Let's All Get Behind Alex Smith! Or Not!! (M.E.T.) NO kirk talk---that goes in ATN forum

[Darth Tater]

13 hours ago, wit33 said:

 

Who cares about championships, it’s about money and using the open market to hold teams hostage. 

 

Another example being the Steelers and Bell. The Steelers offered him the largest RB contract in the league, but Bell and group know that a team with dollars in open market will overpay for his services. 

 

I guess the player wins because he got the most money for himself. I get it, just sucks as a fan. I’ll adjust and still follow though. 

 

Yes, its not as fun knowing several of your favorite players will likely be gone in a couple years.  However, the last bad year for the Steelers was 2003 and you have to go all the way back to 1971 to find the last season of a long-term suck.  The Pats sucked long term last between 1989 and 1993. While they've mostly had mediocre seasons since the hey day of Aikman, Dallas has only suffered through three periods of long term suck since 1960. Since before Lombardi, the Packers have only had a bad year here and there plus some stretches of mediocrity.

[Warhead36]

As a pro athlete you gotta get what you can get while you can get it. Once that window shuts it shuts for good. I'll ALWAYS be in favor of players getting money. Would you prefer the owners pocket everything? The league makes billions, I'd rather players get more.

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

13 hours ago, wit33 said:

 

Who cares about championships, it’s about money and using the open market to hold teams hostage. 

 

If you purchase a Redskins jersey, are you purchasing a jersey of the owner or the GM?  No.  Because nobody roots for the guys in suits.  The game is all about the players and coaches, not the owners.  Owners have been making money hand over fist forever off the backs of the players that fans actually care about.  It requires a movement by the players to force the owners hand.  I'm not saying it doesn't suck, but looking at the bigger picture - it should drive influence to the way the NFL writes contracts that are clearly in favor of ownership and the detriment of the player. 

 

I find it perplexing when the players, who are the reasons for fans to be fans, are looked at as the greedy ones that lack loyalty.  Meanwhile the money grubbing owners sit in their ivory towers wiping their butts with benjamins.  I'll just never understand it.

 

 

[Darth Tater]

24 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

As a pro athlete you gotta get what you can get while you can get it. Once that window shuts it shuts for good. I'll ALWAYS be in favor of players getting money. Would you prefer the owners pocket everything? The league makes billions, I'd rather players get more.

Selfishly I want quality football, there are several professional sports that one can play longer and/or don't seem to have as big a health risk. I'd much rather have my son put in just a few years in the majors as a solid utility guy than 8 years as an all-pro RB. Heck, if they earned crap, I steer him away from the NFL period. Many of the best NFL players could also be top performers in other professions if they had decided to go that route.  They went football because it paid both in terms of money and personal pride.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Football is strange to me when it comes to identifying with players vs. franchises...it's the least player-driven sport in my opinion. Players matter, don't get me wrong. But they strike me as much more interchangeable. Every few years the list of "stud RBs" or "star WRs" evolves and turns over without fans (outside of the specific market maybe) missing anyone. 

 

Think of who was considered the top-10 skill players 5 years ago...every Emmit Smith is replaced by a Marshall Faulk who's replaced by a Priest Holmes who's replaced by a LT who's replaced by Zeke...

 

That's not me saying that the owners need the money, but I think football is the closest sport we have to "rooting for the laundry" than anything else. We just had our most successful QB in a quarter-century leave for another team and it's not dampening the mood about this team one bit. Suddenly because he's putting on burgundy and gold the majority of our fan base is thrilled about Alex Smith (who until he was going to come here we probably never thought much about). I'm included, by the way, so I'm not criticizing Smith or the excitement. 

 

As NFL fans, we tend to want our team dressed out in our colors and then we just want to post up and watch them go to war. Who's taking snaps, running patterns, or rushing the passer is often irrelevant. 

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

6 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

That's not me saying that the owners need the money, but I think football is the closest sport we have to "rooting for the laundry" than anything else.

 

As NFL fans, we tend to want our team dressed out in our colors and then we just want to post up and watch them go to war. Who's taking snaps, running patterns, or rushing the passer is often irrelevant. 

