New---Keim interview on FA Philosophy

CardsSunsDbacks

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:sigh: Around we go again. You can choose to ignore the facts if you like, but the facts are that we could have easily afforded all these mediocre free agents simply by cutting Stewart Bradley and Kevin Kolb. The timing of those two clearly necessary cuts shielded the Cards from the criticism that they were tanking the talent on the roster just to save cash.

Releasing Kevin Kolb saved some $9M in cash flow, and Stewart Bradley saved another $5M in cash flow, which even against the cap freed up more than enough money to sign our free agents before the point when the market really became interesting to value buyers.

Toler was out of our price range for Greg Toler. There's no one that believes that Greg Toler is an even equivalent player to Sean Smith.

There's no competitive football justification for cutting either Kerry Rhodes or Adrian Wilson. There's only a financial justification that has nothing to do with freeing up cap space in 2014 or providing spending room in 2013.

If the Cards were SOOOOO very strapped against the cap, they could've saved $1M by releasing Jay Feely into the free agent pool, since it's unlikely that he'll see a lot of meaningful field goal attempts in 2013.
Without the Rhodes and ADub cuts we would already be done in free agency. We will probably still sign 2 or 3 more players between now and the draft so yes it was necessary. Though you are right we for the most part could have made all the signing we have without those cut, but we would be done for the rest of the year already.
 

kerouac9

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Without the Rhodes and ADub cuts we would already be done in free agency. We will probably still sign 2 or 3 more players between now and the draft so yes it was necessary. Though you are right we for the most part could have made all the signing we have without those cut, but we would be done for the rest of the year already.

Anyone we sign for the rest of free agency will be competition to make the roster, and likely wouldn't have a significant impact on the salary cap, anyway. As I said, we could sign two players who may do something meaningful in 2013 for the cost of one Jay Feely.

We are, effectively, done in free agency.

We wouldn't have needed to sign one of Powers or Cason had we not cut Gay. We wouldn't have needed to sign Mendenhall if we hadn't cut Beanie, and those salaries offset. So no additional cap space needed. Our wounds have been self-inflicted, and in the name of paying off Whis and Grimm, not getting better in 2013.

So tell me another story.
 

kerouac9

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Oh, we never could have signed Matt Shaunessy to a $800K contract if we hadn't released Kerry Rhodes! What would we have done without a 5th DL?

Please.
 
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Catfish

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K-9-----everyone on the board knows that the sky is blue, the grass is green, and the sun is yellow orange. Everyone also knows that the FO created more cap space by releasing Bradley Kolb, Toler, Wilson, and Rhodes, than they did by simply releasing Bradley, Kolb, and Toler. Only you would hijack a thread like this and argue that when viewed from the dark side of the moon, the sky is black, and when things dry up, the grass is brown, and the when viewed from inside a black hole, the sun is black.

I get that your man love for all things Whiz. I also get that even Whiz was preparing to cut Wilson this season, (Wilson even talked of his fear of this prior to last season, saying that he feared it would be his last here). What you choose to ignore is that this FO created more cap space by doing what they did, than they could have by keeping the two safeties. Thus, they now have cap room to exploit, should one of the high priced players in free agency suddenly comes into a price range we can afford. That money is there and is waiting for use. It doesn't have to be 'cleared' by more releases. The FO can either use it now, to sign more FA's, have some wiggle room to work a trade should they wish, set on it until after June 1st, or keep it to help resign a a current contract that they might wish to do prior to the end of this upcoming season, so that they can avoid having to cut so many players after next year to create space again.

The fact is, this Staff, FO, and Scouting Department, worked together to devise a plan, they selected certain players to cut, and they selected certain players to try to bring in, ALL based upon the fact that these were players who just completed their first contrac. All were self starting gym rats, all were fundamentally sound in their techniques, AND in each case that player was known personally by one or more members of the administrative group, so there was no question as to what they were getting. There was no chance to this process, other than the chance of injury during the season. The ONLY exception to this was Bell, who is older, and who possesses the skill set most nearly matching Wilson's. They scored 7 of the 9 players they sought, and even had a plan 'B' which they executed when Maulaluga signed elsewhere.

