The worst owner in the NFL

Owners of professional sports teams have a lot of responsibility when it comes to the success of their franchise. They are the ones putting up massive sums of money in an attempt to generate profit, but they also control the direction of personnel hirings. Much can be said about terrible owners in other sports, such as James Dolan of the Knicks, who can’t seem to get over his love affair with Isaiah Thomas. However, Dolan at least supports his team and his city and wants the best for them. Recent events have revealed an NFL owner who does not display this courtesy, in addition to ineptitude.

The Third Coast Sainted Texans

Earlier this week, I posited the question on Twitter for two nearby teams that were having poor years: What if the Saints and Texans merged rosters?

They seemed to have rosters that would fit together well, with each team having a strength where the other hand a hole, and vice versa. To make it more interesting (and also realistic), I decided to look up the 2015 cap hits for every player and build the team under the salary cap (listed on spotrac.com as $146,025,476). My goal here was to create the best 53-man roster possible while remaining under the salary cap.

I’m only considering players who were on the team as of this week, when I wrote this– not players who were on the team earlier in the year (like, say, Akiem Hicks or Kenny Phillips for the Saints).

And here we go. Texans fans are likely to be unhappy for a little while.

OFFENSE

QUARTERBACK

• Drew Brees (age: 36, 2015 cap hit: $23,800,000)
• Luke McCown (34, $665,000)
• Garrett Grayson (24, $618,291)
• Total: $25,083,291

This one is fairly straightforward. Brees is the only NFL-caliber starting quarterback on either roster, so he has to make the team, even at his age and cap hit. McCown is by far the cheapest of the next three options (Brian Hoyer’s cap hit starts with a 5, which would be fine if it were one digit fewer). And Garrett Grayson is the best prospect for the future. (Tom Savage is on injured reserve; we’ll get to IR at the end of the roster, but frankly, Grayson is the best prospect irrespective of Savage’s presence.)

RUNNING BACK

• Mark Ingram (25, $2,000,000)
• C.J. Spiller (28, $2,000,000)
• Khiry Robinson (25, $585,334)
• Marcus Murphy (24, $452,322)
• Austin Johnson (FB) (26, $510,000)
• Total: $5,547,656

I know this one will make Texans fans unhappy. It’s pretty straight-forward: Arian Foster is a 29-year-old running back with a significant injury history and a cap hit of over $8.7M. You might be able to justify paying Foster and carrying one fewer running back if he could still reliably perform at his peak level, but at his age, you can’t count on that.

With Foster too expensive to risk, I think the rest of the Texans running backs are pretty bad, so this was fairly easy. No one besides Foster on Houston’s roster is even as good as Khiry Robinson, let alone Ingram and Spiller. Marcus Murphy adds value as a kick and punt returner. I went with Austin Johnson over Jay Prosch, knowing little about fullbacks, because he’s cheaper (and I don’t know how much Prosch plays, if at all).

WIDE RECEIVER

• DeAndre Hopkins (23, $2,080,010)
• Brandin Cooks (22, $1,905,330)
• Willie Snead (22, $435,000)
• Jaelen Strong (21, $627,995)
• Nate Washington (32, $615,000)
• Total: $5,663,335

DeAndre Hopkins is a budding superstar, an obvious choice for our #1 receiver and a must-have even at five times the cost. Brandin Cooks hasn’t turned into the star the Saints envisioned, but at his current age and cap number, he’s still a bargain– and he’s more suited to this role, the #2 to Hopkins’ #1. Willie Snead has come on strong as arguably the Saints’ most reliable receiver. Jaelen Strong is very young and a fine prospect to ease along in a fourth or fifth wide receiver role. I chose Nate Washington as the “cagey veteran mentor” to round out the bunch. Marques Colston is too expensive and has seemingly lost it. You could argue for Cecil Shorts, but Washington is on a one-year minimum deal and Shorts is being paid $6 million for two years. Even though he’s younger, I’m not sure he adds much value to the team at all, let alone over Washington. Cooks, Snead, and Strong can contribute on special teams, so I wasn’t worried about finding a player to fit that type.