 

I do agree that of all the sports, the NFL is the closest to that.  But rooting for the laundry is different than rooting for the owners because of the laundry they bought.

 

I don't think who's playing is irrelevant though, it just seems that way because of the 53 man roster.  Bad football isn't fun to watch.  Think about some of the Thursday night games like pre 2017 Jags vs. the Browns having a field goal fest of sloppy football.  Basically unwatchable unless you had X player in fantasy football.

[Bifflog]

22 minutes ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

 

If you purchase a Redskins jersey, are you purchasing a jersey of the owner or the GM?

 

 

I'd say it's a partially for the player, partially for the team itself.

 

I'm all for guys getting whatever they can get it is what I'd do.  But right now, would you bet on Leveon Bell or The Steelers , in terms of record, going forward?

[TD_washingtonredskins]

1 minute ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

 

I do agree that of all the sports, the NFL is the closest to that.  But rooting for the laundry is different than rooting for the owners because of the laundry they bought.

 

I don't think who's playing is irrelevant though, it just seems that way because of the 53 man roster.  Bad football isn't fun to watch.  Think about some of the Thursday night games like pre 2017 Jags vs. the Browns having a field goal fest of sloppy football.  Basically unwatchable unless you had X player in fantasy football.

 

Good points and let me clarify...I think I went on a slight tangent because sometimes I feel like I can do that (if spending 17 years here is good for anything - hahaha). 

 

1) Absolutely - if anyone deserves a cut, it's the players. I wish their piece of the pie was larger. I just think of them as a collective rather than specific guys. As important as Leveon Bell is, I have no doubt that someone is going to plug in eventually for Pittsburgh and rush for 1,000 yards the year after he leaves. He won't be as dynamic or good, but he'll be just as popular if the team is good. 

2) The players (again, collectively) need to be good so that the quality of the game is fun to watch - yes. But I don't think any individual player matters. At all. If a star-in-the-making QB like Carson Wentz gets hurt, then a journeyman QB who was mocked for much of his early career will come in and beat Bellichick and Brady in the Super Bowl. Hell, just 6 years ago everyone KNEW that Luck and Griffin were going to be the new faces of the NFL, right? 

[TD_washingtonredskins]

5 minutes ago, Bifflog said:

 

I'd say it's a partially for the player, partially for the team itself.

 

I'm all for guys getting whatever they can get it is what I'd do.  But right now, would you bet on Leveon Bell or The Steelers , in terms of record, going forward?

 

See, that's where I'm at. I don't want individual players on my back anymore because the game is so team-oriented. Sure, specific guys score TDs, but I love that in football more than most sports, it's a specific unit that you root for. It's so dependent on the team aspect that we don't even know how critical the NT might have been in taking on two blockers when the DE got the sack. It's generally a symphony of 11 guys needing to work in unison for a play to be successful. 

 

That exists in other sports, but a LeBron James, Alex Ovechkin, or Mike Trout can cover things up much more often than in football. The best RB I ever saw play was Barry Sanders. He wasn't able to elevate his team past the "playoff berth" caliber in his prime. 

 

To your point, the strong organization (Steelers) will be fine once they move on from Bell. Whereas Bell's success is completely related to wherever he lands. 

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

13 minutes ago, Bifflog said:

 

I'd say it's a partially for the player, partially for the team itself.

 

I'm all for guys getting whatever they can get it is what I'd do.  But right now, would you bet on Leveon Bell or The Steelers , in terms of record, going forward?

 

I'm more talking about players vs. teams/owners in general than any specific situation.  The majority of fans I see, or at least the most vocal, tend to favor ownership in contract/$ disputes and point fingers at the player.  Which is odd considering how many fans work for major corporations where they also feel like they are getting bent over and would love to stick it to the man.

 

That said,  the Steelers are one of the exceptions to the general rule.  The Steelers have been successful consistently for long enough which I believe speaks to the way they are ran, making players more dispensable than they would be with many other teams.

 

 

[Bifflog]

8 minutes ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

 

I'm more talking about players vs. teams/owners in general than any specific situation.  The majority of fans I see, or at least the most vocal, tend to favor ownership in contract/$ disputes and point fingers at the player.  Which is odd considering how many fans work for major corporations where they also feel like they are getting bent over and would love to stick it to the man.

