One year arranged marriages?

[Trumpetbdw]

Wes Welker is 30 years old, had one major knee injury and lots of hits.

He's this close to being used up. One more season is about right, then they'll let him go.

THIS^^^

I could not agree with this more completely. He's not the type of player that typically has an extended career in the NFL, so what is his actual shelf life?

And unfortunately, it's why Wallace to NE makes perfect sense. They get younger and more explosive. They keep Welker for 1 more year, giving Brady an absolute perfect compliment of receivers. Then, they still have the explosive deep threat along with the two TEs, and only need to find that underneath piece that no team has done a better job of unearthing/utilizing.

[Trumpetbdw]

The Steelers know that Brown and Sanders are a pretty good receiving tandem on their own, and know they can live without Wallace. With Todd Haley moving to a more run-oriented approach, there is not much of a need to spend $9+ million a year on Wallace. The Steelers' don't emphasize the WR position in terms of money spent and have won Super Bowls. So have the Patriots, who with the exception of the Randy Moss years, have lacked superstar wideouts. There is not one 'winning way' to put together an NFL team-I will not suggest that the Steelers suddenly start spending huge FA money on WR.

Brown and Sanders are a pretty good tandem, assuming Sanders can stay on the field. But Wallace/Brown/Sanders is scary. And that's why I want to see Wallace somehow squeeze out at least one more year with the team, even in lieu of that first round pick. It gives them another year to perhaps figure out a way to keep Wallace/Brown together and gives them a much better shot at winning this year. It's a bit of a short-sighted view, I know, but I hate to see someone that efficiently explosive get away. Yes he faded, but a little added creativity from Todd Haley can bring that explosiveness back.

And I get that the popular line of thinking is that Haley has come in to re-establish a more run-oriented approach, but I think that's nothing more than conjecture. Haley's abrasive, but he's also smart, as are Tomlin, Colbert, Rooney, etc, and they all know their franchise player is under center. I certainly think they'd like to run more effectively, as would any team, but the main reasons for that are to keep Roethlisberger healthy, maintaining his full effectiveness, and that it would open things up even more downfield for guys like Brown and (hopefully) Wallace to convert their explosive opportunities on a more consistent basis.

[darvon]

I don't understand the OP point.

The Tag is for those players that are important but don't age well. Is there a limit on consecutive tagging in the CBA?

Speed players fit that description.

[mikesteelnation1]

I don't understand the OP point.

The Tag is for those players that are important but don't age well. Is there a limit on consecutive tagging in the CBA?

Speed players fit that description.

let's define tags first here, Darvon. The 2 in play are a 1st round rfa tag on Wallace, paying him a bit under 3mil and a franchise tag on welker paying him over 9 mil. The tags are meant to allow more time to sign a player to a long term deal, they're not intended to just rent a player for the year. At least not the way the steelers use them anyway.

The rfa tag is used on a player that has less than 4 years of service in the league, as a way to retain young talent while its still developing. Allow the team a chance to fully vet the young player, and know his performance wasn't a fluke. It's also good leverage to get a below market deal. A guy can be rfa tagged until he reaches 4 accredited seasons in the league.

The franchise tag is a far different animal, at least in the way it was intended to be used. It's to retain one of your "franchise" must have players. I know with all the kickers and te's tagged it makes the intentions of the rule muddy. I know it pays the avg of the top 5 salaries for the position. I know the timeframe used to calculate it used to be the prior year, but with the new cba it changed. I think its the previous 3 seasons, but ill have to check.

A better example of the intended use of the tag is brees in nola. A guy the team can't live without. Gives them more time to negotiate.

The point of my original post was given the dumb money a lot of far less accomplished wrs got since free agency started, it effectively priced the pats and steelers out of resigning their guys. Wallace and welker have outperformed every single guy who just got big money the past 2 yrs, sans megatron. Considerably outperformed Garcon and meachem for their 4 yr careers with just the last 2 yrs of performance. Garcon was a borderline #2, and meachem was a most definite #3. Neither has even had a 1000yd season. Both got around $8 mil per year. Vjax is a nice player, but he got 11mil per. He's never had a 1200 yd season. Both Wallace and welker have.

The recent contracts signed put welker and Wallace in the $10mil + per year range with a hometown discount. I feel the pats won't go that high, and know the steelers won't to retain these guys.

[mikesteelnation1]

Brown and Sanders are a pretty good tandem, assuming Sanders can stay on the field. But Wallace/Brown/Sanders is scary. And that's why I want to see Wallace somehow squeeze out at least one more year with the team, even in lieu of that first round pick. It gives them another year to perhaps figure out a way to keep Wallace/Brown together and gives them a much better shot at winning this year. It's a bit of a short-sighted view, I know, but I hate to see someone that efficiently explosive get away. Yes he faded, but a little added creativity from Todd Haley can bring that explosiveness back.

