Originally posted by BOI49er:
When you trade for a veteran, you are paying more than every one of the other 31 teams are willing to pay. By the time you play him, he will be a year older, his injury history is that much longer, and the team, system, and teammates will not be what he built his record on and very likely his skill set will not mesh as well with your system or players. You bought a player relatively healthy, but now age puts you in a different statistical area of risk. The short of it is, it is far more likely his performance and availability will never match what you saw and paid for. Most of this also applies to free agents. If that $hit worked, Dan Snyder wouldn't have room to enter into his trophy room.
There's a reason most teams claim to have a goal of building through the draft. It's absolutely Proven to be the only method that works. Problem is, teams don't stay disciplined to follow it.
If the draft isn't working for you, That's the problem. Fix That. When you need to fill in gaps, stay away from the high priced stars. If you didn't draft it, you're looking for competency and not stardom in that position.
And most importantly, keep this rule in mind. Crap teams pay too much for veterans with reputations with names. They look to put people in the seats, and they look for saviors to bail out poor coaching or management. Be on the other end of that trade. The fact that everybody can get injured does not negate the fact that older players get injured more, more severely, and heal more slowly or not at all.
Oh. And get a coach that will assume the responsibility to coach up youngsters so as to not be afraid to trust them. And is aggressive enough on offense to overcome any mistakes they do make.
Jags load up on FA every year - what has that gotten them?