 

That's because a players contract being exceptionally high (and the possibility of not only it being high, but being undeservedly so) could have a direct negative effect on your team's prospects.  You could say that's a view lacking in perspective, and it wouldn't necessarily be wrong.  I know I wouldn't mind drawing a salary above and beyond my actual value to my company, but say an investor might feel differently.  We're all basically emotional investors in Redskins stock.

 

And there's also the fact that players come and go, but the team always stays (unless you're San Diego!)...

[TD_washingtonredskins]

2 minutes ago, Bifflog said:

 

That's because a players contract being exceptionally high (and the possibility of not only it being high, but being undeservedly so) could have a direct negative effect on your team's prospects.  You could say that's a view lacking in perspective, and it wouldn't necessarily be wrong.  I know I wouldn't mind drawing a salary above and beyond my actual value to my company, but say an investor might feel differently.  We're all basically emotional investors in Redskins stock.

 

And there's also the fact that players come and go, but the team always stays (unless you're San Diego!)...

 

Those are the two reasons that I find myself wanting the team to get the best deal possible all the time...it's not because I want Snyder to be able to afford a new suit, it's because the payroll needs to be used as wisely as possible to field a competitive team. And, in the end, I'm stuck with the Redskins long after any one player is traded, cut, or retires. 

 

 

[Bifflog]

19 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

And, in the end, I'm stuck with the Redskins long after any one player is traded, cut, or retires. 

 

 

 

There's a counter attitude to this that says you should reward good players and good teams by following them specifically, and that shunning that as "frontrunning" is just enabling bad owners to further exploit fans' loyalties.  That might be true, but it's also sort of the antithesis of what makes sports awesome.  On top of that, I have little patience for anyone telling me how big of a fan they are of Lebron, and followed him to teams X, Y, and Z.  Not an interesting perspective for me, to cherry pick winners and follow them around, no matter how dire being "stuck" with my team may seem at times.

[JSSkinz]

These fully guaranteed contracts set a disastrous precedent for the league and each teams ability to retain their core top end players.

 

There's going to be a standoff between NFL players and owners over the next few years, probably culminating with a season-long strike after this collective bargaining agreement runs out in 2 years.

 

 

[HardcoreZorn]

1 hour ago, Bifflog said:

 

That's because a players contract being exceptionally high (and the possibility of not only it being high, but being undeservedly so) could have a direct negative effect on your team's prospects.  You could say that's a view lacking in perspective, and it wouldn't necessarily be wrong.  I know I wouldn't mind drawing a salary above and beyond my actual value to my company, but say an investor might feel differently.  We're all basically emotional investors in Redskins stock.

 

And there's also the fact that players come and go, but the team always stays (unless you're San Diego!)...

Thank you. I don't think I have heard one Redskins fan say they love Dan Snyder over player X. Not one. Just cause some were frustrated by Kirk's unwillingness to negotiate and didn't think he was worth the money he was commanding does not equate to liking Snyder>Kirk. My goodness.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

8 minutes ago, HardcoreZorn said:

Thank you. I don't think I have heard one Redskins fan say they love Dan Snyder over player X. Not one. Just cause some were frustrated by Kirk's unwillingness to negotiate and didn't think he was worth the money he was commanding does not equate to liking Snyder>Kirk. My goodness.

 

It's always about what's better for the organization in my mind. I've never liked a player more than one of my teams...not even close. Even if I KNOW my team did someone wrong, I can both acknowledge it and feel bad for the individual person while still not caring too much. At the end of the day...I'm not here to care about a whole bunch of young millionaires, I'm here to hope the guys wearing my jersey win a bunch of games. Maybe it's cold, but it's honest.  

[HardcoreZorn]

7 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

It's always about what's better for the organization in my mind. I've never liked a player more than one of my teams...not even close. Even if I KNOW my team did someone wrong, I can both acknowledge it and feel bad for the individual person while still not caring too much. At the end of the day...I'm not here to care about a whole bunch of young millionaires, I'm here to hope the guys wearing my jersey win a bunch of games. Maybe it's cold, but it's honest.  

