AgentDib":3rl9sij8 said:
We did blow our chance at a bunch of compensatory picks last year but that's uncharacteristic of our front office which normally stockpiles them. I think Carroll saw how much turnover there was going to be and decided that if we were going to be immediately competitive (a must for him) our best shot was filling some of those holes in FA via low-mid FA quantity. That's an avenue of potential value because many teams do avoid those players for compensatory pick reasons.
Couple things.
1. I agree in principle. Pete obviously wanted to fill holes with UFA. And that's not necessarily bad.
2. I think Pete felt they were more than low/mid quality.
Why? Well we'd have to assume that both Pete and John both understand completely how the comp formula works (which we have seen them manipulate before). If that assumption is true, then if they truly regarded these guys as low value players, they could of and would of cut them before week 10 and replaced them with cap casualty free agents at the start of the season.
Just because you sign a UFA in March, doesn't mean you 'lose' the comp pick. Your qualified UFA additions (and losses for that matter) don't finally qualify unless they are on the roster (active or IR) by week 10. Given that, I think Seattle regarded these players are not just incrementally better, but significantly better than low quality players. Otherwise they would have opted to just replace these guys with truly low quality/one year rental players.
Getting a comp pick means you are losing talent right now. And that loss has a significant cost. Particularly when you're not really producing quality depth, which Seattle has had an issue with in the last few years. In order to get comp picks 18 months down the road, you have to sacrifice team quality for the next 18 months.
Also, Seattle has done a remarkably crappy job of self scouting their own team. We are constantly letting go players before we should, creating urgent need when we don't necessarily need to. We drafted Penny last year in R1. But that's only because we stupidly jettisoned Alex Collins at the start of his second year. In what I can only assume was a 'fumble and you're out of here' tantrum. That move basically cost us a first round pick.
We also just let Glowinski go for what seemed no real reason. Other than Cable didn't like him maybe? The gift that keeps on taking. Awesome. I guess it was because we were so enamored with Pocic?
Which of course could be a cautionary tale for those here that are now looking to run Pocic out of town. Or Tedric Thompson. Or QJeff. Because developing guys and then letting them go before they mature means you are intentionally selling low on a player. Could Pocic turn around his career in year 3? Possibly.
Basically in order to make the comp pick strategy work, you have to have rookie deal depth in place so you don't have a lot of holes where you need better than low quality street free agents. I don't think we were in that position last year. However we kind of look like we are this year.
