fisher "Not going anywhere"

Discussion in 'Tennessee Titans and NFL Talk' started by Fry, Dec 17, 2006.

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  1. Childress79

    Childress79 Loungefly ®

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    Cap issues

    Cap management has changed in the last few years because of impending end of the collective bargaining aggreement(CBA).

    Prior to the new deal this year teams were limited to signing players to 4 yr deals due to the uncertainty of the future cap figures. The result of this was that teams moved away from 6 & 7 yr contracts (other than their 'star' players) with back loaded deals.

    The old method of longer deals with inflated final yrs & unpayable bonuses like McNairs is what lead teams into cap hell.

    A players signing bonus would be spread pro rata accross the deal to minimise the hit. Every time such a player renegotiated his deal to 'help' the team, he'd take a new bonus to do it which again would be spread and the end result was that long after a player was a productive player for the team;sometimes even after they'd left the team,their protracted contract still counted against the cap.

    At our worst point maybe 15%-20% of our cap hit was taken up with contracts of players who were no longer with the team. Clearly that hurts a teams ability to maintain a quality roster.

    The type of 4 yr deals teams were limited to due to the CBA uncertainty forced teams to manage their players contracts more intelligently.The in thing now is to pay a players bonus money up front if you have cap space to do it. This better managent of contracts is why next year so many teams in the league will have money to burn.

    The higher cap has added to this & will mean that ultimately the players will demand more and eventually teams will feel the pressure to resort to the old types of contracts to meet the demands & keep their teams together. Now is the time to resign all of our core players to long deals before the wage demands jump to extortionate levels.

    Even teams like the Colts who are on the verge of a cap nightmare have been given a lifeline out of it. With the amount of cash available over the next two yrs,careful management can see them through. If they stick to the draft & avoid big money free agents they will survive without without enduring any wilderness yrs.

    Looking at it right now, any team that puts itself in cap hell will have been mismanaged very badly. Needless to say though player demands will rise & SB contenders will always feel the pressure to spend to keep their run alive. No matter how big the cap gets ,sooner or later another team will find itself in cap hell again.

    I 'm sure the Titans & Reeese have learned from the experience & we ought not to fall into the trap again.
     
  2. Alex1939

    Alex1939 Space Invaders Champion

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    Has no one brought up the exceptional free agent acquisitions of the past... like Carl Pickens and Yancy Thigpen.


    I've been ready for Floyd Reese to go for a long time. What concerns me more than his questionable drafting, is his ability to structure contracts. I didn't like Givens 4 year contract from the start. It's those kind of gambling decisions that concern me.

    The Titans are an example to every other NFL team of exactly how bad things can get when you land in cap hell. Yes, It's over now and our young guys are coming together and playing well. If you are happy with making 3-4 year run at top dollar and then fall into disarray where we have to release the majority of our starters just to field a team, then I see where you support Reese. I'd rather see us actually be able to keep a guy for his entire career, pay top dollars to those that deserve and earn it, and try to keep competitive year in and year out, then go crazy spending for a few years, just to get burnt down the line.

    The Patriots ARE the example of how you manage your cap and run a team. They stay competitive. They let go of people they would have to overpay to keep the people that matter. And I know, not everyone can be the patriots. But you can at least learn from their example.
     
  3. They guy was great as a rookie (played a lot when Robertson was injured) and was the starter the next year. He even had a TD in the first game in 2001 before he tore his ACL. The kid was a great pick. It's not Floyd's fault he gut hurt.

    Because Fisher said to cut him after training camp, not because Reese didn't want him.

    Reese's job was to win with the roster they had at the time. He did what he could do to boost the roster, and the Carter deal was considered a coup at the time. Can't blame Reese.

    He was a great draft pick in the 6th round. He developed into a good starting center and was a big free agent signing last offseason. And Reese said he tried to match Carolina's offer but Hartwig chose Carolina over the Titans.

    Hall isn't that great, but we got good production out of him seeing as he was a 7th rounder. Hell, we even got a 5th round draft pick in exchange for him, which I consider an excellent deal by Reese.

    Calico was injured. The fact that he was inconsistent as a rookie isn't unusual. Lots of good WRs don't do anything until year 3, and he had great potential. As for being a 1st round pick, no one ever said Reese considered him as a 1st round pick...

    Both have shown talent and that they are legitimate NFL players. However, Odom hasn't been healthy enough and LaBoy is better suited to a strictly passrushing role.

    Amano has played well when called upon. He's not going to be a great starter, but he'd be solid. And guess what... he was a 7th round pick. Great pick even if he never becomes a great player.

    He looked very good as a rookie before the ACL, and has looked good again considering he is just a year removed from reconstructive surgery.

