SD: Source: Dallas Cowboys sign former Jacksonville Jaguars DE Ryan Davis to roster

[big dog cowboy]

If Cowboys had acquired Damon Harrison, Janoris Jenkins and Olivier Vernon in offseason you'd be the in front of the line singing the platitudes of the FO and crying hysterically about not one, not two, not three ...

Not really.

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

You are not making sense. Even the most important piece needed all those talented FA's around him to win a ring, that includes Ware, Ward, Talib and Peyton. Again, surround your most important piece with jags and Miller wins JACK.

Okay that may be the case. My point is Ward, TAlib, Peyton....they don't win without Von Miller. Ware isn't Ware without Von Miller on the field. Ware is 6 sack season Ware that we saw here.

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

Jenkins contract is very similar to Carrs contract. They both got about the same money guaranteed 28.8 million.

What you have an issue with is Oliver Vernons 45 million guaranteed which seems a bit much. I have to agree there. His 40 million guarantee and avg/yr is 17 million bout the same as fletcher cox who just got extended. Just wait and see what Lawrence will want.

Okay but Fletcher coach is a tier 1 dominant defensive linemen. I can't put "dominate" and Vernon in the same category. He basically got that contract thanks to Tyron having a off day.

And I don't care if Jenkins got the same contract as Jenkins. Carr wasn't worth it and neither was Jenkins. Those contracts are insane. You're paying marquee prices for players other teams deemed replaceable.

Sounds to me like you don't like Fisher. He's had some major QB issues with the Rams the past 4 seasons and it never resulted in a 4-12 season during that period. Can't imagine he would have gone 8-8 three straight years with a Tony Romo, Jason Witten and a Dez Bryant. My only issue with Garrett is he can't coach and nothing on his resume says he ever could. At least Fisher fielded some very good teams over his career when he had a solid QB situation.

No I don't like Fisher. He's a terrible coach who keeps still jobs from candidates that deserve a shot. And if Fisher its he coaching guru he thinks he is than Sam Bradford should've been more than enough for him to muster up far more than this 3 and 4 win seasons he was coming up with. And yes, he too would've went 8-8 with Romo because he's a player killer and he kills careers. Did it in Tennessee, St. Louis and now he's doing it in LA.

Fisher had players. They won in spite of Fisher. I don't give him one credit for those McNair and Eddie George seasons.

 

[BAT]

Okay that may be the case. My point is Ward, TAlib, Peyton....they don't win without Von Miller. Ware isn't Ware without Von Miller on the field. Ware is 6 sack season Ware that we saw here.

Miller wouldn't be as effective without Ware opposite him, or without Talib and Ward behind him, Miller and even Wade have said this themselves. But this argument is circular, I'm not the one arguing that one elite player is enough to build a championship defense.

The diamond surrounded by trash theory is yours remember. And by the way, Ware is no jag, even at this stage of career. There are ZERO jags starting for the Broncos D.

 

[gimmesix]

Why are we so cheap on defense? I don't understand. All of sudden we go cheap cheap cheap. You get what you pay for.

Jerry is a man of extremes. He does something until if fails and then does the opposite.

He used to not mine throwing the bank at players like LaRoi Glover if that's what it took to improve the team. However, the Carr signing didn't turn out like Dallas hoped so now it's all about getting cheap fill-ins in free agency or trying to find a "bargain" like Hardy that comes with baggage.

 

[Denim Chicken]

And target whom? Most teams are avoiding high priced vets as they don't generally work out.

Is this true, though? Seems those high price vets still get paid rather quickly once they hit FA.

 

[gimmesix]

Here's a Boston Globe article that shows the value or lack thereof of signing top free agents:

(I still believe free agency has to be used strategically to put a team over the top. It cannot be used to make a bad team good.)

Do NFL teams improve after signing top free agents?
Not as much as fans might hope. Looking across all the teams that picked up a top-five free agent over the last decade, it turns out that those teams didn’t get any better. On average, they ended up winning almost exactly the same number of games.

If you include all top-ten free agents, there’s a little upward blip, amounting to something like .1 additional wins, but again that is basically nothing. Even if you look across two years, on the assumption that perhaps it takes some time for new players to have their biggest impact, there are no real gains.

To calculate these figures, I used ESPN’s free agent tracker, which grades every free agent back to 2005. So the players we’re talking about aren’t the highest-paid — who might well be overvalued — but in fact the ones with the top scouting reports. Even these most well-regarded players don’t seem to make a big difference.


