Not Smart

saintswhodi · 04-17-2006, 02:18 PM

Originally Posted by BJSim

xan,

worst case scenario... no one trades with us and we're stuck picking #2 and the FO doesn't want Leinart, Williams (those valued at #2). They CAN pass the pick & let Tenn draft #2. Then continue to a point where it's worth it for them to take who they want at the draft slot they want. The Vikings did it a couple years ago. Do they get anything for thier pick? no, but they don't "overpay" as you put it for their draft pick. remember, if you pass, you can walk up to the podium at ANY POINT to take your pick. That's why when the Vikes did it, there were teams LITERALLY running up to the podium to make their selections before Minnesota could change it's mind.

Okay, this, I have to say, is a TERRIBLE idea. First, when the Vikes dropped a couple of slots in that draft, which they actually did two years in a row unbelievably enough, it wasn't intentional. They were slow making a decision, and got leap frogged. Second, in doing somethingl ike that, all you open yourself up to is an agent saying "Well, player A would have been the second pick in the draft had your FO not been incompetent, therefore we want 2nd pick money," and get in a contract battle. Of ALL the things I could see happening draft day, I hope this is the farthest thing from the Saints mind, AND we don't make the Minnesota blunder.

LSUJeremy · 04-17-2006, 02:22 PM

Originally Posted by Tobias-Reiper

..or, the Saints merely use their #2 pick and select a very good player. Imagine that!!
So what if they pick, say, AJ Hawk with the #2. "They paid too much!!! Hawk was a 5th, not a 2nd" So? If I have a 2nd instead of a 5th, do I have to pick the guy Mel Kiper says should go with the 2nd pick just so I can get the "full value" of the pick? This now popular value system for draft posistions really means nothing. The real value of any pick is what the player picked does while playing in your team. Period.

The idea of the draft order is that the teams that did the worst the previous season get the chance to grab the better players coming out of college. At #2, the Saints get to choose from all but one player. That's the real value of the pick.

I'm with you. I don't understand why it's not ok to take Hawk at 2, but perfectly reasonable to take him at 5? A needs a need, and an impact player is an impact player, regardless of position. Unless I'm mistaken, Ray Lewis wasn't in the top 10. Would Ray Lewis be the 1st overall pick if you knew what his career would turn out to be (minus the murder)? Um, yes.

saintswhodi · 04-17-2006, 02:23 PM

xan my man,

the allotment disappears with the signing of the contract. As of march 20, the Saints were $20 million under the cap.

This was after we signed Brees right? Then hell, we are in a better position than we thought. Way better. We may have more like 16-18 mil in cap room instead of 14 mil. I likes the sounds of that.

Next, as much as you wanna knock the FO, we ALL know Loomis is a shrew cap guy. One of the best. So I know you have to feel he knows what he's doing with the cap room we have, and the alotted money for the #2 pick in the draft. I guarantee he does. AND, rookie contracts can be laced with performance and playing time incentives. So the first year cap hit may not even be that high, although the signing bonues will be announced at about 14-20 mil, depending on who we draft. Left we forget, a bonus can be split over the lifeof the contract, so even if player A got a 20 mil bonus on a 6 year contract, guess what, the bonus hit would only be 3.3 mil or so. Add salary, you are looking at maybe 5-7 mil in initial cap hit. OR, the Saints, having the cap room, could choose to pay a lot of the bonus against this year's cap, and free up money for next year. So buddy, trust me, your doom and gloom is unwarranted in relation to the cap and our #2 pick. We have more than enough money to accomplish whatever we need.

xan · 04-17-2006, 03:10 PM

I'll try to stay top line rather than detail, so...

Teams behind the Saints, especially the Jets, Titans and Raiders, have qb issues. Other teams lower down may have the same issues, but they'd have to trade their entire draft this year and potentially all of next year to trade up based on value charts and no team will pull a Ditka again. These three teams have major holes on both sides of the ball besides qb. The Jets carry 3 qbs on their roster, and could pass on a qb without much worry, and the Raiders have AB (HA!) and could potentially wait for a lesser name. Only the Titans have a truly open issue, but picking third assures them of at least the choice of two of three qbs; resolving McNair before the draft would make their urgency disappear.

If the Saints chose other than a qb, then each team will probably get one of the three qbs.
If any or all of the teams negotiate with the Saints to move up, each of the teams would, most likely, get one of the three qbs.

