The annual bone-headed FO/FA move

[Wizofwest]

What boned headed move have they made in the past that you are making such claim about. So far everything they have touched has turned to gold.

I saw Cary William might be the only one. But the great news is this team cuts bait so quickly.

When I say Percy you say?

Percy did not pan out as hoped, but he put the nail in the coffin for our first Super Bowl victory. Let's say we go three and out to start the second half then the Broncos score a TD. That is an entirely different game. Percy running the kickoff back for a TD was game set and match. So I'll take the Percy trade and the trophy.

 

[rideaducati]

Avril and a pick to Cleveland for Joe Thomas...that wouldn't be boneheaded though.

 

[2_0_6]

Avril and a pick to Cleveland for Joe Thomas...that wouldn't be boneheaded though.

Cleveland will be drafting a QB (again) and will need at least Thomas or Mack to stay and help anchor the line. Seems like Mack will leave, an I highly doubt Thomas gets dealt.

 

[pehawk]

I cant decide if criticisms of the Cary Williams deal are lazy or convenient.

Yes, the deal didn't work out but the thinking was sound. The Hawks simply needed a DB. And for all his struggles Cary actually made sense schematically because wins the first 5 yards.

 

[Ozzy]

I lean towards lazy. It's obvious what they were doing and knowing the importance of the position in this defense it was a gamble worth taking. They gambled that he would take to the coaching because his physical skill set did fit with what we do IF he was willing/able to change his technique. It didn't work out, they admitted their mistake and cut bait accordingly. Can't win them all.

 

[Scottemojo]

I cant decide if criticisms of the Cary Williams deal are lazy or convenient.

Yes, the deal didn't work out but the thinking was sound. The Hawks simply needed a DB. And for all his struggles Cary actually made sense schematically because wins the first 5 yards.

I think much of the criticsm is rooted in an idea that if Cary had not been signed, Kam would not have held out.

Which might hold water. I got the vibe that Williams wasn't part of the group. THey said the right things, but I thought it was plain that Earl didn't trust him to read things correctly. Even having Sherm follow a good WR was a huge indictment of Williams, it is basically the last thing Seattle wants to do on D.

Lane's SB injury had more than the usual ripple effects.

 

[pehawk]

I cant decide if criticisms of the Cary Williams deal are lazy or convenient.

Yes, the deal didn't work out but the thinking was sound. The Hawks simply needed a DB. And for all his struggles Cary actually made sense schematically because wins the first 5 yards.

I think much of the criticsm is rooted in an idea that if Cary had not been signed, Kam would not have held out.

Which might hold water. I got the vibe that Williams wasn't part of the group. THey said the right things, but I thought it was plain that Earl didn't trust him to read things correctly. Even having Sherm follow a good WR was a huge indictment of Williams, it is basically the last thing Seattle wants to do on D.

Lane's SB injury had more than the usual ripple effects.

I think that criticism holds water for sure. Probably as much as the last play of the SB contributed to unrest for Kam, MB and the defensive players. It took the shine off things a bit. But still, they had to sign someone.

Ironically as the year went on you could logically theorize Earl soured on Kam. It was interesting to watch.

 

[Willyeye]

What boned headed move have they made in the past that you are making such claim about. So far everything they have touched has turned to gold.

I saw Cary William might be the only one. But the great news is this team cuts bait so quickly.

I have to say...using a 2nd round pick to get Britt, who probably would have lasted to the 5th or 6th round, was a boneheaded move. When they announced that pick I went nuts. And they still haven't cut him.

 

[Seymour]

Letting Tom Cable hand pick the O line draft choices. Almost guaranteed to be a terrible pick

+ One franchise destiny.

Keep Cable away from that draft board!!!!!

 

[mrt144]

This thread falls into the common trap of judging decisions based on outcomes. Deterministic thinking is the wrong way to evaluate things because it fails to take into account the role that fortune plays in our lives.

If I bet you even odds that a fair dice will roll a six then it is a good decision for you to take that bet regardless of what I end up actually rolling. So what happens if I do roll sixes after all? You would lose the bet, plenty of people would make posts labeling it a bone-headed move on your part, and some of them could even leverage that sort of analysis into a job in sports talk radio.

The only rational way to evaluate decisions is to look at them probabilistically. Compare the entire distribution of outcomes that we could have gotten from the Percy trade with the price that we paid. We only saw one of the dozens of possibilities (some could have been even worse) and so this isn't an obvious answer. And that's the important point: it's difficult to evaluate single decisions without the benefit of a time machine where you can see what all of the possible outcomes would be. You have to look at the overall body of work. It's easy to say that Percy was a bad outcome but there is a huge amount of guesswork that goes into deciding whether he was a bad decision.

