first round in 2015. Agholor went from predominantly residing in the slot to the outside, where he saw deep crossers and vertical shots in Jon Gruden's offense. He was a home run threat for Vegas who consistently ran hot and cold. Drops plagued the speedster (15% drop rate ranked sixth-to-last), and while he racked up 21 receptions of 15-plus yards, 13 of them came in four contests.

Even assuming New England can extract the better end of that boom-or-bust play in 2021, Agholor is overpaid relative to his counterparts. He ranked just 45th among 99 qualifiers in receiving grade in 2020 despite it being easily his most productive NFL season. We've seen enough from him to know what kind of receiver he is; in the five years prior to 2020, he ranked 73rd among 74 qualifying wide receivers in receiving grade.

This was one of several head-scratching signings by the Patriots early in free agency."

Underrated, overrated NFL free-agent signings for 2021: How the Browns improved, and which teams got the best value

PFF looks at each position and highlights the most overrated and underrated free-agency signings so far. Cleveland's move for John Johnson III and Troy Hill comes out on top, while the Bengals' decision to sign Trey Hendrickson comes under scrutiny.

www.pff.com

I have yet to see one positive take on the Agholor signing which is confusing given all of the "good" to "very good" WRs that were available. Is he an improvement? Yes, but why him?

He provides the kind of deep speed the team is sorely lacking. The problem with that is he’s a WR2 at best. Maybe the TEs can draw double teams consistently when we’re in 2, 12, or 22 personnel (assuming he’s the WR on the field in the last personnel grouping). But I still think we need to invest a draft pick in another burner. It’s a deep draft with quality options on days two and three.

 

[venecol]

the big problem is in your first line "from the PFF article"

PFF operates on the bold assumption that their analytics are worth a damn......

they got agholar on a 7 mil 2021 cap hit.......that's lower than any of the top half a dozen signings by a fair amount

he does what they need him to do.....and he fit their price structure

cap hit goes up a fair amount next year, but so does the cap......they filled a need this year at a relatively low cost, he fills a distinct need, and is a fit in the offense they are presumed to be running


sometimes there's "best" and sometimes there's "best fit" - agholor fills multiple "needs" on this team right now.......he gives you that X receiver deep threat, and he filled that need while maintaining maximum cap flexibility this year - they got the guy that filled a need and did it under terms that worked.......so right now it's a solid deal, and we'll see how it pans out on the field

reading his draft profile coming out of college, he's a good fit 2015 NFL Draft Scouting Report: Nelson Agholor

and he fits the team system How has Eagles’ Nelson Agholor become an ‘unsung hero’ of the offense? Mike Groh weighs in

JuJu was never coming here, and for that we should be thankful

I suppose it's fair to discount PFF but they're being used more and more by all national and sports media. It's just another source of information. Is there anything specific about their analysis that you object with?

Using "cap hit" as a measure is silly, specially for a team with the 3rd highest cap value entering FAcy. There were teams with much less cap value that signed more expensive players with low "cap hits." In any event, other better wide receivers could've been signed with the same "cap hit." It's not a valid factor in this discussion.

The argument that Agholor is the X receiver is the valid issue. The value of his flexibility is questionable since he was used differently in LV (more effective) than in PHI (much less effective).

His scouting report is irrelevant. After five seasons he is who he is.

 

[venecol]

He provides the kind of deep speed the team is sorely lacking. The problem with that is he’s a WR2 at best. Maybe the TEs can draw double teams consistently when we’re in 2, 12, or 22 personnel (assuming he’s the WR on the field in the last personnel grouping). But I still think we need to invest a draft pick in another burner. It’s a deep draft with quality options on days two and three.

This is a valid argument. Which other free agent WRs provided the deep speed the team lacked, and how many were true #1s?

 

[patsfanfromoversea]

He provides the kind of deep speed the team is sorely lacking. The problem with that is he’s a WR2 at best. Maybe the TEs can draw double teams consistently when we’re in 2, 12, or 22 personnel (assuming he’s the WR on the field in the last personnel grouping). But I still think we need to invest a draft pick in another burner. It’s a deep draft with quality options on days two and three.

