CFZ Two different philosophies to build an NFL championship roster

Reid1boys

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Hard to say. When analyzing, you must take everything into account. You're not addressing the fact of stalwarts needing to be replaced such as Chris Jones, and Mahomes having to deal w/ poor play at some point on the O due to injuries and age. Hyperbole is not an answer.
Ive said this for years.... teams rosters can be placed into a bell shaped curve. The vast majority... lets say 24 of the 32 teams fall in the general range.. then you have 6 remaining that can go on either side of the curve. The Chiefs will ALWAYS be in that curve and as long as that is the case, Mahomes, by his sheer greatness will slide that entire roster over to the right making them a top 4 team every year as long as he is still the guy we are seeing today. Chris jones can be replaced, just like most guys can be replaced. They have a great TE in Kelce, but other than that, they have a bunch of solid NFL type players that you can find every year in the draft. By the way, the WR they traded for from the Giants will explode next year.

We do it in Dallas over and over and over again, we just dont have Mahomes. If we had Mahomes we would be winning SB as well. Our roster is probably better than the chiefs, except for one position.
 

Havic

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I wouldn't say winning with a QB on a rookie deal is any type of model at all. Why? Because these teams always resign that QB to a massive deal.
 

CouchCoach

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What is missing from the Cowboys is the need to build a NFL championship roster.

Why were Sneed and Roseman leaving no stones unturned? And Sneed even mortgaged some of the future. They were told to by their bosses.

Booger has a terrible boss.
 

Bobhaze

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What is missing from the Cowboys is the need to build a NFL championship roster.

Why were Sneed and Roseman leaving no stones unturned? And Sneed even mortgaged some of the future. They were told to by their bosses.

Booger has a terrible boss.
30 of the 32 NFL teams are led by GMs who must win a championship- or at least get really close- to keep their jobs. The winning owners of the last 28 SBs all hired someone besides themselves or a family member to lead their football operations. No coincidence there.
 

CowboyFrog

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Super 57 was not only a good game to watch, it was an interesting matchup showing two different philosophies to build a championship roster.
Those two philosophies are:
  • Build a roster around a highly paid QB (Traditional model)
  • Build a more complete roster with a decent QB on a rookie deal (New model)
The last decade or more, conventional thinking was that if you find a young starting QB that is good enough to be a success in the regular season and can get you to the playoffs, you hang onto that QB and pay them market value to build around. It has been a popular idea but the loss of additional cap space to the QB position puts a ton of pressure on the FO to be able to build an overall quality roster without much cap space to work with.

As hard as it is to find even decent QBs, most teams that found a good young QB were willing to make that commitment. To the joy of some fans and the frustration of others, the Cowboys FO made that commitment to Dak Prescott going into the 2021 season with a big contract at market value. Agree or disagree, it was a “traditional” model decision. It what JJ clearly prefers going back years. So far, it has certainly not worked out well for the Cowboys with both Tony Romo and Dak.

BUT…there are many teams these days choosing not to go the traditional route. They are spending cap space not on a QB but on other positions on both sides of the ball. They are aggressive in both trades and FA signings coupled with their drafts to build a roster that is not centered on the QB.

So which model is working? Answer: Both. SB champ Kansas City is certainly an example of a traditional model with Pat Mahomes as the big centerpiece. But the NFC champ eagles were an example of a team built around a rookie deal QB and a lot of help in multiple positions.

There are good and bad points to either model. Frankly, unless you have a Mahomes or Brady, committing huge amounts of cap space to the QB makes it harder to build a total roster. On the other hand, the rookie deal QB model only works if you have a young QB that’s good enough to win some playoff games with a lot of help.

I’m starting lean toward favoring the new philosophy because it does not tie your cap space down for a long time like these big contracts teams typically give to QBs on a second deal. I don’t think Jerry would ever go for the new way of thinking anyway because it would mean you’re drafting QBs every other year and rebuilding the roster often too. It does seem like the wave of the future though.

Thoughts?
Im there also, Dont pay RB's either, pay your trenches and then your CB'/WR's. A good RPO offense with a decent Young QB works well when your winning the game in both trenches in my opinion. After those positions are pretty set you should have money left to get a playmaker or 2 at LB and saftey and maybe TE.
 

Bobhaze

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I wouldn't say winning with a QB on a rookie deal is any type of model at all. Why? Because these teams always resign that QB to a massive deal.
Always? Not sure about that. Balt hasn’t (to my knowledge) resigned Lamar Jackson. Wash did not resign Kurt Cousins.
 

LatinMind

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What is missing from the Cowboys is the need to build a NFL championship roster.

Why were Sneed and Roseman leaving no stones unturned? And Sneed even mortgaged some of the future. They were told to by their bosses.

Booger has a terrible boss.
They've had championship rosters. What they haven't had is good coaching imo. Starting to like MM tho. You have to have the jones' ear if you were able to get rid of one of their boys in Kellen. That's huge if you want to be completely honest. In Dallas it's always been you coach with what we give you. Letting Kellen walk breaks from the norm. Can't even say if I coach wants to leave Dallas can't stop them. I'll just point at Quinn twice.
 

Ken

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Drafting is important. But so has free agency. Both the Eagles and Chiefs improved their teams through FA. The Chiefs lost T. Hill to free agency, they filled that void by drafting Sky Moore and acquired more talent.