The rest of us on this board can, (and do), recognize the amount of teamwork, and effort, and study, and planning, that this new administrative group had to undergo in order to accomplish this. We have used a couple of similar posts to show our appreciation of this, acknowledging that this has not EVER happened with ANY previous FO, Staff, or Scouting Department affiliated with the Cardinals. We also acknowledge that Ownership most certainly has not acted in any fashion resembling this in the past either. We ARE grateful for that.

Most of us here get that you do not agree that this is the way you would have done things, or that you feel that THIS new group should have done this. I will not even pretend that I feel sorry because of that. What I will say is simply-----this is what happened, and is what IS. If you can't agree that this group of administrators of this Franchise should be lauded for their efforts, and their success in executing their plan to prepare for this upcoming draft, then say so and go about your business. Don't make it your business to hijack others threads, simply for the pleasure of doing so. That is irksome to many of us, and has no purpose other than to anger other posters.

This is not about how many dollars could have been saved, or how it could have been saved, it IS about pointing out how this new management group performed, and how
new and refreshing that is for many of us long time followers of the Cardinals. Most Cardinals fans have been waiting it seems forever to have a FO and Staff that works together to develop this kind of attention to detail, and this kind of fiscal agility in order to make this team better. We are simply happy that we have finally begun to see those kinds of results.
 

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Without the Rhodes and ADub cuts we would already be done in free agency. We will probably still sign 2 or 3 more players between now and the draft so yes it was necessary. Though you are right we for the most part could have made all the signing we have without those cut, but we would be done for the rest of the year already.

The 7.5 mil we saved by cutting Kolb accouts for almost the entire 2013 cap hits of Rashard Mendenhall(2.5), Jerraud Powers(2), Antoine Cason(1.5) and Drew Stanton(1.666). So, in short, just by cutting Kevin Kolb and using $666,667 of our cap space allowed us to sign Mendenhall, Powers, Cason, and Stanton. So with that being FACT where did the 3 mil we saved by cutting William Gay go? Where did the 6 mil we saved by Rhodes go? How about the 3.5 mil we saved by cutting Bradley? Wilson? Wells? Doucet? Schaughnessy counts for 800k mil in 2013 and Bell $905k, so the cap savings of cutting Doucet take care of those two. Did we really spend the rest on Rashad Johnson, Lorenzo Alexander and Jasper Brinkley? If so, that is pretty stupid.

This is about 2013 financial savings, and it is an insult to fans.

I figured I would repost this since it seems some folks skipped over it.
 

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Jesus, Catfish. I'm not here to make this thread all about me. You're the one who decided to dedicate 700 words that not even I could be bothered to comb through. Get over yourself, and let's talk some football.

I'm boggled that you seem to believe that this is the first organization in the history of the Arizona Cardinals to have a plan going into free agency, and to have done research to select certain cuts and acquire certain players in the development of that plan. How do you think the Cards have been planning and executing free agency to this point? Random chance?

I don't want to get bogged down in a flame war that you're apparently interested in starting by asserting that I somehow have "man-love" for Ken Whisenhunt, a coach whom I was among the first here to question. I actually thought that my first posts on this thread were complimentary of the new front office for taking a risk and trying to be innovative.

No, I'm not going to laud this organization for doing their jobs. Performing free agency is their task. We'll see whether they did that task well starting in some six months. I'm not going to be thrilling at excellent work until I actually see the work on the field.
 
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Catfish

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Jesus, Catfish. I'm not here to make this thread all about me. You're the one who decided to dedicate 700 words that not even I could be bothered to comb through. Get over yourself, and let's talk some football.

I'm boggled that you seem to believe that this is the first organization in the history of the Arizona Cardinals to have a plan going into free agency, and to have done research to select certain cuts and acquire certain players in the development of that plan. How do you think the Cards have been planning and executing free agency to this point? Random chance?

I don't want to get bogged down in a flame war that you're apparently interested in starting by asserting that I somehow have "man-love" for Ken Whisenhunt, a coach whom I was among the first here to question. I actually thought that my first posts on this thread were complimentary of the new front office for taking a risk and trying to be innovative.

No, I'm not going to laud this organization for doing their jobs. Performing free agency is their task. We'll see whether they did that task well starting in some six months. I'm not going to be thrilling at excellent work until I actually see the work on the field.