If the Saints select a qb, two of the three could select a qb.
One could trade for the Saints qb selection. Once selected, only the most interested in that qb may be willing to give full value. Otherwise the value of the selection would diminish immediately. Ultimately, a team must have no other option in order to make that trade.
--- At #3, the titans have other options. Moving up one spot may not be worth sacrificing a much needed 35th pick. They could trade down and still get their man.
--- At #4 the Jets have many other options, including trading down themselves; full value would be 4/29/71 - a half Ditka.
--- At #7 the Raiders would have to sacrifice the most in order to move up. It is not clear that with the holes that team has that they'd be willing to give up their entire draft this year and some of next (full Ditka) for a qb that they might still get anyway. Kerry Collins got pummelled last year, and whomever they put in won't fare much better without help. They've got little cap room and haven't signed but a handful of FA's, including Brooks. Unlikely that this team will trade up for more risk.

If there were only one qb of this talent, I'd definitely say we're in the catbird seat. But with three legitimate qbs for top 7 selection, the threat to take any one of them is not great. My point about Brees is that signing him to such a huge contract signals too much ambivalence about drafting a qb, making it a less valuable chip to trade down.

If you were the Titans', Jets', or Raiders' GM and you knew that if the TRADE turns horribly wrong and would end your career next year, would you do it?

saintswhodi · 04-17-2006, 03:26 PM

Why are you QB focused? Mario Williams has been called the best player in the draft. So has Ferguson. So has Hawk. Guess what, WE HAVE A NEED FOR ALL THREE(except maybe Williams, but we have at least thrown his name out there). So if any team, say GB, wanted say, Mario Williams, they'd have to trade with us, CAUSE WE MUDDIED THE WATER BY SIGNING BREES. For the life of me I can't understand why this is so difficult. I think you are sold on this point, and are gonna ride it out no matter what anyone says, so i'll leave you to that. But if you honestly believe that being pigeon holed into taking a QB is better than having ALL available top draft picks linked to us, and therefore having ALL teams interested in one of 4-5 players having to go through us, I really don't know what to tell you. Let the pessimism continue to roll I guess.

As far as getting value, Lord man, let it go already. If we get ANYTHING to trade down that still keeps us in the top 5, WE WIN. More picks and still get a bad as player we want. How in the world is that a losing deal? Who cares if we don;t get a Ditka draft worth of picks. NOONE is stupid enough to do anything like that again anyway. This draft is DEEP and any extra picks we get will be impact players. But whatever. I do not have the willpower to any longer battle such ingrained pessimism. If you are resigned to the fact we have horribly screwed ourselves beyond redemption, you have at that.

papz · 04-17-2006, 03:28 PM

Look... the whole league can see that the contract we gave Brees may very well be a 1 year contract. So, I do not see how it lessens the threat of us selecting one of the 3 potential franchise quarterbacks inthe draft. I like the way we structured the contract and therefore I do not see how it lessens the trade value of our #2 pick.

papz · 04-17-2006, 03:31 PM

Originally Posted by saintswhodi

As far as getting value, Lord man, let it go already. If we get ANYTHING to trade down that still keeps us in the top 5, WE WIN.

Ding ding.

That pretty much covers it.

xan · 04-17-2006, 04:41 PM

All right. No more. I'm clearly distressed about this and am unable to convey how much it pisses me off not to be economical and savvy given how confoundingly uneconomical and unsavvy this team has been in the past. I will concede that signing Brees was a good thing (but not his contract). I will concede that getting anything by trading down but remain within the top 5 would be beneficial. I will concede that we are going to be lucky to get any of the top 7 players in this draft without having to give up anything to get them. But I won't concede that we should be a lot further along with this team and that if anything we should be looking to extend value wherever possible and I don't think this FO has made good economic value choices. We'll just have to agree to disagree about how other GM's are viewing the Saints' offseason moves and how they will adjust to whatever options the Saints present. God I hope that I'm wrong and that there's a sucker out there.