    He has been good at RT. And it's not as if Runyan was pro bowl RT right off the bat.

    No, I give Reese credit with drafting a capable starting NFL CB in the 7th round. There were a ton of CBs drafted ahead of him who haven't done nearly as well...

    Again, like Walker, Henry was playing under his rookie contract. They didn't have to worry about carrying his cap number for a while before they could trade him. There was no way to carry the multi-million salaries of Mason or Rolle long enough to trade them.

    Most of them.

    He did what Bud told him to do, which was to win now. Teams often go for broke in order to win ASAP knowing that their current core won't be around much longer.

    Keeping them around as long as he did helped keep them contenders. The alternative to cap jail was letting more good player so earlier. Like I said, they could have traded Mason and Rolle after 2002 and given up on being contenders for a few years.

    Cutting those guys when they did got them under the cap, but keeping them that long was the only alternative to giving up with McNair still in his prime.
     
  4. Gunny

    Gunny Shoutbox Fuhrer

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    Pickens was one of the best WRs in the league when we signed him.

    Thigpen was as well.

    You can't help injuries. And you can't blame injuries on the GM. Same goes for Givens.
     
  5. Apples and oranges. Trading an expensive veteran is not nearly the same as trading a cheap player under his rookie contract.

    No, his job description is to build a Super Bowl champion (realistically a serious contender) before Bud dies. He built a contended and did what he could to keep that team together while they were strong.

    They didn't succeed and Eddie didn't get his renegotiation.

    I'm sure he didn't, but Reese wasn't going to match the offer from Philly.

    As I see it, he got a decent draft pick rather than getting nothing had they been forced to just cut him for cap reasons later on. No one else was interested in McNair. Supply and demand...
     
  6. Thigpen was the top WR available when we got him. It wasn't a bad signing at the time, he just couldn't stay healthy.

    As for Pickens, he signed a cheap contract so it wasn't a bad deal.

    I'd take 6 years with a contending roster (1999-2004) followed by 2 years of rebuilding any time. Just ask a Bengals, Cardinals, or Texans fan...

    Then you'd better build a time machine and go back to the pre-salary cap era. The days of keeping all the players you want to for as long as you want are gone...

    They did a great job, mainly because they found a true franchise QB in the 6th round of the draft. But the cap has bled them of a lot of talent at this point. And their assistant coaches have all moved on to better jobs. They are still good, but not what they once were. Their drafting, for all the hype they got (again, because of Brady mainly), isn't good enough to fill all the holes the cap creates in their roster.
     
  7. Alex1939

    Alex1939 Space Invaders Champion

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    We didn't need to pursue someone like Givens with a 4-year deal. Why didn't we go after, i dunno, Stallworth, Lelie, someone else that we could have gotten cheap at a 1 year deal? That is better cap management for players that have shown as much promise as Givens.

    Yancy Thigpen had 7 seasons before coming to the Titans, 2 excellent. The other 5 aren't worth mentioning and he was injured in 96. Had great season in 97, and then we signed him in 98.

    Maybe Floyd just has a gift for picking WRs that are going to be injury proned. :ha: Maybe that's not really funny.

    Build a time machine and go back to pre-cap era? I never said anything about keeping ALL the players i would want us to. But I'd like to think that we could hire a GM that could guarantee Vince Young stay a Titan his entire career assuming we want that. Which I do.

    Oh yes, the Patriots are truly suffering losing all those assistant coaches and all that talent. Oh wait, they are winning their division and have another legitimate shot at a Superbowl. They do a good job of replacing people in an inexpensive way.

    I don't know what's so wrong that I would like a GM that could have the same philosophy. I just think Reese overpays FAs before they have earned it. I would rather us go cheap so we can pay our real talent to stick around here.

    We've had 3 crappy years and seen every one of our past prime players shown the door, some in pretty bad fashion. And some of those players are doing pretty well on other teams.

    Well hey, we are in good cap shape now. If Floyd sticks around, I just hope in 6 years we aren't having to lock-out Vince. Watch Bulluck and Pacman playing for the Ravens. Seeing Roos be the left tackle that helps Brady through his final years.

    But hey, maybe we'll be a little smarter next time around.
     
  8. Gunny

    Gunny Shoutbox Fuhrer

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    Patriots are winning a weakish division and clearly are not the team they once were.
     
  9. Gut

    Gut Pro Bowler

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    Nice!

    Good post!!! :yes:
     
  10. Gut

    Gut Pro Bowler

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    Sk...

    GREAT? He started ONE game. People thought LT was good after getting some part time play and look how GOOD he is. And LT is our starting FS. Is that an indication that he's good?!?!? With so little playing time, you can't say he was a great pick. I don't blame Reese for him getting injured, but there is NO PROOF that he was good and would have become a good S.

