NFL Offseason 2022 - The Slog of Slogs!

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Looking at a few sites that project FA deals suggests that's not enough for a top tackle or DB and at best probably gets you a good but not great EDGE with enough left over for a middling starter at another position of need.

Depends on what you mean by "top" at many positions, albeit yeah OT and Edge are very highly paid these days.  You can get a lot of good starters at other positions for much less (or even at OT and Edge once you get into the mid-market guys).  More importantly, you're ignoring how contracts and cap hits work in the NFL, in which they're almost always back-ended in relation to the AAV when the guaranteed money runs out.  And in the case of a championship-caliber team, yes, being able to keep your guys is incredibly valuable as opposed to having to replenish starters solely through the draft.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

Depends on what you mean by "top" at many positions, albeit yeah OT and Edge are very highly paid these days.  You can get a lot of good starters at other positions for much less (or even at OT and Edge once you get into the mid-market guys).  More importantly, you're ignoring how contracts and cap hits work in the NFL, in which they're almost always back-ended in relation to the AAV when the guaranteed money runs out.  And in the case of a championship-caliber team, yes, being able to keep your guys is incredibly valuable as opposed to having to replenish starters solely through the draft.

Yes, I am ignoring those details because I'm speaking generalities. And you can only keep a team together for so long. The Pats just completely distorted how this is suppose to work.

As far as what a top player means, if you're asking a guy to give up >25% of their AAV they're going to want a Pro Bowl level player at the very least. They may shave their salary a bit to get a mid level guy, but that would only be a haircut.

QB pay is out of control, but I'm not sure there's much you can do about it unless you want to draft a new QB every four years and hope the ones you can trade off bring in huge pick hauls so you can constantly keep your team young and cheap. 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

As far as what a top player means, if you're asking a guy to give up >25% of their AAV they're going to want a Pro Bowl level player at the very least. They may shave their salary a bit to get a mid level guy, but that would only be a haircut.

Huh?  There's absolutely no reason to think this is the case because it makes zero sense.  If I was QB of the Niners, and they said they could keep Tomlinson, D.J. Jones, and add a solid but not great CB - OR just get one "pro-bowl level" player - I'm definitely choosing the first (Tomlinson did make the pro-bowl, btw, but the point stands).  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Huh?  There's absolutely no reason to think this is the case because it makes zero sense.  If I was QB of the Niners, and they said they could keep Tomlinson, D.J. Jones, and add a solid but not great CB - OR just get one "pro-bowl level" player - I'm definitely choosing the first (Tomlinson did make the pro-bowl, btw, but the point stands).  

This scenario doesn't really apply given the Niners are moving forward with a QB on a rookie deal and anyways, you're behaving like a fan. It's easy to spend other people's money. If you were Jimmy G, not yourself, and going to be the QB of the team next year, how much would you really give back knowing your window as a starting QB might be about to close and a SB trip is far from a sure thing? That's how you have to approach this.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

This scenario doesn't really apply given the Niners are moving forward with a QB on a rookie deal and anyways, you're behaving like a fan. It's easy to spend other people's money.

LOL, no, I'm not "behaving like a fan."  I am applying how the amount of money you proposed could be used - on either one "pro bowl level" player, or retaining two key starters and shoring up probably the biggest weakness on the team (CB) with a good but not great veteran pickup.  I used the Niners because that's what I know, but the point is the money works out the same if it were any team, using your own analogy.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

LOL, no, I'm not "behaving like a fan."  I am applying how the amount of money you proposed could be used - on either one "pro bowl level" player, or retaining two key starters and shoring up probably the biggest weakness on the team (CB) with a good but not great veteran pickup.  I used the Niners because that's what I know, but the point is the money works out the same if it were any team, using your own analogy.

You're taking the AAV of Mahomes' contract (and implied skill), subtracting the $20m I used as an extreme hypothetical example (which is never going to happen) and then are applying it to the Niners' current roster and cap situation. Do you not see the problem here? The Niners are currently over the cap, this contract would only make that worse so even if there was a 10% cut to it you'd still be losing players. 

