20 stages of watching your team make a horrible free agency mistake

[Reed83HOF]

Great article and it was written for the NHL, but it applies to all sports and so many TBD members and the Bills

https://theathletic.com/1062155/2019/07/04/down-goes-brown-the-20-stages-of-watching-your-team-make-a-horrible-free-agency-mistake/

Stage 1: The first rumors

You’ll never quite remember where you first heard the original rumor.You might hear it from a friend who swears he heard it from a friend whose uncle-in-law used to work with the assistant GM’s former cleaning lady.  But at some point, somebody strings together a sentence featuring a player’s name, your favorite team, and a number that is just way too high.

 

Stage 2: You laugh at those rumors

I mean, come on. That much? For that guy? Nice try. Granted, your team’s GM isn’t exactly crushing it out there. He’s been known to make the occasional mistake. He’s lost a few trades, and overpaid on a few contracts. Also, he once ended a press conference by confidently striding away from the podium and then pulling on a door labeled “PUSH” for half an hour.

 

Stage 3: One of the real insiders reports it

Uh oh. OK, that’s a bad sign. Those guys are pretty plugged in, and they don’t make stuff up. If they’re talking about it, there has to at least be something to it. This is not good.

 

Stage 4: You talk yourself into the cap hit as long as the term is reasonable

Look, the numbers being thrown around are pretty crazy. But what if this is one of those short-term deals? Those happen sometimes. Your team has a bit of cap room this year, after all. Sure, you were hoping they’d use it to fill one of the roughly nine different holes in the roster, but maybe they could just give it all to this guy on a one-year deal. Aren’t expiring deals for a lot of money a good thing? 

 

Stage 5: The desperate search for any rumors linking the player to any other team

Please, let somebody else be linked to this guy. You don’t even care who. There has to be some other sucker out there.

 

Stage 6: The deal gets announced

This is always a fun moment, especially if this is one of the rare cases where you’ve skipped steps one through five entirely because the deal is coming out of the blue. You haven’t had the chance to brace yourself at all, and suddenly you get blindsided by a name and a number that don’t make sense. teams are starting to figure out that it can help to let a slightly higher number leak ahead of time so that the actual price seems reasonable by comparison. This will make you feel better for roughly 30 seconds before you run the numbers and realize they’re still awful. If your team isn’t a little bit smart, then the official announcement will be even worse than you thought and you’ll need to go and lie down in a dark storage closet for the rest of the day.

Stage 7: Don’t look at the analytics

Seriously, don’t. No good has ever come from a fan looking at the analytics. They always bring misery. Look away!

 

Stage 8: You looked at the analytics

 

Oh lord, it’s even worse than you thought. Look at this chart, with the circles and the bar graphs and the comparables! Do you realize what this means?

No, of course, you don’t, nobody has ever understood an analytics chart. But you’re pretty sure this one is bad. Why are all the arrows going down instead of up?

 

Stage 9: The GM press conference

Pure comedy. You can have your George Carlin and Richard Pryor; there’s no better standup routine in the world than an NHL GM who just signed a terrible contract that he thinks is really good. It’s just a nonstop word salad of meaningless clichés and hackneyed narratives. Watch carefully, and you can actually pinpoint the exact moment where having to hear himself describe the deal out loud makes the GM realize that he’s made a horrible mistake. If you’re lucky, he’ll even drop a quote like “I’m not worried about Year 6 or 7 right now, I’m worried about Year 1” that can become your go-to sound bite whenever you’re about to make a bad decision in your own life.

 

Stage 10: The extra details leak out

Wait, the contract is also buyout proof? With heavy bonuses and lockout protection? And there’s a full no-movement clause? Why? This! (Gestures furiously at the term and cap hit)! This is the no-movement clause!

 

Stage 11: The defenders emerge

Some fans will always defend everything their team does. It’s cool. It’s what fans are supposed to do. You root for a team, and that means you have their back, whether they deserve it or not. 

