Hahaha, yeah, I think this ALL THE TIME when reading those blurbs. Joe is really quick on the draw with the "lost a step" or "not the same player he used to be". Joe seems like a good guy, but he needs to dial it back with those phrases if he's even the one writing them anymore. I've been reading these e-mails for years and quite often a player will get a better QB or better offensive line and suddenly return to being the player he used to be. Sometimes in the middle of the season. Funny how that works. But yeah, calling out Flowers at 28 seemed a bit extreme even for Joe, although I haven't followed Flowers so this could be one of those rare instances where it is correct to say it. Unlikely given his age, though.
Joe still does the daily emails. I don't know if he'd ever give those up.
The thing about Brandon Flowers is that we don't just have to use our own opinions. Obviously getting released this late in the offseason isn't ideal because a lot of teams have already made other plans or don't have enough cap space left, but the guy just signed a 1-year, $3-million contract. I think that's pretty damning evidence that 32 NFL GMs think he's not the player he used to be.
Now, GMs are wrong all the time (Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie basically signed a 1-year, $5 million deal before cashing in big this offseason), but in 2011 Flowers signed a 5-year, $50 million contract with $22 million guaranteed. It's an AWFUL long way down from there all the way to a 1-year, $3-million "show me" deal.
The deal he signed is more about the timing of his release than the decline in his play IMO. There just aren't teams out there who can afford to sign him for a lot of money at this stage of the offseason.
Yeah, like I said, I'm sure that played a role. But still, we're looking at 1 year and $3 million dollars. Miles Austin got a virtually identical deal a month ago (1 year, $2m). Miles Austin. You can't just explain that entire gap by pointing to the timing. No one else in the entire NFL was willing to pay him more than $3m for a 1-year rental? A third of the league has more than $10 million in cap space. The Packers and Colts both have $13m. Could they not have used a CB? The Jets, Bengals, Browns, and Jags have over $20 million in cap space this year. None of them could have tossed $3m Flowers' way?
The NFL ATL crew was saying much the same thing- they were hearing Flowers' contract was so bad because there simply wasn't much interest in him around the league. Only a handful of teams even bothered contacting him. If he'd been cut after 2011, how many teams do you think would have been contacting his agent?
Austin got $300K guaranteed, Flowers $1.5mm, and Flowers can earn $2mm more in incentives this year- the contracts aren't virtually identical at all. It's also a pretty good situation for him to try and rebuild his value, so it's not a guarantee that no one else in the entire NFL was willing to give him more than he signed for.
Austin had a $300,000 signing bonus, but it's not at all uncommon for first-year salaries to be guaranteed, too. I tried googling, but I can't find if Austin's was. Even if it's not, his full 1-year contract is
practically guaranteed for everything except for injury.
Flowers' incentives definitely fall under the "very unlikely to be earned" category. He needs to play in 92.5% of the defense's snaps, and the Chargers need to reach the AFCCG. Even setting aside how likely San Diego is to reach the AFCCG, Flowers has only appeared in 92.5% of his defense's snaps once in his entire career (2011). He'd have to stay fully healthy for all 16 games, he'd have to not come off the field in specialty sub-packages, and the Chargers coaches would have to call their defense straight (i.e. not reducing his field time by a handful of snaps in blowouts to save $2m against the cap). They're theoretically achievable and they give his agent a selling point when trying to spin the deal, but the real meat of his contract is the 1-year, $3m.
I actually think Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie is a pretty good comp. Aqib Talib also got a 1-year deal, although a lot of that was based on off-field issues. Rogers-Cromartie is a guy who was forced to sign a deal that was well below what he could have earned a few years prior because the bloom had come off the rose, so to speak. DRC wound up turning things around, playing marvelously, and proving the NFL wrong. He cashed in big this offseason as a result. Maybe Flowers will do the same thing. Still, I think it's fair to say that the NFL is skeptical about whether he's the same player he was a few years ago.
... maybe Joe programmed some macros to populate the "our view" section and I've just stumbled onto one of the functions.
