Sunday, June 7, 2009

A quick update

ESPN.com's Mike Sando mentioned this blog again in his June 7 post about the 2010 comp picks, and he provided a helpful piece of information, as well. Sando said he can confirm that, as expected, no teams extended June 1 tenders to any of their remaining Unrestricted Free Agents. As I explained in my most recent post on this blog, that means any additional UFA signings this year won't be included in the equation for the 2010 comp picks.

Sando also asked for my analysis of the Seahawks' outlook for 2010 comp picks. That's a pretty easy one, so I'll oblige. The Seahawks signed four UFAs and lost seven UFAs by June 1. One player they signed (Bryan Pittman) and two players they lost (Will Heller and Howard Green) did not sign for enough money to qualify. That leaves three signed and five lost who might qualify. Of those, one player they signed (John Owens) and one player they lost (Floyd Womack) are on the bubble for qualifying. I labeled both of them as "high bubble" players in my previous post, meaning that their average contract values rank near the upper end of the players on the bubble. The Seahawks also signed T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Colin Cole, and they lost Rocky Bernard, Maurice Morris, Leonard Weaver and Bobby Engram. As long as none of them get released before a certain point in time (seemingly Week 10 of the regular season), all six of those players should qualify for the comp equation. Whether Owens and Womack qualify might depend on their playing time, although they also might qualify even if they never play a single snap.

Unless Seattle releases and thereby disqualifies Houshmandzadeh and/or Cole, the Seahawks once again won't get a comp pick higher than the seventh round. (They got three seventh-round comp picks this year.) Houshmandzadeh and Cole both signed for more money per season than anyone the Seahawks lost, and they would cancel out the losses of the two highest-valued players the Seahawks lost, Bernard and Morris. The other players Seattle lost, Weaver, Engram and Womack (if he qualifies), would be worth seventh-round comp picks at best, based on their average contract values.

If none of the players involved are released, the Seahawks could receive one, two or three seventh-round comp picks, depending on whether Owens and Womack qualify. If they both qualify, or of neither qualifies, the Seahawks would get two comp picks. If Owens qualifies and Womack does not, Seattle would get one comp pick. And if Womack qualifies but Owens does not, the Seahawks could get three comp picks.

There are two other details that I should mention. The first is that if Owens does qualify, even if just barely, he would cancel out the loss of the Seahawks' highest-valued seventh-round comp player, which almost certainly will be Weaver. That would leave Seattle with a comp pick for Engram and possibly one for Womack, if he qualifies. It's a small detail, but it would mean that the Seahawks' first seventh-round comp pick would be a little lower than it would be if Owens did not qualify. The second detail is that if Womack does qualify and Owens does not, even though the Seahawks' equation would say they should get a comp pick for Womack, it's possible that the maximum of 32 comp picks could be reached before the pick for Womack is awarded. In that case, Seattle would not get a comp pick for him. There's only a slim chance of that happening, but it does need to be mentioned.

As I said, the Seahawks' situation is an easy one to analyze, but that doesn't mean we already know exactly what they'll be getting when the NFL hands out comp picks next year. There still are far too many factors involved in the equation that could change between now and the end of the regular season.

2 comments:

Denver Hawkfan said...

Nice post on the Seahawks comp pick deal. Way too confusing for me but the way you explained it made it make sense. Nice work. What is this blog about? I did not see a title or explaination as to what this blog is for.

AdamJT13 said...

It's just a personal blog where I write about various NFL topics. Originally, I created it as a place to post my annual comp pick projections so that anyone could find me to ask questions. I've always posted my projections on various message boards, and they get re-posted by other fans on dozens and dozens of other message boards. Fans on those boards always have questions about them, and I get people asking me to go to various message boards to answer other people's questions. I try to find as many of them as I can and answer whatever questions people have, but it would be easier if people just came directly to me with their questions. That's why I created this blog. If enough people come here with their questions, I won't have to go all over the Internet to answer questions anymore.

Although my blog initially was going to be about just the comp picks, I've posted about a few other NFL topics as well -- mostly information that people might find useful about things such as the draft, the salary cap and contracts. I might include a few posts about statistical things during the season, too. We'll see.