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You're taking the AAV of Mahomes' contract (and implied skill), subtracting the $20m I used as an extreme hypothetical example (which is never going to happen) and then are applying it to the Niners' current roster and cap situation.

LOL!  Yes, YOU are the one that established the $20 million hypothetical - I myself said it was inflated from the start.  Since then, I've just been using it to point out how you can get either one "pro bowl level" guy or, alternatively, retain/get two or three pretty key guys.  And then you disagreed that "oh, but the QB would demand having one pro bowl level guy," which is total horseshit.  That's all this argument is about, stop trying to make it anything more.

[BigFatCoward]

It'd strange to be arguing 'this doesn't guarantee success' when it's exactly what the most successful player of all time did to be succesful.

Nothing guarantees success, but you play the odds if you want to be a winner rather than a rich loser. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

LOL!  Yes, YOU are the one that established the $20 million hypothetical - I myself said it was inflated from the start.  Since then, I've just been using it to point out how you can get either one "pro bowl level" guy or, alternatively, retain/get two or three pretty key guys.  And then you disagreed that "oh, but the QB would demand having one pro bowl level guy," which is total horseshit.  That's all this argument is about, stop trying to make it anything more.

You can't say it was both inflated (fyi the conversation started with Mahomes' contract) and then use the Niners to back your argument when you're giving yourself a ton of magic money above the cap and drastically improving the team before you have to make any decisions. Hence why I said do not use your team to justify the arguments you're making. 

16 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

It'd strange to be arguing 'this doesn't guarantee success' when it's exactly what the most successful player of all time did to be succesful.

Nothing guarantees success, but you play the odds if you want to be a winner rather than a rich loser. 

Okay, so we're going to model everything based off of the most improbable career ever? One that by the way won all it's unprecedented number of titles outside of Brady's prime? That by itself is a fascinating case study that can just be labeled "HOW?"

[DMC]

8 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You can't say it was both inflated (fyi the conversation started with Mahomes' contract) and then use the Niners to back your argument when you're giving yourself a ton of magic money above the cap and drastically improving the team before you have to make any decisions. Hence why I said do not use your team to justify the arguments you're making. 

JFC dude, how can you not get this:  I am solely using the $20 million dollars in cap savings YOU started with.  And then you argued you could only get one "pro bowl level" player with that money, and I'm saying that no - that in fact is wrong.  Because it is.  You could use it to on multiple guys that would make your team, clearly, considerably better than one high-priced player.  That's all it is. 

I used "my team" because I could identify specific players to illustrate the example, but the example is wholly generalizable to other teams - I just don't know the players they would want to retain/get.  If you can't understand that that doesn't really have anything to do with the Niners nor their cap situation, I can't help you.

[BigFatCoward]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

Okay, so we're going to model everything based off of the most improbable career ever? One that by the way won all it's unprecedented number of titles outside of Brady's prime? That by itself is a fascinating case study that can just be labeled "HOW?"

No, we are going to say, what is the best way to succeed? taking 25 million a year and being rich beyond my wildest dreams and getting some help? Or taking 50 million and making it very difficult to finding a path to success. 

That is my only point, it has only been tried once so the sample size is small, but it's clearly an option.

If dummies don't want to do that because it's more important to them to be paid more than their peers, than it is to be recognised as an all time great, that's their choice, its not one I would make. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

20 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

No, we are going to say, what is the best way to succeed? taking 25 million a year and being rich beyond my wildest dreams and getting some help? Or taking 50 million and making it very difficult to finding a path to success. 

That is my only point, it has only been tried once so the sample size is small, but it's clearly an option.

If dummies don't want to do that because it's more important to them to be paid more than their peers, than it is to be recognised as an all time great, that's their choice, its not one I would make. 

