Debunking the Chiefs Signing Issues?
by Chris Thorman on Jun 16, 2008 7:16 AM CDT
in 2008 Kansas City Chiefs Off Season
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PrintI'm almost positive that this Bob Gretz article from the mothership is in response to this one from Jon at MVN but judge for yourself. First, Jon's point about the Chiefs signing first round picks:
And here's part of what Gretz wrote and was posted this morning:Ryan Sims’ Dad made a pretty glaring accusation a few months ago that Carl Peterson has a history of low-balling first round picks. He claims that at the NFL Draft, many NFL teams warned him about Peterson’s ways. While so many were quick to brush this off and claim that because Sims was fat and lousy as a player, he has no credibility. I, on the other hand, became concerned as to whether there is any truth to his comment. Quietly, Peterson has racked up a very lousy recent track record of bringing first round picks to camp on time. Dwayne Bowe was a holdout. Tamba Hali made it to camp literally hours before camp started. Derrick Johnson was a holdout (albeit, a short one). Ryan Sims was a holdout. John Tait was a holdout. Sylvester Morris was a holdout. The only recent player to make it to camp in plenty of time was Larry Johnson.
Based on what they write and what they say, who could possibly think otherwise that the Chiefs drag their feet and are extra tough in negotiations, especially when it comes to their earliest selections.
The truth, however, is something quite different. Over the most recent five-year period of signing first-round picks (2003-07), the Chiefs rank in the middle of the league when it comes to getting their first choice signed. They are neither the team that is the earliest of signers or the latest. They aren’t even close to being the team that suffers the most first round holdouts.
Gretz uses the end of July as his measure of what a hold out is because if a player gets into camp by August, he's only missing a few days of practice. I think that's a valid measure.
I think they're both right (Ha, way to take a stand I know). While Gretz is correct that at least recently the Kansas City Chiefs have done a decent job of getting picks signed in a timely fashion, Jon is also correct to point that Carl Peterson does indeed have a bad reputation when it comes to contract negotiations. What's missing from Gretz's article is other contract negotiations, not necessarily rookie ones. Jon ends with a valid point:There seems to be a huge divide between the players and the front office. Kyle Turley ranted on Sirius NFL Radio shortly after his retirement about the front office’s tactics. Greg Wesley accused the Chiefs of lying to him about their intention to release him. Trent Green was clearly not happy about the way he was let loose (and long-revered Chief Will Shields chimed in on Sirius NFL Radio that he concurred). The Chiefs are having a hard enough time attracting marquee talent in Kansas City; they can’t afford to lose players because they can’t put up with the management.
And there's the point to be made about Carl Peterson that Gretz doesn't mention. It's not about just the rookie contracts. It's about resigning players without BS. That, is something that Carl Peterson can't claim to have done successfully and is really the whole point of this debate.
Let us know your thoughts in the comment section, where I'll flesh out my thoughts throughout the day.
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Leverage
That’s really the subtle point that Gretz is missing (as usual). Rookies don’t have any leverage in contract negotiations, really, particularly with bad teams. The team owns their rights, so their only real negotiating tactic is to hold out, which tends to punish the player as much as the team, as we’ve seen from several prominent rookies who have held out and hurt their development. Take Glenn Dorsey, for example…if he holds out, the worst he can do to the team is stay out until the season starts, at which point he’s destroying his marketability on his second contract or for a possible trade. For rookies, the clock is always ticking and the pressure is on them to get signed.
Free agents, on the other hand, don’t have that pressure. Excepting those franchised or restricted, they can decide for themselves where they want to go and they don’t need to bother with teams that want to nickel and dime them. Look at Jeff Faine this year…he was on our target list, but he got a great contract from someone else without even bothering to talk to us. Why? Because his agent probably figured Peterson would drag negotiations out (assuming he’s serious about signing Faine in the first place) so that if the deal didn’t go through with the Chiefs he’d hurt his marketability with the other teams, who’d then be looking at the second and third tier free agents to fill their needs (meaning fewer job opportunities for Faine). Talking to the Chiefs would only hurt Faine’s ability to get a good contract…and Faine’s agent is very likely not the only one who realizes this.
Rookie contracts are about staring down the rookie until he realizes he needs to sign. Free agent contracts (including our own free agents) are about selling the player on the idea that it’s in his interests to play for your team. Carl Peterson can’t sell the better free agents because he’s got a reputation among players for being cheap and dishonest in negotiations. That’s why he’s a liability to us in negotiations…not just because of a few rookie holdouts.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
And
Getting rookies signed late doesn’t do much to help the team either, nor does it do anything to improve your reputation with the players. As he’s gotten older Peterson seems more and more obsessed with the pissing contest (negotiations) than the end result, and doesn’t seem to realize how this causes problems down the road…which is why he really needs to go.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
Solid
I agree with you here. I agree with MVN on points 2 and 3.
