The annual bone-headed FO/FA move

[mrt144]

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

It's very weird how you pick and choose where you're willing to venture risk. You'd gladly get rid of Kearse and likely pay for the privilege of personally doing it, but when it comes to a coach who is in charge of the worst unit of the team and has been for years, you're like "Ah man, he's integral to the team, we can't find anyone better based on past results!". I don't know man, it seems like you should revisit how you evaluate risk adjusted value to an organization. The resume argument precludes younger talent who just might be better at making chicken salad out of chicken shit.

 

[Missing_Clink]

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).

Amen brother! Nothing amazes me more than Tom Cable's "genius" reputation. Could anything be less deserved? Has he ever fielded a competent pass blocking O line in his coaching career? Who of the many "Cable guys" have worked out in Seattle? JR "completely whiffs on 7 blocks for every 1 nice second level block" Sweezy? Color me impressed. :roll:

I agree, his insistence on Nowack cost us a legit shot at the division. That alone should have gotten him fired. But instead, we will likely see them reach on some bad O lineman that Cable loves in this draft because they were former wrestlers or played D line in college.

 

[Seymour]

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

You mean that resume that includes his best effort at pass protection of #25 in the league with several #31 and #32 in the league. Ya....awesome resume for staying unemployed. He got by on the running game with Lynch and his league leading YAC. Those days are gone, and we have a $20M QB to protect. He is a dinosaur who's time has come and gone.

Funny that Belichick at least had the balls to fire his poor performing Oline coach but when it comes to Pete cutting "his guy" loose, forget it.

 

[jammerhawk]

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?

I doubt anybody really knew how much of a head case Percy was until they saw him here and had to deal with his wonderfulness. i think they got rid of him well w/o it costing them more than it could have cost.

For sure if you look back at the transaction it was a major mistake but it was truly a swing for the fences deal and there were the very few magic moments when he played for the Hawks that Percy flashed that uber athletic skill that was the reason for the team acquiring him. I remember the game where he scored 3 times in a row to have all three scores called back b/c someone held or false started. When Percy wanted to play and was healthy he was special, unfortunately those 2 things rarely happened.

This FO is without a doubt the best ever for the Seahawks and they have made a great deal more positive personnel moves than they have failed. The team is universally regarded as being well built around the league. You don't make an omelette w/o breaking some eggs. They've made some mistakes but are quick to move on when they recognize they have. I think they are doing it better than it's ever been done before.

 

[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?

I doubt anybody really knew how much of a head case Percy was until they saw him here and had to deal with his wonderfulness. i think they got rid of him well w/o it costing them more than it could have cost.

For sure if you look back at the transaction it was a major mistake but it was truly a swing for the fences deal and there were the very few magic moments when he played for the Hawks that Percy flashed that uber athletic skill that was the reason for the team acquiring him. I remember the game where he scored 3 times in a row to have all three scores called back b/c someone held or false started. When Percy wanted to play and was healthy he was special, unfortunately those 2 things rarely happened.

This FO is without a doubt the best ever for the Seahawks and they have made a great deal more positive personnel moves than they have failed. The team is universally regarded as being well built around the league. You don't make an omelette w/o breaking some eggs. They've made some mistakes but are quick to move on when they recognize they have. I think they are doing it better than it's ever been done before.

I agree to some extent - there was no way to really know ahead of time what you'd get full spectrum our of Percy. Their thesis was a good one - get an explosive player to take the burden off of Beast and 2nd year RW.

The biggest issue to me is that the issues with Percy and the process of Percy were exhibited in Graham. The FO has done a great job in finding value across multiple position groups but I still don't believe that they know how to maximize talent they haven't drafted on offense bar Beast who was a foundation piece of the offense going forward with PCJS.

Three moves don't make a pattern and it's possible the 4th time is the charm whenever it happens. A lot of these thoughts are hampered with the reality that sample size issues are everywhere in the NFL.

I think in another regard, thinking about the risks the FO takes, I think they really did believe they could iron out the personality issues and get him to buy in and it simply didn't happen. They had no reason to doubt themselves up until that point and they probably don't doubt themselves much now.