TIGHT END

• Ben Watson (34, $1,900,000)
• Josh Hill (25, $586,668)
• C.J. Fiedorowicz (23, $730,826)
• Total: $3,217,494

It was a lot easier to justify Watson for the top spot after the game he had Thursday night against Atlanta. He’s the best do-it-all guy on either roster. Hill has the most athleticism; Fiedorowicz is a guy I don’t think is all that special, but is young, cheap, and has a relatively high draft pedigree (then again, I’m not sure if the Texans understand the draft).

OFFENSIVE TACKLE

• Duane Brown (30, $9,500,000)
• Terron Armstead (24, $769,359)
• Andrus Peat (21, $2,071,544)
• Total: $12,340,903

A no-brainer. This might be the best trio of tackles in the league.

OFFENSIVE GUARD

• Jahri Evans (32, $7,000,000)
• Brandon Brooks (26, $1,696,359)
• Xavier Su’a-Filo (24, $1,261,727)
• Total: $9,958,086

Evans is on the decline at 32, but he’s still the best guard on either team. Brooks is not someone I know much about, but I’ve generally seen his play well-graded and spoken fairly well of– or at least well enough to be the team’s other starter. Su’a-Filo is on this team for roughly the same reason C.J. Fiedorowicz is.

CENTER

• Max Unger (29, $3,000,000)
• Ben Jones (26, $1,662,362)
• Total: $4,662,362

It’s easy to pick both starting centers when they come this cheaply.

TOTAL OFFENSE: 24 players, $66,473,127

DEFENSE

I’ve listed the team in a base 3-4, which made the most sense to me with the personnel I had to work with.

ENDS

• J.J. Watt (26, $13,969,000)
• Cameron Jordan (26, $4,169,000)
• Bobby Richardson (22, $436,666)
• Jared Crick (26, $1,639,875)
• Total: $20,214,541

Watt and Jordan are a fantastic duo to have here and well worth the money. Bobby Richardson has played well so far his rookie season, particularly against the run. I don’t know much about Crick, but he’s cheap and he plays a lot of snaps for Houston, so he makes the team.

TACKLES

• John Jenkins (26, $746,890)
• Tyeler Davison (23, $489,306)
• Christian Covington (21, $457,621)
• Kaleb Eulls (24, $438,333)
• Total: $2,132,150

One of the weakest groups on the team, but a very young one with lots of chance to improve playing between Jordan and Watt. Jenkins has the size to be a true nose tackle, so he’s the starter in the run-stuffing role. The word is that Vince Wilfork has looked ordinary, and even if he hasn’t, 2 years and $9 million is a lot for a 33-year-old nose tackle. (Though it’s not out of line with the kind of deals the Texans like to hand out– see “Reed, Ed.”) The other three are all rookies with varying talent level and skill sets; Davison is the most explosive of the bunch.

OUTSIDE LINEBACKERS

• Jadeveon Clowney (22, $5,062,045)
• Hau’oli Kikaha (23, $957,511)
• Whitney Mercilus (25, $2,979,030)
• Kasim Edebali (26, $512,000)
• Total: $9,510,586

Clowney hasn’t produced the big numbers yet, but he’s shown the flashes of greatness that made him the top pick in the draft. Kikaha now leads all rookies with four sacks (in six games); he’s been less flashy but steadily productive. Mercilus is a fine player, although nothing special, and Edebali has shown some signs of life as a rotational pass-rusher.

INSIDE LINEBACKERS

• Stephone Anthony (23, $1,404,766)
• Dannell Ellerbe (29, $1,900,000)
• Bernardrick McKinney (22, $971,840)
• Justin Tuggle (25, $585,834)
• Michael Mauti (25, $585,000)
• Total: $5,448,440

I hate to say it, but Brian Cushing might be done. He looks like a shell of his former self out there– and to make matters worse, he’s on the second year of a six-year deal, one where his cap hit each year is higher than the entire ILB crew I’ve assembled here.

Anthony is the star of the bunch, but Ellerbe has been surprisingly good, surpassing my expectations. McKinney is a long-term player there, though he’s more of a run-stopper. I had no idea whom to go with for the fourth ILB spot; Tuggle beat out Akeem Dent based on age, salary, and slightly higher PFF grade. Feel free to replace him if you like someone better. Mauti won the special teams roster spot with his blocked punt Thursday night.

