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Originally posted by Leslie Grossman
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MW yds/catch are greater in spite of the speed. I'm thinking Brown is on the downside of his career. He's sure not the big threat he was at Arizona.THE YEAR OF THE FLIP! -
From Ian Raport (@RapSheet)
The #Giants are releasing veteran guard Kevin Zeitler, clearing nearly $10 million in cap space. Even in a tough free agent market, Zeitler will be in demand considering how well he played.
Another OG to the mix in free agency. That is going to be a deep position in free agency to choose from. Chargers have zero reason at this point to not have better players on the OL next with as many players on the market and their available cap space.Comment
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FA guard market loaded....Adopted Bolt: Kimani Vidal RB
Final prediction: Latham OT, Colson LB, Sainristil CB,Rice WR, Zinter OG, Nourzad OC, MacLachlan TE, Vidal RB, Lovett DT
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I have no idea if he is a better fit than say Gabe Jackson or potential free agents like Feiler, Feliciano, among others. But the market is large for teams that need upgrades at OG and will be some pretty damn cheap players by the end of next week after the initial wave of free agency. Hell, the Chargers might be able to get better depth than Feeney, Tevi and Lamp. At worst, Lamp will be the minimum and Tevi might be a 2-3m. Feeney the same.Originally posted by ghost View Post
Its like the person that put the Breer quote in this thread about "send out an offer, you have two hours or I am moving on to 5 other names"Comment
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Has sickle cell disease. Not a good idea when we go to Mile High once a year.Originally posted by Leslie Grossman View PostComment
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Albert Breer wrote this piece on Monday before the craziness of the cuts and franchise tag. But I thought it was interesting and wanted to share. It looks at how agents and teams might be thinking about this weird offseason. It might also explain why TT is still holding on to certain players still instead of cutting them right away.
The storm that’s been forecast is closing in on NFL teams, which have nine days left to get their salary caps in order before they have to be in compliance. So yesterday I had one team’s cap chief run the numbers for me—and list out how much space every team would have, straight from the NFL system, against a $183 million salary cap (which is around where teams are planning for the number to land).
Here’s the amount of cap space there was league-wide late on Sunday morning.
1. Jaguars: $86.42
2. Jets: $78.96 million
3. Colts: $70.89 million
4. Patriots: $68.74 million
5. Washington: $56.77 million
6. Broncos: $45.48 million
7. Bengals: $42.55 million
8. Panthers: $31.25 million
9. 49ers: $28.02 million
10. Chargers: $25.60 million
11. Dolphins: $24.34 million
12. Browns: $22.85 million
13. Cowboys: $21.78 million
14. Ravens: $19.61 million
15. Texans: $18.18 million
16. Buccaneers: $15.06 million
17. Cardinals: $14.95 million
18. Lions: $13.60 million
19. Giants: $7.61 million
20. Titans: $6.33 million
21. Seahawks: $6.23 million
22. Steelers: $5.33 million
23. Bills: $3.59 million
24. Vikings: minus-$4.94 million
25. Raiders: minus-$7.01 million
26. Bears: minus-$7.45 million
27. Packers: minus-$9.66 million
28. Falcons: minus-$17.84 million
29. Chiefs: minus-$21.11 million
30. Rams: minus-$26.26 million
31. Eagles: minus-$29.73 million
32. Saints: minus-$46.22 million
Now, that’s without agreed-upon trades being processed (For example, the Lions will take on an extra $10.5 million cap-wise as a result of the Matthew Stafford trade, while the Rams will incur an additional $2.5 million hit), and it’s also without franchise and transition tags (since those aren’t signed yet, or even assigned in some cases), restricted free-agent tenders or money allotted for signing rookies factored in.
So before another set of expenditures, four teams are more than $20 million in the red, nine teams are over the cap and another five on top of that have less than $10 million in wiggle room. Which means nearly half the league is somewhere between financially handcuffed and totally screwed.
If your eyes are glazing over look at these numbers, I won’t blame you. But any discussion of the 2021 offseason has to start with them. Because they will affect every little bit of how business is done in the league the next two months, and maybe beyond that. And it’ll start in earnest this week.
Step 1 for some teams is going to be finding a way to loosen the bottleneck we referenced above.
Even if the TV deals get done and provide some relief—and that’s the hope of many (and even then, most of the deals won’t kick in until 2023, which means the union would still have to negotiate the NFL borrowing against future years to fund this year’s cap)—that fifth highway lane isn’t coming back. So right now, most are working on ways to merge on to the NFL’s metaphorical four-lane fiscal freeway.
The first way to do it, for the more cap-strapped teams, will be to try to get value back for some high-end, high-salaried players. As such, there are a lot of names that have been floated for trades in football circles over the last couple weeks. Here are some:
Saints LB Kwon Alexander: New Orleans got the hyper-athletic linebacker at the deadline last year, and he was fantastic before a torn Achilles ended his 2020 season. With a $13.4 million price tag, he’s more likely to be cut than traded.