I think point 3 may be the most accurate and most detrimental. We seem to have some issues keeping players happy. We make bonehead decisions and let good players slide while they’re still prime or at least have productive years ahead (Joe Horn, Donnie Edwards, John Tait) and it’s usually because management. At the same time we sign people like Eric Warfield and Greg Wesley to multi-year extensions only to release them in the middle of that extension.
I honestly think Herm is helping things move in the right direction. With the youth movement we haven’t put as much stock in veteran FA’s. Hopefully MVN’s point #2 won’t be as big an issue going forward… as we should grow from within. Unfortunately, now MVN’s point #3 will be even more poignant because we will need to retain our young talent to build a team that is strong for years to come.
No matter what, I’m glad Carl’s tenure will end in 2010 (correct?) no matter what. He doesn’t sound like he’s coming back. If he can just get these rookies signed and in camp, maybe we’ll get a better GM in here to resign them when the time comes.
by Ochophosphate on Jun 16, 2008 9:41 AM CDT up reply actions
Tait
was Peterson’s fault…but I think we have Greg Robinson to thank for letting Donnie Edwards get away to SD…Carl went against his better judgment and deferred to his coach on that one.
by PVChiefsfan on Jun 16, 2008 10:04 AM CDT up reply actions
re: Jeff Faine
We never even had an opportunity to talk to him because we followed the rules. He signed the richest contract for a center hours after the free agency period started. Until the league starts enforcing tampering rules on a large scale basis, teams that are willing to cheat will have the advantage.
by Joel Thorman on Jun 16, 2008 11:42 AM CDT up reply actions
Even If We'd Followed The Rules
I seriously doubt we would have signed him. Peterson likes to drag contract negotiations out to try and squeeze a nickel. But, like I said before, that’s not how free agency works. The top-tier free agents aren’t going to sit there and do a back-and-forth for two weeks hammering out a deal because, while they’re futzing about with the Chiefs (or whoever), other teams are going to start considering or going to their contingency plans and signing other options for that position. This undermines the top-tier free agent’s bargaining position by eliminating job opportunities for the player (thereby eliminating competitors from the bargaining). If Faine had negotiated with Peterson and the process took a week or so, Faine could have ended up costing himself several million…assuming the Chiefs were dealing with him in good faith and intended to sign him and weren’t just using him as a bargaining chip for someone else (which is never a given with Peterson). So why waste time talking with a GM who’s very likely going to be wasting your time and costing you money when you’ve got a great offer on the table?
That’s just the way free agency works…the people who come up with the most attractive bid get the best shot at coming up with the better free agents. The guys who try to nickel and dime get the scraps. That’s why free agency works best as a tool used as a supplement to good drafting, not a replacement for the draft…because when you find a free agent who works perfectly for you then overpaying him may be necessary and you can’t do that to build a team in the salary cap era. On the other hand, you’re probably not going to be all that successful building your team out of scraps either. Which is how we end up with the 2007 version of the Chiefs.
And let’s be honest here…there was absolutely no way that Peterson was ever going to hand out the contract that Faine got. Not after three hours of negotiating, not after three weeks. Peterson knew it, the rest of the NFL knew it, and (most importantly) Faine and his agent knew it. So when Peterson tries to blame other teams for jumping the gun (and, in all fairness, there may have been some of that going on) he’s basically covering for the fact that thanks to his abrasive style of negotiating the free agents that best fit our team would rather sign for the first big contract offer they get rather than waste time talking to Peterson…because they know he’s more interested in getting them at below-market value than offering a reasonable contract or building a winning team.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
My greatest fear
is that we drafted great to good players this year. All this young talent will have second contracts due about the same time. If the current management is still in place what kind of luck will we have keeping these young stars we have developed? I can envision us loosing some and ending up in a constant state of rebuilding. Hope I’m wrong!
No worries
we won’t sign all the guys to contracts of the same length…the first day guys will likely get longer contracts than guys like Franklin and Carr. Also, there is nothing that says the Chiefs can’t work up a second contract before the first one is up…if we sign Dorsey to a 5 year contract and after 3 years decide we love him, we can offer him a 6 year contract after his third year.
Yeah...