CORNERBACK

• Keenan Lewis (29, $4,500,000)
• Johnathan Joseph (31, $11,750,000)
• Kevin Johnson (23, $1,827,166)
• Delvin Breaux (25, $439,000)
• Damian Swann (22, $481,807)
• Total: $18,997,973

Another difficult decision I had to make was Joseph vs. Kareem Jackson. I was initially on Jackson because he’s younger and had a lower cap hit, but upon further research, I discovered he’s graded out really poorly this year, and he’s in the first year of a four-year contract extension; he’ll be 31 when it ends. Joseph is 31 now, but his cap hit is lower for the next two years than it is now, and the team can cut bait after 2016 with no further penalty. With the play so far of youngsters Johnson and Breaux, that is likely to happen. Also, Lewis has proven himself a fine #1 corner, even if he is exiting his prime, and Swann has performed solidly so far after winning the Saints’ nickel job as a rookie.

SAFETY

• Jairus Byrd (29, $5,500,000)
• Kenny Vaccaro (24, $2,570,376)
• Rahim Moore (26, $3,000,000)
• Andre Hal (23, $527, 281)
• Total: $11,597,657

The Saints structured Byrd’s contract such that his cap hit makes him an affordable risk here– and even allows us to spend $3 million on Moore for when Byrd is inevitably injured. Vaccaro seems like an obvious choice, and I’ve liked what I’ve seen of Hal so far.

TOTAL DEFENSE: 26 players, $67,901,347

SPECIAL TEAMS

• Kicker: Zach Hocker (24, $435,000)
• Punter: Thomas Morstead (29, $3,400,000)
• Long Snapper: Justin Drescher (27, $875,000)

I chose Hocker before Thursday night, but he’ll probably be fired after that game. Well, the Texans already fired Randy Bullock this year, so I decided to go with the guy who stuck around the longest.

Morstead is more expensive than Shane Lechler, but he’s also twelve years younger and has a lifetime pass for hitting the greatest onside kick in NFL history.

Drescher is cheaper and younger than Jon Weeks.

TOTAL SPECIAL TEAMS: 3 players, $4,710,000

TOTAL 53-MAN ROSTER: $139,084,474

We’re still nearly $7 million under the cap, so I decided to add some players to our Injured Reserve list (who do not count against the 53-man roster, but do count against the salary cap):

• CB P.J. Williams (22, $494,651)
• SS Vinnie Suneri (22, $377,125)
• OLB Davis Tull (23, $373,433)
• TE Ryan Griffin (designated for return) (25, $381,611)
• OL David Quessenberry (25, $613,363)
• OLB Reshard Cliett (23, $340,621)
• QB Tom Savage (25, $408,146)
• OLB Anthony Spencer (31, $665,000)
• FS Rafael Bush (28, $1,900,000)
• Total Injured Reserve: $5,553,950

That brings the entire roster, 53-man and injured reserve, to a GRAND TOTAL of $144,638,424. Still close to $1.5 million and change to work with; if you’re not comfortable cutting it that close, I totally understand removing Bush from IR. The team’s only contracts that are both long and expensive going to legitimate stars like J.J. Watt and Cameron Jordan, leaving money to extend key players currently on their rookie deals, such as DeAndre Hopkins and Terron Armstead, when the time comes. Not a bad spot to be in. Of course, it’s easy when you get to pick and choose from two rosters.

 

Thoughts on the recent NFL coaching changes

All in all, it was a pretty typical offseason as far as upheaval in the NFL head coaching ranks goes. Since the dust finally seems settled (only Atlanta’s head coaching job remains open, and it’s all but given that Seahawks DC Dan Quinn will immediately take it following the Super Bowl), I thought I’d look at all the moves made (and the moves not made) and offer my thoughts.

New York Jets

Though I like Rex Ryan as a head coach in general, I felt it was time for New York to move on from him. After six years, and nearly every major offensive component turning over at least once while Ryan was head coach– GMs, offensive coordinators, starting quarterbacks– the ultimate responsibility for failing to field an offense that could allow the team to compete is on him. (Chase Stuart of Football Perspective has a much more detailed account of Ryan’s flaws and the circumstances that demanded his firing.)

