Re: Keys to Building a Dynasty
 

You don’t pay players like Kamara and Thomas with the production they had then you can guarantee players won’t want to come in free agency or stay here past their rookie contracts. You have to take care of your guys. The huge knock on New Orleans was Benson didn’t want to pay players. New England got away with that because they had the greatest QB/Coach combination of all time. People aren’t clamoring to go to NE now because NE has the reputation of not taking care of their own. You’re dealing with people with emotions and wherewithal, not robots. How do you not pay Michael Thomas after the production he gave us? That would be outright disrespect and a message to everybody in the NFL, if you ain’t Drew Brees then **** you.

Re: Keys to Building a Dynasty
 

It's been on my mind.

Would you rather:
A) Finish last in the standings, but be able to see your star hall-of-fame player have a legendary final game in the regular season to cap his career? (Kobe)
B) Win 75% of your games and the division and make it to the second round of the playoffs, but lose in a game where your star hall-of-famer ended his career with a bad game with multiple critical mistakes? (Drew)

The Saints weren't wrong to do what they did, push all the chips to middle of the table to try get the team over the top and get a ring while Drew could still play. If Kobe were still alive he might tell you he'd trade in his epic final game for the chance to end his career with a #2 seed playoff team. We may have a tough road ahead now but at least we gave ourselves and Drew a shot. That's all you can ask. On the whole, I trust the Saints front office to make pretty good decisions.

Re: Keys to Building a Dynasty
 

Well Bako, I agree with some of what you are saying, and I appreciate the effort it took, but its sort of Obvious, easier said than done.

It’s like you are saying..don’t pay for or draft position x unless he’s worth it. I’d prefer to draft position y, but only if cost for y is allowable if he’s healthy.

Re: Keys to Building a Dynasty
 

New England has been letting star players walk or trading them since before Brady and Belicheck had so many rings, when they were just a team that got lucky and won a couple. The Steelers have let many stars walk. The 49ers let Montana walk when they had Steve Young. I don't think its super insulting to trade a player because you have a budget. If some company hired me, trained me up to be worth 20 million a year with their great system when i just started out trying to make the team, and then said we want to train someone new to stay on budget so pick your new city to earn 20 million from a new employer, I would not complain. If an owner wont pay to have a winning team, that is one thing, and free agents may not want to lose. But if an owner makes smart decisions to win, free agents should like that. We don't need the big name free agents anyway, we need to build through the draft and get the under appreciated free agents who are hungry to win.

Re: Keys to Building a Dynasty
 

To summarize some points its more like this. Don't run up the credit card and take out a second mortgage from your future draft stock. Buy stock in the bank and make money from other people doing what you don't. When you buy a car, look up consumer reports and don't buy a range rover or 'jag-uare' that is gonna break down. Especially don't pay big money for a used high mileage range rover or jaguar. When you can afford it, buy a house, not a boat. If you buy a boat first, buy the kind you row, and make sure it doesn't have any holes in the bottom. With Kamara and Thomas, we ran up the credit cards and took out a second mortgage to buy two boats.

But I do get that we cannot entirely avoid injuries and mistakes. No team can. Oline, Dline, and Linebackers are big guys and prone to busted knees and we will lose players there, just maybe avoid acquiring ones who are old and/or have extensive injury histories and come at high cost so we dont lose as many. Secondary can be injury prone too, so again maybe avoid big injury history there, its a hard position to play in ones 30's. And everything is situational but generally investing more capital in defense, oline, and qb pays off. Nobody would say to draft a punter in the 1st round and then extend him at a record contract for his position. Well, I say dont do that with TE either, and dont spend a ton on rb or superstar WR.

Re: Keys to Building a Dynasty
 

But this ain’t credit cards and banks. It’s the same conversation I have with my Dad, it’s easier to make good credit/investment decisions than it is draft decisions. How did Brady/Wilson/Rogers slip as far as they did if you can predict it. How did KC trading up for Mahomes. There are 32 teams trying to do what you say. Again, lots of what you say makes sense, but it’s not applicable with competing with 31 other teams to be the best.

Re: Keys to Building a Dynasty
 

They didn’t win their first Super Bowl until Brady got there. Their sustained success was directly correlated with that combination, because as we saw this year, Cam couldn’t work with less like Brady could. The Steelers had stability at Quarterback and TRULY dominate defenses. The 49ers let Montana walk at the end of his career with Steve Young in waiting. They didn’t move on from Montana and Rice and leave Steve Young with nothing to work with.

There’s other ways to stay under budget. As far as the draft, that’s a crap shoot. You hit some, you lose on most.

Most importantly, if I take a job in New Orleans and settle down and start trying to raise a family there because you gave me a long term deal then you say you wanna trade me I’m not going to have good **** to say. Especially when my production was down because of injury. It’s not a good look.

Re: Keys to Building a Dynasty
 

In Thomas case he may want out so it could be mutual. It would be dumb to get rid of him otherwise.

Re: Keys to Building a Dynasty
 

He just played through serious injury trying to get Brees a Super Bowl before he retires. I think maybe we should stop speculating on what these guys want. Mike doesn’t seem shy about saying what he wants.

Re: Keys to Building a Dynasty
 

Kamara 2.0