But the biggest gaffe was taking on that specific contract for an auxiliary offensive backbreaking player that had known issues. The process and thought was reasonable and cogent, the particulars and how it ultimately affected the team's salary cap, and the follow through on extracting as much backbreaking plays out of him was lacking. The process didn't work so well because it didn't account what-so-ever for the middling to awful implications of it not working out.

 

[Erebus]

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).

It looks like you want it both ways. You say the Cary Williams signing was bad because instead you should pay for production. Well that's exactly what they did with Graham and Harvin, yet you're blasting those moves too. We used to have a front office that didn't take risks. It was led by Tim Ruskell. Do you miss those years?

 

[TwistedHusky]

I don't want it both ways. I want them to start looking at the entire picture with FAs instead of how they approach the draft.

My post was long but you could argue that the very reason this team is prone to nightmare FA moves is the very same reason they are tremendously successful in the draft. MRT144 nailed it:

"But the biggest gaffe was taking on that specific contract for an auxiliary offensive backbreaking player that had known issues. The process and thought was reasonable and cogent, the particulars and how it ultimately affected the team's salary cap, and the follow through on extracting as much backbreaking plays out of him was lacking. The process didn't work so well because it didn't account what-so-ever for the middling to awful implications of it not working out."

The general breakdown is that this team overvalues upside vs downside. We shoot for the ceiling instead of looking for the highest floor. That works with the draft because there are missing pieces (ie skill development) that can make a massive difference, but with FAs it does not.

You cannot keep paying premium prices for production that in most instances depends upon the system that the player was in mirroring or complementing yours. And you cannot just keep assuming that problems that happened elsewhere are not going to happen in your space.

This is something we are consistently burned on so their process in both determining pricing and evaluating the options clearly underweights downside vs upside in these moves.

Cary Williams was known as an inconsistent if not outright poor defender with a poor attitude and poor work ethic. Sure enough, what did we get?

Percy Havin was a nightmare that cost us bundles in salary that could have kept some players, including Tate. But he was also a player that had a reputation for either being fragile or faking injury, and being a terrible locker room presence. We paid premium prices for him and what did we get? A guy that was either fragile or faked injury + was a terrible locker room presence.

Admittedly, the Graham trade "worked out", (since you could not have predicted the freak injury), but clearly at the cost of starving other offensive assets - which was the book on Graham before he got here. More importantly, it gutted our OL. You can use the argument that we were going to cut our Center anyway, but that is just another indicator of poor FO decisioning - since you don't get remove one of the few effective players on your least effective resource (OL) that your entire offense hinges on.

At some point this FO needs to start considering the negative attributes of players before they swing for the fences with them. I get that the way they find draft picks is potential vs production because they believe they can train up a guy. But FAs are what they are and likely what they were. You are not going to get a massive difference by bringing them in, but you might upset equilibrium that already exists on your team.

 

[Hawks46]

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?

I doubt anybody really knew how much of a head case Percy was until they saw him here and had to deal with his wonderfulness. i think they got rid of him well w/o it costing them more than it could have cost.

For sure if you look back at the transaction it was a major mistake but it was truly a swing for the fences deal and there were the very few magic moments when he played for the Hawks that Percy flashed that uber athletic skill that was the reason for the team acquiring him. I remember the game where he scored 3 times in a row to have all three scores called back b/c someone held or false started. When Percy wanted to play and was healthy he was special, unfortunately those 2 things rarely happened.

This FO is without a doubt the best ever for the Seahawks and they have made a great deal more positive personnel moves than they have failed. The team is universally regarded as being well built around the league. You don't make an omelette w/o breaking some eggs. They've made some mistakes but are quick to move on when they recognize they have. I think they are doing it better than it's ever been done before.

This is a good point. They knew Percy had some issues, but I theorize that they thought they could handle it with a strong locker room full of guys that were very competitive. The knock on Harvin was that he was tired of losing and he called out his team mates that didn't perform well. Put in an environment that wasn't stifling and full of guys that were full on competing, I think that Pete thought it would change his outlook and turn Harvin's attitude around.

The other thing about this pick that people are missing is that it was a luxury pick. We were a loaded team, picking a player with a known hip issue that was going to miss time. They knew they could win without him, but were looking for him to put our offense over the top. It's a shame we burned a 1st rounder on it, but the fact is that it was a luxury pick. Our team was already loaded across the board.