The clear and obvious counterpoint is that you can still be an all-time great while taking the money, meanwhile deferring the money doesn't actually guarantee anything. Say you take a way below market contract and it results in no championships. Did you still make a good business decision, especially in a sport where the contracts are mirages and the guaranteed money isn't the same as in other sports? Or imagine not taking the money, tearing your ACL and never being the same afterwards. In a sport like football you have to take the money when it's there because it can disappear just as quickly.  

If you care about maximizing potential and fair compensation, argue that the cap should be done away with and while you're at it nuke the draft as well.

[DMC]

43 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Did you still make a good business decision, especially in a sport where the contracts are mirages and the guaranteed money isn't the same as in other sports? Or imagine not taking the money, tearing your ACL and never being the same afterwards. In a sport like football you have to take the money when it's there because it can disappear just as quickly. 

It is quite amusing that you continue to ignore everyone else's arguments and pivot to absurdities like whether or not taking less money is a "good business decision."  It's even more absurd that you're bringing up the potential these elite QBs have career ending injuries and somehow will not still be insanely rich by signing a below-market contract.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

It is quite amusing that you continue to ignore everyone else's arguments and pivot to absurdities like whether or not taking less money is a "good business decision."  It's even more absurd that you're bringing up the potential these elite QBs have career ending injuries and somehow will not still be insanely rich by signing a below-market contract.

Because everyone's argument has been they'd take less money which they probably wouldn't do in their current jobs to win more when that's not at all guaranteed. And that's before you consider how so much of the actual money received would dwindle due to the nature of NFL contracts. It's pure fantasy. Meanwhile the people actually in these positions keep doing exactly what I would do and maybe that should tell you what the smart play is.

Or do you think the top priority within pro sports is winning a championship? 

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Because everyone's argument has been they'd take less money which they probably wouldn't do in their current jobs to win more when that's not at all guaranteed. And that's before you consider how so much of the actual money received would dwindle due to the nature of NFL contracts. It's pure fantasy. Meanwhile the people actually in these positions keep doing exactly what I would do and maybe that should tell you what the smart play is.

Or do you think the top priority within pro sports is winning a championship? 

No one's argument is that it's "guaranteed," it's just simply far more likely to give the QB a significantly better chance at success.  This is rather inarguable.  And while I agree with your point that since most QBs take the money like you would do the latter strongly suggests it actually isn't the smart play, as I said from the beginning I don't blame QBs for demanding market-level contracts and I don't think it's necessarily ego or greed.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

No one's argument is that it's "guaranteed," it's just simply far more likely to give the QB a significantly better chance at success.  This is rather inarguable.  And while I agree with your point that since most QBs take the money like you would do the latter strongly suggests it actually isn't the smart play, as I said from the beginning I don't blame QBs for demanding market-level contracts and I don't think it's necessarily ego or greed.

Semantics, and I don't agree that it makes it far more likely to a have significantly better chance to succeed. That's only true with a good QB on a rookie deal.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Semantics, and I don't agree that it makes it far more likely to a have significantly better chance to succeed.

Uh, if you don't agree that it doesn't significantly increase the QB's chance to succeed, then it's obviously not semantics.  Swear to god it's like arguing with a goddamn five-year-old.

[DMC]

BTW I think it should be emphasized that Brady wasn't the only one to do this.  Look at Drew Brees' annual cap hits.  His willingness to accept below-market deals clearly helped keep the Saints competitive too.

[Rhom]

7 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

That's only true with a good QB on a rookie deal.

Okay… I’ll bite.  Why does it only work with a rookie on a good deal?  All of a sudden when a QB hits year five; if they take a similarly team friendly deal… why wouldn’t it still work?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 hours ago, Rhom said:

Okay… I’ll bite.  Why does it only work with a rookie on a good deal?  All of a sudden when a QB hits year five; if they take a similarly team friendly deal… why wouldn’t it still work?

Because the gap between paying a rookie contract and a second contract for a star QB could be $30m AAV. Asking the star QB to take slightly less isn't going to really impact your team on average. You're still going to be paying them around 20% of your cap.