Exactly, and it's cliche but I root for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back. Sure it sucks to have endured a poorly run franchise and Snyder's shenanigans. But he ain't going anywhere so pissing and moaning and siding with players on their way out as a means to complain about the owner of the team is dumb to me. But to each their own.

[SWFLSkins]

LOL, interesting points being made, but Who is excited to see Alex Smith play...

[HardcoreZorn]

9 minutes ago, SWFLSkins said:

LOL, interesting points being made, but Who is excited to see Alex Smith play...

LOL I really am though. I think Alex's legs with a legitimate talent at RB will make us all realize that our OL and blocking wasn't near the main culprit for the running woes since Shanny.

 

I also really do like the amount of weapons he will have at his disposal. Should be a fun watch.

[SWFLSkins]

 

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

1 hour ago, HardcoreZorn said:

Thank you. I don't think I have heard one Redskins fan say they love Dan Snyder over player X. Not one. Just cause some were frustrated by Kirk's unwillingness to negotiate and didn't think he was worth the money he was commanding does not equate to liking Snyder>Kirk. My goodness.

 

More Kirk talk from the guy who desperately wants everyone to stop talking about Kirk.

 

This was a general conversation.  At what point did anyone say anything about Kirk?

 

Fans act this way in general, that (insert any player here) is greedy and should just be loyal and take what’s offered.  Perhaps it’s because athletes salaries are so much more than the average fan that fans see it as X player should be lucky to make XX million to play a sport.  Even though the owners are making XXX million no matter what happens on the football field.  

1 hour ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

It's always about what's better for the organization in my mind. I've never liked a player more than one of my teams...not even close. Even if I KNOW my team did someone wrong, I can both acknowledge it and feel bad for the individual person while still not caring too much. At the end of the day...I'm not here to care about a whole bunch of young millionaires, I'm here to hope the guys wearing my jersey win a bunch of games. Maybe it's cold, but it's honest.  

 

So you’re here to care about old near billionaires, because they had enough money to purchase the rights to the team you like?

 

This is why fandom can be so much like politics it’s scary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tarpon75]

3 hours ago, HardcoreZorn said:

LOL I really am though. I think Alex's legs with a legitimate talent at RB will make us all realize that our OL and blocking wasn't near the main culprit for the running woes since Shanny.

 

I also really do like the amount of weapons he will have at his disposal. Should be a fun watch.

I’m looking forward to seeing Alex behind center myself. I never really watched him that much until last year’s game with the Redskins. He very much impressed me during that game. If the Redskins are somewhat healthy on offense Alex will have as many weapons or more than he had last year in Kansas City.I remember Doc Walker speaking about Smith after that game and he was saying if that is a journeyman quarterback I want one of those for our team. Funny how it worked out.

[GhostofAlvinWalton]

3 hours ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

 

So you’re here to care about old near billionaires, because they had enough money to purchase the rights to the team you like?

 

This is why fandom can be so much like politics it’s scary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wanting the organization to be in the best possible position financially to field the best team possible is not rooting for “near billionaires”...it’s rooting for your team to be good. 

 

With a hard salary cap...if the players “win” the team loses...and as a fan of the team...that sucks. 

 

 

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

40 minutes ago, GhostofAlvinWalton said:

 

Wanting the organization to be in the best possible position financially to field the best team possible is not rooting for “near billionaires”...it’s rooting for your team to be good. 

 

With a hard salary cap...if the players “win” the team loses...and as a fan of the team...that sucks. 

 

 

 

Wanting your team to be good is the same in a league where the money is guaranteed vs. now, where it’s far from it.  All teams have the same cap and the same draft opportunities as one another.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[wit33]

Will be fascinating when other QBs have the gumption to state they’re are evaluating their organization with regards to resigning. 

 

Was Kirk the LeBron of the NFL? Maybe. In ten years, franchise level QBs may move around like the likes of Durant, LeBron, Leonard, George etc.. All these guys evaluated and disliked their situations with their home teams and left. 

 

To tie in Alex Smith, he chose not to leverage his earning potential to the max and take a deal that will average about 10.5% of the salary cap over the life of it. I can roll with him at this number.