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In a hard capped league you lose a lot of structural advantages. That’s the point of the hard cap, eliminating structural advantages. In the hard cap it’s about spotting talent that’s cheap, building out, don’t over pay, and don’t get enamored of stars. I think Jones finally started paying attention to the Redskins, who under Snyder have been trying to build teams pretty much the same way Jones does, and having even worse results.

Steelers are in good shape. 3 trips to the SB in the last 10 years with 2 wins. They screwed up on getting rid of old talent, that’s what put them in the situation they were in. They had an old offensive line and an old defense. They fixed the o-line and are fixing the D. They also did a crappy job picking WRs, they’ve let a lot of guys go after 1 contract, and they were right to let them go (they really aren’t doing any better on their new teams), which means they were wrong to draft.

When was the last time you heard of a player giving a “prestige discount”? “Home town discount” sure, “prestige discount” never. Prestige means nothing for signing players. Also the best teams are really built from the draft not free agency. As soon as a team starts making high profile free agent moves you know they’re over paying for talent. Look at the regularly successful teams the last decade, they almost never sign anybody in the first week of free agency, aka the expensive week.

Dallas has had a number of bad coaches. And a number of castrated coaches. And a number of coaches that used to be good. Garrett is really the first time since the SB years Dallas looks like they have a pretty good coach who is actually being allowed to coach. The wall your coaches hit was their own talent. Coaching counts more deeper into the season, when your opponents have more film on you and more opportunity to inspect your tendencies, and more time to figure out how to crush them.

Most of the “odd irregularities” in the NFL are based on expect the data to be something it actually shouldn’t be. Like randomly distributed penalties.

They didn’t fire James, he quit to run for the Senate. And the “Tebow conspiracy” people are, frankly, crazy. ESPN guys mostly seem to like him as a person, but they were doing their job and pointing out he was seriously flawed as a player. That’s not a diss, that’s the job.

2010 to 2012 Cowboys were coached by the terrible (and castrated by Jones) Wade Phillips and then the not quite ready yet Garrett. They were a sloppy team that made sloppy mistakes. As for ball fiascos, they happen all the time, people only care when it gives them a chance to call Belichick a cheater.

Steelers games only resemble Cowboys games when the Steelers aren’t doing well. In general they’re a much more disciplined team, taking fewer stupid penalties and doing a better job of the little stuff. It’s not charmed, it’s discipline and reputation.