Hogs Haven
Editorializing about roster-building in the NFL
THIS IS NOT A NEW ARTICLE. IT WAS PUBLISHED IN 2020 AND I HAVE NOT UPDATED A WORD OF IT.
With a weekend focused on basketball and hockey, I thought I’d give you something to peruse on a possibly slow Sunday in your life, and definitely a slow Sunday with respect to the NFL.
This article was written by me and published on 18 February, 2020. It talks about free agents and circumstances that are five years out of date, which may bother you. It has some bad takes from me — most notably, my enthusiasm for the signing of Landon Collins, which, as we all know, turned out disastrously. I’m willing to expose myself to the laughter on things like that if you feel like putting in the time to read this long — oh, so long — philosophical presentation on team building in the salary cap and free agency-driven NFL.
This article runs well over 6,000 words. It will probably require 15 to 30 minutes to read in its entirety. If you simply aren’t interested in that investment, feel free to scroll right to the bottom of the article where you will see a 6-paragraph section headlined “tl;dr”.
Reading that will give you the ‘bottom line’ of the article without any of its reasoning. Otherwise, feel free to go straight to the comments section and start saying why the ideas in the article are wrong based solely on how you feel about the headline.
Let’s be clear - mistakes get made in building NFL rosters.
The Draft
Talented players sit around till the late rounds of the draft (Tom Brady), or maybe don’t get drafted at all (Quinton Dunbar), while some high draft picks don’t amount to anything (Johnny Manzeil).
Trades
Some trades are made that never really work for one (or both) teams (Hershel Walker, RG3).
Free agency
In free agency, some guys sit on the market, overlooked by most or all of the league (Adrian Peterson, 2018). Some guys get signed to monster contracts with great fanfare but things never really work out (Ndomakong Suh and the Dolphins, 2015). Guys get signed who may not burn a lot of cap space, but just never really contribute to the team (Orlando Scandrick, DRC to Redskins). Some are cut or allowed to walk, only to go on and show their value in a different place (Raheem Mostert).
But mistakes, be they bad draft picks, players overlooked in the draft, bad trades or free agent decisions that are questionable due to lack of performance or large contracts, don’t invalidate any of the three methods of adding players to a team.
A good front office utilizes all three methods of player acquisition in roster-building (along with others, like utilizing waivers), but when it comes to fans, there can be biases that can color perceptions of the “right way” or “wrong way” for...
