Why Does Td Keep Letting Multiple Key Players Into Free Agency?

[jbrinson]

Last season the falcons went 13-3. We were a great team. It makes mad when I think about how did TD let our top 3 offensive linemen hit free agency all at the same time. Why didn't he try to get them an extension before or during that season. He spent an entire offseason trying to get more explosive and since he let our top run blocker get away we could get the short yards that we needed. This year he let way too many key player get into free agency. Why didn't he sign Grimes to a long term contract last year. Why hasn't he been working on a contract for Lofton? Why didn't he extend Abraham to one more year like tony? We need role players like Harry and Kroy so why hasn't he dealt with them? If he had kept our good players under contract we probably would have been the best team in the league this year. Just imagine the toughness of Daul on our offensive line and the explosiveness we had with Julio. I just can't understand it.

[Master Exploder]

Players come and go all the time. That's how the NFL works. We though Blalock and Clabo were more important than Dahl, obviously. We don't have unlimited funds and in order for us to make certain moves we have to let go of certain players. It's all about opportunity cost.

[capologist]

Mostly because of the lockout and uncertainty of a CBA and what the rules were going to be. There are almost 600 free agents this year, double the normal number. Just about every team has key players up for grabs--even the Super Bowl champions...

[Magic Man]

Not sure, but with him being an NFL GM, I would venture to say he has a plan.

[delaigle]

Another way to look at it is

draftees are usually signed to a 4 year contract so about 7 UFA each year from there

then this year Atl signed about 6 1 year contracts due to injuries/etc

---Chamberfs Kelly Romberg Cox Hayden Sanders

so only about a total of 4 out of cycle due to various previous extensions of vet contracts.

Peterson 1 year extension etc

Edited February 29, 2012 by delaigle

[muskokas finest ©]

If you are going to pay elite money at key spots like QB/RB/WR/TE/CB/DE, sacrifices have to be made at other positions. The salary cap era means a lot of players on the roster get paid the league minimum.

[isproab]

Last season the falcons went 13-3. We were a great team. It makes mad when I think about how did TD let our top 3 offensive linemen hit free agency all at the same time. Why didn't he try to get them an extension before or during that season. He spent an entire offseason trying to get more explosive and since he let our top run blocker get away we could get the short yards that we needed. This year he let way too many key player get into free agency. Why didn't he sign Grimes to a long term contract last year. Why hasn't he been working on a contract for Lofton? Why didn't he extend Abraham to one more year like tony? We need role players like Harry and Kroy so why hasn't he dealt with them? If he had kept our good players under contract we probably would have been the best team in the league this year. Just imagine the toughness of Daul on our offensive line and the explosiveness we had with Julio. I just can't understand it.

The role players like Kroy and HD have not been guys that you have to bring back. Sure it would be nice to get some guys taken care of early, but there was really a question between Dahl and Blalock in terms of who to resign. Dahl was the nasty guy that you really liked, but Blalock was younger.

[TheDirtyWordII]

Mostly because of the lockout and uncertainty of a CBA and what the rules were going to be. There are almost 600 free agents this year, double the normal number. Just about every team has key players up for grabs--even the Super Bowl champions...

This...the labor situation was very unstable prior to July 2011. Also, Dahl, Clabo were never signed to big contracts originally and Blalock was on a 2nd round rookie contract. The level of play we were getting from our line was high and their compensation was peanuts. That allowed us to make other moves...

[citsalp]

Mostly because of the lockout and uncertainty of a CBA and what the rules were going to be. There are almost 600 free agents this year, double the normal number. Just about every team has key players up for grabs--even the Super Bowl champions...

This is correct!!! Every team is scrambling with their own free agents except maybe the Bucs, not a lot of talent there to lose regarding free agents.

[phattywankenobi]

There was not a CBA in place to negotiate contracts from until late July so many players got 1 yr deals while others played their final year of their contract. It's not like TD and his cap mgr were unaware of the situation. It also does not take into account players who are usually coming off of their rookie contract looking for their big pay day and so they want to test the market. I think with Dahl the 4M per year sounded a bit too high at the time and it seemed to be a waste to have drafted several linemen since 2008 only to not have them step up. Obviously there is quite a bit of hindsight applied to that one.