Good-----That I can accept. I simply tire of posters interjecting minutia, and rehashing it adnauseum, (like trying to separate fly crap from black pepper.
 

mwanamatapa

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I'm not so sure that this is a new philosophy. I remember Graves talking about how they have a free agent board and each player has an assigned budget number above which they wouldn't go. Sounds like the same system to me. Not surprising in that Keim learnt the business side of the job from Graves.

Difference this time round maybe the evaluation process. Although Keim and Licht would have been responsible for the scouting of the free agents, it was Whisenhunt who made the decisions, and Graves who assigned the budget numbers?
 

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The 7.5 mil we saved by cutting Kolb accouts for almost the entire 2013 cap hits of Rashard Mendenhall(2.5), Jerraud Powers(2), Antoine Cason(1.5) and Drew Stanton(1.666). So, in short, just by cutting Kevin Kolb and using $666,667 of our cap space allowed us to sign Mendenhall, Powers, Cason, and Stanton. So with that being FACT where did the 3 mil we saved by cutting William Gay go? Where did the 6 mil we saved by Rhodes go? How about the 3.5 mil we saved by cutting Bradley? Wilson? Wells? Doucet? Schaughnessy counts for 800k mil in 2013 and Bell $905k, so the cap savings of cutting Doucet take care of those two. Did we really spend the rest on Rashad Johnson, Lorenzo Alexander and Jasper Brinkley? If so, that is pretty stupid.

This is about 2013 financial savings, and it is an insult to fans.

I figured I would repost this since it seems some folks skipped over it.
I'm going to lose any cap discussion here (because I don't do math after 3 pm).

But one thing confuses me. You say we signed 4 players for $666.6K worth of 2012 cap room. I'm having a really hard time believing we signed Mendenhall, Stanton, Cason and Powers for an average 2012 cap hit of $167K per player. That seems unrealistically low.
 

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I'm going to lose any cap discussion here (because I don't do math after 3 pm).

But one thing confuses me. You say we signed 4 players for $666.6K worth of 2012 cap room. I'm having a really hard time believing we signed Mendenhall, Stanton, Cason and Powers for an average 2012 cap hit of $167K per player. That seems unrealistically low.

That's not what he's saying. He's saying that those four players fit entirely under the cap space that Kolb vacated, excepting $667K. So that is debited from the cap space we created by releasing Stewart Bradley.
 

football karma

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That's not what he's saying. He's saying that those four players fit entirely under the cap space that Kolb vacated, excepting $667K. So that is debited from the cap space we created by releasing Stewart Bradley.

Doesn't the $7.5 mm of cap savings from Kolb's salary get offset by $6mm or so of signing bonus acceleration? So net, Kolb is only +1.5mm
 

Cheesebeef

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K-9-----everyone on the board knows that the sky is blue, the grass is green, and the sun is yellow orange. Everyone also knows that the FO created more cap space by releasing Bradley Kolb, Toler, Wilson, and Rhodes, than they did by simply releasing Bradley, Kolb, and Toler. Only you would hijack a thread like this and argue that when viewed from the dark side of the moon, the sky is black, and when things dry up, the grass is brown, and the when viewed from inside a black hole, the sun is black.

I get that your man love for all things Whiz. I also get that even Whiz was preparing to cut Wilson this season, (Wilson even talked of his fear of this prior to last season, saying that he feared it would be his last here). What you choose to ignore is that this FO created more cap space by doing what they did, than they could have by keeping the two safeties. Thus, they now have cap room to exploit, should one of the high priced players in free agency suddenly comes into a price range we can afford. That money is there and is waiting for use. It doesn't have to be 'cleared' by more releases. The FO can either use it now, to sign more FA's, have some wiggle room to work a trade should they wish, set on it until after June 1st, or keep it to help resign a a current contract that they might wish to do prior to the end of this upcoming season, so that they can avoid having to cut so many players after next year to create space again.

The fact is, this Staff, FO, and Scouting Department, worked together to devise a plan, they selected certain players to cut, and they selected certain players to try to bring in, ALL based upon the fact that these were players who just completed their first contrac. All were self starting gym rats, all were fundamentally sound in their techniques, AND in each case that player was known personally by one or more members of the administrative group, so there was no question as to what they were getting. There was no chance to this process, other than the chance of injury during the season. The ONLY exception to this was Bell, who is older, and who possesses the skill set most nearly matching Wilson's. They scored 7 of the 9 players they sought, and even had a plan 'B' which they executed when Maulaluga signed elsewhere.

