Any of you guys starting to open your eyes a little bit here? 1. Prices are going way up. Way, way, way up. The #1 overall pick could/should/probably will get a 60 million dollar contract. Unproven/not elite players are getting ridiculous contracts (Dockery, Andrews, Walker, Davis, etc). 2. The FA talent pool is going to suck. Teams have the money to lock up their young stars, and they're doing it. 3. The players you call "other teams trash" are quickly becoming the most viable signing options. 4. Since they are the most viable signing options, more than likely you shouldn't expect a long term starter to be signed through FA. Expect alot of young, talented back ups/nonstarters/non-elite starters to be signed to bigger than expected contracts...we already saw it last offseason with Coleman, Langston Walker, Derrick Dockery, Chris Kelsay, and others. 5. You DO NOT find your teams stars through FA. This is true in ALL pro sports right now...from the MLB to the NHL to the NFL. The Yankees and Red Sox have shied away from big name FAs in recent years and loaded up their farm systems. The NHL is seeing their young stars like Ovechkin and Crosby signed to long term monster deals so they don't get away. The elite NFL teams from last season all had a bunch of formerly garbage FAs (Mike Vrabel anyone?) mixed in with young stars drafted by the franchise. Pay attention and get out of the Madden/early 2000's MLB mentality. It's delusional as fuck. Theres actually people complaining about us not signings FA's yet and FA hasn't even opened yet...WTF?
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eorWhtV9Aqk[/YOUTUBE] He's the reason I'm slowly starting to pay attention to hockey again. He's just a monster...
What worries me is some people seem to think the Jets should spend all that cap money regardless of whether or not there is premier talent to justify it. 'Spend early and spend often' is the mantra for some.
Yeah thats true on alot of levels but one. We have never...ever...brought in a big name splash free agent. We as jet fans have been waiting 39 years for a SB ring and the only Big name free agent we brought in was Ty Law when he was over 30, we went 4-12, and he bounced 1 year later. Us jet fans are just dying to see a game breaker want to come (and yes get paid) and play hard for our jets. But we will continue to pick up prayer players and hope we find our diamonds in the rough. Thats just how we do things.
Some people may think that. There are a lot of other people who just want to see talented players in Jet's unis next fall and this regime has done a bad job of putting talented players on the field. Enough with the Kimo Von Ohlhoffens and Kenyon Colemans and David Barretts and Justin McCareins and Reggie Tongues and Sam Garnes and Adrien Clarkes and Dave Fiedlers and ex-Patriots of the month club. Let's go get a couple of premier free agents that when you plug them in you get what you paid for, not sticky fingers from digging for the prize in the bottom of the Crackerjack box.
I feel your pain, but Neil O'Donnell was definitely a big-name, big-splash free agent signing. He didn't pan out, but it really created a buzz at the time. In fact the Jets were expected to do well after splashing out a lot of money that year. Look at this piece from The Sporting News 1996...
Couldn't agree with you more. That's why I'm glad that a guy like Faneca is still out there and all it takes to get him (hopefully) is money. Picking up a player like him also signals to other FA's that the team is dead serious about improving itself. Mind you, I'm not advocating a wild spending spree with Woody's money but I believe that strategically acquiring a player like Faneca (make him the highest paid at his position with a 3 year contract offer) sends out a message not only to your own troops that you're serious about winning now but also to those who may not be so sure that the Jets would be a good team to sign with. Besides Faneca, Samuels and Pace, there really aren't many available players that could have a discernible impact. p.s. - Don't give me that shit about Kendall being around the same age as Faneca. Kendall is no where near Faneca when it comes to ability.
This regime has done a bad job of putting talented players on the field? So...D'Brick, Mangold, Leon, Revis, Harris, the Smiths, and Cotchery (who never played until Mangini came) are...what exactly? Better production from DRob, Ellis, BT, and Hobson isn't bringing out talent? Its absolutely amazing that Barrett, McCarein, Tongue, and Garnes can even be mentioned since this regime has NOTHING to do with them. They didn't acquire them. They didn't sign them. They inherited them. I never bash posters, but dude you constantly repeat the same shit and it's always either irrational or complete and utter bullshit. We ALL want talent on the team. The talent level has only gotten better under Mangini. I don't see what the huge urge to spend money is for...it's such a bad idea. All you people seem to want is a name anyway...
People who like to bitch will bitch no matter what. I'm surprised he hasn't changed his name to T4ngini5uX yet.