Why don’t teams get better?
NFL success depends on all manner of things, including coaching, team cohesion, schedule, refereeing, luck, and a great deal besides. Given all that, it would be quite remarkable if lone players could mean the difference between winning five games and 10.

If you’re looking for a more concrete explanation, though, it might have to do with salary. Top free agents fetch a premium price, which crowds out spending on other, less glamorous but sometimes equally important personnel. So teams gain a star, but lose too many workhorses.


Are there any exceptions?
Absolutely. After acquiring Peyton Manning, the Broncos went from 8-8 to 13-3. And one reason the 2010 Bears reached the conference championship was because they had picked up Julius Peppers.

Having said that, there are also some striking counter-examples. In 2013, the Texans signed Ed Reed to a three-year, $15 million contract, after which they only won two games. Now of course, their collapse was hardly Reed’s fault (he was let go midway through the season), but it speaks to the broader issue: the impact of a free agent is easily swamped by other factors.


What happens to the teams that lose free agents?
Perhaps surprisingly, while signing a top free agent doesn’t make a consistent difference, losing one does.

On average, teams that watched top-ten free agents stride off for new pastures dropped an additional half-game the following year. That’s quite high, given that those very same players seem to have a much smaller impact on their new teams.

As an example, when the Ravens lost Adalius Thomas in 2007 to the Patriots, they fell from 13-3 to 5-11 (Jamal Lewis’s departure didn’t help.) Similarly, when Julius Peppers was helping turn around the Chicago Bears, he wasn’t helping his old Carolina Panthers, who dropped six additional games that season.

One possible explanation is that the free agents really were more valuable to the teams they left behind. That’s because they were getting paid less. Often, the teams that lose top free agents have been underpaying them, but getting their full talent — and value like that is hard to come by.

Teams that sign free agents have no such advantage. If anything, they end up overpaying as a result of high-stakes bidding wars and the winner’s curse.

 

[jobberone]

Is this true, though? Seems those high price vets still get paid rather quickly once they hit FA.

Yeah, someone gets many of them but you're often talking 1-3 teams interested. FA is not the same these days.

 

[KJJ]

Okay but Fletcher coach is a tier 1 dominant defensive linemen. I can't put "dominate" and Vernon in the same category. He basically got that contract thanks to Tyron having a off day.

And I don't care if Jenkins got the same contract as Jenkins. Carr wasn't worth it and neither was Jenkins. Those contracts are insane. You're paying marquee prices for players other teams deemed replaceable.



No I don't like Fisher. He's a terrible coach who keeps still jobs from candidates that deserve a shot. And if Fisher its he coaching guru he thinks he is than Sam Bradford should've been more than enough for him to muster up far more than this 3 and 4 win seasons he was coming up with. And yes, he too would've went 8-8 with Romo because he's a player killer and he kills careers. Did it in Tennessee, St. Louis and now he's doing it in LA.

Fisher had players. They won in spite of Fisher. I don't give him one credit for those McNair and Eddie George seasons.

You don't like Fisher and it's obvious. Bradford only played one full season for Fisher due to injuries. In 2014 Bradford was lost for the entire season in preseason and Fisher got stuck with Austin Davis and Shaun Hill which led to a 6-10 season. Do you honestly believe Garrett could have won 6 games with those 2 QBs and the lack of offensive talent the Rams had? Garrett could only manage 4 wins in the situation Fisher found himself in. Give Fisher a Tony Romo, Jason Witten and a Dez Bryant along with the defensive talent he's had and he would have won games.

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

You don't like Fisher and it's obvious. Bradford only played one full season for Fisher due to injuries. In 2014 Bradford was lost for the entire season in preseason and Fisher got stuck with Austin Davis and Shaun Hill which led to a 6-10 season. Do you honestly believe Garrett could have won 6 games with those 2 QBs and the lack of offensive talent the Rams had? Garrett could only manage 4 wins in the situation Fisher found himself in. Give Fisher a Tony Romo, Jason Witten and a Dez Bryant along with the defensive talent he's had and he would have won games.

Garret's team sure looks a lot better than what Fisher keeps putting out there. He had a qb in Vince Young and ruined his career.