04-17-2006, 02:18 PM	#21
saintswhodi 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 6,941	Originally Posted by BJSim xan, worst case scenario... no one trades with us and we're stuck picking #2 and the FO doesn't want Leinart, Williams (those valued at #2). They CAN pass the pick & let Tenn draft #2. Then continue to a point where it's worth it for them to take who they want at the draft slot they want. The Vikings did it a couple years ago. Do they get anything for thier pick? no, but they don't "overpay" as you put it for their draft pick. remember, if you pass, you can walk up to the podium at ANY POINT to take your pick. That's why when the Vikes did it, there were teams LITERALLY running up to the podium to make their selections before Minnesota could change it's mind. Okay, this, I have to say, is a TERRIBLE idea. First, when the Vikes dropped a couple of slots in that draft, which they actually did two years in a row unbelievably enough, it wasn't intentional. They were slow making a decision, and got leap frogged. Second, in doing somethingl ike that, all you open yourself up to is an agent saying "Well, player A would have been the second pick in the draft had your FO not been incompetent, therefore we want 2nd pick money," and get in a contract battle. Of ALL the things I could see happening draft day, I hope this is the farthest thing from the Saints mind, AND we don't make the Minnesota blunder.

04-17-2006, 02:22 PM	#22
LSUJeremy 100th Post Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 472	Originally Posted by Tobias-Reiper ..or, the Saints merely use their #2 pick and select a very good player. Imagine that!! So what if they pick, say, AJ Hawk with the #2. "They paid too much!!! Hawk was a 5th, not a 2nd" So? If I have a 2nd instead of a 5th, do I have to pick the guy Mel Kiper says should go with the 2nd pick just so I can get the "full value" of the pick? This now popular value system for draft posistions really means nothing. The real value of any pick is what the player picked does while playing in your team. Period. The idea of the draft order is that the teams that did the worst the previous season get the chance to grab the better players coming out of college. At #2, the Saints get to choose from all but one player. That's the real value of the pick. I'm with you. I don't understand why it's not ok to take Hawk at 2, but perfectly reasonable to take him at 5? A needs a need, and an impact player is an impact player, regardless of position. Unless I'm mistaken, Ray Lewis wasn't in the top 10. Would Ray Lewis be the 1st overall pick if you knew what his career would turn out to be (minus the murder)? Um, yes.
LSUJeremy 100th Post Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 472

04-17-2006, 02:23 PM	#23
saintswhodi 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 6,941	xan my man, the allotment disappears with the signing of the contract. As of march 20, the Saints were $20 million under the cap. This was after we signed Brees right? Then hell, we are in a better position than we thought. Way better. We may have more like 16-18 mil in cap room instead of 14 mil. I likes the sounds of that. Next, as much as you wanna knock the FO, we ALL know Loomis is a shrew cap guy. One of the best. So I know you have to feel he knows what he's doing with the cap room we have, and the alotted money for the #2 pick in the draft. I guarantee he does. AND, rookie contracts can be laced with performance and playing time incentives. So the first year cap hit may not even be that high, although the signing bonues will be announced at about 14-20 mil, depending on who we draft. Left we forget, a bonus can be split over the lifeof the contract, so even if player A got a 20 mil bonus on a 6 year contract, guess what, the bonus hit would only be 3.3 mil or so. Add salary, you are looking at maybe 5-7 mil in initial cap hit. OR, the Saints, having the cap room, could choose to pay a lot of the bonus against this year's cap, and free up money for next year. So buddy, trust me, your doom and gloom is unwarranted in relation to the cap and our #2 pick. We have more than enough money to accomplish whatever we need.