Gretz also kind of twisted it a bit to prove his point in my opinion. If his article really was a response to the MVN article then when he said the Chiefs are in the middle of the pack as far as getting players in on time, what is he trying to prove? I thought the point was that King Carl has a history of getting first round picks signed late (after practices start), not how it compares to other teams. Late is late now matter if the majority is late or not.
http://www.kcchiefsfootball.com/
http://www.kcchiefsfootball.com/
Go Chiefs!
Gretz's List Kind of Pointless Anyway
He used such a ridiculously small sample size (five years…about a quarter of his time as GM) that you can’t really evaluate Peterson on it. You could almost call it cherry-picking the numbers. I’d be curious to see how it shakes out versus other teams over Peterson’s entire tenure here.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
And Of Course
I’m not sure you can quantify “acrimony generated” in a poll. I guess if you tracked quality free agent signings/re-signings. Oh well.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
Word
That’s why I gave that article the ole’ one-star stink-eye!
by Ochophosphate on Jun 16, 2008 9:25 PM CDT up reply actions
Stats can be misleading...
If you wanted me to challenge the numbers, I would challenge: 1) the very small sample size; 2) the choice of August 1st as a cutoff date (interesting, given that DJ was a holdout, but is not factored in the list); 3) the way he visually represented the numbers (based on the Chiefs being tied with seven teams at 75%, the argument could easily be made that they are middle of the pack (#16) or in the bottom 10 (#23). Gretz chose to place them at #19.) But the most fundamental concept of statistics is “sample size.” Any numbers guy knows it. Want clear proof of it? If the Chiefs had ONE more holdout in that 5-year span, the Chiefs would have gone from 75% to 50% and would make them one of the five worst teams in the NFL. If the Chiefs had ONE more signing, they would have gone from 75% to 100% and would have been in the top 5. When one additional signing/holdout has the capability of moving you from the top 5 or the bottom 5, you know that your sample size is way too small.
If you want a clear example of Gretz cherry-picking stats, he claims that “For every John Tait (September 9th signing) they throw out, they forget to mention Dale Carter (signed on June 1st)”. That’s an absolutely ridiculous claim. Isn’t it curious that Gretz didn’t acknowledge that in the 5-year period between 1998 and 2002, the Chiefs were 1 for 5 (20%) at bringing picks to camp on time? I can buy into Gretz’s argument that there is a RECENT trend of signings, but he makes a huge blunder in trying to pretend that the Chiefs HISTORICALLY have been very good at signing first rounders. He would have you believe that for every one John Tait, there is one Victor Riley. Within that 5-year period, that is absolutely untrue. For every Victor Riley, there were 4 John Taits. It’s curious that he didn’t phrase it that way (and also curious and humorous that he chose Dale Carter, a 1992 pick, as another point of reference, given that Carter was signed at a time when holdouts were far more uncommon and signed 7 years apart from Tait).
Exactly!!!
Glad to see another stats guy. Personally I thought his methodology was so clearly flawed that I can’t imagine Gretz didn’t realize what he was doing.
Personally, from the relatively few articles of his that I’ve read, I find him to be little more than a company man for the King. His columns tend towards the apologist side regarding Peterson, even when the facts don’t back his position, and he seems highly prone to cherry-picking his numbers, often to the point of being intellectually dishonest I feel.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
Thanks, Chris
Chris, thanks for referencing my MVN post, because it’s probably the topic I’m most passionate about. I am genuinely concerned about the front office’s ability to bring in Dorsey and Albert. I feared it a few months ago when Peterson claimed outright that Brandon Albert would be a Right Tackle (does that sound like to anyone that Peterson is trying to avoid paying Albert Left Tackle money?) And given reports that Dorsey likes to spend money, given that he’s a top 5 pick, and given that there is a huge distance between 2007 and 2008 money, that’s going to be a challenge too.
And what spills over into is, as you suggest, this idea that the problem is not only with first rounders but with free agents—a point Gretz does not address. We always buy into the front office’s logic that they don’t sign marquee free agents because they choose not to. I wonder more and more every day if they are simply incapable of signing marquee guys. CP is a guy who likes to lowball, hold on to that offer and wait for the other party to respond. His negotiations take a lot of time. Marquee free agents don’t play that game. They want a very high offer right now and if you don’t give it to them, they’ll find another team in the next 2 or 3 days that will.
I’ve always actually liked CP. I do think he’s passionate about winning. But I think, like Al Davis, he is beyond his time. While we like to credit the Chiefs’ recent successes as a testament to CP, it seems to me that the recent successes are just a credit to the Chiefs taking power away from him. I think the Chiefs have a terrific framework for success and my concern is that Peterson will be effective enough to build a strong team, but his negotiating flaws are going to keep the Chiefs one step away from the top. I hope I’m wrong.