Todd Bowles has been a rising star in the coaching ranks after two years of maintaining the high standard of performance as Arizona’s defensive coordinator that was established when Ray Horton had the job. I think it’s a solid hire; I certainly prefer hiring a rising assistant to a known mediocrity.

I’m really intrigued by his hire of Chan Gailey as OC. While Gailey at first glance might seem like another face in a sea of retread coaches, he’s one of the more innovative faces there, having a history of developing unconventional offenses to maximize his talent at hand (most notably with Kansas City in 2008, when, left with only Tyler Thigpen at QB, he resorted to a spread attack similar to the one Thigpen ran at Coastal Carolina). That track record intrigues me, because it makes me think Gailey will do whatever is necessary to maximize his offensive talent and performance at QB– whether that QB is Geno Smith or someone else.

Buffalo Bills

In one of the most unusual moves in head-coaching history, Doug Marrone opted out of his contract due to a clause, that as far as I know, has never been executed in NFL history: The “If the owner dies and the team is sold, I can opt out of my deal after two years” contract. Marrone opted out of his deal, and though he was rumored as a hot head-coaching candidate for the available jobs, particularly the Jets and Falcons, he ultimately took the job of offensive line coach and assistant head coach in Jacksonville, not exactly a lateral move.

Marrone’s failure to find another head-coaching job wasn’t a total surprise; rumbles from Buffalo were that he was significantly overrated and had little to do with the team’s success (he’s an offensive coach, which means he is responsible for the team’s stagnant offense the last two seasons, and the complete disaster of the E.J. Manuel selection and development). Rex Ryan seems like a solid hire, although his specialty– rushing the passer– is something the team already does well, and he won’t fix the offensive problems the team has had the last several years.

Atlanta Falcons

I’m not surprised by Mike Smith’s firing: despite opening his career with five straight playoff appearances, the team cratered in 2013 and 2014, and while injuries and a thin roster played a serious part, so did his absolute terror at fourth-down situations and his inexplicable time management. The Falcons became a bad team at about the same time Smith lost his aggression on fourth-down situations.

I don’t know much about Dan Quinn, but he’s the second defensive coordinator to be hired away from Seattle since 2013, and I think Gus Bradley is doing well despite a poor record for two seasons. Without more specific information on Quinn, I expect he’s a solid hire, especially for a team that already has the most important building blocks to an elite passing offense and needs help revitalizing the defense.

Denver Broncos

I have mixed opinions about John Fox, but ultimately I think John Elway made a gutsy move to fire him. While Fox has always brought a solid defense with him wherever he goes, he actually doesn’t have a particularly impressive track record– only three winning seasons in ten before Peyton Manning became his starting quarterback; he’s basically the non-scumbag Jeff Fisher– and his overly conservative approach to offense was holding the team back. We saw it two years ago in the playoffs, when Fox sat on the ball at the end of the first half and again at regulation, despite having timeouts and, you know, possibly the greatest quarterback of all time behind center. This year, Fox seemed to not prepare for the divisional playoff game at all: the offense was anemic and a defense that had finished fourth in the regular season was invisible. I’ve heard rumors that Fox is one of those guys that treats the playoffs as “just another game,” not introducing new wrinkles or opponent-specific concepts into his gameplans. I think any coach that does this is giving up significant win equity, and in that sense, I absolutely agree with Elway that Fox would keep the team from reaching the next level.

Unfortunately, Elway replaced Fox with Gary Kubiak, someone even more averse to scoring points and offensive aggression (even more bizarre since he’s an offensive coach), and someone whose offensive system of play-action rollouts and bootlegs isn’t well-suited to Manning. I am skeptical this will work, and it would be a real shame if Peyton Manning’s career ended with another playoff upset caused in part by a head coach holding him back.

