Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Meck
Well, that's what free agency IS.
You absolutely overpay, especially at premium positions, for NFL proven experience.
It's the cost of winning. We haven't been anywhere within striking distance of a true top tier LT to draft in almost a decade. When we WERE, we had a #1 overall manning the position.
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What made him someone we have to retain NOW?
If he wasn't someone we had to retain last off-season?
Let's set aside for the moment the conversation regarding plowing this much capital into the least important positions on the entire offense. If he's now someone you re-set the market to retain, coming off a season where he looked, at best, the same as he's looked essentially his entire career (I think he regressed in some ways), why did you not get this deal done last season?
Am I supposed to believe that a guy sitting on a 5th rounders weekly game check isn't going to see a chance to get a $25 million check the moment he puts pen to paper and say "nah". Because if he was this important to us NOW, he should've been a guy we were willing to give that Robert Hunt contract to last offseason with a $25 million signing bonus and $60+ million guaranteed.
And it would've been a hell of a lot cheaper than it's going to be now.
This is a panic, emotion driven decision. Coming off a Super Bowl win last season and riding that high, the organization could be strictly rational and say "Creed is our guy on the IOL long-term".
But the calculus changed when they lost the SB. And their response is to keep a guy who got his ass kicked in said SB and who's retention doesn't do anything to address the primary problem on the unit that was roundly criticized all season.
Again, setting aside the 'in a vacuum' argument and speaking specifically to
this organization -- they're acting irrationally in relation to their own behavior over the last 12 months.