Yep that's why a trade down with another late second/third rd. pick could provide us a shot at a good receiver. Brown/Eskridge/St.Brown/Moore/Wallace....

or the draft ammu to trade up in the second if we really like r.moore/ E. Moore / Bateman/ marshall

 

[Kontradiction]

This is a valid argument. Which other free agent WRs provided the deep speed the team lacked, and how many were true #1s?

None. Maybe Jackson but he’s at the end of his line and can’t stay healthy. Fuller is also a #2. He’s who I would have preferred. More sure handed than Agholor.

 

[yukon cornelius]

I suppose it's fair to discount PFF but they're being used more and more by all national and sports media. It's just another source of information. Is there anything specific about their analysis that you object with?

Using "cap hit" as a measure is silly, specially for a team with the 3rd highest cap value entering FAcy. There were teams with much less cap value that signed more expensive players with low "cap hits." In any event, other better wide receivers could've been signed with the same "cap hit." It's not a valid factor in this discussion.

The argument that Agholor is the X receiver is the valid issue. The value of his flexibility is questionable since he was used differently in LV (more effective) than in PHI (much less effective).

His scouting report is irrelevant. After five seasons he is who he is.

of course the scouting report is irrelevant, so is the article i linked......because they support the argument as to why Agholor is a great fit with this franchise

and the difference between fuller and algholor's 2021 cap hit is pretty much the total cost of the rookie contracts, so that allows them to maintain maximum flexibility - there's still more moves to come

 

[40yrpatsfan]

I give the Pats an A so far this offseason:
- they knew Thuney was going, and they addressed that without missing a beat in Trent Brown, with Onwenu filling Thuney's spot at G
- they got the 2 guys they wanted at WR
- they got the 2 best TE's on the market
- they addressed needs at every level of the defense
- all these guys are proven vets but still in their mid 20's, and all the deals are structured well cap-wise

They haven't addressed QB yet because there haven't been many options - just Fitzpatrick, and it's debatable he could walk in here and be better in his first year than Cam in his 2nd, plus he costs $10m and Cam is half that, plus he's 38 and to me he doesn't look like a guy that's gonna last much longer. Plus BB wants a juggernaut running game with play action, and Cam may be the better answer there cause he can run.

Also by filling so many other needs via FA, they give themselves the option to focus the entire upper part of the draft to landing a QB if that's what they want to do.

It's hard/impossible to juggle the cap vs talent every single solitary year over 20 years. They bottomed out last year, pretty much intentionally with Brady leaving and Covid upon us, so they could right the ship cap-wise. To me it's remarkable that they've been able to reload so quickly, all due to that strategy.

 

[venecol]

None. Maybe Jackson but he’s at the end of his line and can’t stay healthy. Fuller is also a #2. He’s who I would have preferred. More sure handed than Agholor.

Golladay? He wanted too much money but was probably the best left after Robinson and Godwin got tagged. He also only has a $4.5M cap hit (vs. $7M for NA), which according to some, makes him great value.

 

[venecol]

of course the scouting report is irrelevant, so is the article i linked......because they support the argument as to why Agholor is a great fit with this franchise

and the difference between fuller and algholor's 2021 cap hit is pretty much the total cost of the rookie contracts, so that allows them to maintain maximum flexibility - there's still more moves to come

The scouting report is irrelevant because we already have 5 NFL seasons to evaluate him.

difference between Golladay and Agholor's 2021 cap hit is almost the total cost of the rookie contracts, so that allows them to maintain maximum flexibility -

Can you see how the "cap hit" is a totally manipulated number that is not relevant as the reason for the signing? Brady's cap hit is about $9M! I think guaranteed money is more relevant.

 

[Kontradiction]

Golladay? He wanted too much money but was probably the best left after Robinson and Godwin got tagged. He also only has a $4.5M cap hit (vs. $7M for NA), which according to some, makes him great value.

I had actually forgotten about Galladay. Good call. Only 5 games last season but caught 11 TDs in 2019.

 

[Bill Lee]

That's such a lazy take by Lazar. The question isn't how much they spent given they entered FAcy with about $65M, but how it was spent. It's an absolutely valid question so we can learn from this unique experience. Let's not forget, as has been repeated over and over again, the main reason for this cap wealth was not having Brady on the roster. Thus, all the interest in how they spent that money.