The rest of us on this board can, (and do), recognize the amount of teamwork, and effort, and study, and planning, that this new administrative group had to undergo in order to accomplish this. We have used a couple of similar posts to show our appreciation of this, acknowledging that this has not EVER happened with ANY previous FO, Staff, or Scouting Department affiliated with the Cardinals. We also acknowledge that Ownership most certainly has not acted in any fashion resembling this in the past either. We ARE grateful for that.

Most of us here get that you do not agree that this is the way you would have done things, or that you feel that THIS new group should have done this. I will not even pretend that I feel sorry because of that. What I will say is simply-----this is what happened, and is what IS. If you can't agree that this group of administrators of this Franchise should be lauded for their efforts, and their success in executing their plan to prepare for this upcoming draft, then say so and go about your business. Don't make it your business to hijack others threads, simply for the pleasure of doing so. That is irksome to many of us, and has no purpose other than to anger other posters.

This is not about how many dollars could have been saved, or how it could have been saved, it IS about pointing out how this new management group performed, and how
new and refreshing that is for many of us long time followers of the Cardinals. Most Cardinals fans have been waiting it seems forever to have a FO and Staff that works together to develop this kind of attention to detail, and this kind of fiscal agility in order to make this team better. We are simply happy that we have finally begun to see those kinds of results.

this reads A LOT like what people were saying back in 2003 continually shouting "Graves has a plan!!!" when the darkside first took shape. That's what this off-season reminds me a lot of sadly. Hope to be proven wrong on that, but only time will tell.
 

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Doesn't the $7.5 mm of cap savings from Kolb's salary get offset by $6mm or so of signing bonus acceleration? So net, Kolb is only +1.5mm

$9M salary, $2M roster bonus. That's $5M of additional salary cap space afforded by cutting Kevin Kolb.

IIRC.
 
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Catfish

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this reads A LOT like what people were saying back in 2003 continually shouting "Graves has a plan!!!" when the darkside first took shape. That's what this off-season reminds me a lot of sadly. Hope to be proven wrong on that, but only time will tell.

Cheesebeef------somewhat similar, but not nearly the same. Having all the plans in the world could not help Graves, because he was waay to slow to implement any of them. In the time it took him to explain one, another GM had already made the move and signed the player. Big difference there.
 

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Cheesebeef------somewhat similar, but not nearly the same. Having all the plans in the world could not help Graves, because he was waay to slow to implement any of them. In the time it took him to explain one, another GM had already made the move and signed the player. Big difference there.

slow or not, the end result looks very similar to me. a "belly of the beast off-season", while potentially sitting on cap room. to me? it looked like we aimed low with FA and got what we aimed for. The only two big names that were apparently on our list -- Bush and Maleuga -- we didn't even sniff. We get those guys, maybe i understand where y'all were coming from. The others? Besides Powers who I like, they just don't move the needle much IMO.
 

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Keim wants to clear as much dead money as he can and put the Cardinals in better position going forward. The Cardinals, after the cuts of Wilson, Beanie Wells, Kevin Kolb, William Gay, Early Doucet and Stewart Bradley, have more than $12 million of “dead” cap space for 2013. (Rhodes’ release created zero dead money.)

This paragraph, to me, implies that Keim is considering using most excess cap space we have at the start of the 2013 season to move dollars around on contracts like Fitz and Campbell so that we have more space in 2014 and beyond.

People also seem to be missing the bit about "play equals pay." I'm not sure there's many who can successfully argue that Rhodes was worth 6 million.

It sounds to me that Keim is more interested in getting good value on every player and is willing to accept a minor drop in talent in the short run in the process. In the long run, this is a good philosophy (except, perhaps at the QB position). The best players come at a premium. You end up paying 50% more for a guy who's only 10% more productive. This ultimately leads to an imbalanced roster and cap hell.
 
