Comps

[turtle28]

16 hours ago, e16bball said:

 

The difference between a 4th and a 6th (that will conditional to a 5th if he plays well enough to garner a comp pick) is the line between genius and idiocy?

The difference between 16 games of a decent RB and 7 games of a decent FS is the line between competence and incompetence?

The line between genius and stupidity can be a fine one — but it ain’t that fine. Even if the Howard deal is the better one (and I agree it probably is), you’d have to agree it’s only marginally so. The concept behind the deals is identical: get a veteran player at a position of need; see if he can help the team make the playoffs; get a chance to see how he fits with roster and scheme; get a leg up on re-signing him if you want to; get a comp pick if you don’t re-sign him. The details are different, but not so substantially as to make the Eagles geniuses and the Redskins morons — unless that’s what you already wanted to conclude. 

They also made this deal when we were winning the division aka before Alex broke his leg. That can’t be forgotten. Before Alex broke his leg it looked like we were going to win the division or get a wildcard spot.

[Woz]

1 hour ago, turtle28 said:

They also made this deal when we were winning the division aka before Alex broke his leg. That can’t be forgotten. Before Alex broke his leg it looked like we were going to win the division or get a wildcard spot.

Except that required a bit of self-delusion to think that. Look at the records up to that point (through week 8, the last game before the trade deadline):

• Week 1 (defeated Arizona) -- by Week 8, they were 2-6, with both of their wins over San Francisco (who was 1-7 at the time)
• Week 2 (lost to Indianapolis) -- by Week 8, they were 3-5 (wins over Washington, Buffalo (2-6), and Oakland (1-6))
• Week 3 (defeated Green Bay) -- by Week 8, they were 3-3-1 (wins over Chicago (4-3), Buffalo, San Francisco; tied Minnesota (4-3-1))  [NOTE: they were selling at the trade deadline]
• Week 4 [bye]
• Week 5 (lost to New Orleans) -- by Week 8, they were 6-1 (only loss was inexplicable week one shoot out loss to Tampa Bay)
• Week 6 (defeated Carolina) -- by Week 8, they were 5-2 (wins over Dallas (3-4), Cincinnati (5-3), NY Giants (1-7), Philadelphia (4-4), and Baltimore (4-4))
• Week 7 (defeated Dallas) -- by Week 8, they were 3-4 (wins over NY Giants, Detroit (3-4), and Jacksonville (3-5))
• Week 8 (defeated NY Giants -- by week 8, they were 1-7 (lone win was surprising upset of the Texans)

Their early wins didn't look as strong as they did when they happened, their later wins were closer (especially against the woeful Giants), and their two losses were spankings.

On top of all that, they still had two dates with Philadelphia left, who looked to be the only team that could compete with Washington at the time.

Then, Dallas traded for Amari Cooper and Philly dealt for Golden Tate. That's what I think really sold them on the deal: the rest of the East was making moves, so they felt they had to respond. Unfortunately, their trade bombed out.

Honestly, I think they would have still missed the playoffs had Smith not gotten hurt. I will give them the Giants game as a L->W with Smith under center, but I am not sure I see any other games where it would have turned around. So, 8-8 instead of 7-9.

They gambled and they lost on the trade. Sucks, but oh well.

 

The interesting/dangerous question will be: what do they do when the 4th round comes looming? Will they treat their compensatory pick as their 4th and let the draft fall to them? Or will Allen try to "create" a 4th round pick by making a trade?

[turtle28]

@Woz I hope they don’t trade down to recoup a 4th. I’d rather them treat the 3rd round comp as their 4th and the 1st pick of the 4th round. That’s not such a bad thing.

[Woz]

Just now, turtle28 said:

@Woz I hope they don’t trade down to recoup a 4th. I’d rather them treat the 3rd round comp as their 4th and the 1st pick of the 4th round. That’s not such a bad thing.

They probably should do that ... whether they do is an open question.

[e16bball]

3 hours ago, Thaiphoon said:

A) The price paid for the RB is a 6th (conditional 5th). Not too many starters are usually found in these rounds.