[delaigle]

There was not a CBA in place to negotiate contracts from until late July so many players got 1 yr deals while others played their final year of their contract. It's not like TD and his cap mgr were unaware of the situation. It also does not take into account players who are usually coming off of their rookie contract looking for their big pay day and so they want to test the market. I think with Dahl the 4M per year sounded a bit too high at the time and it seemed to be a waste to have drafted several linemen since 2008 only to not have them step up. Obviously there is quite a bit of hindsight applied to that one.

Reynold's 2009 He did replace Dahl (injured) for 4 games and did well

Johnson and Hawley 2010

--active on game day 5 starters + Hawley (Center/Guard) +Svitek (swing T) and 2 inactive (Reynolds and Johnson) Surely you did not expect Johnson to "step up" and replace Dahl in his rookie year. Or Reynolds to "step up" and replace Clabo.

Jackson 2011 -- McClure's early injury resulted in carrying 3 Centers on the roster-- so a lineman had to be cut from the active roster thus the Rookie goes to the PS

Reynolds 2011 did not do well at RG no question there

Hawley 2011 Center 3 games did just ok Guard 9 games did ok

Johnson 2011 again 5 inactives, 2 actives, 9 IR

Have they really had a chance tyo "step up" yet -- other than maybe Reynolds at an out of position spot. and Hawley who really only got 3 games at center and was also out of position for 9 games

Edited February 29, 2012 by delaigle

[phattywankenobi]

Reynold's 2009 He did replace Dahl (injured) for 4 games and did well

Johnson and Hawley 2010

--active on game day 5 starters + Hawley (Center/Guard) +Svitek (swing T) and 2 inactive (Reynolds and Johnson) Surely you did not expect Johnson to "step up" and replace Dahl in his rookie year. Or Reynolds to "step up" and replace Clabo.

Jackson 2011 -- McClure's early injury resulted in carrying 3 Centers on the roster-- so a lineman had to be cut from the active roster thus the Rookie goes to the PS

Reynolds 2011 did not do well at RG no question there

Hawley 2011 Center 3 games did just ok Guard 9 games did ok

Johnson 2011 again 5 inactives, 2 actives, 9 IR

Have they really had a chance tyo "step up" yet -- other than maybe Reynolds at an out of position spot. and Hawley who really only got 3 games at center and was also out of position for 9 games

Nice breakdown. I personally didn't have any expectations for guys to "step up". I was merely pointing at reasons that the Falcons might not have matched Harvey's contract. I have no idea and neither does anyone else outside of Flowery Branch. The overall point was the lack of agreement on the CBA really hindered negoations for long term contracts.

[VaderMan]

Hindsight is 20/20, who knew that Dahl would that much affect on us. Who knew Baker would be that ineffective...I was happy we brought back 2 of the 3 OL that were FAs, I never anticipated signng all 3, thats just the way football is. We have a chance this off season to sure up the O line, so lets see him get it done! Sign Grubbs and Mcneal(incentive based)

[aerosmith67]

You know it's not just the Falcons that let players walk/hit FA, sometimes the Players/Agents want to hit the street and see what's available. The Free Agency era in sports means that there's little if any team loyalty in any Pro Sport. You brought up Abe as an example, wouldn't it be tough to sign Abe to a 1 year deal when he wants a multi-year deal of $12+ million per year? In the long run the Falcons may be able to strike a 1-2 year deal for a much lower price if nobody bites on Abe or only bottom feeder teams bite.

Contracts are a two way street, you can't always blame the team if a player walks away.

[FalconinPA]

I have learned not to question TD anymore around these parts, the man is a genius and you should never question a genius. He always has a plan.

[takeitdown]

You have to let players hit FA, that's why it's critical to have your draft choices be good and be able to play early.

If you pay your QB 10M/yr (low), your top CBs 8m/yr (low for market), your LT 8m/yr (low for market), your RDE 8m/yr (low for market) your top WR 8m/yr (low for market) and the rest of your starters 5m/yr, you spend 117M, which is right at the cap. That's without backups, rotational players, etc. If these avg 2m/yr, you spend about 180m/yr.

You can't do that, and as you notice all the prices I put above are cheap if a guy hits the market. This means you can't keep all of your players when they start doing well. You have to have cheap guys (rookie contracts, midtier FAs) who can perform. If we kept Dahl, Blalock, and Clabo, we'd have about 16m/yr in those 3 positions, and none are an LT. That would mean when contract time comes for C and LT, we'd have 30M in the line. That's fine if your line is top shelf. But otherwise, you simply can't spend to keep everyone, unless the cap is 200M. You have to depend on your Mike Johnson's and your Joe Hawleys being able to step in (at 500k/yr), and that's why hitting on and developing these 3rd and 4th rounders is so critical.

