NFL News

[froot loops]

It seems like the people who made this WAR stat for football believe in the quarterback as messiah. It certainly doesn't have correlation to baseball numbers.

One of the real sticking points is what exactly a replacement level player is. In baseball it works in theory because you have an extensive minor league system. There are numerous 4A players that can be had cheaply. There are not that many quarterbacks walking the street or on someone's practice squad that can be inserted into a starting lineup.

[Iron Lion]

Never liked Zeke at all, and not just because he was a Cowboy.

[jaadam4]

Never liked Zeke at all, and not just because he was a Cowboy.

Really? Man i really liked him coming out of Ohio. He was really unbelievable and to me he made Dak. It’s so much easier to play QB when a RB like Zeke is carrying the literal load for 300 carries

[whatever_gong82]

Not going to post most of this Dan Shaughnessy Boston Globe article, but this statement from the writer struck me as ironic and funny at the same time:

"Who would have thought it would ever come to this? After two decades of mocking assorted Jets, Bills, and Dolphins, our once-proud New England Patriots have become the Tomato Cans. While Detroit sits atop the NFC with a 5-1 record, here in New England we have become the Lions."

[Iron Lion]

Really? Man i really liked him coming out of Ohio. He was really unbelievable and to me he made Dak. It’s so much easier to play QB when a RB like Zeke is carrying the literal load for 300 carries

We're at the point where RBs are no longer drafted based on 40 time or cone shuffles but rather how much they beat up women and children.

[Mainevent]

Fuck, you're absolutely right. I had forgotten Elliot had that shit a few years ago. I totally rescind the idea of the Lions looking into him.

[ghandi]

Not going to post most of this Dan Shaughnessy Boston Globe article, but this statement from the writer struck me as ironic and funny at the same time:

"Who would have thought it would ever come to this? After two decades of mocking assorted Jets, Bills, and Dolphins, our once-proud New England Patriots have become the Tomato Cans. While Detroit sits atop the NFC with a 5-1 record, here in New England we have become the Lions."

Boston/NE fans have been obnoxious from the beginning of time

[whatever_gong82]

Boston/NE fans have been obnoxious from the beginning of time

You think??

Between them and New York, I always wished for a meteor to hit them both while playing each other at the same time so that we'd be spared both insufferable fanbases.

[whatever_gong82]

NFL trade deadline: Why have teams been so much more aggressive lately?



Jeff Howe
Oct 20, 2023

A four-year trend could be indicative of yet another wild NFL trade deadline.

As front offices assess their rosters over the next two weeks, they’re preparing to be mighty busy in the lead-up to Oct. 31.


“There’s a win-now, stay-relevant mentality,” a team executive said.


The league pushed back the trade deadline in 2012, but it didn’t spur the instant gratification it had been seeking. There were just two trades from Oct. 1 through the deadline that season.

But that surely evolved. During the same timeline (Oct. 1 through the deadline), there were an average of 4.5 trades per season from 2013-16, then 8.5 from 2017-18 and 14.25 from 2019-22.

NFL Trading trends since start of 2012 season.jpg

The obvious factors


Two straightforward elements set the table for the remaining aspects.

First, the trade deadline had been the Tuesday after Week 6 until 2012 when it was pushed back two weeks. This gave teams a more thorough opportunity to evaluate their chances of competing in the playoffs or whether they should shift priorities to the following season.


Second, the playoff field expanded from 12 to 14 teams in 2020. By keeping more teams engaged, it creates a more competitive environment to improve the roster.


For example, under the rules of the old deadline, teams would have had to decide this week if they were buyers or sellers. Where would that leave a team like the Minnesota Vikings (2-4), who won the NFC North last year but are off to a slow start and lost wide receiver Justin Jefferson for at least four games due to a hamstring injury? Or the Houston Texans (3-3), who are one of the league’s biggest surprises and still in the mix in the AFC South despite a massive offseason overhaul?


The extra couple weeks will give those teams — as well as anyone within a game of a .500 record — a better idea of where they stand and whether their primary focus should be on January or April.

Relative to this month, the 2022 trade season started slow with a single swap from Oct. 1-16. By the Nov. 1 deadline, however, the 18 trades represented a single-season high since 2012, and the 10 trades executed on deadline day were the most ever.


Some teams went all in, as the San Francisco 49ers (running back Christian McCaffrey), Baltimore Ravens (linebacker Roquan Smith), Vikings (tight end T.J. Hockenson) and Miami Dolphins (outside linebacker Bradley Chubb) moved premium draft capital to add high-profile players for the stretch run.

Meanwhile, teams like the Atlanta Falcons, Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers became sellers, moving multiple players for draft picks.



The GM factors


Those polled for this story also agreed that current front offices have a more progressive way of doing business.

