The 2025 Free Agency Thread

[skinsinparadise]

 

[Califan007]

Individual players can buck the overwhelming statistical trend, of course. That’s why we have the phrase “the exception that proves the rule”. The problem is there’s no way to tell who the exceptions will be. HOF-bound veterans much better and more productive than Terry have fallen to the uncaring reaping scythe of time. And will continue to do so.

You saying it’s a non-story is like me saying “my uncle drunk drives home 15 miles from the bar every single night and hasn’t gotten in an accident yet. Drunk driving is a non-story”. That’s an exaggerated example of course but I hope the point is clear. Betting on outliers at top of market prices is bad business.

Maybe Terry’s body and game will age well. Maybe it won’t. But you have no idea and the statistics overwhelmingly say that production (which is already not top tier) will fall off a cliff. It’s not a coin flip, which in itself would be risky.

How much you weight that in your decision-making is certainly worth arguing about. Not weighting it at all because you’ve deemed it a “non-story”? Reckless beyond belief and honestly pretty naive. It’s the height of homerism because you have no reason to believe you’re correct except that you believe it.

- How much of an exception is it, though?…1 out of a thousand? 1 out of a hundred? 1 out of twenty? Saying a 30 year old WR is not worth extending to a high-paying contract sounds more like conventional football wisdom than actual analysis.

- is it the years or the mileage? All 30 year olds don’t have the same wear and tear, which ages the body, because all 30 year old players haven’t been in the league the same amount of years nor experienced the same number and types of injuries. Do WRs who continue to have highly productive careers after 30 have certain traits in common? Maybe they fall into categories, like “Physical traits remain high” or “Technicians of the game”.

- Are there valuable skills that tend to only be acquired from years of experience that can offset the physical advantages that youth provides athletes? For instance, Henry Ellard was an absolute 1st down machine in the later years, in part because he developed into such a precise route runner that scrubs like Shuler and Frerotte could throw to a spot with confidence Ellard would be in that spot when the ball arrived. Was he as fast as he was 6 years earlier? Nah, doubt it. Did other skills and knowledge gained through experience help offset that loss of speed? Apparently so. Plus Ellard was never an athletic freak anyway.

Does Terry possess the skills, knowledge of the game, and the mental maturity and dedication to continue developing his game and making himself one of the “exceptions”? Nobody’s discussing that. We just say “He’s 30, you don’t sign 30 year old WRs to big money extensions” as if no other discussion is needed.

 

[Boone]

Do we really think fan assessments matter?

Adam Peters has made a living by developing not only expertise in talent assessment and management but also has a track record of success.

I feel confident he will make solid decisions when it comes to McLaurin. And the truth is, we don’t even know how big a factor age is in the equation. We just assume that’s the sticking point.

I get we want to talk about it - which obviously is one reason for the forum. But we confuse what is known for what is believed an awful lot.

 

[Iraolaball]

Buddy Baker hack Califan’s account?

 

[skinsinparadise]

The drill about the agent to me is this. I'll start with in a sense I am not rooting for the mega agents who have a zillion contracts. But there is likely a difference when you got a dude who isn't rolling in it or used to big contracts.

It wouldn't change Drew Rosenhouse's life if Terry got 28 million or 34.

But for an agent who doesn't play with big contracts, the financial upside is nice to an agent who is dealing with 5 million contracts typically and not a lot of them. But also more on point, if he wants to break it big where he can get other big contracts like Terry he needs to sell he "won" the contract negotiation.

Again, I heard this same dance happened in the previous contract negotiation with the agent, where the agent wasn't budging, they were at an impasse but then Dan intervened knowing that he needed a PR win, and told the FO just get it done.

And for all the Terry 30 years old talk. He will be 31, not 30 when the new contract happens. He is under contract at 30. So some may think who cares its just one year? Yeah that one year tends to matter when you are post 30. Being 34 versus 33, towards the end of a 3 year contract tends to matter. Yeah when you are in your 20s, no one gives a hoot if you are 25 or 26 as to the age mattering but that's the operative point.

As I said Santana was still good at 31. At 32 he was just a guy.

 

[Califan007]

Do we really think fan assessments matter?

