Superman

The Bucs are pretty tight this year and next year. They have $74m in dead cap in 2023 ($35m for Brady alone), and right now they're only $3m under the cap, with the draft class accounted for. They're projected to have less than $30m cap space next year, so they'll have some work to do. But they aren't struggling to put together a complete roster. While they did some restructures in 2021, that was mostly because the cap went down for the first time in a decade, out of nowhere. And they lost some players to FA last year. And they didn't trade away a bunch of first rounders, multiple years in a row. So even now, they have some flexibility that the Rams don't have. But 2024 is gonna be rough, they only have 29 players under contract next year. There's more flexibility with the longer contracts, but the Mahomes/Allen contracts are starting to look like bad deals for the players. The Mahomes contract was always slanted toward the team, and they've done two restructures already. Allen just did his first restructure. Schefter reported the Hurts contract has relatively low cap hits for the first FOUR years, leaving about $180m to account for in the last two seasons, so it's pretty obvious they'll be doing a restructure by 2027, and that's best case scenario. He could fall apart or seriously regress before then, and there's basically nothing the Eagles can do. And Mahomes will still have FIVE years left on his contract, at a yearly average less than what today's market value is. And what's going on with the Rams (and Bucs) is only partly about the QBs.

There was a lot of discussion about this last year. The Rams won the SB, then spent a bunch of money. The response from a lot of people was that the salary cap isn't real, because if the Rams can manipulate the cap rules to keep their core together AND add good players, then what good is the cap? They had a cap figure of about $200m, but spent $284m in cash. Fast forward to today. First, the Rams had an injury plagued season and only won five games. This would usually pay off with a high draft pick; the Rams would have owned the 6th pick, but they traded that pick to the Lions for Matt Stafford (along with their 2022 first rounder, 2021 third rounder, and Jared Goff). Then, the Rams were projected to be well over the 2023 salary cap, and to be compliant, had to make cost-saving moves. They released Leonard Floyd and Bobby Wagner -- two contributing members from their 2021 SB team. They traded Jalen Ramsey for a third rounder and a ST TE. Today, they're trading Allen Robinson -- one of the high profile players they signed in 2022 -- to the Steelers, swapping 7th round picks, and paying $10m of his $15m salary in 2023. In total, they're paying Robinson $25m over two years, for one year of service, 33 catches, and three TDs. They've easily lost 15 notable contributors from the Super Bowl team. (Sean McVay contemplated walking away because he was not sure he wanted to stick around for a multi-year rebuild.) This season, including their projected draft class signings, their projected cap figure is $214m, and they are $10m under the cap. But their cash spending is only projected around $175m, so far. The discrepancy is because of the dead money from restructures, trades, and releases that they've done over the last two years to manipulate the cap. And the worst part? They only have about 44 players under contract today! That means they still need 9 more active roster players, plus a practice squad. Their starting QB is pretty good when healthy, but he's coming off a weird arm injury at 35 years old, and they don't have a backup QB on the roster. They lost several other starter level players to free agency this year. And they're going to have work to do again in 2024 to field a complete roster while staying under the cap. (So after they restructure Kupp, probably, to get their 2023 roster on the field, they will have pushed some of his cap hit into 2024, when they'll have a similar cap/player problem. How long until Aaron Donald or Matt Stafford are like 'I'm done'?) People mocked Jim Irsay a few weeks ago for offering the Rams as a cautionary tale, because after all, their gambles helped them win the Super Bowl. Their fans -- and most people -- would take this trade without a second thought. But two things need to be acknowledged. (1) Going "all in" does not guarantee a SB; the Rams got VERY lucky in 2021. (2) The current state of the Rams is what "consequences" looks like. They still have some good players, and a good staff. It's possible they can still compete, but they are now a shell of what they were even before they won two years ago, and they're light on draft stock to replenish their roster cheaply. (If they still had #6 this year, they'd be trading back and getting 3-4 players for the price of one.) This is full blown FALLOUT from their very aggressive moves to acquire highly paid players. This is an extreme downside to very aggressive cap management. I would have just bumped the other thread, but it's archived. Just wanted to continue the discussion on this, a year later, when we've seen how things can turn out.

I see the two very differently than you do.

Tell me what happens with the first three picks... At this point, I think Stroud and Young will be off the board, and Levis will be the best one left. And I'd be fine with drafting him. I'd also be fine with trading out and picking up a 2024 first.