Only 10 of the league’s general managers have been in their positions since before 2017. So about a third of the NFL’s top decision-makers were running their team before this transition to a flurry of trade-deadline activity.


Break it down even further, and 14 GMs have been hired since 2021. With almost half the league’s general managers having less than three years of experience in their roles, it’s naturally going to create a new-era way of thinking.


Of course, the better front-office managers evolve with the rules, but the vast majority of the league’s key decision-makers weren’t in place during the old rookie salary structure, which went by the wayside in 2011 and significantly changed the way business is conducted.


The younger generation of general managers learned from mentors who have either exclusively or primarily operated under the current landscape of the salary cap. Generally speaking, they aren’t torn between an old-school way of thinking (the way they were taught) and a new-school philosophy (the way the league is running), and that can create a more streamlined dialogue between front offices.

Plus, there’s more pressure than ever to win now, or to at least create a vision for a rebuild through the draft. Both ways of thinking are conducive to more aggressive roster decisions.


The more subtle factors


As always, there’s a quarterback correlation.

The Falcons traded away three players, including suspended receiver Calvin Ridley, in the three weeks before the 2022 deadline despite either being .500 or a game below at the time of each move. While the record kept them within reach in the NFC South, they were in flux at quarterback and realistically not ready to contend with the high-end teams in the conference. (On the other side of one of those trades, the Jacksonville Jaguars were on the verge of picking up steam behind QB Trevor Lawrence and wanted Ridley in place for 2023.)


It wasn’t too dissimilar with the Panthers, who fired head coach Matt Rhule after they fell to 1-4 and traded McCaffrey less than two weeks later. The end game was to get themselves into the best position to land a blue-chip quarterback in the 2023 draft, and they ultimately accomplished that mission.

That will again be a driving factor with teams eying quarterbacks Caleb Williams and Drake Maye in 2024. The teams holding the top six picks of the 2024 NFL Draft are all 1-5 — the Bears also possess the winless Panthers’ pick — and a long way out of playoff range. The Bears, Denver Broncos, Arizona Cardinals, New York Giants and New England Patriots could accordingly be sellers.


Another impetus to the surplus of trades: Since 2017, teams have been able to shop their compensatory draft picks. While those picks aren’t awarded until after the season, teams are well aware that they’ve got draft reinforcements on the way and could be more aggressive at the trade deadline as a result.


As a result of the NFL’s diverse rewards policy, and an evolution of the Rooney Rule, the 49ers will get third-round compensatory picks in the next two drafts for losing Ran Carthon and DeMeco Ryans, but they’re also projected to get another in 2024 due to free-agent losses from last offseason. The Buffalo Bills, Jaguars and Philadelphia Eagles are other contenders who can presume to have an additional third-rounder added to their stockpile next offseason.

Finally, it’s been easier to trade players on their rookie contracts under the current salary structure. With those contracts going into effect in 2011, the final years of those deals coming up in 2014-15 and the league’s subsequent progression to recognize that trend would have come to a head when the trade deadline grew busier in 2017.


That’s why Ridley, wide receiver Kadarius Toney, Hockenson, Chubb and Smith were all movable at the 2022 deadline. Those moves, under the previous salary structure, may not have been as easy 10-15 years ago.

The win-now mentality is surely the root of this activity. But without several other factors also in place, the trade deadline would still be an afterthought like it had been in previous eras.


Jeff Howe is the NFL National Insider for The Athletic. A native of Lowell, Mass., and a UMass graduate, he previously covered the New England Patriots from 2009-21. Howe, who has been with The Athletic since 2018, is the author of “If These Walls Could Talk: New England Patriots.” Follow Jeff on Twitter @jeffphowe

[Trickalicious]

Not going to post most of this Dan Shaughnessy Boston Globe article, but this statement from the writer struck me as ironic and funny at the same time:

"Who would have thought it would ever come to this? After two decades of mocking assorted Jets, Bills, and Dolphins, our once-proud New England Patriots have become the Tomato Cans. While Detroit sits atop the NFC with a 5-1 record, here in New England we have become the Lions."

They didn't become the Lions, they just reverted back to being the Patriots.

[whatever_gong82]

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/ranking-five-nfl-teams-in-worst-long-term-situations-broncos-paying-dearly-for-russell-wilson-sean-payton/

The chickens have come to roost for the New England Patriots and even the Denver Broncos, as both teams are bad and look to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

[whatever_gong82]

[whatever_gong82]

[Iron Lion]

Marc Trestman: sitting on playground benches in a trenchcoat.

[LightninBoy]

On the spectrum?

Reminds me of the line from "The Big Short" ... "I like your hair ... Do you cut it yourself?"