And I get that the popular line of thinking is that Haley has come in to re-establish a more run-oriented approach, but I think that's nothing more than conjecture. Haley's abrasive, but he's also smart, as are Tomlin, Colbert, Rooney, etc, and they all know their franchise player is under center. I certainly think they'd like to run more effectively, as would any team, but the main reasons for that are to keep Roethlisberger healthy, maintaining his full effectiveness, and that it would open things up even more downfield for guys like Brown and (hopefully) Wallace to convert their explosive opportunities on a more consistent basis.

I'm 100% with you on Wallace, brown, and sanders is a crazy scary three headed monster to defend. Add in Haley will use our beast te a hell of a sight better than Arians, and he's much better at getting the backs involved with screens and swings. This is a crazy dangerous offense. One we likely will have this year, bc I don't see anyone signing Wallace to a front loaded contract with a 10mil + avg. However I see us forced to pick between brown and Wallace, and the pick will be brown.

Make no mistakes, Haley was not hired to reinstill "steeler football". It's not a running league, and our talents lend themselves to throw the rock. Rooney cares zero about pass/run distribution. He cares about winning, and as a parallel running efficiently, not in volume. Getting the tough short yards, and moving the chains inside the red zone. Not running 3 straight short and goal plays and kicking a field goal. We've sucked at situational running for years now. Perhaps its a result of our oc calling over 80% of the run plays to the right last year? I'm pretty sure Haley won't do that.

Matter of fact ill be bold, and just say it now. Ben will have his best year passing next year. If the games are close he comes close to 5k yards.

[darvon]

OK. I don't define an RFA as a tag, but I get your meaning. We both know that "intent" of clauses in a contract/cba is non-sensical. There is only "functionality". The RFA functions to allow young players whose contract has expired before 4 years to be offered a 1 year contract of fixed amount, which, if the player signs elsewhere, gives compensation to the original club. Sort of gives the club limited ownership of the young player for a year after expiration of a contract.

Clubs will trade this to get favorable terms in a longer contract, or use it to get a discounted player for 1 year, or abandon it, as is their needs.

I don't think it is because the clubs need more time. With the negative impact of age and accumulated damage on an NFL player, the clubs use time extension as a lever in negotiations. The RFA increases RISK to the player. The clubs USE more time to pressure for a better deal.

Same with Franchise Tag. Brees is a great example. The club doesnt NEED more time to get a deal. They are using the additional RISK to Brees position that TIME gives the club to gain a negotiating lever. Franchise tags increase RISK to the player, one a season, just like a RFA.

Did the new CBA limit consecutive Franchise Tags? Who was the player that got tagged 3 or 4 times in a row?

[darvon]

Did the market increase the value of WRs past that in the NE or PITT model? Yep. Going to be interesting what those teams do in the next couple of years.

I think in NE's case, a great QB masks a lot of sins. Let's see how good BB is when he has to reload at QB.

We saw how good Polian was.

[mikesteelnation1]

OK. I don't define an RFA as a tag, but I get your meaning. We both know that "intent" of clauses in a contract/cba is non-sensical. There is only "functionality". The RFA functions to allow young players whose contract has expired before 4 years to be offered a 1 year contract of fixed amount, which, if the player signs elsewhere, gives compensation to the original club. Sort of gives the club limited ownership of the young player for a year after expiration of a contract.

Clubs will trade this to get favorable terms in a longer contract, or use it to get a discounted player for 1 year, or abandon it, as is their needs.

I don't think it is because the clubs need more time. With the negative impact of age and accumulated damage on an NFL player, the clubs use time extension as a lever in negotiations. The RFA increases RISK to the player. The clubs USE more time to pressure for a better deal.

Same with Franchise Tag. Brees is a great example. The club doesnt NEED more time to get a deal. They are using the additional RISK to Brees position that TIME gives the club to gain a negotiating lever. Franchise tags increase RISK to the player, one a season, just like a RFA.

Did the new CBA limit consecutive Franchise Tags? Who was the player that got tagged 3 or 4 times in a row?

the new cba doesn't limit how many times a player can be tagged per se, however its EXTREMELY unlikely we ever see someone get a 3rd tag. The application of a 3rd tag brings the player a one year deal equal to 120% the average of the 5 highest paid players in one position group (not their position group, mind you) OR 144% of their previous year salary. So basically they get paid 120% more than the qb avg of the top 5 for last year.

I did see the tag values are based on a 5 yr avg of players in your position group, adjusted as a % of the previous caps to the current one. They did this to smooth out the spikes from year to year by position group. It's all on pages 44-47 of the cba if you'd like more detail than what I've provided.

As a side note, I don't remember who was tagged 3 or 4 times. The guy who comes to mind is Vjax recently, but he only got tagged twice if I remember correctly. Hence why no tag this year, as he would've gotten 120% of what the top 5qbs avg was last year. I'm sure a ridiculous number.