I thought we were "signing or own guys" the last two years

Originally posted by SnakePlissken:
What's even more sad is that the Yorks are saving every 'out-of-pocket' cent now to secure that stadium (that might not even be built by 2015).

your statement/theory is actually backwards, when in need of more fans on board with a new stadium its more likely that you will pay for some big time players.

Originally posted by Oakland-Niner:

Originally posted by BrianGO:
We are losing Lawson (no surprise), Franklin (no surprise), Spikes (a little surprise) and maybe Goldson (no surprise).

We are willing to give up cap room to keep both McDonald and Goldson. Spikes was a little surprising, but perhaps the coaches like Bowman, and want a little more speed at the position?

Managing the salary cap isn't about spending to the limit at every opportunity, it's about getting the best bang for the buck. Good deals do not exist all the time. You have to wait for your bargains and value.
We got Justin Smith at a great value, and ironically, we got Spikes at a great value too.
The team that gets the most out of their salary cap, has little dead money. The team that spends like crazy to get the current hot item, winds up with tons of dead money in the long run.

I sure as heck would rather spend wisely, than spend like the Redskins and Raiders, and did big holes that take years to get out of. Both those teams constantly bring in big name free agent corners, wide-outs and d-linemen, and what has it gotten them?

Ah, the classic....."do you want to be like the Redskins" arguement. No, but I wouldn't mind being like the Jets or even Seattle for that matter.

Again, I'm not saying they should or shouldn't lock up our guys. Im just saying that that was their excuse for not trying to improve the team. Dont tell me that there haven't been any FAs that would have helped us the last couple of years. It's ok to bargain shop, but you also have to spend.

I think we just have to relax. Its a league of RELATIVE improvement, not improvement.

So let's say we break the bank on Nnamdi Asomugha. You're absolutely right, we will no doubt improve. But its not about improvement, its about relative improvement.
The only question should ever be, "Does signing one very good player, Asomugha, improve our team more than if we signed 2-3 almost as good players (including our own)?
Think about it like the video game; would you rather have 3 players with a rating of 87, or 1 player with a rating of 97?

You have to get the most "rating" for you buck in the salary cap era. There are exceptions of course, like at quarterback and maybe left tackle. IF you can get a great one in free agency, (which you can't) you should overspend.

And lastly, who did the Jets bring in from free agency? LT? Talk about a great bargain. Norv ruined his career down in San Diego, and the Jets were smart enough to realize the type of bargain he was.
Seattle??? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and pretend you didn't really mean to say that.

Originally posted by Oakland-Niner:


Am I overreacting? Probably. But I'm just tired of the BS and most of all tired of losing...

I think you need to step back a bit and take a breather and have a chuckle, respectfully. The Yorks and the organization have said alot of things after week 17, remember the Yorks saying they were going to find the best person out there for the GM only to sign Baalke who was always there. Than for Baalke to say that the next QB for the 9ers wasnt on the roster only to resign Smith. I know right.

So it comes to no surprise when they say these things that you have to take it with a bit of 'yeah right'. But I guess your pass that stage. The politics of the game gets to me now and then too, frustrating. But all thats put aside when the boys run out and I get to enjoy watching the team im a huge fan of. Even if its been a bit dire lately.

Heres my problem with how all this is shaping out and ( I hate to make it another bash alex post) we are probably going to lose 3 defensive starters for us (franklin, lawson and goldson) and already lost one (spikes) 4 players two of whom have been invaluable to our defense (franklin and spikes) yet the one free agent we keep is the biggest question mark we have had for the past 7 years??? I honestly rather shell out free agent money on keeping "our own guys" who have proven thier value on this team rather then giving more money to "he who shall disable our franchise from progressing, whilst wasting the prime years of our real talent( gore,davis, willis)" Smith!!!

..i mean doesnt irk anyone that were so quick to resign alex but drop 4 defensive starters or is it just me?

Willis and Davis big deal? Ok guy. It's a no brainer and they did it be thankful. Our core players you can build a franchise around are more important. Stop crying about bums were losing like, Omg Manny Lawson is gone how in the world can we replace 3 sacks a year? Franklin a career backup till he comes here and since we been bad we hype this guy up like he's a monster. Come on.

I'm a little surprised that we have done so little in FA, but there's still time. We also have to put some level of trust in Harbaugh and Fangio. If any of these guys leaving were "must-keeps", I believe they would have been signed by now.