It’s almost certainly going to be a games played condition. In other words, unless he has a major injury or gets cut, it’ll probably be a 5th. If I’m wrong about that, we can have a different discussion about the difference between a 4th and a 6th — but when teams are putting conditions on a paltry 6th rounder, it’s usually a way to protect the team getting the veteran from the possibility that he never/barely plays. A 4th is clearly better than a 5th, but it’s not a very wide gulf between the two.

Anyway, on the Eagles’ side of the ledger is that they gave up the lower pick and they get 9 more games out of Howard.

Balanced against that is the fact that we got the player at the more valuable position. Relatedly, that means we got the player (assuming generally equal talent level) more likely to bring back the higher comp pick. Aside from Le’Veon, who is in a class well beyond Jordan Howard, the top FA RB this offseason got an AAV of $5M and brought back a 6th round comp pick. Moreover, HHCD filled more of a need for us than Howard does for the Eagles. They still have  Adams, Clement, and Smallwood at the RB position, all of whom averaged higher YPC than Howard last season (and two of whom can actually catch the ball out of the backfield). They also had the possibility of bringing back Jay Ajayi (no longer a real option with Howard on board) or of using a draft pick on a younger, cheaper RB. When we traded for HHCD, it was the only option available at the time (in season) to upgrade on Montae Nicholson, which was a big need for a division leading team.

In sum, they got an extra half-season and gave up a slightly lesser pick. We got the player at a more valuable position, a better potential comp pick, and filled a more glaring (and less otherwise addressable) need. Again, I don’t think the deals are more than marginally different.

 

Obviously, the deal for HHCD didn’t turn out well for us. At the time of the deal, we didn’t know that he would stink here or that he would take a weird prove-it deal with the Bears in FA. And I think people are using the benefit of hindsight to  critique the Redskins, even though the idea was a good one at the time. If you check out the NFL News forum thread or the Redskins forum thread from the time of the trade, I think you’ll see that the reaction and analysis was much more positive.

I especially liked the insight and wisdom of one poster, who made the following comments about the deal from the Redskins perspective:

Oh and BTW, this was a great move. A 4th for him. And puts us in position to re-sign him. And if he walks, we get comp pick.

We already have comp picks galore next year. This allows us to have better safety play this year than Montae could give us. And gives us a playoff-experienced young veteran. And it allows us to re-sign him if we can. And if not, we get a comp in 2020. That's not a bad move

Who was that sage poster who considered it a “great move” at the time and defended the idea behind the trade against critics and skeptics? Well, he’s one of our esteemed Redskins forum moderators — and he’s not @Woz 😉

[turtle28]

8 hours ago, Woz said:

Except that required a bit of self-delusion to think that. Look at the records up to that point (through week 8, the last game before the trade deadline):

• Week 1 (defeated Arizona) -- by Week 8, they were 2-6, with both of their wins over San Francisco (who was 1-7 at the time)
• Week 2 (lost to Indianapolis) -- by Week 8, they were 3-5 (wins over Washington, Buffalo (2-6), and Oakland (1-6))
• Week 3 (defeated Green Bay) -- by Week 8, they were 3-3-1 (wins over Chicago (4-3), Buffalo, San Francisco; tied Minnesota (4-3-1))  [NOTE: they were selling at the trade deadline]
• Week 4 [bye]
• Week 5 (lost to New Orleans) -- by Week 8, they were 6-1 (only loss was inexplicable week one shoot out loss to Tampa Bay)
• Week 6 (defeated Carolina) -- by Week 8, they were 5-2 (wins over Dallas (3-4), Cincinnati (5-3), NY Giants (1-7), Philadelphia (4-4), and Baltimore (4-4))
• Week 7 (defeated Dallas) -- by Week 8, they were 3-4 (wins over NY Giants, Detroit (3-4), and Jacksonville (3-5))
• Week 8 (defeated NY Giants -- by week 8, they were 1-7 (lone win was surprising upset of the Texans)

Their early wins didn't look as strong as they did when they happened, their later wins were closer (especially against the woeful Giants), and their two losses were spankings.

On top of all that, they still had two dates with Philadelphia left, who looked to be the only team that could compete with Washington at the time.

