Yesterday, Mike made an excellent point about what dark clouds the new NBA free agent circus may hold for small-to-mid-market franchises. His conclusion syncs up nicely with something I’ve been thinking about since the end of the Browns season.
The question is this: Is it possible that in a few years, the NFL will be the only sustainable pro sport in non-major markets, i.e. the only one where cities like Cleveland can legitimately hope to compete for a title?
Based on the available evidence, I believe the answer may be ‘yes.’
I’ve considered a few crucial differences between the NBA and NFL in this regard. I’ve ignored Major League Baseball because their system is currently so far out of wack—see: the complete lack of a salary cap—that it hardly seems worth addressing. (Let alone that MLB’s largest problem is that almost no one in contemporary American life wants to watch 162 regular season games that last 3.5+ hours each.)
Unless the parameters change in the new CBA, rookie contracts will be one major determinant of the answer. The current rules dictate that a player drafted in the first half of the first round can be signed to a 6-year contract; players in the second half of the first round to a 5-year contract; and players after the first round to a 4-year contract. (Thanks to Ask the Commish for the details.)
The contrast with the NBA is evident immediately. For first-round picks, the longest contract a team can extend is 4 years, with the latter 2 years both existing as team options. If a contract extension isn’t worked out by the end of the 4th year, the team can put forth a qualifying offer for a 5th year—but that only makes the player a restricted free agent. Further, if the player decides to play out the 5th year, he obtains veto power over any trades, then becomes an unrestricted free agent the following summer. (Thanks to Hoopsworld for the low-down.)
Perhaps counter-intuitively, NBA second round picks gain leverage even faster than their first-round cohorts. The longest contract an NBA team will normally negotiate here is 2-years of nonguaranteed money. However, if a second round pick pans out in a major way, he’s free to test the market as quickly as his sophomore, or at worst, junior season in the league.
The end result of this comparison? Current NFL rules protect their franchises by providing longer guarantees for potential star players than their NBA counterparts.
Consider the following: In 2010, the St. Louis Rams signed Sam Bradford to a 6-year contract. Meanwhile, LeBron was a Cav for only 7 total seasons: 4 on his rookie contract, another 3 thanks to an extension.
This example is one where simple subtraction simply doesn’t tell the story. Yes, we’re only talking about a net 1 year difference between the Rams’ agreement with Bradford and the Cavs’ two agreements with LeBron. But the difference is continuity. After going 7-9 and barely missing the playoffs in his rookie season, the Rams’ front office knows that Bradford is a franchise player that they have for the next 5 seasons, guaranteed. As we all know too well, the Cavs didn’t have such a long-term safety net. Instead, they allowed themselves to be forced into a series of panic upgrades that were never conducive to a strong, long-term foundation.
The reason was obvious: LeBron’s free agency was always pending, so they had to prove they could win now in order to keep him around. The Rams, meanwhile, have half a decade to build around Bradford.
The contrast carries through the lower branches of each sport’s draft: by the time a second round NFL pick can become a free agent, a second round NBA pick will have had the free agency option two or even three years earlier.
All of this plays into the viability of pro football versus pro basketball in cities like Cleveland. As proven by LeBron and Chris Bosh, young NBA stars are no longer prone to take slightly more money to stay with the franchise that drafted them. Their desire to build “super teams” is hardly surprising, given the (Mesa favorite) fact that only 8 different NBA franchises have won the title in the past 30 years.
But young NFL stars are basically locked into their first franchise for a substantial time period from the starting gun. With a skillful personnel department, NFL teams have the time they need to convince budding stars to stick around via complementary moves. Given the numbers, those players also have less incentive to migrate to specific alternatives than their NBA counterparts anyway; in the same 30 year period, 14 different NFL teams have won the Super Bowl.
These rookie contract considerations aren’t the only elements that empower small-to-mid-market NFL teams. Their ability to “franchise” a player otherwise ready to hit the open market is another powerful tool in the quest for competitive balance.
For the uninitiated, the franchise tag essentially blocks a player at the end of his contract from entering free agency. If he’s hit with an exclusive franchise tag, the player cannot negotiate with other teams, but is compensated by receiving one year’s salary equal to either the average of the top 5 salaries at his position in the current NFL season, or 120% of his previous contract year, whichever is greater. If he’s hit with a non-exclusive franchise tag, the player is compensated by receiving either the average of the top 5 salaries at his position in the previous NFL season, or 120% of his previous contract year, whichever is greater.
However, non-exclusive franchise players also maintain the right to negotiate with other teams. If they sign an offer sheet elsewhere, the original franchise has the right to match the offer, or else refuse it and receive two first-round draft picks from the franchise player’s chosen destination. In comparison to the NBA equivalent, this system is vastly preferable to any franchise unable to maintain a star player. Two first rounders in the NFL draft is a HUGE bounty. By contrast, the best an NBA team can do when a star chooses to go elsewhere is normally a few infinitely less valuable future draft picks and a trade exception. (We can all see how much that trade exception has helped the Cavs this season.)
