03-12-2025, 05:10 PM
(03-12-2025, 04:46 PM)jj22 Wrote: Paying "top dollar" for free agents is what got them to the SB and AFCC.....
Bargain hunting has got them nowhere in the last 30 years.
Not really true. If you go back into the FA's proceeding the SB run we usually paid one elite guy like Reader or Trey and then filled the rest of FA with bargin shopping. People look fondly back at Vonn Bell on that run but he signed 7 days in after the safety market basically dried up. Mike Hilton got a pretty mid tier deal and Awuzie, who wasn't even ranked in the top 101 FA's at the time, we took swings on guys who hadn't worked out at their last stop coming off rookie deals they thought there was upside with. We did sign Cappa who was the 51st rated FA at the time to open FA but then we came back and signed Ted Karras a bit of a journeyman who had come off a kind of disappointing season in NE playing guard (not a 101 top FA that year).
Sure we did have the occasional big signing, because we lacked talent we were paying to an extent, but we actually have made a lot out of those bargain bin guys fueling that run. We remember the guys that worked out but man did we have a ton of misses too Trae Waynes, Xavier Soa'Filo, Riley Reiff, and so on.
