![]() Most just choose to take the money train out of town, not the retirement shuttle. Jason Worilds' retirement was a surprise (Keisel's wasn't Taylor is going to wait until bicycles blow past him on the freeway to call it quits), but linebackers of Worilds' caliber have been leaving Pittsburgh since the days of Jason Gildon. The usual assortment of Steelers veterans is leaving town many of them (Brett Keisel, Ike Taylor) are too old to attract much attention elsewhere. By Steelers standards, signing DeAngelo Williams for two years is an Ndamukong Suh-level splurge, but it's the kind of move Chip Kelly made while brushing his teeth this month. Extending a franchise quarterback's contract is the opposite of "heat" it pushes franchise stability beyond the NFL analysis horizon (which, contrary to popular opinion, is not next Tuesday). The Ben Roethlisberger extension was the big story of a typically sleepy Steelers signing period. Net Change is not a final score, but it gives you a good idea of who is leading and trailing as the minutes wind down. Does it conveniently combine dozens of bulk deals into a ballpark number that may be more useful than shouting on Twitter, "OMG WE SIGNED VINCE WILFORK WE ARE NOW UNSTOPPABLE"? Absolutely. Could it be used to assign Winners and Losers? Probably, if you are into that sort of thing. While calculating the Heat Index, I also quantified each team's Net Change, a cocktail-napkin calculation of how much teams improved or declined based on the tier system. The decision to retain several veterans can be as bold as a free-agent spending frenzy. Re-signings and franchise taggings were also weighted and added to the mix, though they were worth far less "heat" than comings and goings. Tier 2 consisted of players ranked 21st-50th or regular starters exchanged in trades or retired. A Tier 1 player was one of the Top 20 players in the NFL.com free-agency rankings-or (if the player was not a free agent) a Pro Bowl participant. The Heat Index was calculated by ranking each player released, signed, traded or otherwise transacted into four tiers. Either way, the first step toward determining whether a team has gotten better or worse is figuring out just how different they really are. ![]() It's probably terrible for a Super Bowl contender. Change for its own sake might be a good thing for a 3-13 team. Think of "heat" as risk, transition, discontinuity, aggressiveness-or simply gross change. The "Heat Index" measures just how much a team has changed through free agency, trades and retirements in the last three weeks or so. How can you assess how well a team did if you cannot even quantify how much each team did? If one team adds two players, another adds four but loses six, and another loses one superstar but gains nine scrubs, how do you assign Winners and Losers? Everyone is playing a different game, especially when you start comparing rebuilding teams to contenders. Instead of handing out trophies, it may be more useful to take temperatures. We can agree to disagree or argue until the cows come home, but we all know one thing is certain: Free agency isn't even over yet, and you don't assign Winners and Losers late in the third quarter. "Free Agency Winners and Losers" articles may not be for losers, or for winners, but they are definitely not for you and me.
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