I don't get it, either. He's a bridge level guy who could easily be the starter for half a season or more, or be QB2 all year. We already knew the intention is to draft a QB. I don't see this signing as an indication in any direction.

I don't mind the signing, it makes sense, I was just never down with the mania.

This is a dream come true for so many of you.

I wonder if he's done with the Ravens way of operating, on and off the field. Struggle to get/keep good receivers (always, not just recently), constant changes to the offensive staff, and maybe some behind the scenes personal stuff. But that's entirely speculative on my part.

I get that. I think it's relevant at LG, ILB, if we pay JT it will be relevant there. It's an ongoing conversation, and there are several elements to consider there. I don't think it's relevant at kicker. Spotrac says McLaughlin's value is $4.1m/year. Matt Gay signed for $5.625m/year. The difference doesn't affect anything else the team wants to do, and 'highest paid FA kicker' isn't a meaningful designation in any way, IMO.

The league year starts tomorrow. This isn't even really a consideration if they intend to move off of any of the big money guys.

I was initially "meh" on this signing, mostly because I thought McLaughlin was pretty good and would have been easy to retain. But Matt Gay is still young, he's already proven in big time situations, he's a top five kicker right now, and should be rock solid for the life of his contract. He's also a good kickoff specialist, should that be needed. We've been shaky at kicker since 2019, and now we can (presumably) check that box off, not just in 2023, but for the foreseeable future. This is a good signing, IMO. Not exactly earth shattering news for FA Day 1, but I like it.

I'm dumb. I thought that's who the Bears signed, the names had me mixed up... My bad.

"The Next Brian Urlacher" is only getting $6.5m/year?

Merged.

Yeah that's what it seems like. But not only did the ESPN crew report it on TV, other outlets (Spanish, and radio) were saying the same thing. Maybe they're repeating what ESPN said? Or maybe someone on the field was saying 'we have five minutes to warm up' because that's protocol, while the refs and coaches were still figuring out what to do. But if we're taking Troy Vincent at his word, the coaches never discussed resuming play. So it was all likely a miscommunication.

It took a while to make an official statement, but it sounds like the game being postponed was the obvious outcome pretty early on...

Could be some people were saying that on the field, and it made it up to the booth. But we never saw any of the players warming up, right? I think maybe Burrow threw a couple warm up passes, but everyone else was just standing around from what I saw.

The "five minutes" thing is starting to look like a misunderstanding...

I don't even think the refs were 'instructed' to give them five minutes. I that was just their initial 'how do we handle this' reaction -- five minutes after an extended stoppage -- and the coaches immediately said 'that won't work.' Taylor and McDermott talked, and said 'we're going to the locker room,' and at that point there wasn't really any decision to be made. It was done, they weren't playing. The way it was presented on social media was like the NFL was trying to get them to keep playing and the teams had to win an argument to get the game postponed. I mean, it might technically be accurate that the teams made the decision, but that doesn't mean they were opposed in any way.

Yeah, the fact that the statement included the update on Hamlin's condition -- he's in critical condition -- shows that they wanted to provide that information in an official capacity. Had to wait for it, though.

Between ESPN, the Internet, and social media, I'd guess that nothing like this has ever been viewed by such a wide audience, all at the same time, with access to so much real time information yet not getting any real updates on the situation. I don't think this winds up having a harmful effect on the NFL, but I do think the situation is unlike anything we've seen before.

Agreed. There are an unknown number of moving parts that they (rightly, IMO) wanted to button down before saying or doing anything officially. The freak out mob started speculating, pointing fingers, and perpetuating the idea that there was a villain in the picture, when that was totally unnecessary, given the situation. There were comments on Reddit and Twitter during the ordeal, with people at the stadium commenting that concessions were shutting down, etc., well before the official announcement was made. It's my assumption that the coaches knew they weren't playing when they went to the locker rooms, which makes everything else irrelevant.

9-11, they did not play. All games that weekend were cancelled. Edit: "Postponed," not cancelled. https://www.si.com/nfl/talkoffame/nfl/tagliabue-and-2001-decision-not-to-play

I don't. I think they buttoned down all the different technicalities and informed all the parties, and then put together a sanitized statement as the first official league response. But when the refs told the coaches 'five minutes,' and the coaches looked at their players standing in shock and said 'nah, we're going to the locker room,' it was obvious the game was not going to continue.

No of course not. But usually after a game like this everyone starts calling for the coach to be fired, and it made me wonder.