Quote:
Originally Posted by IndyNorm
I get what you're saying, and if we were in a position where that salary cap space was needed to re-sign our own in the next season or 2 then that would be a different story. Same goes for if Ballard decided to go all Grigson and blow through all of our cap space. But since neither of those are the case there isn't anything wrong with bringing in productive vets at short term, reasonable contracts to improve the team.
Also since you brought up overpaying, I'm surprised you're so on board with the Funchess signing. His production has been below average at best, and in a contract year he led the league in drop rate and was benched. Seems like we could have gotten him much closer to a min contract rather than the $10M we paid him.
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I absolutely agree that there’s nothing wrong with bringing in vets to supplement the home grown players. But I guess it comes down to our personal definitions of “short term, reasonable contracts” then. I thought Houston’s two-year, largely guaranteed deal was a little rich for a guy who (1) is past his prime, (2) is changing teams after being cut by the team that knows him best, (3) is changing positions, and (4) has had some injury problems in recent years. That said, I am excited to have him, and truly I hope he plays well and outperforms his contract. I just think the chances aren’t that great that he will. I’m hoping that Ballard’s familiarity with him from his time in KC will reduce some of the risks.
On Funchess, I like the strategy of signing guys heading into their prime, and if the team’s talent evaluators think this guy has a chance to break out I’m onboard with the risk at $7-$10 million for one year. Reminds me a little of the Ebron signing - another guy who came in with a bad hands rep, and who's signing was widely panned at the time. The one year deal tells me that the team isn’t quite so confident Funchess will perform well. That's fine, but I don’t like that our upside on the deal is limited to this year. Again, the ideal solution would have been an option year or two.