Excellent Read About The Brian Hartline Signing

good read, thanks for the link. hartline has been pretty good and hope he has good chemistry with tannehill. one thing i'd like to see from him would be a little more strength, 8-10 lbs of muscle,, upper and lower body, would make him a better player. maybe even add a little speed/quickness if done correctly, idk dude just looks like he could add a little mass ya know.

 

So $6.1 million per year for a WR that has averaged 15 ypc and 8.5 ypt is fair...I would agree with that.

Particularly when there isn't an abundance of talent available at WR in FA and the only WR most consider worthy of the #12 pick (Patterson) is raw and most likely a developmental project.

Good re-sign.

 

Translation: "Let me exclude something that undermines my argument."

Lots of assumptions here, none of which I agree with or see much support for. The author does his best to establish that Hartline, Meachem, and Robinson are equivalent players and therefore Hartline's deal being equivalent to theirs is just fine. But the "market value" argument is silly. Robinson and Meachem are overpaid, and were overpaid for by GMs clinging to the last bits of their job security. Meachem, who I like, received a particularly mystifying contract—possibly as an overreaction to Vincent Jackson's situation.

The core concept here, that Hartline's deal is OK because the market is willing to pay large contracts, is silly to me. Hartline's deal isn't the worst, but it seems the result of desperation after the WR market shrunk (Miles Austin restructured, Dwayne Bowe re-signed) rather than the result of disciplined cost projection.

Not a fan of this contract or this article.

 

You realize you just called his contract fair and then noted WR being thin in FA, right?

 

There are a lot of Dolphins fans who put a premium on some combination of combine measurements, fantasy football scoring, pure hype, etc. over sound roster construction.

 

It's the NFL. First, if you don't like the contract anymore, restructure it, trade him or cut him. Second, it's not like 6m a year is a crippling number that limits us from doing anything else.

It's not like we're gonna be the Mets, who are still paying Bobby Bonilla until 2035.

 

The Dolphins GM does the same thing

 

If that was the case you guys would love him.

 

No, the translation is, you cannot compare the two simply because they are two white WRs. The situations are very different. Apples and Oranges.

I think this article does a good job to show that it was a pretty fair deal. Also factoring in should be that Hartline's deal was signed a year after the other two. Contract figures go up every year so on a 5 year deal you need to find an average that's going to stack up for the life of the deal. If Hartline continues to get better (which is a reasonable expectation), this deal should be a great bargain in the later years of this deal.

 

well, doesnt supply and demand come into play at some point of another? If Player X is the best player left at his position this year he is going to get more than if he is the 5th player at his position… Right? (Not say Hartron is the best at his position or that I agree with the contract, just pointing out that who is available has a direct impact on how much a guy may get).

 

LOL, is he (BB) even going to be alive in 2035?

 

The problem I have right now is that we dont know if it is a good deal or not because we dont know what the base salary is for each year of the deal. When we get that info we will know a lot more. As I have said before, if the contract is backloaded and Hartron is getting 1 mil base salary each of the next three years that will mean he is getting about 5 mil per if he gets cut after year three.

 

The Dude was solid with top CB's keying on him all year long.
This is after he didn't play in throughout pre season and still came in (and started) without true knowledge of the O?
I like the idea that he's a gamer and proved that he can play without a true #1 and delivered the goods.

 

yes, and the player will likely be paid more if the supply happens to be low for his skill set <outside possession receiver in this case>, hence the cost not necessarily being fair. Hey, I was simply pointing to the inconsistency in his post is all.

 

excellent move by the dolphins

 

Maybe you can interact with the authors explanation/justification for excluding Nelson... Perhaps leaving that out because it undermines your argument

 

Jeez, imagine someone finding so much excessive talent, that it actually suppresses Jordy Nelson to such minuscule production. Couldn't fathom
Someone creating that kind of stable of talent and production! Not to mention the positive cap results.

 

Dont forget playmaking and TDs.

 

That first thing is a totally empty platitude that in practice is only used to differentiate players the person using it likes from those he doesn't, and all the logical standards that would go with it are applied at best inconsistently.

 

So using your rationale, Hartline's contract is ok because we have a GM who's job is on the line., just like Meachem's and Robinsin's were, therefore, it's a good contract since it's a tad more reasonable, right ??? LOL

Seriously, the market is the market...if Hartline had hit FA, after Bowe and Jennings sign the appropriate contracts they'll get...Hartline would arguably have been next in line along with Amedola.... As fans, we gripe and gripe about not having a good enough team, but guys like Hartline are part of that 'good' team...

Additionally, who's to say that his TD production won't improve with better players around him ?? Putting a Jennings, Wallace or even Patterson opposite him just might take some pressure off and when he's being used appropriate to what he is (a #2 WR) then his production just might improve...think of Wes Welker when he was here...his production was just average...put some All-Pro's around him and *poof*, he's a superstar... I actually don't expect that from Hartline, but then I didn't expect that type of production from Welker either...