Sometimes, the defender’s job is relatively easy. The contract is a little rich, or maybe a bit long, but that’s free agency. You either overpay, or you don’t get the player. Cap space is great, but at some point you need to fill out the roster and get better. Better to pay a little too much than sit on the sidelines. Besides, the cap will probably go up. There’s a new TV deal coming. And maybe the player will be better than you think. Sometimes a change of scenery helps, you know? He’ll have a chance to get healthy, the coach will get the most out of him, and the team’s grizzled veterans will make sure he works hard

 

Stage 12: The conspiracy theories

No, see, the deal might look bad now. But what if we’re just looking at it all wrong? Those crazy signing bonuses will just make it easier to trade the guy, maybe as soon as tomorrow. The point is that the same GM who recently fell off the stage at the draft is probably secretly playing four-dimensional chess here. Just have some faith, man.

 

Stage 13: You grudgingly decide to give the new guy a chance

Fast forward ahead a few weeks. The rush of early July is long past, the dog days of summer have slowly dragged by, and training camp has arrived. He didn’t force anyone to sign it. He just negotiated for the most money he could, same as you or anyone else would want to do. And he’s saying all the right things. He seems genuinely happy to be here. You even heard something about him being in the very best shape of his life, and nobody would say that if it wasn’t true.

 

Stage 14: The first few shifts of the exhibition schedule

Nope, he’s awful. You were right all along. This contract is a disaster.

 

Stage 15: The last remaining fans turn on the deal

This stage can arrive in a variety of ways. Sometimes, it happens almost immediately. Others, it may take a while. It can be a gradual process, with fans falling off the bandwagon one at a time like leaves from a tree on an autumn day. Or maybe there’s some turning point that shocks everyone into reality. Occasionally, the process never fully completes itself, and you get one of those weird intra-fanbase civil wars where everyone screams at each other about one specific player for years.

But one way or another, the tide turns. The diehard defenders will remain, but otherwise the mood gets ugly. The player might be booed. People get fired. Other fanbases make punchlines. It is not a fun time.

 

Stage 16: The years go by

So many years.

There are positives. If you wait long enough, the player will occasionally have a good game or a good week, and they might even string together a pretty decent season. At times, the needle will be nudged from “abject disaster” all the way up to “mild catastrophe.” At some point, those defenders from Stage 11 might emerge to take a victory lap, as if we don’t remember that they all jumped ship in the years in between.But mostly, it’s what you expected: A guy getting paid too much money for not enough production. And at some point, the conversation will shift to: “How do we get rid of this guy?”

 

Stage 17: The inevitable buyout

It always ends badly.But the end result is the same. The team wriggles out of the deal, but probably eats a lot of money to do it. Maybe it costs them a draft pick or a prospect too, or they end up taking back a deal that’s almost as bad. But they’re off the hook. It’s over. There are always mixed feelings when this stage arrives. Relief, that the story has reached an end. Anger, that it ever came to this. Sympathy, for the new GM who had to figure it all out, because by this point the guy who signed the deal in the first place is long gone, working as a scout for some other team where his college roommate is in charge. Maybe just a little bit of regret, as you wonder if you were all too hard on the player. He always seemed like a good guy. By the way, it should go without saying that if and when the player returns for his first game back with his new team, he will look amazing and score the game-winning goal. Just accept it now.
 

Stage 18: The revisionist history

You may not reach this stage until years later, but it will come. Actually, somebody will try to tell you, the deal wasn’t that bad. Actually, everybody liked it at the time. Actually, this newly discovered stat suggests that the player was better than you thought. Actually, the deal was horrible but it prevented the team from doing some other even more horrible thing so that makes it good. Don’t you feel dumb now? These people are the worst.
 

Stage 19: The self-reflection

This is the stage where everybody involved learns some hard lessons. The front office that signed the deal looks back on how they miscalculated so badly. Ownership comes to understand how they allowed it to happen, and how they can prevent similar mistakes in the future. Fans think back to their initial reactions, and recalibrate their expectations going forward. The media re-read their hot takes, reflect on what they got wrong, and vow to do better next time. This step has never actually happened, but scientists believe it is theoretically possible.

 

Stage 20: The next contract

OK, see, but this time it will be different…

 

[row_33]

Raiders signing the flukiest SB MVPs at any cost was a good one for years.

 

 

[BADOLBILZ]

57 minutes ago, Reed83HOF said:

 

 

Stage 11: The defenders emerge

Some fans will always defend everything their team does. It’s cool. It’s what fans are supposed to do. You root for a team, and that means you have their back, whether they deserve it or not. 

