NFL pre-season and news thread

Yep. There's no good reason for football writers to report what they know to be bullshit besides the need to suck up to sources. Strikes me as unethical to do so but football writers keep doing it.

 

It's worth asking ourselves whether or not reporters should just say "so-and-so signed an extension, we'll have more details later."

Or at the very least, frame your reporting to make it clear to people that the details are the important part, not the synopsis. That's the approach Jason LaCanfora has taken with his Twitter account.

 

It's funny, one agent who typically was pretty truthful about the terms of the deal was Rosenhaus. That always surprised me.

I had one that I covered about a decade ago and a lineman had signed a huge deal. When we got the contract, we saw that he had a team option year in there for $13 million that probably would have made him the highest-paid player in the league at the time. There was zero chance of the team paying for that year.

 

The writers are so in bed with some of the agents that I doubt that will ever happen. An agent gives something like this to Schefter and it's tweeted out to two million people, that's not going to hurt the agent the next time he tries to sign a client.

 

The author is way off on 2015 alone, because there is no way that all five spots are going to first-timers. Plus there's no way Tim Brown has to wait until 2018.

I also like how he puts six guys for 2017 and says three of them won't get in that year instead of projecting which five it would be

 

If I was projecting just the modern players:

2015
Seau
Pace
Haley
Brown
Bettis

2016
Favre
Harrison
Shields
Greene
Law

2017
Tomlinson
Warner
Mawae
Lynch
Mecklenburg

2018
Lewis
Urlacher
Owens
Hutchinson
Anderson

2019
Gonzalez
Moss
Reed
Wisniewski
Atwater

Anythng past 2016 is tough because of the change to add a contributors category. Since six of this year's final 25 were contributors, it's tough to project which holdover modern players will be in the queue.

 

I kind of scoffed at Wisniewski until I looked him up.

He was an 8-time All-Pro who missed only 2 games in 13 years.

That's a Hall of Fame career.

 

John Lynch should not go into the HOF before LeRoy Butler.

 

Yeah, it's impossible to guess if Sabol, or Eddie D. or Tagliabue will be the next contributor to go in.

I think Seau is the only lock for next year. Pace should be, and based on Ogden and Jones going in on the first ballot, probably will as well.

I'll be curious if Brown gets in before Harrison.

 

I don't disagree, but I suspect if one of the two gets in, it would be Lynch.

 

I went with Lynch because he made the final 15 this year for the first time. If you get to that point, there's a pretty good chance you are going to get in and 2017 is a down year for first-year guys.

He could totally be bumped to like 2020 if Law doesn't go in before that. After Williams getting in this year, the voters have Lynch as the next defensive back on their list, picking him ahead of Atwater out of the final 25. Law will be the only DB of consequence as his competition before Brian Dawkins and Ed Reed hit the ballot. Dawkins is eligible in 2017 but I don't see them putting him in right away.

 

I assume you're not counting Darren Sharper for obvious reasons. Top 10 in interceptions, yards and TDs.