 

[KJJ]

Garret's team sure looks a lot better than what Fisher keeps putting out there. He had a qb in Vince Young and ruined his career.

Garrett's personnel has been lot better and look at the results. To go 8-8 three straight seasons with Tony Romo only missing one game and having a Jason Witten, Dez Bryant and a solid OL is inexcusable. He also inherited one of the best pass rushers in the game and the defense has been mediocre at best. He lobbied for Kiffin and the defense went from bad to worse. As for Vince Young HE ruined his career and was never a good QB anyway. All he could do was run, he never passed for more than 2546 yards and 12 TD's. I didn't enter this discussion to argue about Jeff Fisher so time to move on.

 

[jobberone]

Garrett's personnel has been lot better and look at the results. To go 8-8 three straight seasons with Tony Romo only missing one game and having a Jason Witten, Dez Bryant and a solid OL is inexcusable. He also inherited one of the best pass rushers in the game and the defense has been mediocre at best. He lobbied for Kiffin and the defense went from bad to worse. As for Vince Young HE ruined his career and was never a good QB anyway. All he could do was run, he never passed for more than 2546 yards and 12 TD's. I didn't enter this discussion to argue about Jeff Fisher so time to move on.

Oh no you didn't. And Dez was a mess at first having trouble lining up and knowing his routes much less the intricacies of his position.

 

[KJJ]

Oh no you didn't. And Dez was a mess at first having trouble lining up and knowing his routes much less the intricacies of his position.

The OL was in transition when Garrett took over but we had just added Tyron. The OL was good enough in Garrett's first full season for Murray to gain a franchise single game record of 253 yards. He gained around 600 yards rushing in 4 games in 2011 before being injured. Garrett's personnel offensively has been much better than Fisher has ever had with the Rams and our OL has been considered the best in the league since 2014.

 

[Alexander]

Garret's team sure looks a lot better than what Fisher keeps putting out there. He had a qb in Vince Young and ruined his career.

Young's failure after his first couple of seasons suggests that no, he was just the harbinger of Robert Griffin.

 

[Common Sense]

Okay that may be the case. My point is Ward, TAlib, Peyton....they don't win without Von Miller. Ware isn't Ware without Von Miller on the field. Ware is 6 sack season Ware that we saw here.

Maybe so, but you'd have to be crazy to want what we have now over Ware.

 

[jobberone]

The OL was in transition when Garrett took over but we had just added Tyron. The OL was good enough in Garrett's first full season for Murray to gain a franchise single game record of 253 yards. He gained around 600 yards rushing in 4 games in 2011 before being injured. Garrett's personnel offensively has been much better than Fisher has ever had with the Rams and our OL has been considered the best in the league since 2014.

I'm not going to debate something as subjective as which coach is better.

My point was your facts weren't correct. Name that (those) OL.

 

[Alexander]

Let's look at Damon Harrison vs Tyron Crawford
Harrison : 5 years 46 million w 24 guaranteed
T Crawford : 5 years 45 million w 24.6 guaranteed

Thanks.

Thanks. I needed that.

 

[Irvin88_4life]

Meanwhile, Mayowa records a sack and the $80 million dollar savior (Vernon) went 0-fer. (but he played the run really really good).

Troll nation won't go near that one this week, but it's there.

We actually had 2 or 3 sacks. Giants had 0.

Seem a few times we were close. Plus we had a CB with an interception. Held Eli to 200 passing but gave up just over 100 some yards rushing. We need to improve but they are improving. Being we have tons of young guys I think they will continue to get better

 

[Alexander]

We actually had 2 or 3 sacks. Giants had 0.

Sacks can be manufactured or the product of coverage. If you watched the game and figure Dallas' D did better because it had more sacks, that is just shortsighted and just completely wrong.

 

[KJJ]

I'm not going to debate something as subjective as which coach is better.

My point was your facts weren't correct. Name that (those) OL.

Garrett went 8-8 with an OL that had two #1 picks on it, Smith and Frederick. He went 8-8 with a back that had over 1100 yards rushing in 2013 and 9 rushing TD's and with a QB that tossed 31 TD's and had a passer rating of 96.7. The OL wasn't "bad" when Garrett took over in 2011 or Murray and Romo wouldn't have had the success they did. Romo had over 4100 yards and 31 TD's in 2011 with a 102.5 passer rating which was his career high at that time. How does he manage that along with a 66% completion percentage behind a bad OL?