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Chopper0080

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Doesn't the $7.5 mm of cap savings from Kolb's salary get offset by $6mm or so of signing bonus acceleration? So net, Kolb is only +1.5mm

The 6 mil in dead money is already accounted for. Kolb was already on the books as a 13.5 mil cap hit before we cut him. So, even at 13.5 mil, we were already under the cap starting the league year. So, when we did cut him, his cap hit was reduced from 13.5 to 6 mil. Even though it is "dead money" is still just a reduction in the 2013 cap hit and has already been accounted for.

Teams don't have to "account" for dead money, unless it exceeds their 2013 cap hit. By "accounting" for this dead money, the Cardinals are just essentially saving on their 2013 cash flow which benefits Bidwill rather than the roster. Consider the Colts had 30+ mil in dead money last year, yet still pushed close to the salary cap because Irsay valued upgrading the roster over benefiting his 2012 cash flow.
 

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The "fact" that they cut both AW and Rhodes simply to free up cap space would imply that they were indeed on a tight budget. They downgraded both of those positions simply so they could get enough money to start signing free agents.

this is completely wrong. Apparently, as of right now, we're sitting on 13.5 million dollars of cap room. and about 3.5 of that is for rookies. Now, you add Rhodes' 6 million to that while subtracting Bell's salary (wouldn't need him with both Rhodes and Johnson) and you're still looking 5 million bucks in cap room.

http://blog.azcardinals.com/2013/03/21/some-cap-room-to-work-with/

bottom line Rhodes wasn't needed to be downgraded at all to fill other positions as even if he was still on the team, we'd still have some wiggle room.
 
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According to Urban today-----if I got it right, we have spent about 15 mil so far on free agents. As I see it that used up the 13 that they saved cutting the two safeties. We were about 1.75 over the cap, but Kolb's release puts us back under and we probably have some 5-7 mil left yet to sign any good fitting FA as the prices come down, and still have a little to work on salary extensions, or re-signings during the season. At least I hope that is how it is.
 

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According to Urban today-----if I got it right, we have spent about 15 mil so far on free agents. As I see it that used up the 13 that they saved cutting the two safeties. We were about 1.75 over the cap, but Kolb's release puts us back under and we probably have some 5-7 mil left yet to sign any good fitting FA as the prices come down

do you have any names of these good fitting FA you're talking about? it's really easy to say "we have money to sign good players who have priced themselves out"... but who are these good players?
 

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do you have any names of these good fitting FA you're talking about? it's really easy to say "we have money to sign good players who have priced themselves out"... but who are these good players?

I like his work,dont understand why 3 year contract to a 30 years old alexander and 1 year contract to 26 years old guys like cason shaughnessy
 

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I like his work,dont understand why 3 year contract to a 30 years old alexander and 1 year contract to 26 years old guys like cason shaughnessy

I imagine Cason and Shaughnessy didn't want to sign 3 year deals because the market was down this season.
 
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do you have any names of these good fitting FA you're talking about? it's really easy to say "we have money to sign good players who have priced themselves out"... but who are these good players?

NBC Sports (Rotoworld) has a complete list of all free agents, and shows who has signed and who has not BY POSITION. You can see that there are more unsigned veterans than there are signed ones, including some very good OL, Pass Rushers, Safeties, and TE's. Each day that passes brings their asking price down closer to our cap money available. We have done well when compared to many teams in managing our Cap this year. That is where cutting Rhodes and Wilson really helped.

Just google 2013 NFL Free Agents, then select NBC Sports Rotoworld for the list that I use. Or any other that you might find more appealing. We still have between about 7-8.5 mil available to spend on either FA's or retooling our best vets during this upcoming season so that we keep them from FA.
 
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NBC Sports (Rotoworld) has a complete list of all free agents, and shows who has signed and who has not BY POSITION. You can see that there are more unsigned veterans than there are signed ones, including some very good OL, Pass Rushers, Safeties, and TE's. Each day that passes brings their asking price down closer to our cap money available. We have done well when compared to many teams in managing our Cap this year. That is where cutting Rhodes and Wilson really helped.

Just google 2013 NFL Free Agents, then select NBC Sports Rotoworld for the list that I use. Or any other that you might find more appealing.

I believe he's asking you for specific names. Look over your list, and see if you can find $8M worth of players that you think would be worth signing.

Your statement that we're keeping our powder dry for June 1 cuts or something flies in the face of what all the beat reporters are saying about the Cards being largely done with free agency and turning their attention to the draft.
 

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