The one we seem to be going hard for is Goldson vs Al Davis. I wouldn't pay Goldson more than 4 mil a year, but again... no choice but to accept our coach's assessments. Franklin wants a ton of money and TKO apparently wanted a long-term deal. Not gonna worry much about them.

Remember, the single largest improvement that we all hoped to make... and have very likely made... was an improvement in coaching. That can carry a lot of weight on our success.... big FA or not.

Originally posted by Oakland-Niner:
Seriously, for the last two years all we've heard is that we want to sign our own players and that is why we aren't looking at FA.....

BS

Who have we signed? Willis and Davis. Big fricken deal, those are no brainers. We are losing Lawson, Franklin, Spikes and maybe Goldson.

Some of you guys dont care, and I'm not even saying they should or shouldn't be signed. I'm just saying what the Yorks have done is diffrent than what they said they are doing.

And guess what? According to Baalke we aren't making any big free agent splash.

Am I overreacting? Probably. But I'm just tired of the BS and most of all tired of losing...

I hear ya. I'm starting to get worried about all these potential losses on D. By the end of the week, we may be down five starters on D: Spikes, Goldson, Lawson, Franklin, Clements.

The good thing is all these guys are replaceable. I'm keeping the faith that we're going to be more active in free agency than we've let on. And of course, it's not out of the question that we'll keep 2-3 of those guys with reasonable contracts.

I have to say that all you guys are making very great points and I agree with both sides of the debate. I wonder about Baalke. He is intriguing. Is this the calm before the storm?

We have to spend some money to get to the minimum. Clements will be restructured, per Baalke himself. So im trying to understand why Baalke hasn't made the major moves yet.

He needs the benefit, because players will still be released from their teams this week.
Patience, I guess.

I guess we can add Baas to the list of "our guys" not getting signed.

Originally posted by oldman9er:
I'm a little surprised that we have done so little in FA, but there's still time. We also have to put some level of trust in Harbaugh and Fangio. If any of these guys leaving were "must-keeps", I believe they would have been signed by now.

The one we seem to be going hard for is Goldson vs Al Davis. I wouldn't pay Goldson more than 4 mil a year, but again... no choice but to accept our coach's assessments. Franklin wants a ton of money and TKO apparently wanted a long-term deal. Not gonna worry much about them.

Remember, the single largest improvement that we all hoped to make... and have very likely made... was an improvement in coaching. That can carry a lot of weight on our success.... big FA or not.

Well now we have a coach, but no team....

I'm not surprised at what's happening TBH. We have been a bad team for a long time and we are rebuilding from the bottom up: new HC, coordinators (again!), new offensive system (I don't care if we invented WCO, it's been a while since we used it), new stadium (hopefully). Players' careers are short: our FAs will seize the chance to go to a team that is closer to being a winner or more stable: Baas went to NYG and Spikes to SD. What's so shocking? I also fully expect to lose Franklin, Lawson and Goldson.

And you know what? Big deal (Goldson excepted, he's young and talented). They were losers. Why do we put so much stock in losers? OK, some (MOST) of the fault must go to the coaches and the ownership. Fine. But these players are damaged goods as far as the 9ers are concerned. So I'm not annoyed to see them go. Some may turn out to be good elsewhere, like Dahl or Carter in the past, or even much maligned Banta-Cain. Good luck to them, I say. The chances they would win here were low.

This organisation took the (risky) decision of putting its chips on the glamorous HC card. I personally disagreed with that, but it's done. They will have to build around this bet now, and overpaying to keep losing FAs is not the way to do it. I'm not saying it will *definitely* work, and this year will almost certainly be another losing one barring some inspired streak (I hope, but I don't expect). But Harbaugh would *definitely* fail if he were saddled with overpriced FAs that were here before his regime. Fair or not, these people were associated with a culture of losing.

As for new FAs of our own, I have no idea what the new regime has in mind. I'm not saying this in a "Harbaugh knows what he's doing, he's a genius" way - I just can't guess what's in their mind. I would be surprised if we get Nnamdi - he will be tired of losing and dysfunctional organisations by now.

I won't be surprised if there are more "shocking" events in the next few weeks. Gore is one. I love Frank, but I believe that a major part of our offensive failures were due to the "We must get Frank a lot of touches" holy cow. Every offseason we get OCs and HCs, even Marz of all people, going through the mantra of "we may be passing, but we will give Frank his 20-25 touches a game no matter what". Don't be shocked if Coach Glamorous doesn't pull rank and ship him out in that event.

Originally posted by SFL49ER:
I have to say that all you guys are making very great points and I agree with both sides of the debate. I wonder about Baalke. He is intriguing. Is this the calm before the storm?