 

[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?

I doubt anybody really knew how much of a head case Percy was until they saw him here and had to deal with his wonderfulness. i think they got rid of him well w/o it costing them more than it could have cost.

For sure if you look back at the transaction it was a major mistake but it was truly a swing for the fences deal and there were the very few magic moments when he played for the Hawks that Percy flashed that uber athletic skill that was the reason for the team acquiring him. I remember the game where he scored 3 times in a row to have all three scores called back b/c someone held or false started. When Percy wanted to play and was healthy he was special, unfortunately those 2 things rarely happened.

This FO is without a doubt the best ever for the Seahawks and they have made a great deal more positive personnel moves than they have failed. The team is universally regarded as being well built around the league. You don't make an omelette w/o breaking some eggs. They've made some mistakes but are quick to move on when they recognize they have. I think they are doing it better than it's ever been done before.

This is a good point. They knew Percy had some issues, but I theorize that they thought they could handle it with a strong locker room full of guys that were very competitive. The knock on Harvin was that he was tired of losing and he called out his team mates that didn't perform well. Put in an environment that wasn't stifling and full of guys that were full on competing, I think that Pete thought it would change his outlook and turn Harvin's attitude around.

The other thing about this pick that people are missing is that it was a luxury pick. We were a loaded team, picking a player with a known hip issue that was going to miss time. They knew they could win without him, but were looking for him to put our offense over the top. It's a shame we burned a 1st rounder on it, but the fact is that it was a luxury pick. Our team was already loaded across the board.

The problem is that the downside risk in salary wasn't properly accounted for. The Graham trade is an indication that the FO saw some of that. But some of it was driven explicitly by the salary wake of Percy.

 

[Hawks46]

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).

Williams may not be a lazy example you're using, but it's lazy analysis, or at the very least superficial.

Williams is a long, athletic CB that was playing in a poor scheme for him. He played a lot of cover 2 zone in Philly, when that was never his forte. Pete mostly likely thought that putting him back in a scheme that played to his strengths would likely turn in production than he had in Philly.

To understand this, you have to go back to Baltimore. Williams was a good CB in the Ravens' press/man scheme, playing a lot of bump and run behind a vicious pass rush. Athletically he was still that guy; he was still fast, and still had the length that the Seahawks desired. In hindsight, Pete obviously thought he could put Williams in our scheme, coach him up, and get the Ravens version of him and not the Philly version of him.

Looking at Williams' last year in Philly, then looking at him here and exclaiming "gee, he was crappy in Philly and he was bad here, what where they thinking ?!!" is in fact being lazy without looking at the bigger picture.

Going back farther, Philly has a history of doing this. They took Nnamdi Asomagha (yea I can't spell it) from the Raiders, paid him a boat load, then promptly put him in a scheme that just didn't play to any of his strengths and emphasized his weaknesses. You can't look at the last year a player did and think that's the totality of any player.

 

[TwistedHusky]

It isn't lazy analysis at all.

You overpay for a lazy CB with effectiveness and work ethic problems and you get a lazy CB with effectiveness + work ethic problems.

"Williams is a long, athletic CB that was playing in a poor scheme for him. He played a lot of cover 2 zone in Philly, when that was never his forte. Pete mostly likely thought that putting him back in a scheme that played to his strengths would likely turn in production than he had in Philly."

A reasonable analysis would also allow for the likelihood that production was a result of the system in Baltimore itself. Now you could take the angle that our system also makes corners produce well, but you are still paying $$$ for production that came from the system instead of the player. Which makes the move a risk. So why pay $OhMyGod per year for a corner that may or may not be able to duplicate effectiveness he had in a different system before when he already had an immediate track record of being ineffective recently? We paid as if he as productive already when the reality was he was not. Gambling that a change in system would change the outcome implies some risk factor which should be represented in the price, we paid full price instead.

Second, production effectiveness isn't just physical. It is a mixture of skills and mental strength. There are plenty of players out there with near identical physical attributes, measurables that have massively different production from each other. So paying high $ for someone with a track record of having work ethic and mental toughness issues? Stupid. And it was pretty clear the guy was a nightmare, remember I was passing out the pitchforks and torches the moment he got here for both reasons listed above.

