Vic Ketchmab calls a spade a spade with fans who live in fantasy

[3irty1]

JH, nobody wants to see TT sign someone like a Jairus Byrd to stupid guaranteed money and get hamstrung by his injuries or pedestrian play. On the opposite side, all of your depth does not have to be college free agents. There are free agents that a GM can sprinkle on to their roster that will provide veteran depth and not a ton of guaranteed money. I think some fans would just like our GM to consider more players like this. They may not be an all-pro because those guys are getting a lot of guaranteed money, but they aren't necessarily green horns either. I do think it makes a difference when you sign a guy like that too.

I think there is a camp of people who appreciate what TT does and how he thinks ahead in terms of having a long-game for the salary cap and who the team wants to retain and how they will fit under the cap down the road. I'm sure there are a lot of moving pieces there. However, what we are learning from Jared Cook is that he can still play and the team has gotten a nice look at him. I think there may be other under-valued gems like this that can help in the short-term while having a chance to prove a more long-term worth to the team. If that takes a roster spot from a college free agent, well, a number of them churn and burn the bottom of the roster every year anyway.

I'll call BS on this. Nobody wants the outcome of Jairus Byrd, but opening day of free agency this is exactly what the #neverTT crowd is howling for. A big cap casualty star from another team. When Ted grabs an unknown journeyman or a cut player like Peppers/Cook it seemingly does nothing to temper the tightwad ted criticism.

The very idea that Cook, a guy Ted signed and who proved to be under-valued, is indicative that there are even more under-valued gems to be discovered is based in what exactly? The value of any player is based on the interest of 32 GMs. To land an under-valued player at all you need to out perform other GMs. To speculate that there is a significant pool of Jared Cook level veteran difference makers that represent great value and a good fit seems like a fantasy but even given that such a pool exists to expect Ted to collect these under-valued veterans is to ask him to outperform all other GMs with regards to each one of them.

I think there is a form of mistaking correlation for causation here. Ted's infrequent attempts but consistent success in free agency does not mean free agents by nature are successful and this could be scaled up with more attempts. A criticism to be taken seriously would be one that dealt with opportunity costs. For instance an example of resigning of his own free agent who would have been better to cut loose in favor of another specific free agent.