Chicago Bears

I ranked Marc Trestman much higher in my coaching rankings last year for a few reasons: I believed he had a much better sense of creating a strong offense and playing to his team’s strengths (Lovie Smith and his offensive coordinators stubbornly clung to deep dropbacks with a poor offensive line, subpar receiving talent, and removing Matt Forte at the goal line), as well as a much better sense of in-game situational management.

Fast-forward a year and it seems he completely lost the locker room. Obviously a guy has to go when that happens; what I don’t understand is how that happened. Without a better idea of why, I can’t say what Trestman should have done differently or if he deserves another chance to be a head coach someday. He’s on to be the new offensive coordinator in Baltimore, replacing Gary Kubiak.

John Fox is the new man in Chicago. If he can fix the defense, he’s a good hire, but you just read my concerns about him, and it’s possible he makes the offense even worse and more inconsistent than it was in 2014.

Oakland Raiders

Since the team dismissed Dennis Allen midseason and installed Tony Sparano as interim coach, a full-time replacement has been long in the making. I’m not sure why the team was so gung-ho about Jack Del Rio (and even more baffled that the team’s only apparent serious head coaching candidates were Del Rio and Sparano). Jokes about potentially dropping an axe on Khalil Mack’s foot aside, Del Rio has a 68-71 record as a head coach, with only two playoff appearances in nine seasons. The team looked at two mediocre retreads; I simply don’t understand the aversion to bringing in new blood, someone whose track record may be shorter but at least isn’t mediocre.

Del Rio’s first hire was Bill Musgrave as offensive coordinator. Musgrave’s history of coordinating NFL offenses is, frankly, not good. However, he was Matt Ryan’s quarterback coach for his first three years in the league, and I suppose Del Rio has some hope he can develop Derek Carr in the same manner. Or maybe Del Rio is just hiring his old buddy from the 2003-04 Jaguars (team record: 14-18). Given that Del Rio’s head-coaching record screams “mediocre retread,” my first thought is that Musgrave falls into the same category.

(Yes, I used the phrase “mediocre retread” a lot. Get used to it. The NFL has Mediocre Retread Syndrome.)

San Francisco 49ers

Jim Tomsula may be an inspired head-coaching hire, but I strongly believe this was the culmination of a series of moves designed to compete long enough simply to secure a new stadium before returning to running the team on the cheap. Jed York should be embarrassed.

Other Situations

• Miami: I don’t know why the team retained Joe Philbin. Bill Lazor was a smart OC hire, and one of the biggest reasons the team improved, but Philbin still seems clueless and cowardly when it comes to in-game decisions.
  Of course, the entire power structure in Miami is a mess, and the team just brought in Mike Tannenbaum for some reason, so I’ll continue to expect a certain level of dysfunction from the team as long as Stephen Ross owns it.
• Tennessee: This is the horrible team no one talks about. Ruston Webster has been embarrassingly bad at identifying talent (the guy brought you the Shonn Greene – Bishop Sankey two-headed backfield; need I say more?). Without Kurt Warner to carry him, Ken Whisenhunt has never shown anything as a head coach except a fascination for QBs with huge arms and horrible accuracy.
  Bud Adams died (good riddance to the guy who robbed Houston of the Oilers franchise) and his son Tommy seems yet to have noticed how terrible his team is. I’d clean out everyone; Adams the Younger barely seems to have considered that option after a 2-14 season where the team was completely non-competitive outside of a bizarre fluke week 1 win.
• Washington: Jay Gruden doesn’t want to work with Robert Griffin. Jay Gruden should be fired, then. Quarterbacks with Griffin’s talent are rare, and if you’re a coach who refuses to maximize those talents, you are not doing your job and should be fired for cause.
  Scot McCloughan is an inspired choice to head personnel, but who knows what actual power he’ll wield for the league’s most dysfunctional franchise? The most interesting thing about the Washington franchise is how deep Dan Snyder will dig in to embarrass himself over the team’s racist nickname.
• Tampa Bay: Hopefully Lovie Smith’s performance this year forever dispels the myth of “steady veteran leadership” at the head coaching position. I didn’t think it was possible for this team to be worse than it was under Greg Schiano last year, but, surprise!
  The team is alarmingly bereft of talent and very few of their free-agent signings and draft picks have worked. (Really, the team should promote whoever’s in charge of wide receiver scouting to run things, because Mike Evans and Vincent Jackson have been the only clear successes.) Much like their South Beach counterparts, this team has a messy org chart and a certain level of dysfunction that seems to stem from the very top. (Jacksonville may well have the brightest future of the Florida teams.)

