Girls, it is an exciting time to be a football fan, I assure you! I know, I know--you're probably wondering what the hell I'm talking about. After all, the Super Bowl was over a month ago, effectively ending the football season for another six months. Well, you're wrong, that's all. Football, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, is happening! The reason is simple--the NFL is more like a corporation, rather than a sport and you don't see national corporations taking half the year off! I'm lucky to get 5 holidays off a year! No, the NFL is a business and has work to do all year round. What you don't see, when football season finally begins, is all the little things that occur in the off-season that make a team what it is, all the haggling and the money and the superstars. It's really quite interesting.
If you were like me at all the last few weeks, eating and sleeping and breathing the Olympics, then you were probably unaware that last weekend (Feb. 24-March 2) was the Combine. Honestly, I was unaware of a LOT more than that (I almost feel like I am waking up from a lovely sports dream), but the Combine did it's thing just like it always does. What is the Combine, you say? Well, ladies, if you want to be a fan of football or at least appear unnaturally intelligent in this area, then you will need to have an idea of what the Combine entails. NFL.com has a truly wonderful definition of it. "The 2010 Scouting Combine, which will be held from Feb. 24 to March 2, is the annual job fair for prospective new NFL players. For six days at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, players are put through a series of drills, tests and interviews with more than 600 NFL personnel including head coaches, general managers and scouts." And that, in a nutshell, is the Combine.
I love that they call it a "job fair" and that is just what it is! In a real job, though, a manager can fire you pretty quickly if they see you aren't qualified. In the NFL, it is a little more complicated because a job in the NFL, involves lots of money and long contracts. Thus, it makes sense that before the NFL Draft (more on that later), the top dogs in the NFL want to ascertain, as best they can, that they are not making a giant mistake on any one particular player. So while everyone in the NFL, from the Commissioner down to the Presidents and GMs down to the Assistant to the Assistant Offensive Line coaches, looks on, the top prospects from colleges and high schools across the country perform. They are drilled to see how fast they are or how high they can jump or how much they can bench. They are given the Wunderlic test which gages them on their smarts and gives them a score. They are interviewed by everyone. It is a very grueling weekend for the players but it can be highly profitable if they spent their time well.
Now let me just say one thing: the Combine is nice and all but it isn't able to quantify everything. There may be a great guy who can run the 40-yard dash in under 4 seconnds and scores high on the Wunderlic test but who can't perform in a real NFL game. This is more common than you think and I am sure there's a place online where you can look up NFL Draft Duds and a whole list of names will pop up...probably starting with Ryan Leaf. Try it. Look it up. On the other hand, sometimes a guy can have a bad weekend and not do well at the Combine. Will that blight his NFL hopes forever? Not necessarily. If he does tremendously well in college or elsewhere, then NFL scouts will take that also into consideration. Some of the best NFL players EVER have had a mediocre Combine experience but have moved on to better and brigther things.
So Combine weekend ends and each NFL teams holes up and starts to make some assessments. Looking ahead at the 2010 season, they'll ask themselves what their shallow positions are or where are they weakest. Maybe one of their good players has a history of injuries, shouldn't they have a back-up for that, just in case? Maybe their star QB retired, now what? Maybe their safety position was scored on too much last year, so it's time to make a change at that position. So many issues and situations factor into who plays what position on Day 1 of each season in August that it brings me to another exciting occurrence going on right now.
If the Combine was to give NFL teams a foretaste of the talented feast to come, then the Free Agency Draft is a feast of different and amazing dishes of current value. Ha! Okay, let's terminate this horrible metaphor, shall we? What I mean is that Free Agency is a separate way for NFL teams to fill their rosters but with verteran players. I'm sure you can see the tremendous difference in the two approaches. The rookie, just out of college, prospects are new and exciting but there is that chance of supreme failure. The NFL is so much faster and more complex than college games that some players just can't make the adjustment. Just picture it: The NFL is the creme de la creme of football...and they are all playing each other!
Now Free Agency is for the veteran players to either find a better salary and team or for a team to explore new options. Like I said earlier, so many little things go into what makes a team, a team. Most importantly, of course, is the money factor. Since the NFL is a business, each team would like to find "a deal." You know, the best player for the cheapest price possible. Money will play a major factor during the NFL Draft (more on that later as well) but it also affects the rules of Free Agency. In years past, each team was under a salary cap, which allowed the team to pay out so much money for its sum players. This salary cap was, in effect, a leveler between all the teams to some extent because some teams are naturally more affluent than others. However, this year (and here's the exciting part), Roger Goodell, the NFL Commissioner, has nullified the salary cap for the 2010 season. Not only that, but this may be the best year for Free Agents EVER! I'm guessing that money will be flung all over the place. Whew! Famously good players are up for grabs for any team to pick up...depending on the price. Let me use Julius Peppers as an example. He played Defensive End for the Carolina Panthers for many years. This year his contract is up and he's a Free Agent. Now the Panthers have the option of re-signing him first, taking into account his good work for them over the years. They decided not to keep him. Maybe the raise he was demanding was too high or maybe he's not as young as he once was.
Ahhhh...now I've inadvertently stumbled upon the Great Football Debate: age or talent? With some positions it doesn't matter if the players is "older", what they're worth will remain steady. Unfortunately that is not true of every position nor of every team. For instance, this year many of the Free Agents are running backs (RBs) because their teams are unwilling to re-sign them due to their age. Being a running back is a physical, demanding position. Not only must you be able to run (and be fast about it), but you must also make good decisions on an instant's notice and be able to take a hit...or give one. Usually by 30 years old, most RBs have been in the business around 8ish years and have taken a fair amount of hits and tackles making the older RBs (although they've performed very well in the past) less lucrative. QBs, though, are not allowed to be hit (at least rarely) and so their staying power in the game is much longer, as evidenced by Brett Favre, Kurt Warner, etc. Back to the RBs though, they are older but they've had great careers. So they want more money from their teams, but now the teams don't know if they are worth an extension on their contract with so much extra money. Remember if the player gets hurt or if the player doesn't perform up to standard, the teams may potentially be screwed, not necessarily monetarily. If a team hires an older player, who they decided can't play, then that player has already gobbled up a roster position that could have been used for someone else. NFL teams are allowed only 53 total players during the season so you can understand how parsimonious the coaches are with those meagre positions. Also, don't forget that there is potential greaness waiting in the wings at the NFL Draft.
Sorry for that llloooonng digression but as we speak, these are the issues that are swirling around the NFL. Free Agency began at midnight this morning and a list of very impressive guys are out there for anyone to grab. The team that you know and love from last year's season will not be the same after this. There will be trades and re-signings and backstabbings and contract extensions galore. Each team will determine whether or not they want to go the Free Agent route with a veteran NFL player just waiting to get on that field again or with a new, dashing NFL Rookie just waiting to make a name for himself. And don't forget money--it's going to all come down to that. I know that makes me sound mercenary but these are the facts, Jack. Money plays an important aspect in everyone's life and it really takes the bigwigs a great deal of time to be able to put together a Super Bowl-winning-team on a budget. I'm telling you--it's much much harder than it looks.
That's all for today. I will get you more information about the Draft as a we get a little closer but for now all I'm asking is that you check out any sports page on the internet. Free Agency is going on and you'll be kept updated with each new signing and with all the players changing sides. Where players go will impact every team so it's imporant to be "in the know." And who knows, maybe your team will get some great new players :)
No comments:
Post a Comment