2020 NFL: Offseason News and Notes

Cellar-Door

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I guess this truly was a "sign the vet to motivate the kid" move, but its gonna be rough if Trubisky does more of the same again

https://www.si.com/nfl/bears/news/bears-reportedly-to-name-trubisky-starter
If it was, trading a 4th and eating a ton of money was INSANE! Why not bring in Jameis? I mean, also you declined his 5th year option that should be motivation enough.
So now.... you are paying Foles $21M, you lost a 4th, your best case is Trubisky is better and you have to decide whether to pay him a year earlier.
 

Cotillion

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Jun 11, 2019
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I am surprised he still qualifies for Practice squad. Guess he didn't start enough games.

edit - just saw the other thread about the new practice squad rules. It makes sense now.
 

bsj

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https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/29826419/nfl-nixed-saints-wild-sign-trade-plan-land-jadeveon-clowney-source-says
Had to be the Pats, right?

A source confirmed that the Saints explored the idea of a unique sign-and-trade deal with an unspecified team to help them fit Clowney's salary under the cap, as the NFL Network first reported. However, the NFL said such a deal would not be allowed.

The idea was for another team to sign Clowney and pay his signing bonus -- then immediately trade Clowney and his remaining salary to the Saints in exchange for a draft pick. The other team essentially would have been "buying" a draft pick, which the NFL has never allowed.

The NFL Network reported that the Saints were prepared to send a second-round pick and a player to the unspecified team. However, a source said it never reached the point of a finalized offer since they reached out to the league for permission first.
 

cshea

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I don’t think the issue is the team buying the pick, iit is more the cap circumvention by New Orleans part. The Browns essentially bought a draft pick when they took Osweiler off the Texans hands a few years ago. This would be kind of the reverse.
 

tims4wins

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Yeah if I'm the Pats I may offer a 2-3 year extension right now, maybe make it fully guaranteed so that there is more chance he doesn't try to totally max out, so maybe adding 2 years and $32-38M guaranteed, something like that. He would still probably be more likely to test free agency I would guess, but you never know - he'll have made close to $90M in his career upon the completion of his Pats contract.
 

RedOctober3829

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Yeah if I'm the Pats I may offer a 2-3 year extension right now, maybe make it fully guaranteed so that there is more chance he doesn't try to totally max out, so maybe adding 2 years and $32-38M guaranteed, something like that. He would still probably be more likely to test free agency I would guess, but you never know - he'll have made close to $90M in his career upon the completion of his Pats contract.
It's crazy that Gilmore's contract doesn't even crack the top 10 highest for a corner anymore.
Jalen Ramsey, LAR, 5/105
Darrelle Revis, TB, 6/96
Byron Jones, MIA, 5/82.5
Nate Clements, SF, 8/80
Xavien Howard, MIA, 5/75
Josh Norman, WAS, 5/75
Trumaine Johnson, NYJ, 5/72.5
Darrelle Revis, NYJ, 5/70
Xavier Rhodes, MIN, 5/70
Patrick Peterson, ARZ, 5/70
 

BaseballJones

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Gilmore won’t be a FA until he’s 31 so he ain’t getting that, at least not from us. Will be interesting to see how Pats handle it. He is such a valuable player right now but you don’t pay a premium for someone’s post-prime years.
It's why JC Jackson's development is so crucial. By basically every metric, Jackson is a legit stud CB in his own right, and will make transitioning away from Gilmore much, much easier.
 

tims4wins

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It's crazy that Gilmore's contract doesn't even crack the top 10 highest for a corner anymore.
Jalen Ramsey, LAR, 5/105
Darrelle Revis, TB, 6/96
Byron Jones, MIA, 5/82.5
Nate Clements, SF, 8/80
Xavien Howard, MIA, 5/75
Josh Norman, WAS, 5/75
Trumaine Johnson, NYJ, 5/72.5
Darrelle Revis, NYJ, 5/70
Xavier Rhodes, MIN, 5/70
Patrick Peterson, ARZ, 5/70
It was a great signing. One of BB's only huge FA splashes ever.
 

SeoulSoxFan

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It was a great signing. One of BB's only huge FA splashes ever.
Jebeezus, both Miami corner signings are awful for that amount of money. Byron Jones for 5/$82.5m and Howard for 5/$75m?

Quick search found that Jones rated #17 through week 17 in PFF CB ratings. Howard was out of the top 25:

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-pff-rankings-top-25-cornerbacks-through-week-17
Are those contracts "better" or worse than 4/$51m ($30m guaranteed!) for KVN? Tough call.

P. S. On that PFF ranking, Gilmore was at #3, Jason McCourty at #9, and Jonathan Jones at #24. Both McCourty and Jones will make less than $8m combined for 2020.
 
Am I wrong to be excited about this extension...as a Falcons fan? The Saints are going to be in cap hell already when Brees retires - sooner rather than later - and running backs age in dog years. That doesn't seem like the best use of limited resources.

Mind you, in listening to a number of NFL preview podcasts over the past week, I've been pondering just how unfair running back compensation has become - to both players and teams at different points in their careers. Unlike virtually everyone else in the NFL, most running backs play their best football during their rookie contracts, and those that are still playing well enough to get their $$$ (like Kamara) almost inevitably fail to live up to their contracts. Is there any way to flip this structure so that in proportional terms, rookie running back contracts are much bigger and second and third contracts are much smaller? For example, what if there were a standard set of very generous incentives in all running back contracts (regardless of year) which could earn a Saquon Barkley type upwards of $10-15 million even in his rookie year if he truly excels but which would protect the team if he flames out, whether early or late in his career? Running backs would effectively become like pro golfers and get most of their pay based on how well they perform...which I think could work insofar as running back is the one position in football, even more than quarterback, where performance can be largely measured by easily understood numbers (yards and carries/touches, adding for touchdowns and subtracting for fumbles). Obviously factors like the quality of your offensive line and the defenses you play matter, but l kinda feel like RBs and GMs could find a common ground here that would work for both parties without opening a pandora's box for how other positions get compensated.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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That's not even close to what I wrote.
Then help me out with this, as I'm not reading it correctly I guess:

Is there any way to flip this structure so that in proportional terms, rookie running back contracts are much bigger and second and third contracts are much smaller? For example, what if there were a standard set of very generous incentives in all running back contracts (regardless of year)...