If all of the above weren’t enough, also consider the prevalence of undrafted NFL free agents or late round picks not only making an NFL roster, but becoming impact players. (Peter King examines this phenomenon briefly in his most recent Monday Morning Quarterback - just scroll down to “The [Super Bowl] match-up is a reward to two organizations that built teams.”) The probability of a second round pick or undrafted NBA free agent having the same kind of effect on a team’s fortune seems to be much rarer—and again, even when it does happen, the team that took a chance on the player in question almost immediately has to work to try to retain his services.
Admittedly, I have no idea what the new NBA and NFL collective bargaining agreements will look like. However, if current rules and current trends largely remain, then I sincerely believe that we are rapidly approaching a time when the NFL is the only legitimate game in town for cities like Cleveland. Here’s hoping I’m dead wrong.
Although a lot of Browns fans are excited by the possibility that Colt McCoy could finally be The Guy,a lot of analysts have agreed that there’s a dark shadow hovering over him. People love his leadership. They love his work ethic. They love his intelligence and the way he performed under pressure. But from Tony Grossi onward, the word is that McCoy’s arm strength is “a concern” moving forward.
This notion irritates the hell out of me. Not because I’m blindly onboard with Colt McCoy, but because one of my pet peeves in sports is the tendency for people to believe that as soon as an athlete begins his second year, his strengths and weaknesses are frozen in place. He will never become significantly better at anything than what he already is. It’s as if a timer gets started on the day the athlete is drafted, and as soon as it goes off a couple of years later, the cement has set.
I’ll admit that by and large, huge improvements are not the norm. (Holland, feel free to jump in and drop some knowledge on the remarkable year-to-year consistency in NBA players’ stats.) However, if you’re looking at the right types of athletes, you can find plenty of examples of major strides being made.
For instance, let’s switch sports briefly. Steve Nash’s FT% for 2 of his first 3 years in the NBA was ~82.5%. In year 4, he improved to 88.2% and has never dropped below that rate in the succeeding 11 years. In fact, he’s shot 90% or better in 8 of those 11 years.
Returning to the NFL, Drew Brees showed similarly significant statistical improvement a few years into his professional career. In his first three seasons in the league, Brees’ completion percentages were 55.6%, 60.8%, and 57.6% respectively. In his fourth year, his completion percentage jumped to 65.5%. From year 4 to the present, his average annual completion percentage is 66.5%, and his worst year in that span is a still-impressive 64.3%.
What do these two athletes share in common? They were both undersized. Neither was born with the type of overwhelming athleticism that you’d see in, say, LeBron or Mike Vick. And both are renowned for their incredible hard work and dedication to the game.
All of these characteristics are (supposedly) true of Colt McCoy as well.
However, people may look at FT% in basketball and completion % in the NFL and say that those are somehow different than arm strength. They’re about skill and precision, not brute force. Learned, not innate qualities.
Somehow, arm strength is just regarded as being different.
But this past Monday, NFL correspondent Michael Lombardi wrote a column praising Aaron Rodgers. This, in itself, is not special, as the sports media has now universally agreed that Rodgers is The Next Great Quarterback. Even casual NFL fans have elevated him to elite status. In fact, I’m fairly certain that there are babies all over Wisconsin who have delayed trying to crawl so that they can learn to do Rodgers’s “championship belt” gesture instead.
What makes Lombardi’s column worth mentioning in this context is the following passage:
The one noticeable area of improvement from his time in college to now is his arm strength. He never displayed this type of rocket or the ability to throw the ball from every angle. He had a good arm, now he has a powerful arm. Part of the reason for the increased velocity is that in college he…appeared as if the weight room was for linemen, not quarterbacks. Now he looks like he enjoys the weight room and has made his meek body into one that can take a hit and drive the football.
This officially marks the first time that I have ever seen a respectable NFL analyst make the argument that a quarterback’s arm strength can be significantly improved once he reaches the pro ranks. In other words, thanks to Lombardi, I can now point to a highly regarded expert who shares my opinion that this arm strength conundrum is garbage.
Does this mean that I believe a 90 lb chess champ could transform himself into a guy who can throw a football through a bank vault the way Rodgers can? Not necessarily, no. I think there’s some level of proficiency in a specialized field like this that can’t be acquired artificially. But I do believe that it means a pro athlete can go from being decent at something to being very good to great at that same thing—provided he really, truly goes after it.
Clearly, McCoy has some arm strength already. He wouldn’t have been a 4 year starter at Texas and a third round pick in the NFL (Holmgren’s quarterback-induced hard-on aside) if he didn’t. The question becomes, will he have the dedication and work ethic to make the same types of serious improvements that players like Nash, Brees, and Rodgers have made? If so, the Browns may truly have a solution at the QB spot. If not, then it’s back to the drawing board again.
But for now, take some comfort in the fact that Aaron Rodgers has shown that the arm strength issue is not, in fact, genetic-or-bust.
The link jumps to an excerpt from a book called Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won, by Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim. The book itself is billed as “Freakonomics for sports.” I just read another excerpt on a different topic in the new issue of Sports Illustrated last night have been really impressed with it so far.