Sometimes, the defender’s job is relatively easy. The contract is a little rich, or maybe a bit long, but that’s free agency. You either overpay, or you don’t get the player. Cap space is great, but at some point you need to fill out the roster and get better. Better to pay a little too much than sit on the sidelines. Besides, the cap will probably go up. There’s a new TV deal coming. And maybe the player will be better than you think. Sometimes a change of scenery helps, you know? He’ll have a chance to get healthy, the coach will get the most out of him, and the team’s grizzled veterans will make sure he works hard

 

Stage 12: The conspiracy theories

No, see, the deal might look bad now. But what if we’re just looking at it all wrong? Those crazy signing bonuses will just make it easier to trade the guy, maybe as soon as tomorrow. The point is that the same GM who recently fell off the stage at the draft is probably secretly playing four-dimensional chess here. Just have some faith, man.

 

 

 

 

 

These are actually steps 1 & 2 for a lot of our regulars.

 

Straight from never-heard-of-em' to there.

 

 

[vorpma]

1 hour ago, Reed83HOF said:

Great article and it was written for the NHL, but it applies to all sports and so many TBD members and the Bills

https://theathletic.com/1062155/2019/07/04/down-goes-brown-the-20-stages-of-watching-your-team-make-a-horrible-free-agency-mistake/

Stage 1: The first rumors

You’ll never quite remember where you first heard the original rumor.You might hear it from a friend who swears he heard it from a friend whose uncle-in-law used to work with the assistant GM’s former cleaning lady.  But at some point, somebody strings together a sentence featuring a player’s name, your favorite team, and a number that is just way too high.

 

Stage 2: You laugh at those rumors

I mean, come on. That much? For that guy? Nice try. Granted, your team’s GM isn’t exactly crushing it out there. He’s been known to make the occasional mistake. He’s lost a few trades, and overpaid on a few contracts. Also, he once ended a press conference by confidently striding away from the podium and then pulling on a door labeled “PUSH” for half an hour.

 

Stage 3: One of the real insiders reports it

Uh oh. OK, that’s a bad sign. Those guys are pretty plugged in, and they don’t make stuff up. If they’re talking about it, there has to at least be something to it. This is not good.

 

Stage 4: You talk yourself into the cap hit as long as the term is reasonable

Look, the numbers being thrown around are pretty crazy. But what if this is one of those short-term deals? Those happen sometimes. Your team has a bit of cap room this year, after all. Sure, you were hoping they’d use it to fill one of the roughly nine different holes in the roster, but maybe they could just give it all to this guy on a one-year deal. Aren’t expiring deals for a lot of money a good thing? 

 

Stage 5: The desperate search for any rumors linking the player to any other team

Please, let somebody else be linked to this guy. You don’t even care who. There has to be some other sucker out there.

 

Stage 6: The deal gets announced

This is always a fun moment, especially if this is one of the rare cases where you’ve skipped steps one through five entirely because the deal is coming out of the blue. You haven’t had the chance to brace yourself at all, and suddenly you get blindsided by a name and a number that don’t make sense. teams are starting to figure out that it can help to let a slightly higher number leak ahead of time so that the actual price seems reasonable by comparison. This will make you feel better for roughly 30 seconds before you run the numbers and realize they’re still awful. If your team isn’t a little bit smart, then the official announcement will be even worse than you thought and you’ll need to go and lie down in a dark storage closet for the rest of the day.

Stage 7: Don’t look at the analytics

Seriously, don’t. No good has ever come from a fan looking at the analytics. They always bring misery. Look away!

 

Stage 8: You looked at the analytics

 

Oh lord, it’s even worse than you thought. Look at this chart, with the circles and the bar graphs and the comparables! Do you realize what this means?

No, of course, you don’t, nobody has ever understood an analytics chart. But you’re pretty sure this one is bad. Why are all the arrows going down instead of up?

 

Stage 9: The GM press conference

Pure comedy. You can have your George Carlin and Richard Pryor; there’s no better standup routine in the world than an NHL GM who just signed a terrible contract that he thinks is really good. It’s just a nonstop word salad of meaningless clichés and hackneyed narratives. Watch carefully, and you can actually pinpoint the exact moment where having to hear himself describe the deal out loud makes the GM realize that he’s made a horrible mistake. If you’re lucky, he’ll even drop a quote like “I’m not worried about Year 6 or 7 right now, I’m worried about Year 1” that can become your go-to sound bite whenever you’re about to make a bad decision in your own life.

