Hypothetical - PIT Earns Wildcard Spot - Does Bell Play For $30,000 a game? (1 Viewer)

[rockaction]

There is All-Pros every year at every position. That doesn't mean the overall talent at running back wasn't down. 

Bear with me on this for a moment, please.

Your point is taken. There are All-Pros every year. True. My point is that there was a massive shift in talent evaluation. That it moved from Blair Thomas and the million RBs every year in the first round to the Shanahan attitude of "Why draft in the first round what you can get in the sixth? Other positions determine the RBs success. Let's use our picks on them." So you have QBs, the line, zone blocking schemes, the rise of the blocking TE, all of it. And when that becomes so prevalent that an entire billion dollar industry changes; that when something as dry as draft picks and contracts became couched in nice anecdote, it won people Oscars, then you have a shift.* 

That's how seismic it was. Now, what happens when that shift and "correct" thinking happens (and I have been saying this for years and this is no argument against Bell)? There's a devaluation of the position. And with that devaluation, you leave the cupboard bare in terms of scouting, development, and performance. So what happens next, when there becomes a need for good RBs? Nurtured ones that add to your team? There's a market correction. There's a correction in draft position. We see it in Elliott. We see it in Gurley. We see it in Barkley. Then, out of this correction comes the contract correction. We see that in Johnson. 

So, that's my point, and I've long tried to explain it but it's fallen upon deaf ears. It's basic Fichte. Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis. Long live the RBs, but Bell probably isn't the guy.  

eta* That was vague. Michael Lewis's Blindside was as much about the valuation of the O-line and how industries change their valuation of their personnel as it was about Michael Oher. I haven't read the whole thing, but enough to get its thesis. Jonathan Ogden is the harbinger of things to come among GMs, and I think Ozzie Newsome is the pioneer in that story.  

 

[msudaisy26]

Bear with me on this for a moment, please.

Your point is taken. There are All-Pros every year. True. My point is that there was a massive shift in talent evaluation. That it moved from Blair Thomas and the million RBs every year in the first round to the Shanahan attitude of "Why draft in the first round what you can get in the sixth? Other positions determine the RBs success. Let's use our picks on them." So you have QBs, the line, zone blocking schemes, the rise of the blocking TE, all of it. And when that becomes so prevalent that an entire billion dollar industry changes; that when something as dry as draft picks and contracts became couched in nice anecdote, it won people Oscars, then you have a shift. 

That's how seismic it was. Now, what happens when that shift and "correct" thinking happens (and I have been saying this for years and this is no argument against Bell)? There's a devaluation of the position. And with that devaluation, you leave the cupboard bare in terms of scouting, development, and performance. So what happens next, when there becomes a need for good RBs? Nurtured ones that add to your team? There's a market correction. There's a correction in draft position. We see it in Elliott. We see it in Gurley. We see it in Barkley. Then, out of this correction comes the contract correction. We see that in Johnson. 

So, that's my point, and I've long tried to explain it but it's fallen upon deaf ears. It's basic Fichte. Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis. Long live the RBs, but Bell probably isn't the guy.  

I see now. We are saying the same thing. We just disagree on Bell being a guy that gets/deserves that kind of deal. 

 

[rockaction]

I see now. We are saying the same thing. We just disagree on Bell being a guy that gets/deserves that kind of deal. 

Yeah, we are. It's just that arguments get emotional on the internet. There needed to be a correction away from nine RBs in the first round. There needed to be a correction away from no RBs until the third. 

It doesn't make any sense to have a guy touch the ball twenty times a game and be a dud. 

But "equitable," as Bayhawks would put it, needs to also allow for -- under the cap -- linemen, receivers, TEs, et. al. And it's a team-by-team thing and person by person. 

Now, the CBA, by designating the tag by position, creates an artificial ceiling on wages against the player at that position. But the player's association agreed to it. 

So you have what you have here. A document agreed upon by the players and owners, mandated by the federal government, instituting a ceiling on the wages of players by position. 

Fair to the individual? Hell, no. But fair to the individual was never the aim of the Wagner Act or CBAs in general. It was collective bargaining. 

That's why people have problems with Bell, too, and here I'm just spitballing. Unions don't like picket line crossers, but they also sure don't like people that want a different structure than that which is negotiated between labor and employment, especially when labor's wages are almost astronomical.