The excerpt in question here is titled “The Curse of the No. 1 Draft Pick.” In it, Moskowitz and Wertheim provide data to support the notion that the best possible move for any NFL team picking in the top 10 is for them to trade down. This seemed like a relevant topic to consider today, as the conference championship match-ups were set while the Browns were busy trying to put together another new coaching staff.
The two strongest parts of Moskowitz’s and Wertheim’s argument are that evidence shows teams wanting to move up pay entirely too highly for the right to do so (in both compensatory picks and salary for their targeted player), and that in each draft class there is only a marginal difference in value between the top 4 players at any given position. In fact, when it’s all said and done, they argue that the first pick in the 2nd round carries more value than the 1st overall pick.
The ideas themselves aren’t necessarily new, but I applaud Moskowitz and Wertheim for using data to make the case. Admittedly, their argument will lose a little of its strength next season—whenever “next season” begins—because a new CBA is almost guaranteed to include a rookie wage scale that reduces the discrepancy between salaries for top picks versus lower picks.
Still, with the Browns holding the sixth pick and fans clamoring for a big name college player to start solving their problems, this study serves as more evidence that the best move for the health of the franchise is to pull a Belichick: Take advantage of an overzealous (probably QB-needy) team to stockpile picks and players, load up with talent at a higher rate than everyone else, and start blowing the doors off over the course of a few years.
You could say that this strategy didn’t work out so well for Belichick today. But keep in mind that the Patriots—who went 14-2 this year—have 3 of the top 34 picks in the next draft because of the strategy Moskowitz and Wertheim suggest as the norm. They can’t win every year, but they are going to continue to be really good for a really long time. That sustainable success is exactly what the Browns need to become relevant again. We’ll find out whether or not they recognize it.
One reason I think they very well may: the other team cited as the greatest champion of this strategy is Andy Reid’s Eagles, AKA Tom Heckert’s and Pat Shurmur’s Eagles. Let’s hope it all stays in the family tree.
The Browns are set to interview current Giants’ defensive coordinator Perry Fewell today, but according to sources such as Peter King, Rams’ offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur is the current favorite for the job.
This is not news in and of itself. I won’t bother listing out all the boxes Shurmur has checked; undoubtedly you’ve read that somewhere else by now. Suffice it to say that he has past relationships with both Holmgren and Heckert.
What’s notable, though, is what King tweeted earlier this morning in response to the question of who else was looking at Shurmur as a head coaching candidate. The answer was clear, concise, and unmistakable.
King simply wrote—and I quote—“No one.”
Now, there are two totally opposite ways to interpret this information. One is to conclude that the front office is being too heavily influenced by their past ties to Shurmur. Their judgment is being clouded by the fact that, on some level, they would really like Shurmur to be the real deal just because they like him as a person, even if there’s evidence that his professional chops are under-developed. As a result, they’re strongly considering elevating a guy who no one else in the league thinks is ready to take over head coaching duties.
However, the other way is to conclude that the front office is being influenced by their past ties just heavily enough to be able to see something about Shurmur that no other front office in the league right now does. In other words, because both Holmgren and Heckert have past personal and professional ties with him, they have inside knowledge that suggested to them that he was a more worthy candidate than anyone else did. So they took a flyer on interviewing him and—possibly to their own surprise—came away thoroughly impressed.
As we’ve discussed many times in the past, this is where GMs and Team Presidents really earn their keep: by identifying undervalued assets. This is true in any sport. It’s especially true in situations where franchises need to reshape themselves dramatically. Despite any improvements we can argue ourselves into seeing, the Browns are still such a franchise. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t have fired their old coach in the first place.
With that in mind, there’s certainly no reason to limit this thinking to personnel. The process of evaluating coaches is essentially identical. As I’ve written before, the AFC North is proof of that. Remember, there was no league-wide interest in Mike Tomlin when the Steelers hired him; to my recollection, he was brought in simply to fulfill the Rooney Rule requirement. Instead, he blew away the Rooneys themselves and now has a Super Bowl ring.
Similarly, the only reason John Harbaugh had the opportunity to even interview with Baltimore was that their first choice, Jason Garrett, rejected the Ravens’ contract offer in favor of staying as a Cowboys assistant. It was the only interview that John got. At this rate, though, his may be the last head coaching interview the Ravens conduct this decade.
By no means am I saying that Pat Shurmur is definitely going to be a brilliant hire and a successful head coach in the NFL. What I am saying, though, is that Browns fans shouldn’t bring out the pitchforks if the front office ultimately hires a guy who no other franchise saw fit to interview.
To broad the perspective momentarily, too many people in life chase the cool and spar with one another for a hot candidate for anything, not necessarily because the person in question has actual substance, but because they believe someone else wants to him/her first. This is true in business, in the arts, in sports, in dating, in everything. The phenomenon will never change; it’s basic human nature.
However, those among us who have the ability to fight through the jealousy traps ultimately open themselves up to possibilities and advantages that the rest of the pack simply won’t see. It may be that Pat Shurmur is one such advantage. We may never find out. But instead of blasting Holmgren and Heckert for considering him, I think we should all, for the moment, keep in mind the possibilities of the undiscovered.
