Even though the scouting Combine is dominating the NFL world for the next few days, the business season marches forward as well. The Combine is where a great deal of league business gets done. Every agent is in town, every GM and personnel guy is in town, and most owners are present too. I always found the action in the hotel lobbies and restaurants much more interesting and important than anything done by the guys working out in the stadium. This is where a fair percentage of free agent deals are struck, where contingency trade discussions (we might be interested in your slot, what would it take?) start to really bud, and where coaching staffs are filled out. In that spirit, I shall now don my GM hat for $.05 worth of choices I would make. Technically the hat says “Cleveland Cavaliers” but I digress… $.01-- The Packers re-signed tight end Jermichael Finley to a two-year, $14M deal that avoided the franchise tag. I would not have paid that much for Finley. Green Bay is committing just under $6M this year and just over $8M in 2013 for perhaps the 10th best tight end in the league. His franchise tag figure was a little less than what the Packers will pay him in 2012, and it makes him the fifth highest-paid tight end for 2012 and the highest paid for 2013. Finley finished with 55 catches and 11 official drops, ranking 14th and 1st in the league respectively. In four seasons, he has 137 catches, 15 touchdowns, and 19 drops. I understand the market economics at play here. Finley’s contract is very comparable (though shorter) to what Seattle gave Zach Miller last season, and Finley is a more talented player than Miller. Finley is blessed with incredible physical gifts, most notably the consistent ability to get open deep down the seam; his 13.7 yards per catch is an outstanding number for a tight end. But he is undependable, has some injury history, and doesn’t seem to fit with the Packers culture of team-first humility and keeping matters internal. He’s also, at best, their #3 receiving option behind Greg Jennings and Jordy Nelson, both of whom will have hands out sooner than later. The one saving grace here is that both sides agreed to a short-term deal, which I strongly advocate for players in Finley’s position and it makes sense for the Packers as well. It wouldn’t surprise me if Finley comes up with a 60-catch, 850 yard, 10 touchdown season next year, but a 37-catch, 535 yard, 3 TD, 10 game season shouldn’t surprise anyone either. $.02-- With Finley locked up, Green Bay GM Ted Thompson’s attention now turns to backup QB Matt Flynn. In a seeming divinely conspired circumstance for Flynn, he hits unrestricted free agency after besting MVP Aaron Rodgers by throwing for over 400 yards and six touchdowns in the season finale against Detroit, a year after impressing against New England in relief of the concussed Rodgers for a game. Signing Finley frees up the franchise tag for the Packers, and they will be tempted to use it on Flynn to ensure he doesn’t get away without compensation. This is a risky endeavor, however; the franchise tag value for quarterbacks is $14.4M. That is more than Aaron Rodgers will cost the Packers in 2012, and it is asking a lot for a potential trade partner to assume that hefty of a risky price tag for a guy coming from Flynn’s circumstances. The new team will have to give Flynn a new long-term deal commensurate with what Arizona paid Kevin Kolb (five-year/$63M), plus surrender the Packers’ ransom price, likely a 1st round pick. I am not convinced Thompson and the Packers would find a buyer considering those terms. With three surefire top 10 quarterbacks in the draft, that wipes out about half the potential suitors. Veterans like Kyle Orton, Chad Henne and Alex Smith all have far more proven track records and will come significantly cheaper. Flynn has looked very good in his limited duty, but the context of that duty weighs against him. Take the Detroit game, where the Lions were playing without half their starting secondary and a third member was at about 50%. Green Bay regularly torched pass defenses all year with a barrage of receiving weapons that few teams can match, certainly none of the teams that would consider dealing for Flynn. I’m not saying he is Scott Mitchell, the poster boy for the perils of giving an inexperienced QB a big contract based on looking great in limited duty. But if I am a team in need of a quarterback this offseason, I’m not overpaying and blindly turning my team over to Matt Flynn either. It will be very interesting to see if Cleveland President Mike Holmgren, who plucked Matt Hasselbeck in almost the exact same scenario to great success, would do it. $.03-- Steelers GM Kevin Colbert announced at his press conference that the team really wants restricted free agent receiver