On the other hand, the Eagles can't draft a receiver. So they opted to trade for one.

We lost Amari Cooper. We didn't fill that void when we could have. It came back to bite us against the 49ers.

Jerry and Stephen are too blame. It's their lack of football knowledge that is holding this team back. They make mistakes and double down on it trying to prove to everyone that they are smarter than they seem.
The Cowboys attempted to replace amari similarly to what the Chiefs did, they just chose wrong.

They signed Gallup, he was still injured all year. That is a big miss. They signed Washington, not a big poke but they missed in FA. They drafted tolbert in the 3rd...miss. So they hit on DE and OL replacements but missed hard on WR.

It happens. They shouldn't make the same mistake this year.
 

Havic

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Always? Not sure about that. Balt hasn’t (to my knowledge) resigned Lamar Jackson. Wash did not resign Kurt Cousins.
I think the Ravens will resign him. Cousins is probably the best example, but that franchise didn't do much with and without him.
 

Ken

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There's an adage that if the QB hasn't won a SB on his Rookie Deal, he's hardly likely to do so when he's earning a 5th of the CAP.

Problem is that there's a fair few fans who criticise the Jones' for liking 'Our Guy's', when sticking with, and supporting, Dak is EXACTLY the same thing.
All adage's are made to be broken.

Kind of like....An MVP hasn't won the super bowl since...blah blah blah.
 

ConstantReboot

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The Cowboys attempted to replace amari similarly to what the Chiefs did, they just chose wrong.

They signed Gallup, he was still injured all year. That is a big miss. They signed Washington, not a big poke but they missed in FA. They drafted tolbert in the 3rd...miss. So they hit on DE and OL replacements but missed hard on WR.

It happens. They shouldn't make the same mistake this year.
It does happen. But they still sat on their butts and did nothing in FA except for Washington. Which was a backup at Pitt. They should have used a 2nd rounder on a receiver rather than Sam Williams.

Tolbert is like a Lamb lite. Runs a 4.5 with below average route running skills. Why can we draft a speedster?

FO are just not capable of figuring out how to put a team together. Let's point the blame at Jerry and Stephen for this.
 

charron

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In todays market you can not be afraid to let a player go who is not elite but wants elite $. If a top 10 player wants to be the highest paid at that position but you can get the 12th rated player for 1/3 of the price....then that is what you do so you end up with a couple of those really good type players.
 

fivetwos

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Ive said this for years.... teams rosters can be placed into a bell shaped curve. The vast majority... lets say 24 of the 32 teams fall in the general range.. then you have 6 remaining that can go on either side of the curve. The Chiefs will ALWAYS be in that curve and as long as that is the case, Mahomes, by his sheer greatness will slide that entire roster over to the right making them a top 4 team every year as long as he is still the guy we are seeing today. Chris jones can be replaced, just like most guys can be replaced. They have a great TE in Kelce, but other than that, they have a bunch of solid NFL type players that you can find every year in the draft. By the way, the WR they traded for from the Giants will explode next year.

We do it in Dallas over and over and over again, we just dont have Mahomes. If we had Mahomes we would be winning SB as well. Our roster is probably better than the chiefs, except for one position.
Yeah I wouldn’t trade rosters with KC if you disregard QB.

Those bloated salaries are fine for guys that can overcome roster deficiencies elsewhere.

The problem arises when supply and demand leads the average guys to command elite salaries. We aren’t the only team in that spot.
 

Ken

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It does happen. But they still sat on their butts and did nothing in FA except for Washington. Which was a backup at Pitt. They should have used a 2nd rounder on a receiver rather than Sam Williams.

Tolbert is like a Lamb lite. Runs a 4.5 with below average route running skills. Why can we draft a speedster?

FO are just not capable of figuring out how to put a team together. Let's point the blame at Jerry and Stephen for this.
Velus Jones was the only wr that went from Sam Williams to Tolbert.

Was Velius Jones worth not getting Williams?

I also don't see anyone else after Tolbert who was any good either. So they would have had to go WR in the first and miss Smith....not a good choice imo.

They needed to be more agressive in FA and/or Trades. Or they should have spent the money on a different wr than Gallup.
 

Reid1boys

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30 of the 32 NFL teams are led by GMs who must win a championship- or at least get really close- to keep their jobs. The winning owners of the last 28 SBs all hired someone besides themselves or a family member to lead their football operations. No coincidence there.
and those teams that fire 1 gm to hire another have went on to magnificent glory, right? ;lol
 

Diehardblues

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They've had championship rosters. What they haven't had is good coaching imo. Starting to like MM tho. You have to have the jones' ear if you were able to get rid of one of their boys in Kellen. That's huge if you want to be completely honest. In Dallas it's always been you coach with what we give you. Letting Kellen walk breaks from the norm. Can't even say if I coach wants to leave Dallas can't stop them. I'll just point at Quinn twice.
Championship caliber talent can carry lesser coaching . But great coaching can only take lesser talent so far. We’ve seen it time and time again in NFL history.
 

Diehardblues

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and if the new GM lands a burrow in the draft... wala, they have found their glory... its that simple.
Finding the next great QB does simplify it, I agree. But most of the league has to build around less than Elite QB’s.

If we have a GM that after almost 3 decades hasn’t found or even attempted to draft an Elite QB, maybe it’s time to move on?
 
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