New & Improved FA/Cap Thread

[DawgFan]

There have been any number of explanations about why the Browns have not been more aggressive in the FA market. But one I heard about ANOTHER team seems to fit the Browns situation to a T.

Teams that build through the draft do it via two separate things. First, the draft well (duh). But second, and probably more importantly, THEY KEEP THEIR YOUNG TALENT!!!

In order to do this, the team must plan in advance to have the cap space to resign those that they want to keep.

Because the Browns are LITTERED with young talent (might be the youngest team in the NFL), they have to plan more than most to extend contracts on the young talent that shows they are worth it....so without further ado:

FA end of 2011
Joe Thomas
Marcus Benard
Titus Brown
Chris Gocong
Peyton Hillis
D'Qwell Jackson
Ahtyba Rubin
Brian Schaefering

FA end of 2012
Joshua Cribbs
Scott Fujita
Shaun Lauvao
Mohammad Massaquoi
Brian Robiskie
Ben Watson

And those are just the guys I know we have a good chance of wanting to keep, no sleepers. There are a ton others in 2013.

Basically, the Browns are trying to KEEP THEIR PLAYERS instead of mortgaging the future with a couple huge FA signings when they already know the short off season combined with new coaches, new system, and a second year QB likely will preclude a playoff run this year. (I said LIKELY).

So...to my uneducated mind...THIS seams to be the most logical reason for the lack of upper tier movement. Let the young players prove themselves and then have the cap space to pay them so they stay with the Browns over the long haul instead of blossoming on some other team in 4 years.

[Flugel]

Originally Posted by DawgFan

There have been any number of explanations about why the Browns have not been more aggressive in the FA market. But one I heard about ANOTHER team seems to fit the Browns situation to a T.

Teams that build through the draft do it via two separate things. First, the draft well (duh). But second, and probably more importantly, THEY KEEP THEIR YOUNG TALENT!!!

In order to do this, the team must plan in advance to have the cap space to resign those that they want to keep.

Because the Browns are LITTERED with young talent (might be the youngest team in the NFL), they have to plan more than most to extend contracts on the young talent that shows they are worth it....so without further ado:

FA end of 2011
Joe Thomas
Marcus Benard
Titus Brown
Chris Gocong
Peyton Hillis
D'Qwell Jackson
Ahtyba Rubin
Brian Schaefering

FA end of 2012
Joshua Cribbs
Scott Fujita
Shaun Lauvao
Mohammad Massaquoi
Brian Robiskie
Ben Watson

And those are just the guys I know we have a good chance of wanting to keep, no sleepers. There are a ton others in 2013.

Basically, the Browns are trying to KEEP THEIR PLAYERS instead of mortgaging the future with a couple huge FA signings when they already know the short off season combined with new coaches, new system, and a second year QB likely will preclude a playoff run this year. (I said LIKELY).

So...to my uneducated mind...THIS seams to be the most logical reason for the lack of upper tier movement. Let the young players prove themselves and then have the cap space to pay them so they stay with the Browns over the long haul instead of blossoming on some other team in 4 years.

An enormous reminder of the goodies you bring when you have the time to post Dawgfan! There's been a HUGE tug of war in here about wanting to repeat what Savage and everyone did before him with overpaying free agents vrs the NEW thinking that free agency will not be at the expense of building through the draft. And you HAVE to have some semblence of continiuty and chemistry by RE-signing our best players instead of developing them for somebody else to cash in on it all.

Buffalo replaced the highly overpaid TO with a 3rd year 7th round pick named Steve Johnosn out of Kentucky to the tune of 10 TDs 82 receptions and almost 1100 yards. Next, he has to do the same thing Julio Jones needed to do - which is cut down on the drops/concentration lapses. Point? Sometimes it IS about the right environment see Brandon Lloyd. Sometimes it tales a while to get a complicated position see Miles Austin, Sidney Rice, Keenan McCardell, Jimmy Smith, Vincent Jackson, Lance Moore, Brandon Lloyd, etc. There's countless examples out there.

Teams like Pittsburgh and Indy build through the draft. When Dallas built through the draft - they won 3 Spuerbowls in that era. When they started looking to the Anthony Henrys, Pac Man Jones, Roy Williams, Zach Thomas, and many others past their primes - they've never won another playoff game. It's been kind of entertaining watching the Campett with oil on his shoes leaning on his son Jethro to run dat dere football team. The old notion that Jerry didn't need Jimmy was complete rooster-shoot.

[Riffer X]

We needed to close our other FA thread, it was getting too long. Please use this thread going forward.
Thanks

[Flugel]

Originally Posted by Riffer X

We needed to close our other FA thread, it was getting too long. Please use this thread going forward.
Thanks

I like that you're closing repeated/redundant topics so thanks for doing that. It was getting way too busy to the point of not knowing what thread a reply would get buried in and forgetting what conversations I was in BEFORE work when I showed up to the board after work. IMO, that was making this board alot busier and distracting than it needed to be.

We don't need to make countless brand new WR and FA topic headings every day when there's existing conversation already going on about those 2 topics as it is. ANYONE is welcome to join ANY conversation. If you go to other boards, you'll see there's way too many threads of the same topics often disguised as different topics.

Back to our football talk - I'll leapfrog my last reply to post below this so we don't lose a good conversation. Thanks again for cleaning up!