Ultimately a good evaluation system would have identified and either compensated for the issues by lowering our price, or identified a better option or lower price option. We did neither, which hints the process could be flawed.

One mistake does not indicate a flawed process but multiple? Absolutely.

In fact your keyword is thought. "Pete mostly likely thought.." When you are spending a 5th round pick? Go with what you think, take a chance. Spending $4M? Go with what the data tells you.

 

[AgentDib]

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.

That's exactly the point: you can look at an overall pattern of outcomes and draw some conclusions. For example, we've hit a lot on defense and we've missed a few times on the OL, so I have no problem with the idea that our FO is better at picking secondary talent then they are at offensive tackle talent. In reference to this thread you just can't look at a single move in a vacuum and declare it was stupid without making the very big assumption that what we observed was the only probable outcome.

It's not hard to bash the Cary Williams signing after the outcome has been bad. Would the same criticisms be made now if the outcome had been good instead? Consider me skeptical.

 

[TwistedHusky]

"It's not hard to bash the Cary Williams signing after the outcome has been bad. Would the same criticisms be made now if the outcome had been good instead? Consider me skeptical."

This is a ridiculous statement.

It is kind of like the statement "It is always in the last place you look..." where the obvious answer is that people stop looking for things once they find them so it is ALWAYS the last place. In this instance you ask why someone would criticize the move if it has been successful? Who does that?

The Cary Williams move was stupid. In fact, the Seahawks acknowledged it was stupid the moment they cut him in the middle of the year. So arguing it wasn't stupid makes no sense.

Further, at the time of the move it looked stupid. Red warning lights flashed all over but this is the big issue I have with the process, the Seahawks seem to make FA moves with 2 beliefs driving most of the process:

1) Things will be different here or that bad behavior/poor performance will radically change.

2) Look at how great it will be if it works out.

Those are wonderful hopes, but they are hopes - which means there are % (likely large % chances) of alternate outcomes, making them risks.

If the Hawks have a high % success rate on the draft but a low % success rate on big FA acquisitions, perhaps that is a sign they need a different process for high cost FAs vs the process they use in drafting? All signs point to them using very similar systems for both approaches and the outcomes argue that they might be better off changing this. You might even argue that lower cost FAs are better served going under the same system, at which point you simply need to identify the pivot point where the outcomes are better served with change.

But standing pat because it works with one side but falls flat all over the place with the other? That is just weird and stubborn. Frankly, I think our culture makes it harder for us to find high cost FAs that would be accepted by our team anyway, which leads to yet another failure factor to consider.

 

[rideaducati]

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

You mean that resume that includes his best effort at pass protection of #25 in the league with several #31 and #32 in the league. Ya....awesome resume for staying unemployed. He got by on the running game with Lynch and his league leading YAC. Those days are gone, and we have a $20M QB to protect. He is a dinosaur who's time has come and gone.

Funny that Belichick at least had the balls to fire his poor performing Oline coach but when it comes to Pete cutting "his guy" loose, forget it.

I guess you didn't notice the rushing stats of EVERY team Cable has had a hand in. For a "run first" team, that is essential and being that the Seahawks are a run first team, I don't see the problem with Cable. NOBODY is going to be able to pass block for the three plus seconds Russell was taking, or trying to take, early on in the season. Sure there were a few mishaps in blocking assignments, but those guys were thrown together in week three of the preseason, so expecting them to be good right away would be foolish. NO TEAM IN THE NFL with three new offensive linemen has ever been good right away. Of all position groups on the field, offensive lines need the most time to work together.

Sure, fire Cable and get rid of the entire offensive line....now what?

Those guys were improving and it was noticeable. There are five linemen and they NEED to work together in order to improve. Give it a bit of time. It's not like Cable has had all members of the line play together for a full season for as long as he has been in Seattle. Half of the line has missed half the games in the past three seasons. This season they went out and at least tried to get replacements for guys that weren't available to begin with and I don't know if you noticed, but they were mostly healthy for the entire season. I'm sure most of you were as good at your job on the first day as you were after a year...I know I was.

As for Kearse, what the hell does he offer that can't be replaced? Stone hands? Inability to beat man coverage? Lack of fight for contested passes? Tough to replace, I know...but I think they can do it.

 

[pehawk]

I love Twisteds post. A+.

