This article by Steven Ruiz compares the team-building strategies of Dorsey's Browns to Ballard's Colts, and it's scary.
John Dorsey has hit free agency hard to win right now, while Ballard has been more patient, and saved money (and draft picks) by exploiting the second wave (tier) of free agents to fill in the gaps in his roster.
Dorsey has, indeed, built a real contender on paper with historic rapidity, but has depleted his draft picks and his war chest in doing so.
Steve predicts some real problems for Dorsey as the contracts for Garrett, Ogunjobi, Schobert, Njoku etc all reach critical mass at the same time, with Mayfield, Ward, Corbett, Chubb etc coming up right behind them.
Those are a couple balloon payments nobody wants to think about.
And Steve rightfully compares the Colts model to the Patriots model...and is correct about that. He also says that NO team is great at drafting. They all miss, and big successes in out of the lower rounds remain rare.
So Ballard and Dorsey will miss on some draft picks...but Ballard has more of them, and also more cap money left.
My inner-fan wants to argue with Steven, but my inner-analyst has a gag stuffed in his ignorant mouth.
Ruiz is right. The Browns might tear the league a new one for two seasons, but then will lose some of their best young players. Meanwhile, the Colts are also contenders in 2019, but have moe munnah and more draft picks (and the draft picks are inexpensive, cap-wise).
Despite not being able to fault any part of Steve Ruiz's excellent, objective, clear-headed and insightful analysis, I can, at least, mitigate it a little:
1: Ballard has Andrew Luck through 2022, per his 6-year contract signed before the 2016 season. With the fifth year option, Dorsey has Mayfield on his rookie contract through 2023.
It rarely works out that way, of course. Teams always offer extensions (to great quarterbacks) well ahead of that fifth year. These guys (and their agents) know when they're being taken advantage of due to technicalities, and if a GM holds them to their rookie contract through year five, they will leave.
This is what happened with Kirk Cousins. He was drafted lower, so it happened after four years. He felt insulted, so the Skins had to franchise him. Then they did it again. Then he got massively overpaid by somebody else.
Conversely, the Seahawks extended Wilson after year 3.
That's the time: The player and his agent understand that the team could hold them to their chump-change rookie contract, and is offering them a huge bribe and long-term security to keep them around.
Ebineezer Scrooge could never be an NFL GM.
...but I digress: Ballard and Dorsey will have the same problem at around the same time in re their quarterbacks (actually Luck probably comes up a year sooner anyway; same business dynamics apply--his contract will have been outraced by NFL inflation).
2: Beckham is 26, and is under contract for a long time. Richardson and Vernon are 28, and likewise locked up for awhile. Dorsey paid market prices for them; he did not "overpay".
3: Jabrill Peppers was part of Dorsey's future "balloon payments", and so was Zeitler.
4: Steve (citing Spotrack) said the Browns are down to 19 mil in cap space, but I think it's still over 37 mil. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't be alone.
5: The current cap figures will change a lot between now and 2020.
I can even now wildly guess at at least a 3% increase in per-team cap-space (more likely over 5%).
6: Dorsey can seek to extend young players early (see "1"). Nobody wants to play out their rookie contracts. Everybody wants as much guaranteed up-front money as they can get, and long-term security.
We in the real world don't get this stuff, but these football players are all acutely aware that they are an injury away from stacking boxes in a grocery store.
They're also aware that 3.5 million is more than 950k, and will generally take that deal...
Well that's just me! You guys need to help me out and tell John Dorsey this stuff, since they still haven't fixed that IT issue that bounces my texts and emails as "undeliverable"...
Steve Ruiz credits Sashi Brown with the incredible pile of draft picks and money (and talent) that Dorsey inherited, but that was Paul DePodesta, who is still the Chief Strategy Officer.
No knock on Sashi here, but he was an attorney and negotiator. He never "found" any players, or...well Steve just missed the mark here. Piling up those draft picks and that money was all DePodesta.
I don't think the collapse that Steven Ruiz will happen...ok well not as bad as he expects it to.
Dorsey has built his (under 28) young core of talent. He's got his new free agents locked up.
I myself have lobbied for Boston or Cyprian, but Eric Berry might be even cheaper than them!
Randy Gurzi never misses anything! Berry is an all-world talent, but he's 30 and has been injured, so he's lost all his leverage.
And Gurzi is absolutely on the money that the worse it gets for Berry on the open market, the more likely Dorsey is to be his last resort...for peanuts. For one year.
Randy no doubt reads my Blog, as he has finally "realized" that Rodney Kindredfield is a viable Strong Safety, so that even if Berry missed still more time with injuries, it wouldn't be a disaster.
I congratulate Randy for coming to this epiphany all by himselfđź–•. Dammit.
If John Dorsey (like Randy) is one of my seven dedicated readers, the rest of you can relax:
Dorsey should "back off" now in free agency, and spend chump-change on more free agents (like Berry) on cheap one year "prove it" contracts.
If he signs any more (longer-term) help to longer-term contracts, he will put all bonuses and guaranteed monies up front.
John DePodesta is still here, and I believe that John Dorsey (and Paul DePodesta) will find a way out of the collapse that Steven Ruiz predicts...
Well that is if Dorsey gets my advice (blush-blush).
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