Apparently He's Getting Upgraded In Position The Longer Negotiations Go On
When they were drafted I heard someone from the Chiefs’ front office claim that he was going to be a guard, until he was “ready” to move to left tackle, which was about as ridiculous a claim as you’re going to hear considering that a) nobody drafts a guard that high these days, and b) he’s got far more ability right now than any of our other tackles. So now they’re saying he’s a “right tackle”? Right. Pure Carl Peterson…set the stage for a lowball offer by feeding the draftee a line of crap about how he’s not that important to the team. I seriously doubt their agents are going to buy it, so I’m betting neither Dorsey nor Albert sees the first week of training camp.
As for Peterson, I used to like him too…until I realized that it had been over a decade since we won a playoff game and he never accepted responsibility for any of the mistakes that brought those teams down, even though most of them were entirely his fault. GMs should have about a five year life expectancy with any team…ten tops if they’re very successful. If they haven’t won the big one in the first five years, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll do so afterwards so you probably need to go looking for a new GM if it’s been three or four years since your team last had a legitimate shot at the Super Bowl. For Peterson, that probably would have meant his departure sometime around ‘98 or ‘99 (since the ‘95 team was a legitimate contender). Based on what his teams did after that, I think that would probably have been the perfect time to give him his walking papers.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
Happy to talk about it Jon
You guys are doing a hell of a job over there as I’ve been swamped with this new job in Austin and mailing it in here.
The Chiefs blogosphere in general deserves a pat on the back this off season, especially Home of the Chiefs.
by Chris Thorman on Jun 16, 2008 3:33 PM CDT up reply actions
Question
What exactly are all of Peterson’s responsibilities? Doesn’t he hold another position besides GM also?
He has kept the team in good salary cap standing for many years now. I wonder if he could still be useful as long as he didn’t deal with player evaluation/contracts?
Your thoughts?
TOUCHDOWN! KAN-SAH-CITY!!!
He's Also Chief Executive Officer
I agree that his financial handling of the Chiefs has been very good, and if his job was only the financial stuff I think he’d be great as a chief financial officer (CFO). Problem is, good accountant doesn’t necessarily translate into being a good GM, and he’s weak at many of the areas that make a good GM. In the end, as a fan, I don’t care if the team made $60 million dollars this season if the team went 4-12. I’m not seeing any of that money, it doesn’t go in any of our pockets…the only things that matter to me are that they put the most competitive team possible on the field because the on-field product is the only benefit for me. Since it’s been well over a decade since his last playoff win, Peterson apparently can’t do that anymore. As for stripping his authority, I think that’s already happening. If you take away his negotiating powers, he’s basically just the CFO. And given his personality and the way he’s always deflected blame, I don’t think that he realizes that he causes a lot of the problems for the Chiefs and I’m not sure that he’s the kind of employee who would be happy being demoted to just a CFO. He’s been in complete control for 19 years, he still ducks responsibility for the Chiefs’ problems, so I suspect that the only way he gives up what power he has left is if Clark Hunt removes him entirely.
Besides, if it’s a matter of worrying about the team’s finances, if you can find a good GM who can negotiate reasonable deals, it’s not really a problem to find a good accountant to keep the team in line fiscally. What Peterson brings to the table as far as money goes isn’t by any means irreplaceable.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
And...
he’s the Chief Black Leather Jacket Officer
by Ochophosphate on Jun 16, 2008 9:27 PM CDT up reply actions
Playoff win
Our last playoff win was in like 1993 when Montana took us to an AFC championship game by beating the Oilers.. its definitely over a 15 year span….not good.
by BiggestKCfaninJersey on Jun 19, 2008 6:11 AM CDT up reply actions
He's President as well
Not sure exactly what that entails though.
by Chris Thorman on Jun 16, 2008 4:54 PM CDT up reply actions
He's not only President!
He’s also a client!!
by Ochophosphate on Jun 16, 2008 9:27 PM CDT up reply actions
Carl is garbage
Honestly from what I can and someone more than likely said this, Carl let go so many guys who had great years the very next year… case in point Joe Horn. He made amazing receptions for that bum Grbac and they let Horn go to New Orleans and keep Derrick Alexander and what happened? Horn had simply a coming out party and Alexander spent a lot of time on the injured list. Way to go Carl… the Hunt family needs to just get rid of him and get a GM who can actually help this team.
by BiggestKCfaninJersey on Jun 19, 2008 6:09 AM CDT reply actions
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