CFZ What happened to the “wildcatter” days?

[Diehardblues]

Anyone else remember the days when Jerry was the football equivalent of an oil “wildcatter”? A wildcatter is a speculative oil driller who takes great risks to find oil where most would not even consider. Wildcatters take high risks to achieve high rewards. That was the young JJ. Old JJ doesn’t take many risks anymore.

When JJ was a wildcatter, he was the most aggressive GM in the league. It wasn’t always good. Sometimes it was bad. But he was aggressive. Here are some examples.

• Hiring Jimmy Johnson out U of Miami was a great risk
• The Herschel Walker trade
• Signing Deion Sanders as a FA
• Making trades for big play WRs (yes they were bad trades, but he was being aggressive)
• Signing La’el Collins as an UFA (a guy with first round talent but had a criminal inquiry at time of draft)

I know I’m forgetting some moves. Point is. Where did the wildcatter go?

These days, the NFL wildcatters are Les Snead, GM of the rams who has made more aggressive moves than any other GM. Or Jason Licht, GM of the Bucs who aggressively pursued Tom Brady and has made multiple FA signings. Or Brett Veach, GM of the chiefs? Tons of trades and FA moves. Their teams have won the last 3 SBs.

What happened to our wildcatter?

Jethro appears to have more of Cheapskate Sons ear these days.

And daddy’s new motto is ‘ we like our guys’ lol

 

[Diehardblues]

He only appears to feel the need to Wildcat when the well runs dry. Like in 2018 with big move for Cooper.

 

[Mr_437]

Plenty of time to realize Jimmy was the man...Jerry just running a circus.

 

[Oz-of-Cowboy-Country]

hes still a cat...there is just another word for what he is now

Boooooooo!
LOL-JK

 

[Bobhaze]

He drafts second round players, with injuries and such hoping to hit on a Hall of Famer.

That seems to be the only area he takes risks now. But making risky draft moves in the second round is so foolish. A FA risk makes more sense because it allows you to be less risky in the draft.

 

[thunderpimp91]

Stephen is running the show now, Jerry is just the voice. Stephen seems content on making cash, and Jerry just wants him some *********.

 

[john van brocklin]

That seems to be the only area he takes risks now. But making risky draft moves in the second round is so foolish. A FA risk makes more sense because it allows you to be less risky in the draft.

Agree 1000%
We have good personal scouting talent.
Trust them and sign some better free agents.
Also make some trades.
We pretty much limit ourselves to the draft for talent acquisition.

 

[slick325]

hes still a cat...there is just another word for what he is now

Lol

 

[texbumthelife]

Jerry didn’t spend enough time actually analyzing talent (like a real GM would) to make the right moves so he kept getting burned. Now, he’s gun shy and convinced they can win it all just through drafting.

 

[Bobhaze]

Some of this would involve actually paying attention to and scouting other teams in the league. Neither of the Jones Boys can be bothered with doing this - they are too busy making deals with the Blockchain.com's of the world to perform the actual duties that go with their titles.

This is also part of the reason why they don't go out in free agency - hard to put a proper value on a player when you haven't taken the time to actually scout them.

Well said. I wish they would just let Will McClay be the real GM and JJ just stick to business deals and his comical pressers.

 

[Xizor]

Anyone else remember the days when Jerry was the football equivalent of an oil “wildcatter”? A wildcatter is a speculative oil driller who takes great risks to find oil where most would not even consider. Wildcatters take high risks to achieve high rewards. That was the young JJ. Old JJ doesn’t take many risks anymore.

When JJ was a wildcatter, he was the most aggressive GM in the league. It wasn’t always good. Sometimes it was bad. But he was aggressive. Here are some examples.

• Hiring Jimmy Johnson out U of Miami was a great risk
• The Herschel Walker trade
• Signing Deion Sanders as a FA
• Making trades for big play WRs (yes they were bad trades, but he was being aggressive)
• Signing La’el Collins as an UFA (a guy with first round talent but had a criminal inquiry at time of draft)

I know I’m forgetting some moves. Point is. Where did the wildcatter go?

These days, the NFL wildcatters are Les Snead, GM of the rams who has made more aggressive moves than any other GM. Or Jason Licht, GM of the Bucs who aggressively pursued Tom Brady and has made multiple FA signings. Or Brett Veach, GM of the chiefs? Tons of trades and FA moves. Their teams have won the last 3 SBs.

What happened to our wildcatter?

Releasing all our backup QBs and all our special teams unit except punter wasn't wildcat enough? Haha and I am totally kidding.

 

[Bobhaze]

^^^ there's your answer

I’m not a business guru by any stretch, but isn’t this kind of profitability the absolute definition of an extremely low risk investment? Averaging a 28% profit in a year is like printing money.