We have to spend some money to get to the minimum. Clements will be restructured, per Baalke himself. So im trying to understand why Baalke hasn't made the major moves yet.

He needs the benefit, because players will still be released from their teams this week.
Patience, I guess.

I think Baalke is fine. It looks scary because guys are going in FA and our own guys that we were supposed to go after are signing with other teams. Trent had patience with the Harbaugh deal and we landed our guy. Harbs wanted Kaep in the draft and Trent had patience when he didn't jump spots with Cincy and then pulled the trigger to beat Oakland. The only blow in FA so far is Baas. I like Spikes but I thought he wanted to go to a contender and not rebuild with us. If we overpay for Franklin we will all complain about him being overpaid like Clements. Still gunning for Goldson and we drafted a better version of Lawson. We will sign some guys back on D once players get cut but we will get them for a better deal. No worries except for Baas...hopefully he doesn't have our playbook!

Originally posted by paulk205:
I'm not surprised at what's happening TBH. We have been a bad team for a long time and we are rebuilding from the bottom up: new HC, coordinators (again!), new offensive system (I don't care if we invented WCO, it's been a while since we used it), new stadium (hopefully). Players' careers are short: our FAs will seize the chance to go to a team that is closer to being a winner or more stable: Baas went to NYG and Spikes to SD. What's so shocking? I also fully expect to lose Franklin, Lawson and Goldson.

And you know what? Big deal (Goldson excepted, he's young and talented). They were losers. Why do we put so much stock in losers? OK, some (MOST) of the fault must go to the coaches and the ownership. Fine. But these players are damaged goods as far as the 9ers are concerned. So I'm not annoyed to see them go. Some may turn out to be good elsewhere, like Dahl or Carter in the past, or even much maligned Banta-Cain. Good luck to them, I say. The chances they would win here were low.

This organisation took the (risky) decision of putting its chips on the glamorous HC card. I personally disagreed with that, but it's done. They will have to build around this bet now, and overpaying to keep losing FAs is not the way to do it. I'm not saying it will *definitely* work, and this year will almost certainly be another losing one barring some inspired streak (I hope, but I don't expect). But Harbaugh would *definitely* fail if he were saddled with overpriced FAs that were here before his regime. Fair or not, these people were associated with a culture of losing.

As for new FAs of our own, I have no idea what the new regime has in mind. I'm not saying this in a "Harbaugh knows what he's doing, he's a genius" way - I just can't guess what's in their mind. I would be surprised if we get Nnamdi - he will be tired of losing and dysfunctional organisations by now.

I won't be surprised if there are more "shocking" events in the next few weeks. Gore is one. I love Frank, but I believe that a major part of our offensive failures were due to the "We must get Frank a lot of touches" holy cow. Every offseason we get OCs and HCs, even Marz of all people, going through the mantra of "we may be passing, but we will give Frank his 20-25 touches a game no matter what". Don't be shocked if Coach Glamorous doesn't pull rank and ship him out in that event.

Hmmm.....Is Sing now posting on the Zone?

Har, har. Very funny. For the record I was an "established, not college HC" man. Billick (no kidding) was my favourite after Gruden. I don't believe in putting all our chips on a "great" college coach as they generally don't translate well to the NFL and can often lead to disasters like Saban. Not to mention that the Walsh precedent has made people believe there's some kind of mystical power associated with Stanford coaches to the 9ers.

In any event, he's now our HC and I'm behind him. In fact I'm SO behind him that I'm willing to take another losing season (as it will most likely be, although I'm secretly hoping for a surprise winning showing) to give him time to shape the team as he sees it. We're paying him enough anyway. It's NEXT season I will judge him by.

Back to the FA business. Some good points have been made above. Lawson was a goner the minute we drafted the rook in the top 10. Franklin has been going since the year before, and it was only the tag that kept him here. Spikes was a great pro, but we already got 2 more years out of him than we were all expecting. Baas is a blow, but he wasn't going to restructure last year and it was obvious that he would be gone the minute a contender called (Giants may have underachieved in the last few years but they have a stable coaching team and a ton of the pieces into place). Goldson will be a bigger loss (I expect to also lose him).

Originally posted by jacklegniner:
No worries except for Baas...hopefully he doesn't have our playbook!

Perhaps they snuck him a copy of last year's one: you know, run up the gut for no gain x2, take sack on a 7-step dropper, punt

Somehow I don't think the Giants are THAT interested in the 9ers playbook. It's not 1986.