They do to fans lol…

 

[Chris 44]

Interesting that Jeremy Chinn is also one of his clients and that Chin is no longer with Washington

 

[skinsinparadise]

Interesting that Jeremy Chinn is also one of his clients and that Chin is no longer with Washington

Yeah I thought about that some, too. It seemed odd that they didn't bring Chinn back. I can see a negotation happen, the agent gave no room to move off on his price, and they said screw it lets move on.

 

[Boone]

I guess what I’ve learned over the years is not to wring my hands too much over things I can’t control. Or maybe I should say I TRY hard not to, lol. I would worry more if we didn’t have what I view as a supremely competent group making decisions.

I think McLaurin is painting himself into a corner that may be difficult to get himself out of - which isn’t smart given the team holds most of the cards.

 

[Boone]

I think the obvious problem with McLaurin being their biggest client is that the instinct to play hardball for the absolute highest $$ contract at some point becomes more about the cut the agents potentially get vs. what’s ultimately in the players best interests:

 

[DWinzit]

Yeah I thought about that some, too. It seemed odd that they didn't bring Chinn back. I can see a negotation happen, the agent gave no room to move off on his price, and they said screw it lets move on.

Exactly what I was thinking. They would have liked Chinn back but not for crazy $.

I was so wishing for the Terry contract to be settled long ago and have been worried once negotiations went a little past the draft. That would have put the team in a good roster spot and possibly freed a little cap space for another signing.

 

[skinsinparadise]

 

[Discobob]

I think the obvious problem with McLaurin being their biggest client is that the instinct to play hardball for the absolute highest $$ contract at some point becomes more about the cut the agents potentially get vs. what’s ultimately in the players best interests:

There's also the reputation piece - if that agent wants other high profile clients, he's probably very content to play hardball to "prove" that he can handle the pressure.

I'm sure there are good people that are agents, but as a fan, "sports agent" ranks in the same category as "IRS agent"

 

[skinsmarydu]

But for an agent who doesn't play with big contracts, the financial upside is nice to an agent who is dealing with 5 million contracts typically and not a lot of them.

This is what I was thinking, the agent wants more money.

 

[skinsinparadise]

Exactly what I was thinking. They would have liked Chinn back but not for crazy $.

I was so wishing for the Terry contract to be settled long ago and have been worried once negotiations went a little past the draft. That would have put the team in a good roster spot and possibly freed a little cap space for another signing.

My guess is they were turned off by the agent not engaging back and forth and just sticking to his original price. The agent I'd guess didn't get his orginal price for Chinn. But I'd guess that Peters was like I am not interested in a difficult negotiation for Chinn, who else is available?

But its ironic that Chinn is the one surprise (Keim among others were surprised) they didn't bring him back.

And I get some can say, how don't we know Peters wasn't the problem? Well, I doubt it, considering they brought back plenty of FAs.

 

[Boone]

I wonder what the ramifications of that tag for McLaurin are or if it’s just a formality? I’ll confess I don’t have a good understanding when it comes to the fallout of not reporting beyond obvious fines…

 

[Conn]

- How much of an exception is it, though?…1 out of a thousand? 1 out of a hundred? 1 out of twenty? Saying a 30 year old WR is not worth extending to a high-paying contract sounds more like conventional football wisdom than actual analysis.

- is it the years or the mileage? All 30 year olds don’t have the same wear and tear, which ages the body, because all 30 year old players haven’t been in the league the same amount of years nor experienced the same number and types of injuries. Do WRs who continue to have highly productive careers after 30 have certain traits in common? Maybe they fall into categories, like “Physical traits remain high” or “Technicians of the game”.

- Are there valuable skills that tend to only be acquired from years of experience that can offset the physical advantages that youth provides athletes? For instance, Henry Ellard was an absolute 1st down machine in the later years, in part because he developed into such a precise route runner that scrubs like Shuler and Frerotte could throw to a spot with confidence Ellard would be in that spot when the ball arrived. Was he as fast as he was 6 years earlier? Nah, doubt it. Did other skills and knowledge gained through experience help offset that loss of speed? Apparently so. Plus Ellard was never an athletic freak anyway.

