NFL’s Free-Agent Game Has Its Twists

Hollywood has found free agency in the National Football League so fascinating it is making a movie, Jerry Maguire, based loosely on the maneuverings of attorney Leigh Steinberg, who seems to have represented every quarterback since Sammy Baugh. Tom Cruise is being cast in the Steinberg role, which is certainly flattering for Steinberg and for a subject that has all of the appeal of Sylvester Stallone playing the lead in a romantic comedy.

Better the material be treated in a much more serious manner, say as the basis of one of those public broadcasting documentaries. Not a very sexy venue, granted, but four years of free agency have impacted the league so dramatically--much more than anyone could have expected--that the subject lends itself to such critical examination.

In this system, it was a given that salaries would increase dramatically and players would change teams. Neither of those developments is necessarily horrible. Providing players a chance to earn a market salary with clubs willing to pay properly for their services makes immeasurable sense. And considering their impact on the game, quarterbacks and rush linebackers, defensive ends and elite running backs stood to profit handsomely with the new system, and they have.

That was the predictable part. Almost everything else has taken on a course of its own, in large part because common sense has been replaced by nonsense. And here is how nonsense works: If two or three teams happen to need a guard, and few decent free-agent guards happen to be available, the clubs get into a bidding war and one of them ultimately pays an exorbitant price for a player who, in a much more rational situation, would be worth far less. After all, these guys are lunch-pail carriers, not limousine riders. But in NFL free agency, the feeding frenzy isn’t based much on long-term planning or intelligent thinking, but almost solely on what the market has up for sale that particular year.

But that’s not the only surprise. Over the four years, virtually every other initial prediction and observation about free agency have become myths.

Consider:

Myth: Unlike baseball, which so far has no cap on salaries, the NFL’s hard-cap approach would act as a sanity cutoff for spending.

Reality: The desire to win negates intelligent thinking. Once the league’s best minds discovered it is cap-friendly to pay huge signing bonuses and negotiate long-term contracts to spread out the money, any hope that the league as we once knew it would be kept somewhat intact vanished.

Myth: The best teams could, in essence, buy a championship or maintain their title status by signing a free agent or two annually to fill in their most glaring needs.

Reality: The problem with that theory revolves around timing. The Green Bay Packers, let’s say, may be seeking a pass-rushing outside linebacker. But that doesn’t mean any free agent pass-rushing linebackers will be available. When that is true, free agency is no help at all.

More reality: If anything, clubs have learned to be more concerned with re-signing their current players to new contracts than dreaming about using free agency to propel them to titles. The Dallas Cowboys’ approach is best: Identify your core players, keep them around through their elite years and accept the fact you won’t be able to afford to retain everyone. So when you lose two starting linebackers, as they have this off-season, you compensate by signing two free agents who might be almost as good but not nearly as expensive.

As long as the replacements don’t represent a huge drop-off in talent, the exchange doesn’t appreciably weaken your team. It’s treading water while watching your top players grow old, knowing that eventually you will decline.

Even more reality: About now, you may be screaming, “But didn’t the 49ers and the Cowboys, in essence, buy championships by signing Deion Sanders?” Or at least, you might be thinking that. I agree, but with an asterisk attached. Those two clubs were strong before the free agency system kicked in, so they aren’t true examples of the way things will work in the future. Repeat after me: There will be no more dynasties.

Myth: The importance of the draft will diminish as the value of free agency increases.

Reality: We turn to Jimmy Johnson, who sounds like he is right even when he isn’t, to provide the truth about this assumption. “If anything, the draft is more important than it ever was,” he says. “First, it provides young players who, for the most part, aren’t paid very highly, which means they are affordable, cap-wise. If you pay a group of veterans a lot of money, you have to fill out the rest of your roster with less expensive players, and you get those from the draft. And second, you need to develop younger players. It’s a must. If you lose a veteran free agent, it helps to have a young one ready to step in rather than having to go out and sign a new free agent who doesn’t know your system.”

Indeed, the proper pecking order in this system is: 1. Never let your best players become free agents; 2. Use the draft to obtain young players and then spend time to develop them; 3. Sign free agents. Bengals General Manager Mike Brown is hardly an example of a free agency master, but he speaks the truth when he says, “We’ve watched other teams try to hit home runs in free agency, and they’ve struck out. We’ve tried to sign guys who will play and be productive, not necessarily guys who will have everyone all atwitter.”

Myth: The emergence of free agency will eventually undermine the influence of coaches.

Reality: So far, the league has avoided the overt challenges to coaching authority from players that has plagued other pro sports. And if anything, football free agency has resulted in more emphasis on coaching, not less. Here’s why. In baseball, there is not much a free-agent left fielder needs to know about the inner workings of his new club besides: Where is the clubhouse and where are the bats? Mostly everything else is an individual responsibility--Can he hit a curve? Can he catch a sinking line drive?--that doesn’t change whether he is wearing an Atlanta Braves or Boston Red Sox uniform.

But a new left guard, for example, has to coordinate his movements with a tackle and the center, along with learning a new play-calling system, the running habits of his backs and the cadence of his quarterback. Football is the most team-oriented of the major sports, and it takes exceptional coaching to blend in new players quickly enough to retain continuity and prevent a drop-off in production.

“You feel like you are coaching in college again,” the San Diego Chargers’ Bobby Ross says. ‘We are recruiting players again, coaching everyone hard and losing the rookies after four years. Heck of a system, huh?”

Wonder what Jerry Maguire thinks.