Bengals DT Geno Atkins: He has relatively reasonable numbers the next two years ($12.2 million, $13.45 million) but turns 33 in March, and a shoulder injury severely hampered his game last fall. He’s another one who will probably be cut if he’s not traded.
Rams DL Michael Brockers: Still just 30, and under contract at a reasonable $9 million this year and $9 million next year, Brockers is available. Teams have also called on Robert Woods, though L.A.’s been hesitant to move him in the past when interest from contending teams has surfaced.
Eagles G Brandon Brooks: Among the NFL’s best guards before he got hurt, a torn Achilles cost him the 2020 season. But he was healthy enough to practice before the end of the year, and the 31-year-old is under contract the next four years for a reasonable $53.2 million, and just $10.5 million this year. There have been trade discussions here.
Raiders OT Trent Brown: Somehow, Brown is still just 27 years old. The contract he signed two years ago has matured nicely—he’s due $29.25 million the next two years. I don’t think the Raiders will cut him. But he’s got value, and if they could get something back for him, while addressing their messy cap situation, they’d be amenable to moving him.
Eagles TE Zach Ertz: The writing’s been on the wall here for a while. The Eagles can save close to $5 million on the cap (and $8.25 million in cash) by moving him. And he’s just one of a few very high-profile Philly thirtysomethings who have elicited phone calls.
Patriots CB Stephon Gilmore: Gilmore’s injury at the end of the year complicates what seemed to be a fait accompli in midseason—that Gilmore would be traded to a place that would be willing to pay him what New England didn’t want to on an extension. Gilmore’s number for 2021 is just $7.91 million. Whether he’d play at that number elsewhere is another question.
Raiders S LaMarcus Joyner: Again, Vegas has to find money, and Joyner’s 2019 free-agent contract is one place to do so—he’s due $9.95 million this year and $10.05 million in 2022. He’s been a disappointment for the Raiders, but there’s still talent to work with there.
Saints RB Latavius Murray: New Orleans’s cap is a well-established nightmare right now, so Murray absolutely can be had and may be cut otherwise. But if anyone wants a reliable veteran back, Murray is under contract at $6.8 million the next two years.
Jaguars G Andrew Norwell: Norwell is making $12 million this year (with a $15 million cap number) and $13 million next year (with a $16 million cap number), and the Jaguars went to him asking for a reduction on that. The result of that? They may wind up dealing him.
Browns TE David Njoku: Cleveland wanted a third-round pick for Njoku at the trade deadline last year, and with the team having invested in Austin Hooper and carrying a promising young player, Harrison Bryant, at Njoku’s position, the former first-round pick is available again.
Saints WR Emmanuel Sanders: Sanders turns 34 in March, and is still probably worth the $8 million he’s slated to make this year. But at this point, he’s a luxury the Saints can’t afford to have.
Packers DE Preston Smith: Green Bay still really likes Smith, but his production in 2020 (four sacks) wasn’t what it was in 2019 (12 sacks), and the Packers have a former first-round pick, Rashan Gary, waiting in the wings behind him. That makes this an easy place for Green Bay to save $12 million. And the 28-year-old Smith could be a short-term fix for a team that doesn’t want to pay for Carl Lawson or Yannick Ngakoue on the open market.
Giants G Kevin Zeitler: Zeitler’s been available in the past. Now, with the Giants sorting through some cap issues, and with promising young linemen like Shane Lemieux on the roster, even more so.
Chargers G Trai Turner: He’s fought injuries, but Turner is still just 27 years old and has played at a very high level in the past. The catch is that his base for 2021 ($11 million) is high and he’s headed into the last year of his deal.
On paper, it may seem to make sense for this team or that team to make a move on one of these guys. But for the teams looking to trade guys away, it’s already proven more difficult than you’d think—in part because of the expected onslaught of cuts coming, an onslaught that will ultimately include a number of these names, and flood the zone with options for teams filling needs.
“I think it’s gonna be really hard for those sellers, I really do,” said one AFC GM. “The way I see it, and I’m just making this one up, but say you trade for Norwell, there’d have to be something in place that says you restructure the deal, lower his cap this year and maybe he’d get some of it back on [not-likely-to-be-earned] incentives. A lot of guys want to be traded to keep their money. But the numbers are too high. Teams aren’t fired up about it.”
One byproduct of that could be smart trades by teams with cap space—where they’d essentially use that space as an asset to bring in talent for below-market draft-pick compensation. Another byproduct would be Step 2.
Step 2 is teams finding a way to keep their rosters intact by going to veterans and asking them to take less money. Either with a chance to earn it back or just taking less, period. In a lot of years, that idea wouldn’t just be a nonstarter for most players. It’d be borderline offensive.
But this year, agents are handling it markedly differently—and mostly out of fear that a normal market won’t materialize for their players.