Edit: my take is you want specifically RB contracts to be under a different structure than any other, a la, by position. As Rookie deals are slotted by draft position, it would follow you want to have their (RB) contracts slotted differently. Maybe I'm missing a nuance there?
 

pappymojo

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It is asking to keep the rookie contracts slotted by draft position, but to include additional standardized incentives for each position to be baked into the contract.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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It is asking to keep the rookie contracts slotted by draft position, but to include additional standardized incentives for each position to be baked into the contract.
So my first question and certainly not ‘not even close’ to what was stated. The semantics don’t matter how you want to word them - if you’re baking in incentives based on position, you’re slotting each pick differently based* on their position. The point of slotting is entirely defeated and you then get the positional debates we see with hybrid guys and the franchise tag - is he a DE or a LB? He’s listed as a TE/FB, so he’s a RB if you want to argue, so let’s give him this contract. Well, if RBs get it, why don’t CBs? Or QBs?
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Also, it’s not about RBs (read:their agents) and GMs finding common ground. It’d require a change to the CBA. Anyone want odds on all the rest of players that can’t benefit from it voting for it?
 
My objection was to your implication that I was suggesting a structure for all NFL contracts by position, rather than just looking to carve out an exception for running backs. Because I don't think the whole system needs to be retooled - it's specifically running backs that are getting paid too little at the start of their careers and too much toward the end. There's not another position group where that's even remotely the case, is there? Performance for most players in the NFL, and indeed for most sports more generally, usually looks like a bell curve: you get better as you become more experienced, and then you get worse despite your experience as your physical abilities fade. But running backs start high and slowly, or sometimes dramatically, taper off from there. As to this...
Also, it’s not about RBs (read:their agents) and GMs finding common ground. It’d require a change to the CBA. Anyone want odds on all the rest of players that can’t benefit from it voting for it?
...if the amount of money other players are getting remains proportionately constant, and the amount of money running backs get over the course of their careers generally remains constant - with much of it just getting shifted from the back end of their careers to the front - then why wouldn't they support this sort of change?

This is all completely pie-in-the-sky, of course - I can't imagine this sort of thing actually happening. But if you do indeed acknowledge that there's an inherent unfairness in running back compensation, maybe it's worth spitballing possible ideas to fix it in ways that could benefit both players and teams? (I would note that the sort of unfairness I'm talking about is rather different from, say, the "unfairness" of having a Patrick Mahomes or Russell Wilson on a cheap rookie contract and being able to spend so much more on the rest of your team than teams with veteran QBs on massive contracts can; that inequality comes from being lucky/smart enough to draft and develop players who outperform the bell curve expectations for their position, not from the bell curve being shaped incorrectly in the first place.)
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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My objection was to your implication that I was suggesting a structure for all NFL contracts by position, rather than just looking to carve out an exception for running backs. Because I don't think the whole system needs to be retooled - it's specifically running backs that are getting paid too little at the start of their careers and too much toward the end.
This can be said about virtually every pro athlete in any of the four major sports. Players are almost universally paid for past production and paid less early on; it's no different in any business, when you start out you make shit by the end of it, you're probably overpaid and getting out performed by someone on the other end of the cycle. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. As to your objection, you can parse the distinctions all you like, you're talking about messing with the slotting system based on a position the player plays; once that cat is out of the bag it's defeated slotting and opens up all others. As to other positions being in the same situation or not, all I'll say is I don't have issue, nor does seemingly anyone else in the league, with how it works. So if you'd like to analyze the other positions, have at it; I'd argue OL, WR, CBs and DL all are able to make immediate impacts while on rookie deals and some get overpaid on their second or third, just like RBs do. You're making a cursory blanket statement that I don't think holds water.


...if the amount of money other players are getting remains proportionately constant, and the amount of money running backs get over the course of their careers generally remains constant - with much of it just getting shifted from the back end of their careers to the front - then why wouldn't they support this sort of change?
But if you do indeed acknowledge that there's an inherent unfairness in running back compensation, maybe it's worth spitballing possible ideas to fix it in ways that could benefit both players and teams?
Proportionately constant from an owner/player standpoint or from an individual and his peer? I assume you mean the latter, so the simple immediate answer is that under a capped system, the more one player makes, the less that is left for others. Let's say year one of the rookie deal they are NLTBE incentives, I guess?, since there's no baseline to work with. So he hits them and then gets a $5M bump; that $5M hits the books the following season. I'm not exactly sure how multi year incentives work, but I assume they'd then now be classified as LTBE for year 2. So that's another $5M that needs accounting for. Now there's $10M less for the team to spend on other positions. And so on. When they get into later contracts, the numbers and terms can be played with to spread that out and half any NFL deal is funny money to begin with.So I have no earthly clue why 95%+ of the union members that will see no benefit from it would agree unless they get something in return.

To the bolded, no I don't acknowledge it because it's an opinion, it's not fact. The system works how it was designed to. There is no conceivable way where making players more expensive is beneficial to teams. It's not going to save them on the back end.