 

Stage 10: The extra details leak out

Wait, the contract is also buyout proof? With heavy bonuses and lockout protection? And there’s a full no-movement clause? Why? This! (Gestures furiously at the term and cap hit)! This is the no-movement clause!

 

Stage 11: The defenders emerge

Some fans will always defend everything their team does. It’s cool. It’s what fans are supposed to do. You root for a team, and that means you have their back, whether they deserve it or not. 

Sometimes, the defender’s job is relatively easy. The contract is a little rich, or maybe a bit long, but that’s free agency. You either overpay, or you don’t get the player. Cap space is great, but at some point you need to fill out the roster and get better. Better to pay a little too much than sit on the sidelines. Besides, the cap will probably go up. There’s a new TV deal coming. And maybe the player will be better than you think. Sometimes a change of scenery helps, you know? He’ll have a chance to get healthy, the coach will get the most out of him, and the team’s grizzled veterans will make sure he works hard

 

Stage 12: The conspiracy theories

No, see, the deal might look bad now. But what if we’re just looking at it all wrong? Those crazy signing bonuses will just make it easier to trade the guy, maybe as soon as tomorrow. The point is that the same GM who recently fell off the stage at the draft is probably secretly playing four-dimensional chess here. Just have some faith, man.

 

Stage 13: You grudgingly decide to give the new guy a chance

Fast forward ahead a few weeks. The rush of early July is long past, the dog days of summer have slowly dragged by, and training camp has arrived. He didn’t force anyone to sign it. He just negotiated for the most money he could, same as you or anyone else would want to do. And he’s saying all the right things. He seems genuinely happy to be here. You even heard something about him being in the very best shape of his life, and nobody would say that if it wasn’t true.

 

Stage 14: The first few shifts of the exhibition schedule

Nope, he’s awful. You were right all along. This contract is a disaster.

 

Stage 15: The last remaining fans turn on the deal

This stage can arrive in a variety of ways. Sometimes, it happens almost immediately. Others, it may take a while. It can be a gradual process, with fans falling off the bandwagon one at a time like leaves from a tree on an autumn day. Or maybe there’s some turning point that shocks everyone into reality. Occasionally, the process never fully completes itself, and you get one of those weird intra-fanbase civil wars where everyone screams at each other about one specific player for years.

But one way or another, the tide turns. The diehard defenders will remain, but otherwise the mood gets ugly. The player might be booed. People get fired. Other fanbases make punchlines. It is not a fun time.

 

Stage 16: The years go by

So many years.

There are positives. If you wait long enough, the player will occasionally have a good game or a good week, and they might even string together a pretty decent season. At times, the needle will be nudged from “abject disaster” all the way up to “mild catastrophe.” At some point, those defenders from Stage 11 might emerge to take a victory lap, as if we don’t remember that they all jumped ship in the years in between.But mostly, it’s what you expected: A guy getting paid too much money for not enough production. And at some point, the conversation will shift to: “How do we get rid of this guy?”

 

Stage 17: The inevitable buyout

It always ends badly.But the end result is the same. The team wriggles out of the deal, but probably eats a lot of money to do it. Maybe it costs them a draft pick or a prospect too, or they end up taking back a deal that’s almost as bad. But they’re off the hook. It’s over. There are always mixed feelings when this stage arrives. Relief, that the story has reached an end. Anger, that it ever came to this. Sympathy, for the new GM who had to figure it all out, because by this point the guy who signed the deal in the first place is long gone, working as a scout for some other team where his college roommate is in charge. Maybe just a little bit of regret, as you wonder if you were all too hard on the player. He always seemed like a good guy. By the way, it should go without saying that if and when the player returns for his first game back with his new team, he will look amazing and score the game-winning goal. Just accept it now.
 

Stage 18: The revisionist history

You may not reach this stage until years later, but it will come. Actually, somebody will try to tell you, the deal wasn’t that bad. Actually, everybody liked it at the time. Actually, this newly discovered stat suggests that the player was better than you thought. Actually, the deal was horrible but it prevented the team from doing some other even more horrible thing so that makes it good. Don’t you feel dumb now? These people are the worst.
 