Today’s reads and views: The Ray Rice Embarassment turns into The Ray Rice Fiasco

I have a medical emergency at home, so sadly, I don’t have time to write my own hot take on this yet. (I will tell you, as a Saints fan, I’ve known for two and a half years that Roger Goodell is a liar and a hypocrite more concerned with PR than doing the right thing– and that’s before we get into his disciplinary stance as judge, jury, and executioner, who adjudicates primarily on whether or not he was lied to or his ass was sufficiently kissed than on the severity of the offense or any sense of morality and justice.)

You can read my initial take here. In lieu of writing something new in the meantime, I’ll post some of the best links of the day from some of the best writing and reporting on the issue. (Don’t be surprised if I update this regularly.)

Adam Schefter is furious that his water-carrying for the NFL has left him out to dry.

Gregg Doyel thinks the NFL got some ‘splainin’ to do, but considering he refers to Roger Goodell as an “invertebrate,” I think he’s keeping his expectations low.

The Kansas City Star has called for NFL owners to fire Roger Goodell. Not for him to resign, for him to be fired.

Christine Brennan wants the NFL and NFL teams to punish all domestic abusers, not just the ones caught on camera. (Which, I mean, duh, but given this league cares about image and image only, is still something they need their feet held to the fire on.)

And of course, the granddaddy of righteous anger, Keith Olbermann:

(transcript)

We will have a column coming later from Matt, whose experience as a prosecutor provides him with a uniquely well-informed perspective on domestic abusers and their patterns and pathology of behavior. I’m looking forward to it.

Hindsight: NFC North Offseason Grades

With the final edition of this series, we have one of the most exciting divisions in the league; the NFC North. These teams carry some of the most storied rivalries in NFL history, boasting as much glory and heartbreak as any other division in the league. Led by three very good quarterbacks and the best running back in football, these teams are primed for yet another season of mutual disdain.

Hindsight: AFC North Offseason Grades

Year in year out the AFC North boasts some of the stronger teams in the AFC. This is generally due to great management. Ravens Ozzie Newsome has been the NFL’s best GM of the last decade, and the Steelers have been well run under the Rooney’s for quite some time. The Bengals might be the thriftiest team in the league, never spending much money, but always scooping great value in the draft on players with “character concerns.” I use quotes because somehow these players seem to do just fine under Marvin Lewis, one of the best examples being LB Vontaze Burfict. Initially viewed as a high pick, Burfict went undrafted last year because teams were worried about his “character.” The Bengals scooped him up, and he immediately rewarded them with over 1100 high quality snaps against both the run and pass. The Browns have been the bottom feeder of this division for awhile, but their talented roster could change that in a hurry.

Hindsight: NFC West Offseason Grades

Finishing up the NFC West grades, I’ll address the offseason performance of the top teams in the NFL’s most competitive division. Before I start, I’ll take a minute to comment on the year-long suspension of Cardinals ILB Daryl Washington. When on the field, he is one of the best players in the league at his position, so it goes without saying that this is a massive loss for the Cardinals. It irks me quite a bit that this suspension is due to multiple failed drug tests for marijuana, while other players face no suspensions for behaviors such as assault and street racing. However, the NFLPA negotiated the terms of the current CBA, so they really have no one to blame for this but themselves. This is not the fault of the Cardinals, so it will not factor into their grade.

Hindsight: St. Louis Rams Offseason Grade

I had started doing the NFC West piece in traditional fashion, with the intention of doing all four teams at once. However my writeup on the Rams was so long (as long as some of the entire other divisions combined) and contained so many controversial topics, that I felt their offseason analysis deserved it’s own article.

Hindsight: AFC West Offseason Grades

I hope all our followers had a nice Memorial day weekend. We’ve been enduring the post-draft hangover, where the most interesting news is typically that a draft pick has signed. However, OTA’s have just begun for most teams, so we will start to see those rumors about how much teams love their draft picks. At this point, many guys will get talked up, but coaches will sound optimistic if they see any potential at all. Generally the rumors that are most accurate will come around training camp, so take what you hear now with a grain of salt.