Its friggen amazing to me to hear people preaching that we should not spend in free agency. Better yet supporting that bullshit by pointing to all the so called talent on our roster. We had an excellent draft last yr and thats it. Five more like it and we would be good but unfortunately contracts would be expiring and we would have to shell out cash to keep our best. Do you believe we are going to do that? We have two above average wr's,a probowl calibur lb,same for cb,s and c. After that we are average to below average at rest of positions. Get some fucken players in here who can play before I die goddamn it! Pats=moss,a.thomas,vrabel,harrison all were free agents so stop with the bullshit about only finding good players through the draft. The pats are the model so id side with them on this. We have never been players in free agency and where has that gotten us? you are what you are 4-12 we sucked. We waste money on the kimos,hamiltons, and garbage and where does that get us. Why save it when you dont spend it, we didnt even spend to the cap this yr yet had the balls to field a fucken scrub like adrien clark, thats pitiful. Defend this shit all you want but im with obama its time for a change
Wow... Moss was a trade. He cost them the hard price of a 4th round pick. To them this is a no brainer. Besides for their high picks, most of their draft isn't going to make the team anyway. For us, a 4th round pick was and is a high price for a WR who may or may not show up on Sundays. Thomas was a 30 year old LBer who took less money to sign with the Pats. Know why? Because the Pats had the luxury of splurging after spending YEARS drafting their core. Vrabel and Harrison are in the "Kenyon Coleman and Kimo" signing group. Vrabel had 8 sacks in like 5 seasons, and Harrison was considered washed up. Your first paragraph is just too thorough to argue. I definitely think we're way too loaded with talent to pursue big name FAs...:sarcasm:
Weve got huge holes at both guard spots, and theres a good amount of talented guards available this year. I don't see why it would be stupid for the Jets to go out and sign one or two. The Jets need some help at linebacker, and there are a few prospects out there they seem to like. I see nothing wrong with them bringing in a guy like Calvin Pace; I never heard anything good about him until this year, but it wouldn't be the first time that a player got ignored for the first four years of his career while in Arizona and then went on to be highly successful elsewhere. As for the ongoing 'mimic the Patriots' obsession, when will people get tired of this? The Giants won the Super Bowl this year, and plenty of their key contributors were once free agents (Plaxico, Shaun O'Hara, Kareem McKenzie, Antonio Pierce, etc.), so stop leaning on the "the Patriots are good so we have to do everything the same" BS. Five years ago, the Buccaneers won and every fan in the NFL was demanding that their team switch to the Cover 2, because clearly "thats how you win the Super Bowl." Last year the Colts won it with offense, and the year before that the Steelers won it with defense. Lesson: different teams do things different ways, get used to it. Clearly you can't build a team through free agency entirely, you have to build through the draft, but when there are players available that will improve your squad and you've got the cash to bring them in, its asinine to say you shouldn't do it because some other teams have gotten lucky enough in the draft that they havent had to. You build mainly through the draft, but you fill holes through free agency, and right now we've got a couple of problem spots that could be shored up through free agency, giving us a much more solid squad going into the draft.
The Giants also drafted Strahan, Osi, Tuck, Alford, Kiwanuka, Ross, Wilson, Torbor and Cofield...basically the best players on that D. Plus, O'Hara was an undrafted FA, not a big signing. They drafted Snee, Manning, Jacobs, Bradshaw, Shockey, Tyree, Diehl, Suebert and Boss... Every offseason everyone says the last Super Bowl team built the perfect team, but the Giants (like the Pats and everyone else) have used mainly the draft to build their core. They went to fill holes through FA, but neither Pierce nor Plaxico were elite players...they were more promise/potential than performance (but obviously enough performance to get paid). And the Colts and Steelers won because they were good all around...like most Super Bowl teams.The Colts D picked up after a meh regular season and actually outplayed their O in the post season. The Steelers were just a damn good team all the way around...they also emphasized the draft over FA in their early building years. I do think we should sign FA's, I just don't get why people are making such a big deal out of it right now.
Yeah, the Jets have a lot of holes to fill at this point and not just in talent on the field. There's a perception out there that Tannenbaum and Mangini are over-matched in terms of their ability to acquire talent, run a team, negotiate with free agents and generally do the things required to put a winning team together. Bradway was always challenged in those areas and that more than anything else is what caused the Jets decline as the great players on the team when he took it over slowly aged out or attritted out due to injuries. The current regime needs to put their stamp on the team and put the NFL on notice that they're going to be players in the talent market. That means going and finding a couple of good players to commit to coming here now, when the Jets are down and this is not necessarily a great place to be. As you point out it would go a long ways towards erasing the stigma that hangs over the Jets relating to their high-handed treatment of Kendall last season and the 4-12 nightmare that followed.
There will be talent available because teams can only tag one player per year. Dansby gets tagged, Pace is available Haynesworth gets tagged, Bell is available With that being said there really isn't much talent to spread amongst 32 teams. Unless we go after Samuel or Moss (bad idea), we should be able to overpay four guys without hurting ourselves too much capwise. I would careful about who we target but be very aggressive with the amounts offered to those players. These guys would be my primary targets: Jacob Bell OG Calvin Pace OLB Gibril Wilson S Billy Volek QB I would also look for a FB, TE, and another guard in free agency as well.