Charlie whitehurst, Matt Flynn, Percy harvin, Cary Williams, and the jury is still out on graham.

Those go in on one side of the balance sheet and you could throw in a few more: Moffitt, Howard, EJ Wilson, Durham, CMike, etc. However, even with a 90% chance of getting a hit on a player (great decision) there would be one in every ten that just busted out anyway. You can't say that these X players did not work and were therefore bad decisions.

If the process leads to similar outcomes again and again it might be worth a peek into the process. While there's some merit in what you write, it also functions to mute criticism through chalking it up to dumb luck and inscrutable process.

 

[chawx]

What boned headed move have they made in the past that you are making such claim about. So far everything they have touched has turned to gold.

I saw Cary William might be the only one. But the great news is this team cuts bait so quickly.

When I say Percy you say?

Percy did not pan out as hoped, but he put the nail in the coffin for our first Super Bowl victory. Let's say we go three and out to start the second half then the Broncos score a TD. That is an entirely different game. Percy running the kickoff back for a TD was game set and match. So I'll take the Percy trade and the trophy.

^ This right here. For all the well-deserve hate Percy gets on this board, he blew the doors wide-open in the Super Bowl with his jet-sweep runs and then finished it in the 2nd half with the KO (pun-intended) return.

He was definitely a one-game pony, and did nothing else for us all season (and into next year, he actually hurt us) but we won a freakin' ring because of that guy's help. I can't hate Percy. I can dislike him. But really, in the grand scheme of things, he hurt us early in a season where we ended up one-foot away from a repeat win in the Super Bowl...not his fault.

He served his purpose.

 

[mrt144]

What boned headed move have they made in the past that you are making such claim about. So far everything they have touched has turned to gold.

I saw Cary William might be the only one. But the great news is this team cuts bait so quickly.

When I say Percy you say?

Percy did not pan out as hoped, but he put the nail in the coffin for our first Super Bowl victory. Let's say we go three and out to start the second half then the Broncos score a TD. That is an entirely different game. Percy running the kickoff back for a TD was game set and match. So I'll take the Percy trade and the trophy.

^ This right here. For all the well-deserve hate Percy gets on this board, he blew the doors wide-open in the Super Bowl with his jet-sweep runs and then finished it in the 2nd half with the KO (pun-intended) return.

He was definitely a one-game pony, and did nothing else for us all season (and into next year, he actually hurt us) but we won a freakin' ring because of that guy's help. I can't hate Percy. I can dislike him. But really, in the grand scheme of things, he hurt us early in a season where we ended up one-foot away from a repeat win in the Super Bowl...not his fault.

He served his purpose.

I seriously can't believe that anyone would take the entire weight of the contract and say that a nail in the coffin of an already deceased team was all the justification it needs. While I just got done clucking my tongue over single minded process only criticism, this is on the other end of the spectrum.

 

[Scottemojo]

I cant decide if criticisms of the Cary Williams deal are lazy or convenient.

Yes, the deal didn't work out but the thinking was sound. The Hawks simply needed a DB. And for all his struggles Cary actually made sense schematically because wins the first 5 yards.

I think much of the criticsm is rooted in an idea that if Cary had not been signed, Kam would not have held out.

Which might hold water. I got the vibe that Williams wasn't part of the group. THey said the right things, but I thought it was plain that Earl didn't trust him to read things correctly. Even having Sherm follow a good WR was a huge indictment of Williams, it is basically the last thing Seattle wants to do on D.

Lane's SB injury had more than the usual ripple effects.

I think that criticism holds water for sure. Probably as much as the last play of the SB contributed to unrest for Kam, MB and the defensive players. It took the shine off things a bit. But still, they had to sign someone.

Ironically as the year went on you could logically theorize Earl soured on Kam. It was interesting to watch.

I theorized that as the season wore on, Kam's holdout would have more effects than a lost game. When a tight end got loose, there was more than the usual finger pointing. Even when the LOB was saying the right things, it was...forced. Official words.

One play stands out. Williams cost Earl an easy pick, and Earl was pissed, but in that of course you did, you can't help it way.

I really don't know what will be up with Kam. An offseason is a long time to stew over perceived or real slights. I know they want to keep him, but I do think this front office will be taking his temperature for the next few months. Free agency and the draft might tell us if 2015 or 2016 are his last Hawk seasons. I think Kam is a man who holds his grudges closely.

The good news is I think we have talent at corner that will be good enough for 2016. And I'm not even including Shead and Lane in that depth.

 

[pehawk]

The good news is I think we have talent at corner that will be good enough for 2016. And I'm not even including Shead and Lane in that depth.

Totally...I'm big on Tye and Mo

 

[ivotuk]

Letting Tom Cable hand pick the O line draft choices. Almost guaranteed to be a terrible pick

THIS. RIGHT. HERE.