Stage 19: The self-reflection

This is the stage where everybody involved learns some hard lessons. The front office that signed the deal looks back on how they miscalculated so badly. Ownership comes to understand how they allowed it to happen, and how they can prevent similar mistakes in the future. Fans think back to their initial reactions, and recalibrate their expectations going forward. The media re-read their hot takes, reflect on what they got wrong, and vow to do better next time. This step has never actually happened, but scientists believe it is theoretically possible.

 

Stage 20: The next contract

OK, see, but this time it will be different…

 

yawn!

[yungmack]

Ain't that the truth.

[Ronin]

1 hour ago, BADOLBILZ said:

These are actually steps 1 & 2 for a lot of our regulars.

 

Straight from never-heard-of-em' to there.

 

ROFLMAO!!! 

 

Just what I was thinking.  

 

Then on to this; 

 

Quote

 

Stage 18: The revisionist history

You may not reach this stage until years later, but it will come. Actually, somebody will try to tell you, the deal wasn’t that bad. Actually, everybody liked it at the time. Actually, this newly discovered stat suggests that the player was better than you thought. Actually, the deal was horrible but it prevented the team from doing some other even more horrible thing so that makes it good.

 

 

There are actually people that think that Whaley did a good job.  Let's not forget that he left the profession altogether unless one considers the XFL part of the profession.  LOL  From GM to XFL admin.  

 

Then there's the "what would you have done?" which is used to attempt to pen-in the critic, to which I always respond, not put myself in the original situation to begin with, which is usually one of desperation.  

 

And of course the "we didn't know, no one knew."   That's the beauty of the draft "experts" all saying essentially the same thing with none of them ever stepping out of the mainstream on their "independent" analyses.  Talk about resting in the safety and comfort of the mass mentality.  Makes one wonder given all of the draft busts how come almost none of the so-called experts can ever pick them out ahead of time.  

 

Good stuff!  

 

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2019 by Ronin

[Reed83HOF]

1 hour ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

 

These are actually steps 1 & 2 for a lot of our regulars.

 

Straight from never-heard-of-em' to there.

 

 

LOL. So very, very true!

[eball]

35 minutes ago, vorpma said:

yawn!

 

Hey, but thanks for copying it all!

 

 

15 minutes ago, Ronin said:

There are actually people that think that Whaley did a good job

 

Funny, the guy you quoted (BADOL) is one of them!

 

 

Edited July 8, 2019 by eball

[Reed83HOF]

14 minutes ago, Ronin said:

 

ROFLMAO!!! 

 

Just what I was thinking.  

 

Then on to this; 

 

 

There are actually people that think that Whaley did a good job.  Let's not forget that he left the profession altogether unless one considers the XFL part of the profession.  LOL  From GM to XFL admin.  

 

Then there's the "what would you have done?" which is used to attempt to pen-in the critic, to which I always respond, not put myself in the original situation to begin with, which is usually one of desperation.  

 

And of course the "we didn't know, no one knew."   That's the beauty of the draft "experts" all saying essentially the same thing with none of them ever stepping out of the mainstream on their "independent" analyses.  Talk about resting in the safety and comfort of the mass mentality.  Makes one wonder given all of the draft busts how come almost none of the so-called experts can ever pick them out ahead of time.  

 

Good stuff!  

 

 

 

 

It perfectly profiles this board - all of it. The author even got all of the cliches and arguments that have been said on this board repeatedly. You and Badol hit the 3 big ones, but how many times do these ones creep on this board?

 

Stage 13: You grudgingly decide to give the new guy a chance

Fast forward ahead a few weeks. The rush of early July is long past, the dog days of summer have slowly dragged by, and training camp has arrived. He didn’t force anyone to sign it. He just negotiated for the most money he could, same as you or anyone else would want to do. And he’s saying all the right things. He seems genuinely happy to be here. You even heard something about him being in the very best shape of his life, and nobody would say that if it wasn’t true.

 

Stage 14: The first few shifts of the exhibition schedule

Nope, he’s awful. You were right all along. This contract is a disaster.

 

Stage 16: The years go by

At some point, those defenders from Stage 11 might emerge to take a victory lap, as if we don’t remember that they all jumped ship in the years in between.

