Free agency success
 

I have no idea how this will play out, but I'm curious. How often has a team that was very active in signing blue chip free agents went on to win the Super Bowl?

I have no idea, but I think a lot of teams have added a key piece in free agency to put them over the top, but as far as "very active", I cannot think of one.

Not that I can think of either… usually it puts a target on the team’s backs

In the salary cap era at least, if you have money to spend, you are usually one of the teams with the worst records the previous year. Cowboys and 49ers used to sign anyone and everyone pre salary cap.

Can't think of too many instances where a top team has been flush with cash to spend on free agents. Most top teams have a highly paid QB, and then have to manipulate younger guys in with 5 or 6 star players and then just average veterans filling out the roster.

If you look around the league, how many teams have 5 or 6 star players on a roster at any one time? I would suggest very few. Teams can't afford to pay them and be under the salary cap.

A star player is going to be earning $15-20m with a top QB being double that. That's half of all of your cap money gone and you still have another 40 guys to pay.

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I remember when Carmen Policy was lauded for his successful (and at the time, legal) manipulation of the salary cap in 1994. He signed free agent Rickey Jackson to a contract that paid him a base salary of $162,000, and a bonus of $838,000 IF the 49ers made it to the Super Bowl ...... if you ever want to see a team player, pay them in THAT fashion !!! ) :eek:


P.S. The 49ers made it to the Super Bowl that year, and Jackson got his $838,000 bonus.




Paid by the Yard: On Super Bowl Sunday, Here’s How Pro Sports Plays the Pay-For-Performance Game

(By Thomas S. Mulligan)

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-...791-story.html

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This wound up being a very prophetic article ...... it was written in November of 2021, 3 months before the Rams won the Super Bowl.




1994 Champion 49ers, Loaded With Free Agents, Explain How Rams Can Win It All

(By Sam Farmer)

https://news.yahoo.com/1994-champion...123016536.html

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From that article: But there’s a big difference between collecting all-stars and getting the most out of them, something the Philadelphia Eagles learned in 2011 when they assembled the so-called Dream Team yet finished 8-8.

I think that is the point of this thread.

The Redskins from the early 2000's tried the buy a team approach seemingly almost every year. How did that work out?

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The OP asked if acquiring numerous big-time free agents ever worked, so I answered his question with the 1994 49ers. Then I came upon that article that professed that the 2021 Rams could duplicate what the 1994 49ers did.

Albany Ed asked if it ever worked, and I didn't see any reason to believe that it was a rhetorical question ...... I took it as he was saying that it's given that it has not worked out much more often than not, and he wanted to know if it ever worked.

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Which blue chip free agents did the Rams sign in that year?

Miller and Beckham. But they were signed during the season, according to the article. The only team that assembled such talent in the off-season was the Eagles, mentioned in the article. They flopped.

The only significant free agent acquisition that year for the Rams was OBJ. Of course the year before they added A’shawn Robison and Leonard Floyd via free agency. And then you’ve got all the players they added via trade: Stafford, Ramsey, Von Miller, Sony Michel, Austin Corbet were all major contributors acquired by trade. 25 of the players on their 53 man roster were drafted by them, 28 were acquired by other means. I doubt that is the info you want though, it looks like you are trying to narrowly tailor the question as a “gotcha” to people that criticize Ballard. Even though that is almost no one’s complaint. That’s why you have to ask about “blue chip players” signed in the specific year they won the SB. You don’t want to discuss overall roster construction.

The closest recent team to your very narrow criteria was the prior year Bucs. They signed Brady, Antonio Brown and Leonard Fournette. And of course traded for Gronkowski. Out of their 53 man roster, they had 23 drafts pics, 22 free agents, 3 players by trade and the rest UDFA or waiver pic ups. Again, your super narrow criteria may exclude them, but looking at roster construction shows that you can win by doing more than waiting and drafting to fill holes. Which is the point of the Ballard critique - it’s not signing multiple big names every years as your question suggests. If Ballard traded for Sneed it wouldn’t count for your criteria but would have satisfied most Ballard critics (no need to defend passing on him, I don’t care about one specific transaction. It’s about the overall approach proven over multiple years)

Von miller was a trade so doesn’t meet his criteria.

Jesus you guys are ridiculous. You realize there is a hell of a lot of middle ground between the Redskins approach and Ballard’s, right? You only want to talk about the extremes. Look at the damn transaction lists for the last several SB winners. Not just the year the won, but the year or two prior as well. I’ve already touched on the Bucs and Rams. The 2017 Eagles had 10 drafted starters, 10 acquired by free agency, and 2 acquired by trade. Why don’t you site any of those 3 teams? Because it doesn’t defend Ballard’s method as the only way? Even the patriots and Chiefs teams that won recently have been more aggressive than Ballard has.

Claim the team isn’t ready so no reason to be aggressive yet (I disagree), but trying to pretend Ballards method is the proven main or only way to win in the current NFL is fucking asinine. It’s demonstrably not the only way and doesn’t look like the best way when you dig into other rosters.