Mike Wallace back on the team and will do whatever he can to make that happen. Well, duh! Of course Pittsburgh wants to keep Wallace, arguably the best deep threat in the game today and a player just starting to reach his prime. The problem is that keeping him will require an evisceration of talent at other positions to get the Steelers in compliance with the salary cap. Even after Ben Roethlisberger reworked some of the money in his deal, the Steelers are still at least $10M over the projected cap and that’s before giving Wallace a dime. And Wallace is going to demand about seven more zeroes after the 1 than a dime… But this cent isn’t about Wallace or whether the Steelers should do whatever it takes to keep him. This is about the ridiculousness that a General Manager saying he wants to keep a star player is treated by the Twitterverse and sports networks as “breaking news” along the lines of Osama bin Laden being killed or Whitney Houston OD’ing in a hotel bathtub. What else is Colbert going to say? That it would be nice to keep Wallace but we overpaid our quarterback and outside linebacker and that we have whiffed on a few too many draft picks and that causes more expensive dips into free agency? That we’d rather have the first-round pick as compensation because we’re pretty deep at wide receiver but have exactly one NFL-caliber offensive lineman and need to stock up? That our cap management skills are substandard and we have to let a very good player go because of it? Please! Nothing noteworthy comes out of orchestrated mass coaching or management press conferences, unless the coach speaking happens to be named Knight or Ryan. I understand that fans want every morsel they can get, but it’s not newsworthy when a GM announces to the world he would like to keep his star player on the team. $.04-- The Houston Texans have a very interesting decision to make on defensive end Mario Williams. A former #1 overall pick, Williams has hit free agency with a strange circumstance. Long the best player on some truly awful defenses in Houston, Williams was lost early in the renaissance season of 2011, bagging five sacks and 11 tackles in just five games. Meanwhile, Connor Barwin became a double-digit sack man, rookie Brooks Reed showed some legit flash on the other side, and JJ Watt quickly emerged as the impact defensive end and leader that Williams has never quite been in Houston. The Texans want to keep Williams, but it will be tricky. To use the franchise tag would cost an absurd $22M and bring about a similar situation next offseason, something neither party wants. GM Rick Smith has stated he will not rule it out, but tagging Williams means almost certainly losing restricted free agent RB Arian Foster. Williams seems resigned to the fact he is not going to command top dollar, but he certainly has an open market value above what the Texans can seemingly afford. With center Chris Myers, one of the most underrated players in the league, and guard Mike Brisiel also free agents, the Texans will have to get a serious hometown discount to keep Super Mario. I wouldn’t give it to him. For an affordable deal to get worked out, the Texans will have to scrimp every bloody cent from every other contract and still hope Williams will take it. Williams has been a great soldier, never complaining about his mostly sorry lot and quietly becoming one of the league’s better ends. And he remains a nightmare matchup as either a 4-3 defensive end or a 3-4 outside backer, with his blend of freakish size and great quickness and strength. The Patriots, Jets and Falcons could all offer more, and all need him more than Houston does. I know it is hard to let a franchise icon (as much as the Texans can have one) go without recompense, but Williams is a superfluous luxury. I would rather let him go and wish him well than beg him to take a significant pay cut from what he could get elsewhere and worry about how that impacts his motivation and his play. He has suffered season-ending injuries two years in a row now as well. It will be hard enough to keep Foster, arguably the best all-around running back in the league, even without paying Williams. Lock up the offensive linemen, hope Foster’s offers from elsewhere won’t be impossible to match, and let the Mario Williams era end in Houston. $.05-- A couple other wide receivers appear headed for the franchise tags. Wes Welker in New England and Dwayne Bowe in Kansas City are about as different as two players that play the same position can be, but both will get paid the exact same amount--$9.5M. Both players hold most of the leverage over their respective teams. Welker is the only legit NFL wideout New England has on its roster, and he is coming off a wildly productive season. He is Tom Brady’s personal security