04-17-2006, 03:10 PM	#24
xan Professor Crab and Site Donor 2014 Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Princeton Posts: 3,369 Blog Entries: 34	I'll try to stay top line rather than detail, so... Teams behind the Saints, especially the Jets, Titans and Raiders, have qb issues. Other teams lower down may have the same issues, but they'd have to trade their entire draft this year and potentially all of next year to trade up based on value charts and no team will pull a Ditka again. These three teams have major holes on both sides of the ball besides qb. The Jets carry 3 qbs on their roster, and could pass on a qb without much worry, and the Raiders have AB (HA!) and could potentially wait for a lesser name. Only the Titans have a truly open issue, but picking third assures them of at least the choice of two of three qbs; resolving McNair before the draft would make their urgency disappear. If the Saints chose other than a qb, then each team will probably get one of the three qbs. If any or all of the teams negotiate with the Saints to move up, each of the teams would, most likely, get one of the three qbs. If the Saints select a qb, two of the three could select a qb. One could trade for the Saints qb selection. Once selected, only the most interested in that qb may be willing to give full value. Otherwise the value of the selection would diminish immediately. Ultimately, a team must have no other option in order to make that trade. --- At #3, the titans have other options. Moving up one spot may not be worth sacrificing a much needed 35th pick. They could trade down and still get their man. --- At #4 the Jets have many other options, including trading down themselves; full value would be 4/29/71 - a half Ditka. --- At #7 the Raiders would have to sacrifice the most in order to move up. It is not clear that with the holes that team has that they'd be willing to give up their entire draft this year and some of next (full Ditka) for a qb that they might still get anyway. Kerry Collins got pummelled last year, and whomever they put in won't fare much better without help. They've got little cap room and haven't signed but a handful of FA's, including Brooks. Unlikely that this team will trade up for more risk. If there were only one qb of this talent, I'd definitely say we're in the catbird seat. But with three legitimate qbs for top 7 selection, the threat to take any one of them is not great. My point about Brees is that signing him to such a huge contract signals too much ambivalence about drafting a qb, making it a less valuable chip to trade down. If you were the Titans', Jets', or Raiders' GM and you knew that if the TRADE turns horribly wrong and would end your career next year, would you do it?
	Calvin: "I wish I was a Tiger." Hobbes: "Common lament."

04-17-2006, 03:31 PM	#27
papz Problem? Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: New Orleans Posts: 11,744	Originally Posted by saintswhodi As far as getting value, Lord man, let it go already. If we get ANYTHING to trade down that still keeps us in the top 5, WE WIN. Ding ding. That pretty much covers it.

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04-17-2006, 03:26 PM	#25
saintswhodi 5000 POSTS! + Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 6,941	Why are you QB focused? Mario Williams has been called the best player in the draft. So has Ferguson. So has Hawk. Guess what, WE HAVE A NEED FOR ALL THREE(except maybe Williams, but we have at least thrown his name out there). So if any team, say GB, wanted say, Mario Williams, they'd have to trade with us, CAUSE WE MUDDIED THE WATER BY SIGNING BREES. For the life of me I can't understand why this is so difficult. I think you are sold on this point, and are gonna ride it out no matter what anyone says, so i'll leave you to that. But if you honestly believe that being pigeon holed into taking a QB is better than having ALL available top draft picks linked to us, and therefore having ALL teams interested in one of 4-5 players having to go through us, I really don't know what to tell you. Let the pessimism continue to roll I guess. As far as getting value, Lord man, let it go already. If we get ANYTHING to trade down that still keeps us in the top 5, WE WIN. More picks and still get a bad as player we want. How in the world is that a losing deal? Who cares if we don;t get a Ditka draft worth of picks. NOONE is stupid enough to do anything like that again anyway. This draft is DEEP and any extra picks we get will be impact players. But whatever. I do not have the willpower to any longer battle such ingrained pessimism. If you are resigned to the fact we have horribly screwed ourselves beyond redemption, you have at that.

04-17-2006, 03:28 PM	#26
papz Problem? Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: New Orleans Posts: 11,744	Look... the whole league can see that the contract we gave Brees may very well be a 1 year contract. So, I do not see how it lessens the threat of us selecting one of the 3 potential franchise quarterbacks inthe draft. I like the way we structured the contract and therefore I do not see how it lessens the trade value of our #2 pick.

04-17-2006, 04:41 PM	#28
xan Professor Crab and Site Donor 2014 Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Princeton Posts: 3,369 Blog Entries: 34	All right. No more. I'm clearly distressed about this and am unable to convey how much it pisses me off not to be economical and savvy given how confoundingly uneconomical and unsavvy this team has been in the past. I will concede that signing Brees was a good thing (but not his contract). I will concede that getting anything by trading down but remain within the top 5 would be beneficial. I will concede that we are going to be lucky to get any of the top 7 players in this draft without having to give up anything to get them. But I won't concede that we should be a lot further along with this team and that if anything we should be looking to extend value wherever possible and I don't think this FO has made good economic value choices. We'll just have to agree to disagree about how other GM's are viewing the Saints' offseason moves and how they will adjust to whatever options the Saints present. God I hope that I'm wrong and that there's a sucker out there.
	Calvin: "I wish I was a Tiger." Hobbes: "Common lament."