 

[AgentDib]

In this instance you ask why someone would criticize the move if it has been successful? Who does that?

Exactly. Criticizing bad outcomes and not good outcomes is a sign that you're judging outcomes rather than decisions. Lots of people do it but that doesn't make it rational.

The Cary Williams move was stupid. In fact, the Seahawks acknowledged it was stupid the moment they cut him in the middle of the year. So arguing it wasn't stupid makes no sense.

You'll have to provide a source for where they said the signing was a bad decision. They cut him in the middle of the year because it was a bad outcome. Outcomes are not the same as decisions.

Further, at the time of the move it looked stupid. Red warning lights flashed all over but this is the big issue I have with the process

Did it have a 100% chance of success? Clearly no, but it could have been a good risk to take with a much lower probability of success than that. The reasons why it made sense then have not changed and jumping on it after the fact is just fluffy outcome based rhetoric.

 

[TwistedHusky]

"Did it have a 100% chance of success? Clearly no. But the reasons why it made sense then have not changed and jumping on it after the fact is just fluffy outcome based rhetoric."

You do realize that decisions that result in bad outcomes are generally called bad decisions? Right?*

(*If you have a decision where data at the point of decision seems to indicate high chance of risk of a "bad outcome" and you choose to ignore the risk, then the outcome is "bad" - the decision is bad. It isn't hindsight if the trainwreck is staring you in the face and you get blinded by the vision of your hoped for outcome.)

Now, if you have a collection of decisions and some work out and some do not, you have every right to call out the critics because generally gain is should come with risk. But if a segment of that collection consistently has a higher "bad outcome"? Then you need to evaluate whether that segment should use the same decision process.

In this case, the answer is a screaming no.

It should also be pointed out that you seem to be arguing that it is easy to be upset with the CJ signing in hindsight to the person that was essentially printing the "I HATE CJ" T-Shirts and distributing the protest banners basically before he got off the plane. Sure, I waited to really push the issue till after game 2 in preseason, but I was pretty adamant against the signing before it happened. For the reasons that ENDED UP BEING THE VERY REASONS THEY CUT HIM.

By the way, they didn't "cut him in the middle of the year because it was a bad outcome". A bad outcome could mean that he just couldn't perform on the field. But the red flag with him was his attitude and his negative impact on the locker room.

So why would you cut a functional, although terrible CB, midway through the year when your other corners are injured and another significant injury could leave you scraping the waver wire to get a healthy body? Because clearly keeping him on the team, even while not playing, negatively impacted the rest of the team enough to offset that risk.

Sure sounds like an attitude and locker room impact problem to me, the very thing that SHOULD have been the worry in signing him in the first place. Leave aside he was terrible, adding him to the team was bad for other reasons that really should have tilted the scale to NOT signing early in the game. That the evaluation process either missed this or chose to overlook is the key issue that leads to all the other problems.

 

[TwistedHusky]

It should be noted that it sounds like I am saying don't take risks with FAs.

Not the case. I am saying if you are going to take a risk, be compensated for taking that risk.
The Seahawks often don't in their FA deals.

Don't pay full price for something broken on the off chance that it might be fixed. Pay a discounted price for something broken only when you have a reasonable expectation you can fix it, a plan/means for doing so, a good chance at success and a payoff that warrants the risk.

Or take a flyer and buy broken on the cheap, projecting a certain % will work out. But don't buy broken at the same rates as productive. And be aware that even productive is dependent on the framework/system + process you use with the resource.

And for God's sake be aware that putting broken things into a working system can often break other things!

None of this seems to go into the FA eval, we seem to negotiate with FAs as if upside was the same as projected production.

It isn't.

 

[MrThortan]

Report: Seattle Seahawks could be interested in DeMarco Murray

http://sea.247sports.com/Bolt/Report-Se ... y-43485242

(Note) Not much substance in this article.

 

[two dog]

It sounds as if some of you missed the early years, or the Behring years.
You know, when the boss's kid, David Behring was the General Manager.
Now there was some high class general managin'.

This is the best run of Seahawk teams in franchise history and all they get
is questions of why they didn't do it better?
When they inevitably revert to the NFL norm, It's gonna be hard on some people.

Or maybe they will just move on to a front runner.