The NFL Free Agency signing period begins at midnight tonight. This is always one of the weirdest things in the sports calendar. Football is such a unique game. Sometimes a great player for one team won't be a great player anywhere else. A 3-4 end could be a special teams player on a 4-3 team. A big 1100 yard receiver could collect dust on a team that runs the west coast offense.
The point is, pro football, more than any other sport is about schemes, coaching, and adjustments. This is why every play is not only taped, but photographed, and subsequently scrutinized like it's the Zapruda film.
Every off season, teams (and by enlarge, their fans) talk themselves into thinking that getting a certain guy will put them over the top. Take the 49ers for example. Last year, they gave Nate Clements, by all accounts a great corner, an enormous deal and declared their pass defense woes 'solved'. They finished with a worse pass defense ranking this past year. Is Clements bad? Was he only good because his former team generated pressure? Did he have a simplified responsibility; always maintaining inside leverage with safety help deap on the outside? Did teams not throw his way because the other CB was really bad? These are the kinds of things that make the NFL so interesting. It's always hard to get a consensus on a guy.
In baseball, it's pretty clear for the most part. Albert Pujols mashes. Johan Santana deals. You aren't going to say that Pujols is a great hitter because he has a great offensive line (writer's note: this is the case for Emmit Smith. OVER-RATED, duh duh duh-duh-duh, OVER-RATED!). In the NFL, it's such a crap shoot. What's more, in Sunday football, you sign a guy who fits with your 'plan'. The thing is, those plans, more often than not, change before the player's contract is up. Salaries are structured in such a way that releasing a guy before his contract expires often results in the dreaded 'dead money' which means you owe a guy some coin and you can't sign anyone else becuase he's still on the books. So it's like a 2 for 1 whammy in your mouthpiece.
So, as assistant coaches are 2 year nomads and players are 3-5 year hires, you're going to have bad fits all over town. Teams change coordinators like I change underpants, frequently and without hesitation. Organizational philosophies change all the time. It's the way that guys at the top can keep their jobs. "No Mr. Owner, the fault was with that dumb assistant coach that I hired. I gave the coaches what they asked for and we were 6-10. It's not my fault. We're re-building and such." Keep in mind, GMs aren't playing Madden. They can get fired for not doing well. They are interested in keeping their jobs. They spend someone else's $. They have to win the public relations war first and win actual games 2nd. So, you see tons of teams 'winning the off-season".
I look forward to this free agency period. I can't wait to read anonymous comments from scouts saying: 'They paid ______ that much money? What the &^%*# were they thinking?'
Keywords: 3-4, 4-3, Albert Pujols, Emmit Smith, free agency, Johan Santana, Nate Clements, NFL, San Francisco 49ers
