AU-panther

Teams have every right to cut a player, if players don’t like that should ask for 100% guarantees. Players have very right to not report and be unhappy about their contracts. Right or wrong this is the current CBA that they both agreed upon. Would not surprise at all if the owners tried to implement a rule in the next CBA that a player or team could not renegotiate any deal until one year left in their current contract. if that was to happen you might see a lot of players looking for shorter term deals so they can take advantage of rising salaries.

“Fluid” is code for we don’t know if we have 5 good guys yet

I’m going to try and be a bit positive here. Almsot every fan base thinks their offensive line is terrible, but in reality when compared to everyone else that usually isn’t the case. By some accounts out offensive line was middle of the pack last year. https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-final-2020-offensive-line-rankings I know people aren’t excited about who we added but who did we really lose? Okung ? He was hurt a lot. Who else? If we were middle third last year and didn’t lose anyone we should have a chance of being middle third this year. Maybe one of the rookies upgrades one of the guard spots, Maybe one of the younger players has another year under their belt and plays better. I’m not expecting a top-5 line or anything but it’s not crazy to see a scenario we would be too-15.

I get that, but is a 1yr/$2m deal for Short any worse than a 2yr/10m deal for Erving?

That's too bad if you don't post next draft season, the people who want to give you flak for being wrong are probably more vocal than the people who appreciate what you try to do. Also a lot of people were wrong about the Jones hype. A lot of so called connected national types.

People are fine with us paying 3-5 million a year for players that have never been good but not ok with a cheap one year deal for a player that was actually good at one time. I’m not saying we should, but Short on a cheap one year deal isn’t that huge of a gamble.

People are overthinking what was said. On game day a sack usually has a bigger impact than a pressure because loss of distance occurs. Of course there can be an exception, maybe QB gets pressured and throws an interception, that isn't the point of what was said here. Sacks can be an unstable metric with some luck involved. DT applies pressure up the middle, QB spins right into the hands of the DE who was actually getting block well by the LT. The DT actually did a better job. Pressures tend to be more of a stable metric. PFF has even found that pressures tend to predict future sacks better than sacks do. You actually see this some years where a player gets an abnormally high number of sacks and then gets a huge free agency deal off of that but then has less sacks in the future. Chances are his pressures were probably pretty consistent over those years but his sack total one of those years was a bit of an outlier.

Most but not all. I'm not saying his contract will prevent someone else from starting at LT buts it pretty obvious that when he was signed the coaches thought there was a good chance he would start. I will say though that it was small enough that it left the option of drafting Sewell on the table, and I think that was by design. If we would have drafted him he could started the season as the starter or a swing tackle.

5% is too strict. CMC, Cook, Kamara, Chubb, Elliot when healthy? Barkley his rookie year? Fans want to get too exact with rankings. All or most of those guys are top tier talents who will command top tier pay when free agents. Arguments trying to slot top players are what fans do on fan sites. Contract negotiations don't work exactly like that.

#32 is $2.5m based on average. His contract is $5m. He would actually slot it at #21 Left Tackle Contracts and Salaries | Over The Cap Fans tend to think of the top-5 contracts as being average when they aren't. Also he has the 13th highest cap hit on the team this year. If he starts and plays well he is a bargain compared to the top LTs in the game but not all of the starters. Conversely if he doesn't start or plays poorly he is a terrible deal.

Elite is a subjective term Is it top 3, top 5, top 10% at their position. Is CMC top 5 at his position? I would say yes. Is Moton top 5 at this position? I would say yes. Is Burns top 5? Maybe, maybe not but there are usually two edge rushers on the field at a time so maybe top 10 should be the threshold. Same with WRs, there are 64 starting ones, and more if you count slot. Is Moore top 10? Lets be honest there are a lot of good WRs in the league right now. Maybe its not as easy as a set number threshold but a performance threshold. Are there alot of WRs that play at elite levels. Personally I think people get too caught up into ranks, I try to keep it simple. Moton is a top tier RT and he got paid as such. CMC is a top tier RB and got paid as such. Moore is a top tier WR, imo, and will get paid as much. Burns is a top tier edge and will get paid as much. After that they guys aren't top tier or still unproven. Will Brown and Chinn develop into that? I hope so, they showed some good signs their first year. Most teams only have a handful of elite guys and honestly the way the cap is structured you can only pay a few and honestly QBs, even average ones teak up one of the expensive slots. Paying elite players elite money doesn't hurt you, most of the time you don't have enough elite players to really cost you too much. Teams get in trouble when they pay average players elite money, or below average players good money. We paid CMC a few years ago. Paid Shaq a decent amount. Paid Moton this year. Probably Moore next. Burns after that. After that you will probably have someone like Brown or Chinn, at that point one of the earlier guys will be off the books.

The top 3-4 guys are the recent ones. The league is changing, elite RT are getting very close to LT money. When looking at players value you have to not only look at what position helps you win more, you have to look at what is easier to find in the draft or free agency. What helps your team win more? A good RG or RT. Which is cheaper to find in free agency? Which is easier to find in the draft? Answer those three questions and that tells you which is more valuable.