Yeah, lazy, but it's pretty clear if they spent below-market they would be getting roasted no doubt, and if we're being honest, I was expecting them to spend below market. I thought we needed another year of trying to build via the draft, along with a small number of the kinds of signings we did make, but not this kind of volume this off season.

I already feel sorry for Agholor. He already is being called a bust just because of what his contract is, and even that isn't all together fair considering he isn't the best paid WR in the class. He just got out there early and because of that he is now in everyone's gun sights so he's taking fire.

And I'm OK with saying it's perhaps an over pay, although of course we should wait till we have a season to look back at to lock that in, but nope, today's media and culture wants a judgement before we have the data.

I'm not as OK with the whole "failure to read the market" stuff. It's akin to say you failed to predict tomorrow's DJIA closing price. No one has a time machine. He made some ballsy moves rather than just sitting on his hands, that means risk is involved. We should be happy BB had his pick of the litter and found someone he thinks is a great fit. Hopefully by the end of the season we're so happy with the results we don't need to nit pick contract prices.

I suppose it's fair to discount PFF but they're being used more and more by all national and sports media. It's just another source of information. Is there anything specific about their analysis that you object with?

Using "cap hit" as a measure is silly, specially for a team with the 3rd highest cap value entering FAcy. There were teams with much less cap value that signed more expensive players with low "cap hits." In any event, other better wide receivers could've been signed with the same "cap hit." It's not a valid factor in this discussion.

The argument that Agholor is the X receiver is the valid issue. The value of his flexibility is questionable since he was used differently in LV (more effective) than in PHI (much less effective).

His scouting report is irrelevant. After five seasons he is who he is.

Popularity is not a great measure of quality.

There's an old Scandinavian saying: Eat , a billion flies can't be wrong!

Being a nerd, I can say there is an element of nerd's revenge in analytics. Who needs to know about football, we can come up with a bunch of metrics and a bunch of algorithms and come up with a number and since we can never justify how we got the number with any rigor people just have to believe us.

Speaking of lazy journalism: All you have to do is compare two numbers, the bigger one wins, argument settled.

Human beings are great at comparing pairs of small integers, beyond that they struggle. PFF "scores" provides us with what we can deal with, but not enough to have a strong understanding of reality. There scores are a model of reality, but not a very good one, IMO.

 

[yukon cornelius]

The scouting report is irrelevant because we already have 5 NFL seasons to evaluate him.

difference between Golladay and Agholor's 2021 cap hit is almost the total cost of the rookie contracts, so that allows them to maintain maximum flexibility -

Can you see how the "cap hit" is a totally manipulated number that is not relevant as the reason for the signing? Brady's cap hit is about $9M! I think guaranteed money is more relevant.

Yeah, lazy, but it's pretty clear if they spent below-market they would be getting roasted no doubt, and if we're being honest, I was expecting them to spend below market. I thought we needed another year of trying to build via the draft, along with a small number of the kinds of signings we did make, but not this kind of volume this off season.

I already feel sorry for Agholor. He already is being called a bust just because of what his contract is, and even that isn't all together fair considering he isn't the best paid WR in the class. He just got out there early and because of that he is now in everyone's gun sights so he's taking fire.

And I'm OK with saying it's perhaps an over pay, although of course we should wait till we have a season to look back at to lock that in, but nope, today's media and culture wants a judgement before we have the data.

I'm not as OK with the whole "failure to read the market" stuff. It's akin to say you failed to predict tomorrow's DJIA closing price. No one has a time machine. He made some ballsy moves rather than just sitting on his hands, that means risk is involved. We should be happy BB had his pick of the litter and found someone he thinks is a great fit. Hopefully by the end of the season we're so happy with the results we don't need to nit pick contract prices.


Popularity is not a great measure of quality.

There's an old Scandinavian saying: Eat , a billion flies can't be wrong!

Being a nerd, I can say there is an element of nerd's revenge in analytics. Who needs to know about football, we can come up with a bunch of metrics and a bunch of algorithms and come up with a number and since we can never justify how we got the number with any rigor people just have to believe us.

Speaking of lazy journalism: All you have to do is compare two numbers, the bigger one wins, argument settled.

