As for the age of the FAs, part of me likes it with depth guys. I like to have experienced players as backups generally. But as for the FA approach, its actually low risk. These 1 year deals. Heck even the Kinlaw deal which is the one most often criticized is basically a 2 year deal.
Where you get screwed in FA is giving major guaranteed money to decent but not great players and then being stuck with albatross contracts when they underperform. They haven't risked that at all. It in effect allows you deal with acquistions in a low risk way and ensure cap room going forward.
I agree.
I don't mind the age of the depth guys on 1 year deals.
Larry Tunsil is 31, but he's still in his prime and LT's can play well into their 30's at a high level, so I don't care about that.
Deebo only has one year left and cost a 5th round pick, so I don't care about that.
The real key to the team is for last year's draft class to continue to improve and contribute. There were 9 players in that draft. If 7 stick from that draft as either starters or key contributors, that's huge.
Let's assume they eventually get to 6 picks in this draft, and 4 of them hit as starters/contributors.
That's 11 players of 53 which will have been drafted and playing key roles over 2 drafts. That's 20% of the roster.
Stack another 4-5 each year for a few years, and your average age comes down over time.
You just can't find super young, really good players in FA. They don't exist. You have to draft them.
And let's take a look at who's remaining from the last drafts:
2015: none (though Crowder would be part of this if he's retained eventually, though he did have a stink elsewhere.)
2016: none
2017: none. Jon Allen just left.
2018: Daron Payne. NOTE: Payne is 27.
2019: Terry McLaurin
2020: none
2021: Sam Cosmi, John Bates
2022: Brian Robinson Jr., Percy Butler, Chris Paul (he's still on the roster as far as I know)
2023: Quan Martin, Chris Rodriguez
In theory, guys in the 2017-2020 drafts would be your lock-down, blue chip, in their prime type players on a second contract. We have exactly 2 players from those drafts.
From 2021-2023, we have 7 total players in 4 drafts who are on the team, and only one of them (Cosmit) could be considered a real stud.
That's why we have an old team. There's no way to get younger faster than we are doing it.
I do concede, we could have loaded up on draft picks this year and had another 9 selections, and gotten younger faster, however, Peters is (and I think correctly) spending capital to get players who can help right now rather than wait 2-3 years for them to fully develop because he's taking advantage of the fact JD5 is on a rookie deal for 2 more years.
JD5 might have an AAV of close to 80m/year or more when he signs his next contract. That's going to make roster construction more of a challenge. As Galdi says, when you have the "holy grail" of a stud QB on a rookie deal, you have to maximize that period of time because it will evaporate.
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