03-25-2019, 12:49 AM
(03-23-2019, 04:17 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Numbers say you are wrong. Over half of the players who sign 2 year deals are cut after one season. One-third of players who sign 3 year deals are cut after one year. One-fourth of players who sign 4 year deals are cut after one season. A very high percentage of free agents are busts with their new teams.
The Ringer studied every multiyear free-agent contract in Spotrac’s database signed from 2011, the start of the most recent collective bargaining agreement, to 2015—a total of 663 deals. This data focuses solely on contracts signed during free agency, so it doesn’t account for rookie contracts, contract extensions, or players who re-signed with their team before becoming unrestricted free agents. It also excludes one-year free-agent deals.
The results were staggering: A player who signs a five-year deal has better odds of lasting one year (14.7 percent) than he does of lasting five years (13.7 percent). Players who sign four-year contracts in free agency have the exact same odds of lasting one year on the deal (23.1 percent) as lasting four years. Players on three-year contracts have roughly the same odds of the deal ending in one full season or less (34.3 percent) as they do of lasting the full term (36.2 percent). Less than half of players who sign two-year deals last two years (45.8 percent), and one-sixth don’t even make it through the first year. If time is money, in the NFL both are relative.
I think that teams sometimes pony up with a multi year deal just to get a stopgap until they can draft the right guy. It’s really all about how each contract is drawn up. Free Agency is a gamble though, just like the draft. Most teams use a balance of both. The Bengals overpay for guys that they already have and are afraid to gamble on well regarded, outside free agents.