 

Enough with this Hartline fluffing already. The most annoying thing about Hartline is when fans drastically over blow his ability, in turn forcing others to correct them and in the process make it seem like we're hating on the guy.

Hartline wasn't "solid with top CBs keying on him"; if that were the case he would've received an 8+ million/year contract and with more guaranteed than $12.5M. The only thing that changed from 2009, 2010, and 2011 was the fact he was targeted MUCH more in 2012 b/c we had NO ONE else to throw to other than Bess, who doesn't even belong as a starter. Hartline was targeted 26% of the time, which is on par with Calvin freakin' Johnson. That's twice as much as 2010 & '11.

In fact his key stats were DOWN across the board when forced to be the main guy.
Yards per attempt, yards per catch, 1st down%, and TD% were all lower.

Excluding the severely busted-coverage, 80 yard TD that greatly skews the stats, his truer yards per target is 7.7, good for 45th in the league.
His catch rate was good for 50th.
1 TD tied him for 70th.
1st down% per reception was 41st (among players with at least 350 receiving yards).
YAC was tied for 75th (terrible considering he was 22nd in receptions). This ties in with his 1 TD.
.... and despite receiving a ridiculous 26% of passing targets he had 8 games with 50 or less yards.
.... was virtually no where to be found in 4 of our wins with 8 total catches for 70 freakin' yards.
On top of that, was caught from behind on an easy TD vs Zona that would've won the game, dropped a TD in the endzone vs the Jets that would've won that one, and couldn't break a shoe-string tackle vs San Fran that could've easily changed the course of that game.

He's a good, complimentary possession receiver who is not solid enough on his own to be anything more than that.

 

Yeah, it's almost like the author hand-picked Meachem and Robinson because they fit his premise that Hartline is not overpaid. But completely disregards any comparison to Nelson, or anyone else for that matter.

 

AJ Smith giving an OBVIOUS system WR like Meachem that contract makes Jeff Ireland look like Ozzie Newsome.

 

AJ Smith is a better GM than Ireland is or ever will be.

 

I think that's a bit absolute isn't it? I'm just saying that most arguments are not clear cut. If they were why would there be an argument for either, or any option?

For instance I could easily state that the reason you said what you said was due in large part to information he presented in his argument did little to persuade you change your preconceived notions on the topic. Typically you won't be able to change those notions outside of overwhelming irrefutable evidence or that the person wishes to change their beliefs on their own. Outside of those two its hard to do.

 

Well, I'm not an Ireland backer by any means....but I find it hard to believe anyone who watches football thought Robert Meachem was worth 6.5 M.

 

That has always been the case and the first thing any astute observer should check when perusing a newly signed contract.

 

I don't believe that is true.

 

It matters when it takes up cap space preventing you from signing playmakers.

 

Personally, I place the most premium on studies conducted at The University of My Eyes.

 

Patterson is not on my top 5 board in the first round.

 

If AJ smith got rid if Bree's to draft Rivers than he has as many issues as anyone.

 

You can't eliminate his 80 yard play unless you eliminate any busted coverage plays for all wide receivers. Otherwise you're taking away 80 yards from Hartline and then comparing him to every other WR's total yardage total.

I do agree with your main point though. I just didn't agree with that one method that you used.

 

I agree, we don't know how good it is until we see the specifics. From what we do know though, I think the deal is fine. And if it's backloaded it doesn't necessarily mean he'll get cut after year 3. If he continues to trend upward he may be well worth the money he will be making then, or at the very least he could be worth a restructure. I do expect the early cap hit to be relatively small though.

I would guess Moore's deal is backloaded too. I'd bet a decent chunk of it is in the 2nd year allowing the Dolphins to cut Moore after this year and move on with Devlin as the backup if both Tannehill and Devlin continue to develop to the Dolphins liking.

 

Right. A lot of folks, it seems, are getting on board with Austin at 12, myself included.

 

I'm not sure if this is sarcastic or not. Are you suggesting playmaking and TDs aren't important to consider with WRs?

 

If Miami had extended Hartline after the 2011 season, he'd have probably done so for what Nelson got, in a heartbeat. The Packers wisely gambled on future expected production and it paid off in this case. It was reported Miami was interested in resigning Hartline last summer. We don't know what they were offering then, but it's doubtful it was $6.1 mil/year. Nelson signed his extension after the 4th game of his 2011 breakout year. The equivalent would have been Miami extending Hartline right after the 2012 Arizona game.
Nelson had 15 for 292 and 3 tds when he signed his extension. Also, he was like this #3 WR at the time. He had only started 8 games at the time he extended.
Hartline at that point last season had 25 for 455 and 1 td. By that time it was too late probably to expect to get a Nelson like bargain to extend Hartline. To get a bargain on Hartline, Miami would have needed to sign him to an extension around Feb 2012. Before Marshall was traded.