03-23-2019, 04:41 PM
(03-23-2019, 04:17 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Numbers say you are wrong.
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.
How does this prove teams overpaid? Did they post the same stats for ALL players signed to 3-4-5 year deals? That way we can compare external free agents to those retained by their own team?
Were there "easy outs" in these contracts? For example, we recently had a string of 2-3 year deals that were really 1 year deals when you peeled all the layers back. That often happens in free agent deals. The years are inflated to make the agents happy, but those 5 year deals rarely last that long. A lot can change in that amount of time.
In short, showing that teams didn't keep players for the duration of the contract doesn't specifically show that they overpaid.
The training, nutrition, medicine, fitness, playbooks and rules evolve. The athlete does not.
