[washingtonismoney]

To circle back to an original point -- the transfer portal and how important it'll be -- I project it'll be a big factor, and the early stats from msqueri are just that, early, and don't reflect what'll happen in the future. 

Let me give an example. There's a sports consultancy, Statsbomb, which got its start selling analytics packages for another kind of transfers -- for the soccer market. They're now trying to expand into America, for our kind of football. As part of their expansion, they've been promoting their services for scouting guys for our kind of transfers. Even without considering the Deion effect, a lot of guys are going to try and get paid by promoting trends. I'm sure this board has enough consultants (or knows enough) to know that sometimes an ambitious consultant creates trends even when they might not exist otherwise. 

You can imagine, for example, opportunistic coaches doing "second draft" type stuff and picking off players from bad teams. Sure most of the Stanford football team isn't great...but might Collin Wright be a useful player for a corner-starved team? Or what if you have a weak wideout room...might you see if you could entice Tiger Bachmeier to develop in your system for a year? Anyone familiar with the soccer transfer market knows the talent wars, in a truly free market featuring really rare human capital, reach a level of aggression most can barely contemplate. Ultimately it's Taylor's job to basically re-recruit the roster every year.

[washingtonismoney]

To circle back to an original point -- the transfer portal and how important it'll be -- I project it'll be a big factor, and the early stats from msqueri are just that, early, and don't reflect what'll happen in the future. 

Let me give an example. There's a sports consultancy, Statsbomb, which got its start selling analytics packages for another kind of transfers -- for the soccer market. They're now trying to expand into America, for our kind of football. As part of their expansion, they've been promoting their services for scouting guys for our kind of transfers. Even without considering the Deion effect, a lot of guys are going to try and get paid by promoting trends. I'm sure this board has enough consultants (or knows enough) to know that sometimes an ambitious consultant creates trends even when they might not exist otherwise. 

You can imagine, for example, opportunistic coaches doing "second draft" type stuff and picking off players from bad teams. Sure most of the Stanford football team isn't great...but might Collin Wright be a useful player for a corner-starved team? Or what if you have a weak wideout room...might you see if you could entice Tiger Bachmeier to develop in your system for a year? Anyone familiar with the soccer transfer market knows the talent wars, in a truly free market featuring really rare human capital, reach a level of aggression most can barely contemplate. Ultimately it's Taylor's job to basically re-recruit the roster every year.