I agree that deans hiss’s has often overrated lower value positions but I think you are devaluing RT. In recent years RT has been closing the gap on LTs. The league is changing, defenses like to move their best players around. Also one reason RTs are devalued somewhat in the past is because they often have TEs covering them up but on passing downs that isn’t always the case or if you have a playmakimg TE you like to split him out wide.

least valued spots? i understand the idea that RB and LB falls into that catgory but RT? What positions do you actually view as valuable? Maybe in a perfect world you pay your LT and not your RT but in that perfect world everyone has an elite LT. Just looking at offense what positions do you consider worthy of a top contract? QB, LT, WR, RT?

Erving is most likely the answer. The contract tells you that. One of the others are going to have to clearly outplay him to take the spot. I know Moton is what a lot of the fans are hoping but sometimes coaches are afraid to move a guy from a spot that he excels at. Also they might think they can fix Erving, he definitely has the measurables.

A lot of times people, especially agents, like to report it in terms of "new money". Which is what the 4yr/$72m is most likely. The average annual amount sounds better that way.

Fair deal to an elite player, at an important position, that is hard to replace.

Then don’t jump in the thread. Here again it’s a fan forum, people like to play armchair GM. Not to mention it’s a really slow time of the year.

Then why are you on a football forum? There is nothing wrong with fans having an opinion of what they would have done differently. Are you truly happy with how we addressed LT this year? It’s ok to have an opinion. Would you have drafted Horn? From reading your post I’m guessing no. My money is on you wanting Slater, but it’s like you are afraid to go out on a limb. I probably would have took Fields in the first and Rudinez in the second, that might look really stupid in a year, so what.

So what is RT salary? Do we know for sure he is asking for LT salary? Do we know for sure the team hasn't discussed the idea of him playing LT? Ramczyk just got 19m, maybe that is what he asking for. Either way, OTs are important and expensive. Also this idea of the LTs being extremely more important and valuable is a bit dated. RT salaries seem to be getting closer every year. OT, left and right are both valuable positions in today's NFL. Elite OTs, left and right, are hard to find. Elite OTs, even if you find them are expensive in free agency. If you are fortunate to have one pay them market, and be happy. You are correct that you can't pay top contracts to everyone on your team, but if you have a elite player at an important, hard to replace position, you pay them. How many elite players do you really think we have? Paying elite players isn't what hurts teams. Most teams really don't have that many elite players. Its overpaying the average or below average players that adds up. What you hope, if you have one tackle on a big contract, you find a way to fill the other spot cheaply, best case you draft one and have a cheap fixed rookie deal for 4 years. Personally I think a team should be drafting OTs at least once every few years. That way you constantly have one on a rookie deal.

A lot of us were not that high on Little, especially with a trade up involved, but I can appreciate the fact we did try to draft one. Fact is most LTs in the draft don't work out, outside of QB its probably the most difficult spot on the field to find quality. Good ones don't really hit free agency that often. You either over pay for someone like Kalil, hoping he becomes better than he has shown or you go cheap and hope to get lucky with someone like Bell. Everyone hated that experiment but looking back it hurt us less than the Kalil contract. Oher and Okung were actually good signings relative to cost, just injury issues. Your best chance is to invest early draft picks, give them 2-3 years to develop, and even then you might have to throw multiple "darts". 2020 draft is a perfect example of part of the problem, hard to pass on someone that feels like a sure thing (Brown) to draft a LT that might have a bit lower of a chance of succeeding. Same thing this year, outside of Sewell we probably felt a lot better about Horn than any of the LT prospects in the first. You almost have to commit to finding LTs, even if it means passing on better prospects.

If a QB throws a bad pass that hits the CB in the hands but the CB drops the interception that is a turnover worthy play. Doesn't show up in the stat sheet but still a bad play. QB throws perfect pass to WR that goes through his hands and the CB gets an interception. This is not a turnover worthy play even though it shows up in interception in a box score and therefore would hurt the QBs rating with some traditional grading systems.

You would expect a high school kid to continue to improve, especially with better coaching. Once a player in in the pros for a few years you have a pretty good idea of what they are, usually. Lets hope we get lucky with a few exceptions.

How many teams have really good back up QBs? There aren't 32 good starting QBs. Lets be honest, our starter by most accounts wasn't a quality starter last year, and now everyone is worried about our back up? Maybe everyone would feel better if we had some established vet with a name that everyone recognizes, but in reality he probably isn't that good anyway, hence the reason he is available.

Exactly^ We downgraded in some really important spots based on last years performances. People need to remember a lot of these type of list are based on last year. You can't base them off of what you hope happens this year, every team is hoping things get better. If Sam plays better in our system we will be better. If Erving or anyone plays better at LT than he has in the past we will be better. If Elflein plays better we will be better. If our rookies last year make the normal jump their second year we will be better. If a rookie CB plays great his first year we will be better. Lots of Ifs going on...