Originally posted by mv49erfan:
Good free agents will go anywhere.
Firstly, money is the biggest attraction. We have it.
Secondly, location is a big attraction. Who doesn't want to live in Cali to make millions of dollars playing football? I'm sure the players wives and families won't mind. We have location and weather.
Thirdly, if we can build a solid roster full of young and veteran guys through free agency and the draft, It's something that the players and coaches will take pride in.
I'm in a s**tty fraternity in college and I'm the recruitment chairman. My job is to recruit guys that are cool, smart and funny, and sell them into believing that my fraternity is the best fit for them. If I can do it at age 20, a f**king grown man with experience can tell an athlete that barely knows English that he can play football in California for a boatload of money. Not trying to be offensive in any way, just being real.
MV49er, one would think that, but last yr with lots of cash, close to $55mil or more, the big names all went in the first two days. We were sure with the 2nd most money in FA, that we would get 2 impact players for sure, but saw hope for maybe 3. Well, first thing was there was a 40% hick in FA salaries last ry, and Malik Jackson signed for $19 mil/yr, or top flite Qb numbers. Also we got zero, as in none, no responses to our offers. Word later was we were offering top dollar, but with crap for a front office, same for owner, a QB dissing us and advertising he wanted to be a Bill, , a Brown, then a Jet, and finally a Bronco,..but in the end , nobody wanted him, except Denver , which offered him 1/3 of what we paid him under contract....well, that wasn't what you would like to have had on your team...but we did. So we had a crappy QB who didn't want to be here, 3 head coaches in 3 yrs,...and you really think someone with real talent would want to come here? That is a bad joke.
There is one way and one way only to get the attention of the FA Impact players....and that is to pick out the less expensive positions, eg, ILB and NT, both of which we needed then and both of which we need now, and DOUBLE their salary. Do that and MAYBE we get someone to bite. But that is what it will take, nothing less.. Can't be done at the high $$ positions, eg, OT, WR, QB, The lesser paid positions are the only places you can realistically double the salary offer say $3.5 to 5Mil/yr for a NT or ILB. That would cost $7 mil to $10 mil, whereas an impact OLB would be in the $15 mil range and doubling that would be pretty tough. One would think that waving top dollar around at all the FAs wouid have brot some kind of interest , but it didn't . So unless we double the offers of the top impact players at ILB or NT, we aren't going to get them . We proved that last yr.
As far as just offering top dollar this yr and expecting FAs to take the offere,...guess again. They didn't last yr , and they won't again this yr. On top of that we won an impressive 2 games this yr, less than half the number we won last yr. If you think FA s are going to want to come here with out a ridiculous salary offer, eg, double their worth, get ready to be disappointed....becasue it won't happen.