[ukfalc]

Becasue players on rookie and RFA contracts come very cheap.

Re-signing guys early can cost you a lot of cap room in the short term. It can save money in the longer term, but it also carries the risk that you extend a guy after 1 good year only to find that he stops developing, or declines. Therefore teams only do it for their very best players. Extending Grimes, Lofton, HD or Abe would have been a risk - for various reasons.

Can you imagine this board last year, if we'd foregone signing Edwards last year, in order to extended Lofton and Grimes deals early? It may seem sensible now that Edwards was a disappointment in 2011 but this board was desparate for a big DE signing last year, and would have been in meltdown.

[pzummo]

If a player plays at an All Pro level for less than All Pro money, you don't consume your cap space to start paying him now when you can use that space for other needs.

Lofton made $600k last season. If we re-signed him before last season, he would still have been paid around $7m a year. So re-signing him early would have reduced our cap by around $6m last season. We couldn't have made half the moves we did if we did something like that.

Teams do not want to re-sign and extend players that are underpaid. Underpaid players are an advantage in a salary cap strapped league. The players you want to re-sign and/or extend early are the good but still overpaid players so you can lower their salary and make room for other contributors.

[Knight of God]

I'd like to think it was the CBA, but why was no move made after it was over? Last I checked you can extend and resign any time.

[Falconsfan567]

I'd like to think it was the CBA, but why was no move made after it was over? Last I checked you can extend and resign any time.

Maybe it's because a lot of guys don't like doing their contract during the season.

[Knight of God]

Maybe it's because a lot of guys don't like doing their contract during the season.

Yeah, I've noticed. I still hate the way they do things here. BIG TIME.

That seems to often be the case with sorry or stagnant teams.

[ltstorm2]

Having teams wanting players from our roster is a new thing for Falcons fans. We've grown used to drafting guys that end up getting cut from the team for whatever reason. We've never had to get used to having 3-4 guys every year that other teams covet for their FA pick ups. We've never had the kind of depth behind most positions that we do now. We of course don't want to lose our better players to FA but like other perennial superbowl favorites we're going to be asking our backups to step up and for their production to not be a signifacnt blow. This is a Falcons era that most everyone isn't used to yet.

[falconidae]

I'd like to think it was the CBA, but why was no move made after it was over? Last I checked you can extend and resign any time.

Yeah, but there's been a lot of uncertainty around what the cap was going to be- don't want to sign a bunch of players to contracts based on a 125 mil cap and then discover it's actually a 120 mil cap.

[Rajhae Battle]

every year is a different year, you have players who will reach free agency every year.If you start resigning players during the middle of the year, you can open up a can of worms that you as a GM won't want to deal with.First we don't know if they made all of these players extension offers.Second players with low salaries or still in a rookie contract. GM's need these types of contracts because their saving money that fiscal year, and they're probabaly at the back end of another player's contract. Simply put, if they are gonna have to pay you the money to keep you anyway, they're probably gonna wait until they have to make that deal, It's just business

[ru_serious]

Last season the falcons went 13-3. We were a great team. It makes mad when I think about how did TD let our top 3 offensive linemen hit free agency all at the same time. Why didn't he try to get them an extension before or during that season. He spent an entire offseason trying to get more explosive and since he let our top run blocker get away we could get the short yards that we needed. This year he let way too many key player get into free agency. Why didn't he sign Grimes to a long term contract last year. Why hasn't he been working on a contract for Lofton? Why didn't he extend Abraham to one more year like tony? We need role players like Harry and Kroy so why hasn't he dealt with them? If he had kept our good players under contract we probably would have been the best team in the league this year. Just imagine the toughness of Daul on our offensive line and the explosiveness we had with Julio. I just can't understand it.

I understand being mad about Dahl. I had no idea there was such a drop off in talent to his backups. On the defensive side we may be switching schemes or atleast going more hybrid. Abe doesn't fit. Lofton doesn't really fit. He would have been a great MLB in the 90s, but he's horrible in coverage. He makes up for it by playing the run very well, but not many teams really rely on running like they used to. If Grimes walks then pitch a fit.