    Adams hasn't exactly been a Pro Bowl LB we let go. He's almost entirely been a backup.

    Why can't I blame Reese? Maybe you like the system of maxing out our talent only to dump the players for free...have terrible teams for a few years (which is really like taking money from the fans since they aren't even fielding much of a competitive team) only to rebuild and hope it doesn't take too long.

    Why was he a 'great' draft pick? He did NOT develop into a GOOD starting C. He is NOT a good starting C. He's below avg and really shouldn't be starting. Carolina were fools to sign him in free agency and they paid for it. And Hartwig lost his starting job to Hangartner (WHO?) before getting injured. Guess that was a good use of $17mil and a $7mil signing bonus! Yeah, a really good starting C huh? Hartwig is a backup player. He is not a GREAT 6th rnd pick.

    We got good production out of him for 1 yr. He was bad the rest of the time. I'm not exactly jumping up and down that we got a 5th rnd pick for a 7th. I'll take it but it hardly makes Reese good. In the grand scheme of things, this is relatively minor.

    As discussed before the draft, he had iffy hands and he displayed them when on the field. You wanna say it was because he was a rookie, give him the free pass. End result is that he was inconsistent while playing and got injured. If Reese thought he had BIG talent after seeing him play for us, we wouldn't have cut him. And Reese said they even considered taking him in the first rnd.

    What is your definition of 'legitimate' NFL starter? A guy who's started or a guy who's produced? In 18 starts over 3 years, Odom has 4 sacks and 2 of those are against Houston. Add in the other 18 games he played in and you increase that total to 4.5 sacks. Maybe that's unfair since he's not a pass rush specialist like LaBoy. In the 36 games in which he's played, he has 61 tackles...less than 2 tackles per game. Impressive! And let's see...LaBoy...as a legit NFL starter, he has .5 sacks in 2 starts his rookie year, an impressive 2.5 sacks in 7 starts the next year, and 1.5 sacks in 10 starts this year. For a pass rusher, is this what you call legit? LaBoy does have 12.5 sacks in his career, but he seems to do better as a 3rd down and long pass rusher and even in that context he's very inconsistent and not a pass rushing force. Furthermore, he's worse than that because he does not contain the outside, he doesn't conatin the QB in his pass rush (frequently taking an inside charge so when KVB gets pressure, the QB can drift away to an uncontained side). He plays like a backup. He looks like a backup. He has the stats of a backup. But you think he's a LEGIT NFL starter?

    Maybe you and I have different definitions of what solid is. We don't have 5 solid starters on our OL right now IMO. Olson is in serious need of replacement. If Amano is solid, how come he's not starting over Olson? Because Amano is a backup. He might be a solid backup, but he's not a starter. It's possible he could devlop down the road, but until then, he's a backup IMO. If you think he's a legit NFL starter too but for some reason Munchak is holding him back, you should say something about that.

    Looking good as a rookie doesn't make you a good player. Just ask Hill. Until he locks down a fulltime starting gig, and shows he's a good starting WR, the jury's out on him.

    He's been inconsistent. He's been beaten more than most people realize (or want to admit) because VY can escape so well. Time will tell if he can stay the fulltime starter AND be good (consistently).

    If you want to credit him with picking a solid backup with a 7th rnd pick, go ahead. I'd take that over nothing. But that hardly makes up for the other bad draft picks of much higher importance who aren't supposed to just be backup players, but become Pro Bowl starters.

    If most of them were good NFL starters, then why did we have to plummet to about the worst team in the league. In fact, you and I squared off about the talent level of the roster and you said we weren't even avg. So which is it, we have a team that are mostly good NFL starters drafted by Reese, or a below avg team talent wise so we shouldn't blame JS???

    And for clarification, you now consider Hill, Odom and LaBoy to be legit NFL starters? So we don't need to upgrade those positions in your opinion because we have legit NFL starters there, right???

    Funny, the Pats gave up at least one Pro Bowl player a year and still won the Super Bowl 3 years. I advocate trading 1 good-Pro Bowl caliber player and you call it giving up. I guess you haven't watched the Patriots much huh? Didn't look to me like they gave up, they simply had a little less talent to win with.

    So what you're saying is that if ONE of our Pro Bowl players got hurt for the whole season (whether by being traded or by blowing out an ACL) we would have a lost season? Funny, the Pats lost most of their secondary (started an undrafted free agent rookie CB and played an old WR at nickel back) and still won the Super Bowl. Guess they didn't give up....and that was AFTER they lost some more guys in the off-season!!!

    Gut
     
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