Now that we’re in the middle of the NFL regular season, I have some thoughts on some football issues that have not only caught my attention, but also my frustration. So let me vent here.
Saints are Aints of cap management
The New Orleans Saints scored 91 points in their first two games and it appeared to be, for a passing momentan abusive cheater. They have scored just 116 points in their last seven games – all losses – and have now fired coach Dennis Allen in the middle of a sinking ship. Allen’s last act as coach was a loss to the Carolina Panthers, who are also 2–7.
I’ve talked about Saints and their credit card payday strategy a lot over the years. And as you might expect with my conservative cap strategy when I worked for the Green Bay Packers, I wasn’t a fan of their way of doing business. Like every team in the league, the Saints have continued to convert large salaries into signing bonuses to create short-term cap space, but add millions proportionately in future years. Saints quarterbacks and their strategy have highlighted their ability to sign players and maintain competition while maxing out their credit card over the years. And, admittedly, the Saints have had some modest success and seven playoff appearances since the Super Bowl in 2009, but it’s hard to say their push was it’s worth it to earn everything they’ve earned since.
Now, as they say, the chickens have come home to roost. It was always thought that one day the cap-pushing would come back to bite them. That time is now.
To paraphrase Dean Wormer speaking to Flounder in Animal House: The old, crumbling, shuttered prison is no way to spend your life. The Saints are a bad team, with an overpaid and declining quarterback, and no obvious replacement for the future.
They have removed one of their best players in the trade deadlineMarshon Lattimore, will pay another $25 million in equity next year. Not only do they lead the league in dead cap space with almost $48 million in 2025, but they have the worst cap situation nearby $62 million over a projected salary of $270 million. Derek Carr has a $51 million cap hit next year if he stays and a $50 million cap hit if he leaves. And if the face of their defenseCam Jordan retires, his dead cap hit will be $24 million, an incredible number for a non-quarterback.
I told Saints fans it would happenbut I understand that it is difficult to see the future when we focus on the present. But this is the credo about cap management that I always tell people: It doesn’t take a salary genius to push future cap space (anyone can do that), but it does take a salary genius to manage the cap without the need to do so.
Combine the star now on the bench
Every once in a while, there’s that truly outstanding combination, the rare player who blows NFL scouts away with off-the-charts testing numbers for his position (or, in some cases, any position). That player in 2023 was Anthony Richardson, the Florida quarterback who ran a 4.43 40-yard dash at 244 pounds, had a 40.5-inch vertical jump and a 10-foot, 9-inch broad jump. Even with limited playing time in college, the Indianapolis Colts saw enough of great combine numbers to make him the No. 4 in last year’s draft. He was the face of the future.
Now that future can wait. Although Richardson has battled injuries, he is now healthy but benched in favor of his peers (and Business of Football Hall of Famer) Joe Flacco. Since Richardson is always described as “raw,” this makes the move even more curious, as the one thing Richardson definitely needs is playing time. But the Colts see Flacco as a better option to win right now — not a good Richardson endorsement — so Richardson will sit and learn behind Flacco, who is definitely not the future at quarterback for the Colts.
As for those suggesting to me and my Packers background that Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love did so well — and they had three outstanding years each — that’s a very different animal. Rodgers played behind Brett Favre and Love behind Rodgers, both with over 15 years of experience with the franchise and still playing at a high level. They were drafted in the mid-20s of the draft and elected to wait. Richardson was drafted to play, ahead of other quarterbacks who had no real history with the Colts, whether it was Gardner Minshew II or Flacco.
The benching followed a game in which Richardson pleaded because he was “tired.” This overwhelmed me. NFL games are four to six seconds. Players play less than half the game. Vacations are long and frequent. However, Richardson, this strange athlete, was tired? Really? The combine can tell teams a lot about how a player tests and how a player runs, lifts and interviews, but it’s not a reliable guide to how a player actually plays football. It didn’t sit well with me, and more importantly, it didn’t sit well with his teammates. Maybe that’s a big part of the reason he got benched.
Richardson is 22 years old and has many chapters left in his career. But the Colts are obviously quite concerned about the team’s presumptive future giving up much-needed playing time in place of Flacco.
stupid tom brady
I understand why Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis wanted to sell Tom Brady a 5% share of the team. And I understand why Fox was willing to make Brady the highest-paid broadcaster in NFL history, paying him $375 million over 10 years (some of which, I assume, funds his buyout of the Raiders). Brady is an icon and a true A-lister. And I understand the world of conflicts; all successful people have professional conflicts. I’m nowhere near Brady’s level of success, but I face conflict in my world all the time.
My problem is that putting Brady in those two roles has required the NFL to put up handrails that undeniably devalue him as the NFL’s most visible broadcaster.
Brady can’t visit the practices of the teams he covers, nor can he sit in on those production meetings with the teams’ coaches and key players, all because of the vague notion that he would gain a competitive advantage for the Raiders (unfortunate ). . By imposing these restrictions, there are only two results: He is now significantly less valuable as a broadcaster, and these visits and team meetings – followed by every other network commentator for decades – are of little value to the commentators.
Now there is talk that Brady may have to pull back on criticism of the referees during games. Although his criticism of last Sunday’s eviction of Detroit Lions’ Brian Branch for his hit against the Packers was ruled a no-match by the league, there will now be questions every week about whether Brady’s comments crossed the line into the realm of NFL misconduct, all while Brady is trying (hopefully) to give us an unfiltered view of the game.
Putting aside the issue of whether Brady is a top-tier broadcaster and whether he is “better” than Greg Olsen or others, are we really going to allow the NFL to make Brady, with whatever warts he already has, a broadcaster even smaller because of the handrails placed on it? What are we doing here? If Brady can’t serve Fox and its viewers with open and honest commentary, should we have him in this role? So we can get the Brady discount for a retail price?
Because of the regulations the NFL has placed on him, Brady can’t be the best broadcaster he can be. And millions of viewers are worse for it.