We finally have all 32 teams in camp, practicing and working against one another. So naturally, stories will start appearing about who’s having a great camp, which player looks like a new person and who is going to help their team. Remember last year? Pacman Jones was going to be the cover guy the Cowboys needed. The Raiders had two of the best cover corners in the league after signing DeAngelo Hall. But that lasted seven games when Hall was released. My point is that you shouldn’t believe what you read about players being good or bad until the games start. One of the reasons is that players practice against the same players all the time, so they know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. As an evaluator, you must be careful evaluating your team against the same players each day. You must remind yourself that the player who might look good might be looking good against a guy who will be headed off to law school in a few weeks.
APThe Patriots solved a problem by signing Andrew Walter.
The games hold the answers whether a team has improved, and whether the players have improved. Games for rookies are important, but games for second-year players are vital. They’ve learned the system, they now know what to do. All that’s left is for them to do it. No more excuses; the time is now.
My 10-player rule is in effect now. After camp starts, the good teams will make at least 10 moves -- some big, some small -- that will help them improve for the upcoming season and for the next season. These moves might be working the practice squad or working the main roster. In either case, they’re improving the competition of the team. For example, New England decided that it needed to make an improvement at backup quarterback, so it made a move quickly and signed Andrew Walter. No sense waiting when you know that you must improve.
No matter how talented a team believes it is right now, the team that will win the Super Bowl is the one that best evaluates its roster and is consistently looking for ways to improve. Sitting back on your laurels, feeling the work is done, won’t help you improve. Teams that are aggressive now understand that even if a player makes their team, it doesn’t mean he can help them win.
Remember, having a great camp means playing well in the games.
You must include Toomer on that list, hes quite the catch even at 34, he is an upgrade and is a 1 year low risk high reward guy that caught more footballs last season that Darling has even in a single season, same can be said for all chief recievers except 2 of them, 3 if Bradley has done it but hes an injury machine.
Interesting rule, since it's one size fits all, regardless of whether you're the defending champs or... well... the Lions. And clearly it's a heuristic rather than a firm rule, since teams can make fewer changes and not lose much.** Which makes me wonder what the cause of the rule is, since clearly in a world where time and money and scouting weren't limited, the Lions or Rams ought to make more changes than the good teams. So is the source of the rule those constraints on time, money and scouting? Is it just that a team struggles to reliably manage personnel transactions for more than 10 players in the off-season? if you try to bring in more players does it just turn into a crap-shoot? What drives your rule?
**The 1992 49ers made just one change, pretty much repeated their season (plus or minus some natural variability) and then won the Superbowl the following year, so violating the rule wasn't that big a deal.
Framo
1992 was before the salary cap, its a brave new world out there. The cap makes self evaluation and making the right personal moves much more important, because you can just open up the wallet and keep everyone happy as the early 90's 49er$ did.
Thanks for the reply, Ted, and thanks for the good point. Was also wondering if one of the things that would penalise large numbers of moves is the disruption to team chemistry/existing understandings and patterns: if you chance more than 20% of your team you'd be seriously messing with the team dynamics. I don't imagine there are many organisations that could function well with that scale of change.
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Aug 05, 2009
12:05 AM
That makes sense.