Tom Cable is our version of Jerruh Jones. Send him to Tanzania for the Draft please. :thfight7:

 

[rideaducati]

Letting Tom Cable hand pick the O line draft choices. Almost guaranteed to be a terrible pick

THIS. RIGHT. HERE.

Tom Cable is our version of Jerruh Jones. Send him to Tanzania for the Draft please. :thfight7:

I doubt there is another coach in the league that could have gotten THOSE guys to play as well as they were playing late in the season. The improvement was steady and actually surprising considering how bad they were early on.

 

[mrt144]

Letting Tom Cable hand pick the O line draft choices. Almost guaranteed to be a terrible pick

THIS. RIGHT. HERE.

Tom Cable is our version of Jerruh Jones. Send him to Tanzania for the Draft please. :thfight7:

I doubt there is another coach in the league that could have gotten THOSE guys to play as well as they were playing late in the season. The improvement was steady and actually surprising considering how bad they were early on.

Well, I'd like to see if your doubt is warranted by trying someone else out.

 

[rideaducati]

Letting Tom Cable hand pick the O line draft choices. Almost guaranteed to be a terrible pick

THIS. RIGHT. HERE.

Tom Cable is our version of Jerruh Jones. Send him to Tanzania for the Draft please. :thfight7:

I doubt there is another coach in the league that could have gotten THOSE guys to play as well as they were playing late in the season. The improvement was steady and actually surprising considering how bad they were early on.

Well, I'd like to see if your doubt is warranted by trying someone else out.

Find someone that is available with a BETTER resume...good luck.

 

[TwistedHusky]

I think I made it pretty clear in the post what I mean.

This team has a tendency to massively overpay in trades for high visibility players. This is almost a trend. Lynch does not fit into this category as Lynch really was almost thought of as a big risk when he got here. I am talking about guys that put up big #s elsewhere and so are expected to do so here.

And Cary Williams was not a lazy example, he was a guy that was terrible somewhere else and then got signed as if he wasn't. Paying for potential is stupid, btw - you pay for results. Cary Willliams was terrible the year before he got here, and he was terrible once he got here (shockingly). But more importantly, paying guys less that you are asking to sacrifice to help the team stay strong, does not work when you bring in FA that a) makes more + b) produces less. That said, I think we rehashed the CJ thing before - we could fill a 10 page thread of why that was a terrible decision.

So I think CJ was a one-off. But it still had big consequences that anyone should have forseen and it was still utterly, utterly stupid. Not in hindsight, but with even a cursory look at production + attitude everwhere but Baltimore. And especially at that price. Gross.

The larger issue is that it was a good example of the FO signing a FA to #s that make no sense, if nothing else that should have been production bonuses even if team production. The only saving grace was at least we did not trade away a bunch of firsts on the guy.

So to recap, my contention is the 'splash trades' or 'splash signings' rarely work out and this team likes to do them. You could split hairs and say the Bennett/Avril signings fall into that category but I don't think they were as visible or as high cost as a Harvin type or Graham type deal. They also did not require creating gaping holes in other parts of your team to effect them.

This team is going to have to learn that if you make a move to fill a hole, you usually have to pay a premium for immediate performance and that cost affects your team in other areas. Harvin killed our ability to keep Golden, which in turn was likely the difference in not winning the SB against the Pats. CJ cost us millions we could use to keep one of our own, and likely was the catalyst for the Kam being upset.

The FO is great in the draft, but every year I dread the arrival of some big Seahawk trade or splashy FA signing that rarely works out. To say I am just picking out the losses is ridiculous, the numbers show that the higher cost moves rarely work out for ANY team and our own #s show this to be true as well. The big moves mostly turn into big losses for this team. (The smaller moves seem to pay off at a higher rate).

 

[ivotuk]

Letting Tom Cable hand pick the O line draft choices. Almost guaranteed to be a terrible pick

THIS. RIGHT. HERE.

Tom Cable is our version of Jerruh Jones. Send him to Tanzania for the Draft please. :thfight7:

I doubt there is another coach in the league that could have gotten THOSE guys to play as well as they were playing late in the season. The improvement was steady and actually surprising considering how bad they were early on.

He's responsible for the poor play, the beating Russell took early on, and the lack of production in our running game early on by trying to force a DT on us at center. And because of that, he is partially responsible for the losses and 6th seed in the playoffs.

And what resume? The one where his line can't pass block, where Marshawn Lynch had the shortest yards before contact in the league? There's a reason we paid Lynch 12 million, because our offensive line sucked. It has been a problem since the beginning, and imho, the only reason we've had any success is because of Marshawn and Russell's Houdini like abilities/

The FO needs to focus on the offensive line, and stop getting cute in signing/drafting failures at Cable's behest (Robert Gallery).