This is why I side with the players in most labor and contract disputes. They are literally putting their future health on the line in an average career of about 5 years to make the biggest money opportunity of their lives. They have real risks. An NFL owner’s risks? It’s hard to see anything risky for them besides acting like Daniel Snyder or the former Carolina Panthers owner who was ousted for bad behavior. Owners can make a 28% profit by literally doing nothing.

 

[blueblood70]

Anyone else remember the days when Jerry was the football equivalent of an oil “wildcatter”? A wildcatter is a speculative oil driller who takes great risks to find oil where most would not even consider. Wildcatters take high risks to achieve high rewards. That was the young JJ. Old JJ doesn’t take many risks anymore.

When JJ was a wildcatter, he was the most aggressive GM in the league. It wasn’t always good. Sometimes it was bad. But he was aggressive. Here are some examples.

• Hiring Jimmy Johnson out U of Miami was a great risk
• The Herschel Walker trade
• Signing Deion Sanders as a FA
• Making trades for big play WRs (yes they were bad trades, but he was being aggressive)
• Signing La’el Collins as an UFA (a guy with first round talent but had a criminal inquiry at time of draft)

I know I’m forgetting some moves. Point is. Where did the wildcatter go?

These days, the NFL wildcatters are Les Snead, GM of the rams who has made more aggressive moves than any other GM. Or Jason Licht, GM of the Bucs who aggressively pursued Tom Brady and has made multiple FA signings. Or Brett Veach, GM of the chiefs? Tons of trades and FA moves. Their teams have won the last 3 SBs.

What happened to our wildcatter?

2018 Amari copper at the trade deadline is recent. Why do we forget (selective memory) this it turned around our season big time.

 

[Bobhaze]

Amari copper at the trade deadline is recent. Why do we forget (selective memory) this it turned around our season big time.

It was an ok trade. Ok the first 4 years until they let Cooper go for a 5th round pick. The long term effect was basically we gave up a first round pick after 4 years and got almost nothing in return.

Btw, I wouldn’t mind another aggressive move in an attempt to make the team better. That would be better than “we like our guys”.

 

[john van brocklin]

Well said. I wish they would just let Will McClay be the real GM and JJ just stick to business deals and his comical pressers.

In our dreams Bob. In our dreams

 

[blueblood70]

^^^ there's your answer

forts off not an answer, secondly the reason is all trams operate under the same CAP ie same budget so that has zero to do with it and there are at least 3 owners worth far more than Jerry but none can spend more. so IMO that was swing and a miss. what our franchise is worth has zero to do with the cap and the way an owner spends money,

 

[Bobhaze]

Releasing all our backup QBs and all our special teams unit except punter wasn't wildcat enough? Haha and I am totally kidding.

Yeah that was a funny initial 53 yesterday but we will have several new faces and at least 1 backup QB by Sept.

 

[blueblood70]

It was an ok trade. Ok the first 4 years until they let Cooper go for a 5th round pick. The long term effect was basically we gave up a first round pick after 4 years and got almost nothing in return.

Btw, I wouldn’t mind another aggressive move in an attempt to make the team better. That would be better than “we like our guys”.

sorry it turned around a 3-5 team and we went to the 2nd round that's BIG..you are cherry picking, i mean you mentioned the failures but not this

the Roy Williams and Galloway trades were better?? no way. he also took risk with TO even know it wasnt a trade it was good move IMHO

 

[mattjames2010]

sorry it turned around a 3-5 team and we went to the 2nd round that's BIG..you are cherry picking, i mean you mentioned the failures but not this

the Roy Williams and Galloway trades were better?? no way. he also took risk with TO even know it wasnt a trade it was good move IMHO

No, it's not "big" - we didn't trade for Cooper for a single season. Simple fact is, after a short stretch of games in 2018, Cooper didn't live up to that first round pick we gave up. To put in comparison, this is like saying the LVE pick has been a great one because he had a stretch of games his rookie season that were pro-bowl level.

And it's another issue with the Jones' boys - we have been hurting at DT and safety for years, but never consider trading big for one. Yet, we do for skill positions? They're a joke.

 

[Bobhaze]

sorry it turned around a 3-5 team and we went to the 2nd round that's BIG..you are cherry picking, i mean you mentioned the failures but not this

the Roy Williams and Galloway trades were better?? no way. he also took risk with TO even know it wasnt a trade it was good move IMHO

I agree blue- the Cooper trade helped the team a lot in 2018. I think we’re arguing different points. I actually would welcome another aggressive move to improve the team. I’m just baffled at why JJ is so much less aggressive than the GMs winning SBs these days. He used to be way more aggressive.

Compared to guys like Les Snyder, Jason Licht and Brett Veach, JJ is passive.