Are Sims or Reed Poised for a Breakout Season?

You're equating a lower cap number to a better team. It doesn't work like that no matter how you twist it.

Spending more money doesn't give teams an advantage. Spending less money doesn't give teams a disadvantage.

If your theory were true, every team would spend every cent they possibly could, because somehow a lower dollar amount means your team wins more.

 

See the part that I bolded? That's the problem. You believe because we were ranked x in free agent spending that we must be doing a good job or all is right in the universe or whatever other positive line of thinking you want to espouse. We are at a competitive disadvantage. If you don't understand that, this is a meaningless conversation. Or put another way, you said having $48mil in unused cap is not ideal. Why not?

Do you understand that 2 players could be as cheap as $10mil combined or as expensive as $30mil? Really depends on how we structure the contracts and a lot of that has to do with what risk we place on that free agent. A one hit wonder like Bouye you might not want to give him $13-15mil in year one so you can get out of the contract earlier should he not play well. Other more established players you might give them top dollar from day 1. We also have the option of front loading contracts so they get cheaper each year instead of more expensive which makes the year 1 cost much higher. And this is within the context of knowing we do have Mariota and Lewan on the horizon so it also depends on how they plan on handling those contracts...front load, backload, various guaranteed years, certain up or down cap years, blah blah blah. So I made it simple...we could sign 1 or 2 big time free agents at least. Realistically it could be 4 depending again upon structure of contracts. So that plays a major role in whether it's one guy or four guys. Point is, get that money on the field...not leaving it in the bank.

The one thing you got right!!!

Nope! You realize we can spend money on free agents to make our team BETTER, right?

But I like how you make up one thing I didn't say and interpret it to be something else I didn't say (I said the opposite).

Clearly you and I have different ideas of what 'needs' are. Clearly you think having a player play a positions prevents it from being a need or major need because a guy MIGHT develop. With this kind of thinking, nothing is a major need to you because we will always have someone who might develop.

Let's see, do we know if we have a good starting NT? No. We needed to upgrade MLB next to Williamson...did we do that? Nope. Do we know if we have a good starting nickel? Nope. And we're not even sure Adoree or Reed are ready to start. Byard is a question mark and so is Cyprien and so is Searcy. Not sure if we have 2 good starters and could have used more talent here. Also need quality depth at OLB which we only addressed very late in the draft. On offense our OG situation is a question mark moving forward. When you don't have cap space to deal with these issues, you sign some cheaper free agents and hope you got the right guy or you add a draft pick. Adding several $4-5mil guys and hope we get a solid starter is not as effective as paying a known star player $9-10mil who will lock down the position and be an upgrade. For example, I'd rather have paid Brandon Williams $9-10mil/year to fix NT over signing Sly Williams and Cyprien to over $9mil combined to get 0-2 starters who are unlikely to be as effective as BW at his position. A dominant NT in this defense makes a huge difference. And that's not even adding extra cap spending.

We have a lot of question marks. Some of those question marks could not only be solved, but be difference makers on offense or defense.

Great...another year of hoping some of our players will pan and out and when they don't and it costs us winning games, we can be happy that next year we have a ton of cap (we'll only use a small portion of) and we got better while a different team wins the Super Bowl! Great plan!

 

See the part I bolded? I literally have been saying the opposite. Please QUOTE ME if you believe I'm saying what you are suggesting. Nice try.

Since your belief is that cap spending has nothing to do with who wins and who doesn't, please point out a team that won a Super Bowl with $50mil in unused cap space. Waiting...

How about you just point to a team that WENT to the Super Bowl with $50mil in unused cap space? If it doesn't make a difference, it would have happened, right?

Your logic is seriously flawed.

Pointing out that not every free agent will work out is less about the players and more about the GM's and the coaches not knowing how that player will translate into their system. There is a reason bad teams tend to stay bad teams despite having more cap space (because they don't have a qb) and higher picks because of who the GM and coaches are. They make bad decisions in all facets of the game, not just in free agency so you'll always be able to point at a free agent and say see, that guy busted so we are smart not to spend money and leave it under our mattress instead. If you truly believe that, why are the Pats NOT paying Tom Brady top dollar just so they can have more cap to spend on players??? If it doesn't matter, shouldn't they be paying Brady what he's worth?

There are players you might take a chance on and you protect yourself by structuring the contract in such a way that limits your cap commitment and allows you to get out of it quickly should that player not pan out. But you know this since you 'know this stuff better than me.'

So if you think taking chances on players isn't a good idea (Sly Williams and Cyprien fall into this category), wouldn't it be smarter to sign a 'known' free agent instead of two hopeful ones? Say Brandon Williams instead of the other two players and we'd still have the same cap?

And then spend some of that cap on other upgrades! Didn't the Giants just buy a much better defense last free agency and went from near bottom to top 10? How could that happen if spending money in free agency is just spending money and doesn't really help you?

 

Please explain exactly how it does work if you think adding talent to the roster doesn't make you better. This will be fun!

So we can spend nothing and have the same team since spending more or less has no effect? Tell that to the purge when we lost McNair and several of our key contributors because we didn't have the cap space anymore. Clearly the team was just as good, right? WRONG!

The ONLY theory that is true is that better players on the field will tend to yield better results given all conditions being equal. Since they are NOT equal (ie Belicheck is a better coach than everyone else), you can not be behind the talent curve and expect to give yourself your best chance to beat them and win. Could it happen? Yes, but you're trying to give yourself your best chance to win, not A chance to win.

Teams don't spend every last cent because then you create cap problems for yourself but you will notice that the vast majority of the league is between 0-$20mil in cap space. We have more than double that maximum amount!

Clearly adding a few star players couldn't help this team!!! What was I thinking?!?!?

 

Looking at the 2016 numbers, the Vikings, Jets, Rams, Chargers, and Bills were 5 of the top 6 teams with the least amount of salary cap space remaining. How did that work out for them, again?

 

I thought you said you knew this stuff better than me. Why don't you show me the answer to your own question? It's rather simple!

 

Look dude, we all understand that acquiring talent is the key to a winning team... But that's not really what you've been preaching. You're stuck on numbers. The Titans acquired players that the people in charge thought are talented enough to help the team win. Would you have been happier if they added a few million to each contract to get to your magic winning number?

Who exactly did you want to go out and spend 20-30 more mil on? From what I remember, FA was pretty weak at the positions the Titans needed.

 

Remember we were clearly in the Hightower sweepstakes, or could of had an injury prone Jeffrey/one year wonder Pryor

 

Mariota's not even in his prime yet, not even close. By 25 or 26 if we keep building correctly instead of throwing money at overrated players we will be fine.

 

Really?!?!? Because that's EXACTLY what I've been preaching!!!

If it's all about acquiring talent, why wouldn't you want MORE TALENT on the team when we have the means to get MORE TALENT in free agency???

I've said from day 1 it's about maximizing your resources. That's not only acquiring more talent, but doing it efficiently and getting the most bang for your buck. Suggesting us holding $48mil in 'reserve' is something good means you don't agree with maximizing our resources ON THE FIELD! Suggesting I'd be happier adding millions of dollars to contracts to run up the cap space literally goes AGAINST what Ive been saying from day 1...so why would wasting cap make me happy.

Clearly you either are not reading my posts or simply don't understand what maximizing our resources means even though I've spelled it out on numerous posts (including this one). Suggesting we blow cap for the sake of blowing cap shows me you are the one stuck on numbers and miss the whole point...which is odd, since it's the first thing you said (I bolded it) in this post!