Does Terry possess the skills, knowledge of the game, and the mental maturity and dedication to continue developing his game and making himself one of the “exceptions”? Nobody’s discussing that. We just say “He’s 30, you don’t sign 30 year old WRs to big money extensions” as if no other discussion is needed.

This sounds like it would be interesting to research if I were the one arguing in favor of a guy being an exception to the dominant trend throughout the larger sample size. I’m not, though. You’re kind of doing the “hey I don’t care what the science says, I’m just asking questions man” thing lol.

People have been trying to figure this out for many, many years in the dynasty fantasy football community because the dream is to draft a young stud WR, benefit from his elite production, and then just do that for 15 years. Unfortunately no matter how you try to separate these guys into different buckets based on pedigree, production, measurable, situation, skillset, health, history, etc. you cannot consistently pick the winners who will age well into their mid-30’s. It hasn’t proven to be possible and the combined time-wasting might of fans online have been trying to do that for gambling reasons for quite a long time. Anyway you end up slicing it, from everything I’ve ever seen, you’re just looking at handfuls of other exceptions and trying to find commonalities…and then discovering that other, better players who share those same commonalities weren’t spared by age, for no discernible reason.

Health is a huge wildcard component as SIP mentioned that you can never control for, and always hits older guys harder and more often across the sample size. It’s the semi-random ticking timebomb that can ruin everything else even if otherwise the guy might’ve proven to be an exception. And you can get lucky and avoid it, but you’ll never be able to guess who it will and won’t hit, on top of all the other variables.

 

[Conn]

I also have to agree with Boone that age might not be the biggest hang up here. I’m assuming it is, because Terry is self-consciously harping on it, which tells me his agent has been making comments about it towards him in regards to the contract. I’d think.

But the issue could very well be that Terry is trying to get paid in the ballpark of guys he’s not as good as WHILE also being noticeably older.

 

[Chris]

My 2 cents on the years vs mileage discussion- though pro years should count more towards mileage (due to the length of the season)… all of the players at whatever age played played high school and college ball prior to graduating to the professional level. Some more, some less at the college level. So, years played are years played even though the level differs. 5 years in a college Division 1 school is still 5 years of high-level play.

 

[Conn]

The relationship between age and mileage is never exactly what people expect from what I’ve seen, either. RB is the position most would agree that mileage hits the hardest—but there’s actually an interesting relationship there. Because most players aren’t cut out to carry a large load of carries at the professional level, it operates more like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The greatest indicator of future production at the RB position, more than any other skill position, is past production. The greatest statistical indicator that a RB will handle and stay healthy through a large workload of carries and receptions is whether they’ve done it before—including in college. So more “mileage” on a RB is actually the best indication that you have elite mileage ahead of you with the player. With two frequent exceptions. Historically large (aka too large) workloads can disrupt this truism, though it’s not clear if that’s just a massive exposure to injury risk that catches up to those players or actual real deal fatigue showing up in the statistics. But it is a verified trend. The only other factor (besides serious injuries) that breaks the past workload —> future workload pipeline at RB? Age. Age is the great equalizer and portends the end of elite RB production, rather than mileage. Mileage is actually good at RB until they’re too old. Then no matter what you’re just waiting for that step to be lost, that ACL to tear, etc.

I tried to argue this on ES so many damn times when people would site Gibson’s low mileage in his career as a positive (as they thought it meant he had more tread remaining on his tires! Which is logical in a vacuum but that’s what makes the inverse correlation so interesting). I would try to get people to understand that every study we have shows that actually all that means is that Gibson is very very very likely not a workhorse RB. Or he would’ve already been entrusted and handled a workhorse workload. Now that may seem obvious now but there were a bunch of years where people were trying to convince themselves that Gibson could be the guy at RB—and he never had a chance, statistically speaking.

Anyways, just a fun aside about the dynamics of “mileage” vs “age”. It applies similarly to WR’s. High volume doesn’t hurt a WR’s future outlook (minus the natural increased risk of injury for a guy who catches 115 balls vs 70), ever. It’s an indication he will likely earn a large target share and workload in the future. Until the age cliff arrives, or the injury fairy. And they often arrive simultaneously.