Off-season discussion

[Aston]

We're not doing much with FA this year - especially in the way of bringing in new blood - but we're happy to bring back previous FA acquisitions Clifton Thomas and Oliver Wunder for another go.

[Guest]

We're not doing much with FA this year - especially in the way of bringing in new blood - but we're happy to bring back previous FA acquisitions Clifton Thomas and Oliver Wunder for another go.

Same here, we brought back Camden Recker again. This is, for me, a weak FA class

[Guest]

We're not doing much with FA this year - especially in the way of bringing in new blood - but we're happy to bring back previous FA acquisitions Clifton Thomas and Oliver Wunder for another go.

It seems like every year I try and bring DT Wunder back to Waco but you outbid me one 1 year deal!

[Cory]

Memphis has been quiet again this year in FA. We prefer to spend our money on retaining players we have instead of seeking outside help.

We are excited to welcome Alonzo Mandel to Memphis. We've been looking for a QB that can give us consistent play, and we're hopeful that Mandel will be the good, young QB that our scouts say he is.

[Guest]

Happy to grab 5th year former 1.4 WR Jessie Rayburn in FA.. was expensive but will be worth it in the long term.

BKL has a nice set of WRs to go with our 1.1 QB!

Having an enjoyable offseason in BKL!

[Delandis]

So we picked up a couple of big free agents in 11th year center, Terry Chachick from Lake County and highly coveted veteran receiver, Stephen Knorr from Morgantown. We also gave Clay Granberry (QB) a contract that will likely see him play his remaining productive years as a Bomber.

This a pretty thin FA and we don't have any picks this year, so this may be the year we are passed by a ACN rival.

[irabowman]

Last season we traded for WR Olsavski who held out on us immediately and it was a huge mistake. Resigning him and with other older players we signed via FA we was in cap trouble. We saw no way of being able to resign both QB Mandel & CB Poole So we put these 3 guys on trading block. In return picked up draft picks 1.3, 2.15, 2.28, 3.2, 3.29, 3rd next yr, and QB Martinez for a 1yr deal. It is our hope that out of these 6 picks we get 4 starters and a good back up. I am sure one of these picks will bust but we will see what happens. Also we are staying away from the high priced FA's to do as a few other teams have said they are doing keep Cap free to resign your own good players. We do hope to pick up a few improvements later in FA that are not as expensive..

[IrishGuy65]

Nice pickup by Port City getting the safety Helming. All bonus money really makes the difference in signing players. The problem is going to come in final year of the deal, when trying to resign him. That huge bonus will hurt the efforts to resign him and keep the salary cap manageable. I thought about doing that in my offer, making it all bonus... but I didn't want to handcuff myself as far as the salary cap.

This is where a lot of people get hurt in MP... overpaying the bonus and not being able to resign key players at important points in the team's history.

[Aston]

I would've quite liked to get Helming. Given the team's recent success and talent level I made a fairly muted offer but I thought it had a solid chance to lock him up for two years. I kept the bonus at his ask, around $6M, and threw about $18M in salary in each year.

Really, though, if I had been more aggressive about securing him I would have thrown down a $20-25M offer, 1 year, max bonus. I think that would have beaten the one he received, but who knows.

If I were to go so high in bonus, I would definitely keep it at 1 year. You just don't know what happens to a guy over the course of a season. These are 5 year veterans we're talking about in free agency; they could crash in camp, they could get hurt. I'm OK with big cap commitments over multiple years so long as the team has an 'out', which is erased by making it all bonus.

NFL teams who do long contracts always have an out. For example, Peyton Manning is going to have $19M of guaranteed money coming his way...but he'll get none of that if the Broncos release him within the next 15 days.

With Helming on a contract like this, there's little incentive to renegotiate the deal. It'll have to run out and he'll hit free agency again in year 8 if he doesn't get tagged. That's fine, too. And quite possibly he won't ever get hurt or have his ratings dinged in this time -- it's just that if either of those things come to pass, the cost will be sizable. Well -- sizable, but not insurmountable, either.

[Guest]

I am a big all-bonus guy. Irish: if your league has the franchise tag the bonus is no issue. For example, go all bonus on a two year deal, then franchise him in year 3. Then you're golden.

Aston is right that it is still a risk that the guy gets injured or drops in TC.

[Aston]

We batted very low with our undrafted free agents, but got two top priorities: RB and FB. The players don't look as high-ceiling as some of the other ones we missed, but they both look solid enough to figure into competition at two spots of weakness on the team.

There are 30-some offers pending throughout the league, but only one for us. With 5 spots at minimum open on the team, we figure to go after our next round of rookie free agents more aggressively.

[macroguru20]

I seriously screwed up trying to save some players and restructuring deals, I am now in a cap crunch and I will probably be keeping a bare min on the roster and praying I don't get a ton of injuries.

Other than that. I am happy with how the defense is and I hope TC doesn't kill my stud LB.

[Guest]

Denver late FA:

-Bill Smith and Hunter Marsh were still left on our draft list... I knew we couldn't afford Smith when his ratings came out. Marsh, not sure why we didn't go harder. Probably was still quite cap conscious.
-Harvey Shannon was the next guy on our list so we were very happy to get him. 21/40 and only 21% developed.

Other notables:

-We grabbed a new WR team leader who is slightly more popular

Undrafted rookies:

-Damon Russell, DE, 21/34 - no combine guy. I like to take shots on these overlooked no combine guys.
-Shaquille Giovannelli, DE, 18/31
-JT Weiner, LB, 18/36
-Irv Thorton, DT, 17/47
-Amir Stout, WR, 25/38... After missing out on Marsh we decided to roll the dice on Stout. Very nice current rating for only 21% developed.

We have a bit of cap room to play with and some extra picks if we need to make a deal. Roster is getting set, though.

[Aston]

Smith was a guy I totally missed the first time around. I think even after he came out his combines and grades looked too low for me to prioritize in a first wave of offers. After missing most of them (how's Thorton, by the way?) I thought, hey -- there's probably open spots and no other LB candidates. He's turning out to be one of our better gets, I think, but we'll know more soon. He's probably still not much more than average.

[Guest]

Smith was a guy I totally missed the first time around. I think even after he came out his combines and grades looked too low for me to prioritize in a first wave of offers. After missing most of them (how's Thorton, by the way?) I thought, hey -- there's probably open spots and no other LB candidates. He's turning out to be one of our better gets, I think, but we'll know more soon. He's probably still not much more than average.

Punk! Stole him right under the arms of Brooklyn.