Then, Dallas traded for Amari Cooper and Philly dealt for Golden Tate. That's what I think really sold them on the deal: the rest of the East was making moves, so they felt they had to respond. Unfortunately, their trade bombed out.

Honestly, I think they would have still missed the playoffs had Smith not gotten hurt. I will give them the Giants game as a L->W with Smith under center, but I am not sure I see any other games where it would have turned around. So, 8-8 instead of 7-9.

They gambled and they lost on the trade. Sucks, but oh well.

 

The interesting/dangerous question will be: what do they do when the 4th round comes looming? Will they treat their compensatory pick as their 4th and let the draft fall to them? Or will Allen try to "create" a 4th round pick by making a trade?

Now obviously we’ll never know, so this is just your opinion vs mine but, I think with Alex Smith we beat the Titans. Our D played good that game - they should have bc they faced Gabbert - and if our O had just made a few more plays and not had the ints, we probably win. 

So, that’s 8-8.

I think out of our 4 division games remaining after Alex’s injury that we find a way to split them. Our O basically did nothing vs the Giants in the first half after Sanchize had his horrible int - I have to believe that Alex doesn’t throw that. Vs. Phila we were in the game/winning until we had to rely on Sanchize to throw the ball after Colt got hurt, and we lost. Vs the Cowboys Colt didn’t play awful but his ints were back breakers. Again, I have to believe that Alex doesn’t throw 3 ints. Possibly the one where Demarcus Lawrence made the tremendous play but that it. W/o those ints, we may have won that game.

I’m not saying we win all these games, but we definitely would’ve been in them more with a better chance to win if Alex had played.

I think at worst w/ Alex not getting hurt we end up 9-7, at best we would’ve end up 11-5 and most likely we would’ve been 10-6 and then tied with Dallas for the division. I think we would’ve had the tie breaker. Especially if we beat Dallas twice and we were both 4-2 in the division.

[Thaiphoon]

On 4/1/2019 at 9:34 PM, e16bball said:

Who was that sage poster who considered it a “great move” at the time and defended the idea behind the trade against critics and skeptics? Well, he’s one of our esteemed Redskins forum moderators — and he’s not @Woz 😉

You are correct, sir! I was pretty positive at the time of the trade. It's one of the few I've missed on. Because I actually thought he was going to come in and play well (and quickly) and we could get a 3rd out of him. He didn't do any of that.

I also thought at the time that he wanted to re-sign here. I quickly found out after the first week that he was here that he wanted to hit FA regardless of what we did. This is my mea culpa. As with many of these trades we can see in hindsight if they are good or not. This was not a good move. And given that I've been burned on this, I won't be recommending it in the future. And also, given that I was wrong about it when we first did it, I'm not going to doggedly cling to that original position just because I fear changing my mind when the facts have changed. Just like those who thought it was smart to trade for a project QB and trade 3 firsts and a second won't be recommending that again either. And no doubt agree it was a stupid move.

As for the Eagles trade --> You downplay the Howard trade though given that you're only talking about the additional games. You completely miss that Howard will have all offseason to prove himself and play. And showcase himself accordingly even with the competition on the team. We did not get that with HHCD.

And as I said before, if the Eagles get nothing out of Howard? Then it cost them a 6th. I'll burn a 6th all day long for the chance to see if the guy, all year long (OTAs, minicamp, training camp, preseason,regular season), will shine, or not.

TL:DR -> My initial positivity (which is rare) about the HHCD was incorrect. I won't make that mistake again. However, the Eagles burning only a 6th for Howard is smart regardless if he flames out like HHCD did for us given the other parameters of the situation.

[bigdog44]

On 4/2/2019 at 1:56 AM, turtle28 said:

I think at worst w/ Alex not getting hurt we end up 9-7, at best we would’ve end up 11-5 and most likely we would’ve been 10-6 and then tied with Dallas for the division. I think we would’ve had the tie breaker. Especially if we beat Dallas twice and we were both 4-2 in the division.

11-5 would have been really tough once the injuries hit the O line (again). Had the Oline and Alex stayed healthy I wouldn’t say 11-5 was impossible.