We are now halfway through this “Hindisght” series, and next up is the AFC West. What was once one of the least competitive divisions in the league now has three teams legitimately contending for playoff spots. After the jump, let’s see how their offseasons tilted the balance.

Hindsight: NFC South Offseason Grades

Next up, lets take a look at one of the most competitive divisions in the league; the NFC South.

Hindsight: AFC South Offseason Grades

Sorry for the delay between posts, my sister just graduated from college and I’ve been busy with a few other things. In an attempt to rekindle interest, I’ll move onto the AFC South which has some of the more interesting off seasons to grade; three rebuilding teams with two of the top 3 draft picks, and a team that traded away its first round pick.

Hindsight: NFC East Offseason Grades

Lettuce push onwards! Next up, the ultra competitive NFC East.

Hindsight: AFC East Offseason Grades

Now that the draft is behind us, I’d like to revisit each team’s plan of attack in free agency. It may be slightly unfair to praise or knock a team for certain signings, since it’s impossible to know who will be available at given draft slots, but these are the offseason challenges for each franchise; you have to improve your team’s future to the best of your abilities. After the jump, I’ll evaluate each teams free agent signings based on how they drafted, while acknowledging the grey area of available talent at each of their draft slots.

Why I think our evaluations differed from the picks

In terms of analyzing the work we’re doing on this site, the third round was for me the most fascinating of the draft. We got picks of players we had graded in the first round; we got picks of players we had as seventh-round selections and later. I started to think about why our analysis diverged so much from the actual results, and while we won’t know in some cases who was right or wrong for a while, I felt like I could use the information we did have to infer some possible causes.

Here’s what I’ve come up with.

We didn’t have injury information or other off-field/personality information. It’s obvious in the case of someone like Isaiah Crowell, when we know he has SOME kind of off-field issues (which is why he’s at Alabama State) but we don’t know how to weigh them accurately. (In his case, we’ve largely decided to base our evaluation almost entirely on pure talent.) With some of these players, we don’t know what the real story is or how much to weigh it (and we don’t know what teams will think about said story, either, or how it will affect their own evaluations).

I think this explains Louis Nix, our #19 prospect, falling to #81. Nix had an injury-plagued 2013 and struggled a bit, but he was terrific in 2012, a clear first-round talent. Our high rating was because we believed his 2012 level of performance was reflective of his true talent. Teams may have felt otherwise, or felt that having chronic minor injuries was enough to lower him regardless.

When we ranked Zach Mettenberger as highly as he did, we didn’t have the information teams did about his back problems. I don’t know anything about spondylolysis beyond what’s on Wikipedia, but if it’s serious and degenerative to the point where teams think he won’t be functional as an NFL player in a matter of years, then that would of course severely affect his stock.

On the other hand, I don’t know anything about ACLs, either, but Dominique Easley’s injuries scared me enough that I couldn’t in good conscience rank him as a first-rounder.

We don’t know how to evaluate certain positions well enough. Many of our disparities, it must be noted, were on offensive linemen and on safeties. Needle is really the only one of us who’s qualified to evaluate the offensive line, and while we did the best we could, sometimes we’re still guessing. We saw a lot of guards go in the third round we weren’t crazy about at all; it’s very possible we’re just measuring the wrong things.

We did land some good evaluations early in the process: Even when Antonio Richardson was being talked about as Tennessee’s top offensive lineman, vix saw early on that Ja’wuan James was a better prospect. Flash forward to this weekend: James is picked #19 overall, and entering the fourth round, Richardson has yet to be selected.

With safeties, the bigger problem is that it’s not only difficult to know what their responsibilities are, but most film we have available to us often keeps them off-screen. It’s hard to know if a guy is doing his job if you can’t watch him.

We don’t know how teams value certain positions. Nix is another example: If a team thinks he’s only a two-down guy, it’s hard to justify taking him early. We ranked a bunch of linebackers we thought were pretty capable with fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-round grades because there were a fair number of them and we didn’t think of linebacker as a priority position. Some of these players went in the third round.