[Flugel]

Originally Posted by Flugel

An enormous reminder of the goodies you bring when you have the time to post Dawgfan! There's been a HUGE tug of war in here about wanting to repeat what Savage and everyone did before him with overpaying free agents vrs the NEW thinking that free agency will not be at the expense of building through the draft. And you HAVE to have some semblence of continiuty and chemistry by RE-signing our best players instead of developing them for somebody else to cash in on it all.

Buffalo replaced the highly overpaid TO with a 3rd year 7th round pick named Steve Johnosn out of Kentucky to the tune of 10 TDs 82 receptions and almost 1100 yards. Next, he has to do the same thing Julio Jones needed to do - which is cut down on the drops/concentration lapses. Point? Sometimes it IS about the right environment see Brandon Lloyd. Sometimes it tales a while to get a complicated position see Miles Austin, Sidney Rice, Keenan McCardell, Jimmy Smith, Vincent Jackson, Lance Moore, Brandon Lloyd, etc. There's countless examples out there.

Teams like Pittsburgh and Indy build through the draft. When Dallas built through the draft - they won 3 Spuerbowls in that era. When they started looking to the Anthony Henrys, Pac Man Jones, Roy Williams, Zach Thomas, and many others past their primes - they've never won another playoff game. It's been kind of entertaining watching the Campett with oil on his shoes leaning on his son Jethro to run dat dere football team. The old notion that Jerry didn't need Jimmy was complete rooster-shoot.

[YtownBacker]

Originally Posted by DawgFan

There have been any number of explanations about why the Browns have not been more aggressive in the FA market. But one I heard about ANOTHER team seems to fit the Browns situation to a T.

Teams that build through the draft do it via two separate things. First, the draft well (duh). But second, and probably more importantly, THEY KEEP THEIR YOUNG TALENT!!!

In order to do this, the team must plan in advance to have the cap space to resign those that they want to keep.

Because the Browns are LITTERED with young talent (might be the youngest team in the NFL), they have to plan more than most to extend contracts on the young talent that shows they are worth it....so without further ado:

FA end of 2011
Joe Thomas
Marcus Benard
Titus Brown
Chris Gocong
Peyton Hillis
D'Qwell Jackson
Ahtyba Rubin
Brian Schaefering

FA end of 2012
Joshua Cribbs
Scott Fujita
Shaun Lauvao
Mohammad Massaquoi
Brian Robiskie
Ben Watson

And those are just the guys I know we have a good chance of wanting to keep, no sleepers. There are a ton others in 2013.

Basically, the Browns are trying to KEEP THEIR PLAYERS instead of mortgaging the future with a couple huge FA signings when they already know the short off season combined with new coaches, new system, and a second year QB likely will preclude a playoff run this year. (I said LIKELY).

So...to my uneducated mind...THIS seams to be the most logical reason for the lack of upper tier movement. Let the young players prove themselves and then have the cap space to pay them so they stay with the Browns over the long haul instead of blossoming on some other team in 4 years.

[hiwaygal]

I understand the value of what we are doing by saving $$$ for future cap space for our young, developable players. And it doesn't necessarily make sense to spend buttloads of cash for a diva FA if we are most likely not shooting for the post-season.

But, it seems to me that many of the big FA splashes of this year were ONE YEAR terms. That aspect of the FA market for this season made sense to me, but would have made MORE sense if we were on the 'verge'.

There can be value in FA in two ways:

1- you can find a good fit for a long term solution at a good price

OR

2- you need one guy to fill in a spot for you for one year while you make a championship run

I guess Heckert/Holmgren weren't able to find a free agent that met either of those two qualifications. (or something like that)

[Brown Warrior]

We coulda done more work, period. I'll leave it at that. But Hillis, Thomas, and Rubin are all up this year and they'll all get paid. I'm a huge fan of continuity. We just don't have a lot of guys worth keeping who are "up." But that's a nice start.

Contrary to my negative feelings primarily at WR (and those feelings are ding-dong-damn valid) I like a few things we've done. We may have found our OL depth cheap and young with Braxton, Pinkston, and Greco to go with Yates. They clearly like these guys, so I'm cool.

Loving the Usama Young signing a ton. He's getting even more love in camp, from coaches AND players, and already in the starting lineup. Makes us so much faster and I think he may be this year's "get" for Heckert.

The defense is pretty set: Sheard, Rubin, Taylor, Mitchell, Gocong, DQJ, Fujita, Haden, Brown, Young, Ward. You look at that, you see future high picks at LB and CB for sure (to go with WR). You hope Mitchell is everything Heckert believes.

[Solon16]

I think they are gearing up to make Joe Thomas the highest paid LT in football!

[King of Kings]

Originally Posted by Solon16

I think they are gearing up to make Joe Thomas the highest paid LT in football!

He certainly deserves it!

[Brown Warrior]

Browns also have the least money committed in 2014, per ESPN:

The Panthers already have $91.6 million committed toward the cap in 2014. The Green Bay Packers are next at $62 million and most teams are around $30 million to $40 million. Heck, the Cleveland Browns are last with $17.7 million scheduled against the cap that year.

WOW. When that "cap floor" kicks in? Gonna be some money needs spendin'. Tons of it.

[Brown Warrior]

Pats signed Andre Carter. Did we know that? Derek Hagan signed somewhere, too.