This super cheap philosophy is starting to annoy me. I'm glad we didn't overpay for AGED vets as in Ware and Hatcher, but Stephen Jones or whoever is running things now seems to think we are a mini-Patriots and we can get away with constant cheap contracts. You simply HAVE to pay for certain talent. We may have a great year this year, but just due to how everything is structured, all of our talented guys can now leave. Say Dez has an amazing year. Since he's not under contract, we either let him walk to some other team and we're back at square one waiting for some other guy to develop or we franchise him again, which will be a ton of money... or we can give him a contract, but due to franchising him the previous year, he will be even tougher to negotiate with. Say Hardy has an excellent year on defense. Teams will be coming with their checkbooks open.
It's like we're developing and auditioning talent for competitors.