In some cases, the aforementioned NLTBE (not-likely-to-be-earned) incentives (with triggers the player didn’t achieve the previous year; and which, if met, wouldn’t count against the cap until the following year) are being used as a middle ground, in the same way they were when the Broncos went to Peyton Manning looking for him to take a pay cut before his final season in 2015. In others, like we said, a straight pay cut is being pursued (see: Roethlisberger).
In all cases, the players and agents are having to consider the likelihood that supply (with cut players joining a bloated free-agent class) will far outweigh demand (fewer teams with money to spend), and that, as a result, breaking the bank won’t happen this year. It’s not often that a player would take less to avoid free agency, but that’s where we are, in a place where only the highest-end guys (and maybe just a couple dozen of them) will get rewarded the way guys who hit the market normally do.
“It’ll be interesting to see how agents approach multi-year deals, or if they just take a little less this year on one-year deals and try to hit the open market next year,” said another GM. “I don’t think the top-tier guys will be affected. But you’re going to see a ton more franchise tags used, because those are more cost-effective with the cap where it’s at. You’re seeing guys tagged a second time. And with that second level, second-tier, second-wave guys, good teams are going to separate themselves, picking the right guys, getting the right value.”
That’s where Step 3 happens, with the opening of free agency just nine days away.
As that GM said, guys like Ngakoue, Lawson, Leonard Williams, William Jackson and Shaq Barrett will be fine. But older veterans like Alex Mack, Richard Sherman and Justin Houston may be looking at one-year deals, and certain younger vets looking for the big second-contract score may actually wind up wanting one-year deals as well, to buy another year for the market to recover (and there’s no guarantee of a big jump in the cap in 2022, which is further hamstringing teams).
And expecting even that is a little bit of a projection, with teams hesitant the last few weeks to have any sort substantive talks on numbers with agents—mostly because they still don’t know where the cap is going wind up.
“I still think we’re where we were, and will be until we know what the cap is,” said one veteran agent. “It does handcuff teams. They’re expecting it to be under $185 million, and they’re all negative nellies to begin with. But we really don’t know where it’ll land, and these TV deals don’t kick in until 2023 anyway. We don’t know where the negotiation is with the union. … What teams are saying is basically, It’s hard for me to do anything with players, extensions, pay cuts, whatever, until l know the cap.”
Which is why so many teams have waited this long to make their cuts, and some will continue to wait until they know for sure where the cap is.
With all of this happening, all of these GMs and coaches, as well as their staffs, are getting ready to start working the most important pro day circuit of all time.
It’s important, first and foremost, because for a lot of these evaluators it figures to be the only shot they’ll get to see much of this year’s draft class in person. There’s no combine. There was a Senior Bowl, but different teams approached it in different ways. There won’t be private workouts or “30” visits. And very few NFL folks were going to schools or college games in the fall.
But it’s also important because the one foolproof solution to this salary cap problem for everyone lies in the draft. It’s where NFL teams find cheap labor, and is the one place the difference could be made up, after they have to cut an old reliable linebacker or the Pro-Bowl guard who was simply making a couple million too much.
And that touches every piece of this issue too. Teams might be less willing to part with picks in trades for veterans as a result of it. Teams might be less willing to pay a free agent or more willing to cut a vet if they like a certain position in the draft. Teams might feel emboldened to deliver an ultimatum to a starter on the roster if the class coming from college has a few guys like him.
That particular reality of this offseason isn’t pretty.
But then, not a lot about the next few weeks figures to be.Comment
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Chargers are under the cap by 26 and will be 37+ after they release Turner. So unlike many teams - they have the ability to see how the two day legal tampering window goes with players currently on their rosterOriginally posted by Xenos View Post
With the thought that Michael Davis is back - do they reach out to S Griffin and see if interested, if he is - Hayward is released; if not Hayward might stick around - for your other CB, or he sticks around with a paycut
Maybe they look into a different DL - and can than release Joseph
It might suck for Hayward, Harris or Joseph to be released this late in the game - but again, its the way of the NFL.
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Interesting option if we are targeting a day 2 tackle, who may not be ready to start for a year or two reliably.Originally posted by MagicMamba88 View PostAdopted Bolt: Kimani Vidal RB
Final prediction: Latham OT, Colson LB, Sainristil CB,Rice WR, Zinter OG, Nourzad OC, MacLachlan TE, Vidal RB, Lovett DTComment
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MW & HH are worth the same $10m/year.... Mike w/lower catch rate and more depth behind him.
send MW to Cleveland, sign Njoku in return.. Jared Cook also a consideration.
good bye to Turner & Harris... 'nother go 'round for both Casey and Linval.5/11 Fuaga, 37 Kamari Lassiter, 40 Sinnott, 67 Bralen Trice, 69 Cedric Gray, 105 Jaylen Wright, 110 Braelon Allen, 140 Joe Milton, 181 Khristian Boyd, Tylan Grable, 225 Daijun Edwards, 253 Miyan WilliamsComment
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