 

Stage 17: The inevitable buyout

By the way, it should go without saying that if and when the player returns for his first game back with his new team, he will look amazing and score the game-winning goal. Just accept it now.

[Ronin]

8 minutes ago, Reed83HOF said:

It perfectly profiles this board - all of it. The author even got all of the cliches and arguments that have been said on this board repeatedly. You and Badol hit the 3 big ones, but how many times do these ones creep on this board?

 

Stage 16: The years go by

At some point, those defenders from Stage 11 might emerge to take a victory lap, as if we don’t remember that they all jumped ship in the years in between.

 

OMG, hilarious!

 

Particularly that one.  Everyone knew in hindsight.  ROFLMAO!!!

 

Victory lap ... ?

[ColoradoBills]

I guess I have been guilty of some of these "stages" as a fan.

Going forward I will avoid that by hating every move from any team I'm a fan of.

 

I feel better already!

[Rocket94]

I have experienced some of these stages at times. Not to the extent of some fans who feel we should sign every guy on the waiver wire...including creating a stable of tight ends!

Edited July 8, 2019 by Rocket94

[Boca BIlls]

You aren't supposed to look at the last few years of an NHL contract. That quote doesn't do anything but state the truth.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Boca BIlls

[MJS]

This was kind of Sammy Watkins for me.

[BillsFan17]

I'll be enduring this through the life of Anders Lee contract with my Islanders.

[row_33]

1 hour ago, Boca BIlls said:

You aren't supposed to look at the last few years of an NHL contract. That quote doesn't do anything but state the truth.

 

do they still backload it all until the player is 41 years old for the NHL?

 

i remember it becoming an issue when a player under this kind of deal skipped off to play in Russia suddenly

 

 

[Reed83HOF]

6 hours ago, BillsFan17 said:

I'll be enduring this through the life of Anders Lee contract with my Islanders.

As a Rangers fan, I am okay with Panarin's contract. I expected worse

[eball]

2 hours ago, ScottLaw said:

Of course. The Rangers have rebuilt their team in a matter of two short years..... its amazing that owner also owns the knicks who are a tire fire.

 

Gee, it's almost as if you shouldn't draw comparisons between the stability of teams in different sports even if they have the same ownership.

 

There's a lesson to be learned in there somewhere...can't quite put my finger on it.

 

Edited July 9, 2019 by eball

[GunnerBill]

20 hours ago, Reed83HOF said:

It perfectly profiles this board - all of it. The author even got all of the cliches and arguments that have been said on this board repeatedly. You and Badol hit the 3 big ones, but how many times do these ones creep on this board?

 

Stage 13: You grudgingly decide to give the new guy a chance

Fast forward ahead a few weeks. The rush of early July is long past, the dog days of summer have slowly dragged by, and training camp has arrived. He didn’t force anyone to sign it. He just negotiated for the most money he could, same as you or anyone else would want to do. And he’s saying all the right things. He seems genuinely happy to be here. You even heard something about him being in the very best shape of his life, and nobody would say that if it wasn’t true.

 

Stage 14: The first few shifts of the exhibition schedule

Nope, he’s awful. You were right all along. This contract is a disaster.

 

Stage 16: The years go by

At some point, those defenders from Stage 11 might emerge to take a victory lap, as if we don’t remember that they all jumped ship in the years in between.

 

Stage 17: The inevitable buyout

By the way, it should go without saying that if and when the player returns for his first game back with his new team, he will look amazing and score the game-winning goal. Just accept it now.

 

Yea stage 16 is the one. People who just a year ago were telling me that Kelvin Benjamin was a legitimate #1 receiver option for the 2018 Bills who now like to ridicule him and blame every ill of the offense on him. It happened with Tyrod too. There are many of the "Tyrod can be a franchise Quarterback" or "he is a top half of the league Quarterback" who now say "yea that was bad because of Tyrod, thank heavens we moved on."

[Reed83HOF]

3 hours ago, ScottLaw said:

Of course. The Rangers have rebuilt their team in a matter of two short years..... its amazing that owner also owns the knicks who are a tire fire.

It is amazing how toxic Dolan is in the NBA, while in the NHL his team has no problem attracting and signing talent.