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That is the quintessential reverse of the 1979 Pittsburgh Steelers ...... the 1979 Pittsburgh Steelers are the only Super Bowl champion ever in which EACH AND EVERY member of the team was drafted by that organization ...... every member of the 1979 Steelers was drafted by coach Chuck Noll and the Rooneys. ) :eek:




1979 Steelers Hold Unique Draft Distinction

(By Bryan DeArdo)

https://www.behindthesteelcurtain.co...ft-distinction

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You can Google “how were the 20XX team name built” for most SB champions and find articles on how their rosters were assembled. I’ve read many of them over the years arguing against Ballard’s over reliance on the draft. It has made it pretty clear to me that there are several different ways to assemble a championship roster. And almost all of them involve taking some degree of calculated risk to fix deficiencies and win in a window.

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That's what Brent Jones points out in the article that I cited, also ...... he points out the similarities to both the 1994 49ers and the 2020 Buccaneers in terms of the similarity of the overall make-up of the teams ......


“This 2021 Rams team is absolutely reminiscent of the 1994 'Niners, and to a lesser extent last year's Tampa Bay Bucs,” tight end Brent Jones said. “If OBJ gets serious, gets his head in the playbook and integrates himself into the offense, and they stay healthy, I don't think that anybody else can match up with these guys.”

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You guys can argue about roster construction but the real key to winning a superbowl is having a franchise QB playing at a high level.

You have to go back to 2003 and Tampa Bay to find a superbowl winner without a star QB - with a possible exception for 2018 Philadelphia Nick Foles, but that was an offensive scheme that was messing with opposing defenses and then Foles had some weird moment and took them on a run.
Just listing backward here its:
Mahomes
Mahomes
Stafford
Brady
Mahomes
Brady
Foles
Brady
P. Manning
Brady
Wilson (he sucks now but had a savant first few years)
Flacco
E. Manning
Rodgers
Brees
Roethlisberger
E. Manning
P. Manning
Roethlisberger
Brady
Brady
Brad fucken Johnson

This boils down to whether our guy is going to be a good one or not

I don’t think anyone will disagree you need a franchise QB. From there you have to fill holes and maximize your chances in your window. QB is the most important part, but the rest of the roster does matter.

If you are defending Ballard by saying he hasn’t had the QB so the rest doesn’t matter, then I disagree. There was no reason to acquire Rivers or Ryan unless you think they are good enough to be on the list. And if you think they are then you have to recognize the window is 1-2 years max. Ballard did shit with the rest of the roster. I don’t believe Ballard will ever operate in a way that maximizes the teams chances even if he has a franchise QB. The window with AR and this version of the team (Buckner, Grover, Kelly, likely Taylor, etc) starts this season. So far it appears it will be treated like every other season under Ballard.

Not really trying to defend any specific thing about Ballard, but at no point since Luck's retirement have we had any type of great QB play (Rivers was good not great).

I could criticize Ballard for not fixing the QB position sooner than he did - he probably should not have prolonged the suffering with all the free agent QBs and instead allowed the team to tank so he could draft one high.

Without that, there's really just no sense in trying to bring in big money big name free agents to fill the gaps, it would be a waste, because those guys aren't winning you the superbowl if you don't have the QB.

The question remains - is AR going to be that guy? There's kinda no point in an overly aggressive FA approach until we can see him on the field for a whole season and see what we've got, and in turn, what we don't got.

Main point: you can use FA market to get the right parts to "win now" or "win within a short window in the next few years" but only AFTER you know you have the QB to get you there.

I think there is a valid criticism of how Ballard handled the QB search. Individually I understand and largely support the chances he took at QB, even though I prefer going the rookie route. But he tried to straddle the two logical options and ended up prolonging the issue. Only to be saved by Irsay’s tank job - intentional or not. Rivers and Ryan indicated win now, while he never treated the rest of the roster the same way.


I disagree that you should wait to see on AR. To me we are married to him for at least 2-3 more years. I see almost no scenario where we move on from him before that, short of a career ending injury. If he fails then it’s a reset on this team and a start over anyway. What do you do besides reset? Start going the Rivers / Ryan route again. Screw that. So what do you loose by saying the window is open now? It also provides max support to AR now. I don’t want to throw a shit secondary out there and train AR that he has to score every possession. I want him to learn to pick and choose his spots. And, the teams we talked about in here show that many of the moves were done a year or two before they won the SB.

Basically, if AR is who we hope there is a version of the team to be built before his extension that supports him and takes the load off. That should start now. If he isn’t that guy, then it really doesn’t matter. You are starting over and having a great salary cap position will matter little since you’ll again lean on draft picks and young guys. Guys like Buckner deserve a team trying to win now, not just once they are washed up or retired.

I saw a article not too long ago that measured FA success for teams and put it into a graph. Basically it said best case scenario, it had a two-year peak and then the teams took a sharp nose dive. Worst case was the team did not do well and got everyone fired and they started over. So it seems to have limited success if successful. I haven't been able to find it again, but if I do I'll post it.

I’d like to see what kinds of transactions were monitored and tracked. My guess is it follows the Washington model previously mentioned. I think most people realize you aren’t going to be successful long term paying premium for multiple top free agents. No team “buys” its way to success. The issue is that there is a huge middle ground between the Washington model and Ballard’s model. Recent SB winners show the benefit of using all three methods of player acquisition in their roster building.

I believe it was because players age out of their contract often and the hit rate is not the best to justify the cost.