blanket. Without him the Pats offense takes a significant hit; he knows it, Brady knows it, and Bill Belichick and his management consigliores all know it. He has the most catches over the last 5 seasons by an obscene amount over all other comers. If I were the Patriots I would use the franchise tag as the only bit of leverage I’ve got to get Welker to agree to a long-term deal. Welker is 30 and has a lot of miles on his tires, but I would bet he can remain a 100+ catch guy for at least three more seasons. I would offer Welker 4 years and $60M, which is above the franchise tag rate and would put Welker in the top 5 in receiver contracts for at least the next two years. Frontload the deal so the major cap hit comes in 2012, where the Patriots have $$ to spend. He’s not going to get more than that on the open market, but if by chance someone tries, the cap figure is probably paralyzing. Bowe is a different animal. He comes off a very good season (81 catches, 1159 yards) despite a revolving door at quarterback, and although Steve Breaston looked solid as a #2 and Dexter McCluster is a nifty slot/back dynamo, Bowe is far and away the best passing game weapon they’ve got. But he is still prone to inconsistent streaks, and his five touchdowns are a disappointing number considering his abilities. He was much more effective in 2010 with a full healthy season from Matt Cassel, but that was in a different offensive system. I am not convinced Bowe will produce as greatly without Todd Haley pushing his buttons, nor after he gets a big contract. I think the franchise tag might be the best move for the Chiefs, keeping Bowe hungry for the long-term deal while seeing how well he fits into the new offense with healthy returns from Jamaal Charles and Tony Moeaki. If I were GM Scot Pioli, I wouldn’t work real hard on a long-term deal unless it winds up in very favorable terms, which is most certainly will not. I’d tag Bowe. $.06: Bonus non-football random thoughts -- I have not seen any of the movies up for any Academy Awards this year. Really the only ones I care to ever see are “Moneyball” and “The Descendants”. You could not pay me to watch a silent movie shot in black and white, even if “The Artist” wins Best Picture. Those movies were antiquated when my grandparents were teenagers. -- My 6-year-old son is very into basketball right now, and it troubles me that Layne’s basketball experience is so tainted by such terrible officiating at the college level. His coaches are trying hard to teach fundamentals and stress playing the game in a fair and respectful manner. So it really hurts when we watch Big East games where every rebound features at least one rogue elbow that never gets called, Pac-12 games where the guards are physically unable to dribble without carrying the ball but get away with it, and the Duke moving screen/holding-in-football base offense that has gone uncalled for decades. The collegiate refs need to clean it up if they ever want young players to get to that level with any hope of proper fundamentals. -- Very happy that I no longer live in Michigan, so that I am not subjected to the barrage of political ads leading up to the GOP primary. I don’t care who your dog is in the fight, the relentless beating over the head with negative messages and misleading claims ought to make you not want to vote for anyone. I once voted for governor of a state just based on which candidate had fewer ads that I saw that attacked the rival. -- Is there a worldwide shortage of white grapefruit of which I am unaware? It is my favorite fruit but I have not seen one in any market since I moved to Texas in 2010. They were very difficult to track down in Michigan the last couple of years there too. And don’t tell me to just eat the red or pink ones. I love the sourness and acidity of the white ones, and my favorite alcoholic beverage of top-shelf tequila with grapefruit juice and sea salt (garnished with an orange) is heavenly with white grapefruit but nearly undrinkable with pink. Okay, this last one is football related: -- When you are watching the Combine and looking at the 40-yard dash times, you need to put them into context. The 10-yard split is more important than the 40 time for every position except cornerback and wide receiver, and you need to look very closely at the difference between the total 40 time and the short shuttle drill time. If they are the same, the player lacks quickness. If the short shuttle time is a lot better than the 40 time, the player has poor long speed but much better quickness and burst. A player that runs a 4.41 40 but puts up 4.39 in the short shuttle is less impressive to me than a player at the same position that runs the 40 in 4.55 but does the short shuttle in 4.45. Follow me on Twitter @JeffRisdon