We simply don’t have enough information, period. Some of the players drafted in the third round were guys we’d seen positive flashes from in the film we’d seen, but the problem was, we’d seen so little of them, that we couldn’t confidently place them over other players whom we’d seen similar tape on but had much more footage to assess what that player’s “true” performance level might be. So two guys might have shown similar talent, but in one case three or four of us have seen multiple games from him, and in the other one guy has seen one game of poor-quality footage. I tended to hedge on moving players up the draft board if I wasn’t confident in my assessment of their skill level. If I’d never heard of him, I couldn’t put him in the third round on one tape just because he flashed some third-round ability.

This ends up with me seeing quite a few picks where we had a player graded in the fifth or sixth round but I ended up thinking “Hmm, that could be good.” Will Clarke is an example– he showed occasional great burst, and if I’d gotten more information on him and seen he had done so consistently, I might have moved him up closer to where he was drafted.

And at the furthest extremes of this were Dezmen Southward, whom I had very little information on (and what film we did study still had the aforementioned issues with safeties), and Dexter McDougle, whom I didn’t even have enough information on to include on our final big board. (vix did draft him late in the seventh round in our complete mock; that was our only mention of him.)

All that said, 100 picks in, and 70% of our top 100 was drafted, so I don’t think we’re doing too badly.

We’ll be back to chat on day three as well. Check out our live board for a list of picks made so far and where we graded those players, and you can reference your favorite team on our list of picks by team.

Offseason GM: NFC West

Time to wrap up this mini-series. The initial thrill of free agency seems to have died down, with close to half the market being signed at this point, at least when considering the major free agents. Once the majority of the starting level players have been signed, I’ll do a piece on this years free agency, evaluating decisions league-wide.

Offseason GM: AFC South

The initial rush of free agency is always exciting. We already have some surprise moves, such as the Bucs cutting Revis who instantly signed with the Patriots. It’s essentially a 1 year deal, and he will be back on the market next year, assuming the Pats don’t want to pay him $20M in 2015. Theres been a flurry of other moves, and many low key ones made by the Jaguars. Needle is a lifelong Jags fan, and seems to follow a path of optimism until being utterly flabbergasted by the moves his team makes. As a Jets fan myself, I feel his pain, and I’ll start with the Jags to show him that it’s not so bad.

Offseason GM: AFC North

Free agency is officially upon us! Rumors swirling non-stop! Not too much in the form of official signings just yet, as most action has been in the form of re-signings. That said, you can expect a flurry of transactions in the next few days, one of the most notable being the trading of Darrelle Revis. The Bucs are rumored to be set on cutting him if no trade is realized, as they would get back their very high 3rd rounder in exchange for their 4th. In such a deep draft, that’s a pretty big difference. Moving on to the AFC North now, we will start with a team that is rumored to be interested in Revis, the Browns.

Offseason GM: NFC North

This is one of my favorite divisions in the NFL, as very few others can boast so many storied rivalries. Three very good QB’s and a fourth team that stays competitive with the best RB in the league. The top three teams are very close together in talent level and make for exciting divisional match ups year in year out. Even if there are no juggernauts here, everyone of these teams can be exciting to watch.

Offseason GM: NFC East

Continuing with the series ‘Offseason GM,’ I’ll move on to the NFC East. While they may not have any juggernauts, the division is always very competitive. Any edge in offseason performance could easily tip the balance for who wins the division in 2014. Also it was recently noted that the expected cap limit this year is going to be around 130M, not 126 as previously projected.

 

What are the Browns doing?

Yesterday the Browns announced that Mike Lombardi was dismissed from his general manager post, and that Joe Banner would be stepping down as CEO but would stay on for two more months to ease the transition. Owner Jimmy Haslam promoted assistant GM Ray Farmer to the GM post and has set up a power structure where Farmer and new head coach Mike Pettine report directly to him.

Now, you can tell from the title of this post that I’m not a fan of these moves. My position, though, isn’t based strictly on opinions of any of the men involved. It’s a matter of the process used to arrive at these decisions.