Human beings are great at comparing pairs of small integers, beyond that they struggle. PFF "scores" provides us with what we can deal with, but not enough to have a strong understanding of reality. There scores are a model of reality, but not a very good one, IMO.

the problem with PFF is they make grades without actually knowing much about what's going on.......did the G miss the block because he missed the block, or did the C call the wrong coverage?

did the WR make the drop on a ball that was catchable, or was the throw low and behind?


the numbers are a good starting point sometimes, but they are not the be all end all

 

[Biffins]

It's OK if you don't agree with the signings, but for the sake of not flooding the board with "everything sucks" types of posts, the mods are just trying to keep things fairly open. It's not an easy balance but it makes for an unproductive group of threads if they're just negative one after the other, page after page, etc. So that's all we're trying to avoid there.

It wasn't an "everything sucks" post. Not sure where you got that impression. Presumably you didn't read that brief thread and got the summary from someone else (the mod who locked it I guess)? It was a "did we overpay?" post. And with concern that most experts, who you may or may not give any credence to, concluding that we did overpay and did not get good value.

Either way, it's clear we want to just praise ourselves in a vacuum. Hopefully the results will be better than some of the expectations so far.

 

[Bill Lee]

the problem with PFF is they make grades without actually knowing much about what's going on.......did the G miss the block because he missed the block, or did the C call the wrong coverage?

did the WR make the drop on a ball that was catchable, or was the throw low and behind?


the numbers are a good starting point sometimes, but they are not the be all end all

Yeah, that stuff falls into the "can never justify how we got the number with any rigor" bucket.

 

[venecol]

Yeah, lazy, but it's pretty clear if they spent below-market they would be getting roasted no doubt, and if we're being honest, I was expecting them to spend below market. I thought we needed another year of trying to build via the draft, along with a small number of the kinds of signings we did make, but not this kind of volume this off season.

I'm with you, I was also expecting mid tier signings, but wanted him to go for it. I was shocked when he went bonkers spending like crazy on Monday. Overall I'm ok with what he did but it doesn't mean it was perfect and we can't learn from it (not that you're saying that).

I already feel sorry for Agholor. He already is being called a bust just because of what his contract is, and even that isn't all together fair considering he isn't the best paid WR in the class. He just got out there early and because of that he is now in everyone's gun sights so he's taking fire.

And I'm OK with saying it's perhaps an over pay, although of course we should wait till we have a season to look back at to lock that in, but nope, today's media and culture wants a judgement before we have the data.

I don't mean to imply Agholor is a bust at all. He's a risk but who isn't. I hope he has a similar year than last season (8 TD). That would be awesome and almost worth the $11M.

I'm not as OK with the whole "failure to read the market" stuff. It's akin to say you failed to predict tomorrow's DJIA closing price. No one has a time machine. He made some ballsy moves rather than just sitting on his hands, that means risk is involved. We should be happy BB had his pick of the litter and found someone he thinks is a great fit. Hopefully by the end of the season we're so happy with the results we don't need to nit pick contract prices.

Clearly he did what he thought was best. His most ballsy move was re-signing Cam. Not sure any other GM would've done that. No doubt we're Monday morning QBing but isn't that what a football forum is for? Lol

Popularity is not a great measure of quality.

There's an old Scandinavian saying: Eat , a billion flies can't be wrong!

Being a nerd, I can say there is an element of nerd's revenge in analytics. Who needs to know about football, we can come up with a bunch of metrics and a bunch of algorithms and come up with a number and since we can never justify how we got the number with any rigor people just have to believe us.

Speaking of lazy journalism: All you have to do is compare two numbers, the bigger one wins, argument settled.

Human beings are great at comparing pairs of small integers, beyond that they struggle. PFF "scores" provides us with what we can deal with, but not enough to have a strong understanding of reality. There scores are a model of reality, but not a very good one, IMO.

Yea, I'm not an analytics guy. I'm simply using them as data nothing more. I was reading up on their WAR and it seems nebulous at best. What other source of data do you use?

 

[RIpats88]

New England Patriots – NBC Sports Boston

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[venecol]

New England Patriots – NBC Sports Boston

Find the latest New England Patriots news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Boston.

www.nbcsports.com

He says motive for this is revenge over TFB winning a SB with TB. Lmao