Peon Awesome

Exactly. I never bought the statement that they would bring in Bridgewater as a backup. They'd have 40+ million tied up in two mediocre qbs when they have more pressing needs like trying to resign Trent Williams. I think they view Garoppolo the way we view Bridgewater: not good enough and not worth the price tag but until they get an alternative on the roster it'll be a bit tough to move on right away. They figure they may as well explore buying low on Teddy, seeing if Shanahan can make something out of him and save some money in the process by jettisoning Garoppolo. But until they're fully ready to get rid of Garoppolo, they have to publicly pretend he's still their qb and they're just looking for backup options.

I think one potential pathway for Jones is to take a top tackle at 8, e.g. Slater, and then hope Jones slides in the 1st round and trade up from our 2nd round pick to take him. Obviously this requires him to slide more than predicted which is the biggest gamble but it hasn't been unheard of for a qb to slide towards the end of the 1st when people had them mocked in the top 10, especially one with those question marks. You might jump up to pick 24 or so if he's there, give up our 2nd, 4th and next year's 2nd maybe. Resign Moton, get an interior lineman on day 3 and the line is looking a lot better. Jones probably doesn't last that long but I think if we're counting on him to turn around this franchise, we have to hope he does or the chances of him fulfilling that don't look as good.

Over the cap uses the same savings razorwolf quoted. The discrepancy seems to hinge on whether the player performance escalator, which makes Thomas base salary so much higher this year, is guaranteed or not. I looked through the language in the CBA and it says that it isn't, so I'm inclined to believe the $2 million in savings. And at that rate, I can definitely see him being a cap casualty. But probably best to wait and see how our tight end situation settles out first unless we really need that money now.

I don't think the situation is as dire as some make it. With the way most teams line up in nickel coverage half the snaps, we may only play 2 linebackers a good portion of the game. If we do keep Shaq, it'll be Carter and Shaq (or Chinn, but then we need another safety). So it comes down to finding a part-time starter and some depth. Throw in Christian Miller who can easily jump in on blitz packages (and hopefully more) and some combination of cheap free agents or mid to late round picks and we're fine. I'd much rather invest more heavily in offensive line and cb

Thanks brothers. You always have the inside scoop

Looks a lot worse for Judon. How insecure and vindictive do you have to be to lash out so juvenilely because someone reported from a source some numbers on a contract offer that were reportedly not true? And the writer responded multiple times to say he would happily update the report with his side of the story. Also, what is in the picture that is anymore damning then him just announcing that he was at the strip club with him? Was he snorting cocaine off a stripper's chest? Otherwise you kind of already played your cards buddy. Anyhow, I think this might keep some teams away from Judon. I mean, a lot of teams probably were going to stay away by his asking price with only 6 sacks but this doesn't help.

Ideally if he can adjust to becoming a 4-3 OLB, we would shore up a weakness and allow Chinn to play as a defensive back full time. I could see him thrive in the role as a the 5th pass rusher in blitz packages. If he can be even semi-competent in coverage and run support, he could force himself into the starting conversation. Lots of ifs but I'm hoping he surprises.

Let's do away with the narrative that there's little chance to find a qb in 2022. Most people agree there are at least a couple college qbs that are on a similar level as Fields or will be after another year like Howell and Rattler. Every year a fringe prospect or 2 launches up draft boards, like Wilson this year or Burrow last. So there's a good chance we'll have another top 3 or 4 on par with this year (minus Lawrence). Now add veterans that teams might move on from or make available for trade: Aaron Rodgers, Carr, Russell Wilson, Kirk Cousins, and even possibly Watson if the team stands firm this year. Possibly others: who thought Watson might be available this time last year. And even if some of those names aren't long-term answers, they could put us in immediate contention with good drafts and free agency and buy us a couple more years to find the long term answer. Don't get me wrong; I'm totally fine with drafting a top qb prospect at 8 if available. Or you could even sell me on trading 8 and a 4th to move up to 6 or 7 to get one. But if neither of those is a realistic option, I'd much rather sit tight, draft Slater or Sewell, cover other critical positions of need like CB and IOL in the 2nd and 3rd and figure out qb later. To me that's much more likely a recipe for success than sacrificing that much for an unknown that will be asked to play behind a patchwork offensive line with limited resources to upgrade.

Both Fitzpatrick and Hopkins were good trades but let's not get carried away by calling them blockbusters. They got Fitzpatrick for a single 1st round pick. Hopkins was had for a 2nd round pick. Your definition of blockbuster seems way skewed. I'll give you Adams as a "blockbuster" perhaps but if we look back in 3 years are we sure we're going to say that was a definite win for Seattle? They gave up 2 1sts and an ok starter for 1 year of Jamal Adams. And in that 1 year they couldn't make it out of the wildcard round after making it to the divisional round the year before. Now if they want to keep him, they're looking to have to pay him $20 million per year on a multiyear deal. Not many winning teams succeed giving that much to a box safety. He might be worth it more than others but it leaves less money for more prominent positions, like the offensive line that's letting Wilson get hammered and may drive him out of Seattle. I have a feeling history is not going to say that was a slam dunk win for the Seahawks. But we'll see.

Because if we trade a bunch of picks this year and miss, we're doing it with the base of a 5-11 team and the future picks we give up will be much higher value with no hope of improving anytime soon. If we invest our picks in players we are confident can contribute at positions of weakness and build a complete team with fewer deficiencies, we can get to the position where we're effectively one piece away from true contention and can afford to sacrifice a few picks. And it doesn't actually have to be draft picks. We can sign a free agent qb or trade for 1. Sure, doing what the chiefs did exactly is not common. But building a complete team and then finding your franchise qb isn't that rare. That's exactly what Tampa did. And seems to be what the Rams are trying this year. And to a less successful extent, what the 49ers did that launched them to a super bowl in 2019 (and what they might end up doing again this offseason). It's honestly incredibly rare to think of teams with a lot of holes giving up valuable draft capital moving up to the top of the draft and ending up happy with the decision when all is said and done. The Redskins with RG3, both the Rams and Eagles happily dumping their qbs (and yeah the Eagles won a super bowl.. with Nick Foles) and the Jets probably not far behind with Darnold.

Well I'm happy for the people who will be excited for the Panthers in 2021 if we trade multiple picks for Fields (or Wilson or whoever). But if they end up busting or even being in the range of someone like Sam Darnold or Daniel Jones, cause let's be honest, that's FAR more likely than them becoming elite franchise-changing qbs, suddenly we're no better off than we were with Teddy and now out multiple additional picks, making our future even bleaker. So good for you being all excited for 2021 only to ultimately be down and out on the team in 2022 AND 2023. Great trade off. I for one am not ruling out any option here. There's more than one way to build up the team than get a new qb right this second. We could invest heavily in the offensive line, get back a healthy CMC, probably make Teddy look half way decent to something along a 9-7 season and then throw our chips in the middle a la Kansas City for our franchise qb in 2022. You're telling me us competing for a playoff spot will make you tune out all season? If so, I feel sorry for you. Our team needs to upgrade a lot more than 1 position. So far we've made plenty of smart offseason decisions with plenty of cap space and some exciting young pieces to build around but plenty of work left to do. I'm not going to apologize for not throwing a temper tantrum if they don't mortgage the future for one player and actually focus on making the most competitive team possible. But to each his own.

The biggest issue is it would commit us to both players in 2021 when it seems like neither is a given. Technically we can save money by cutting or trading either this year. Why take that off the table for cap money we're not remotely desperate for at this time? If they were clearly in the plans for 2021, maybe it's not totally unreasonable, but two players underperforming their contract that have outs feasibly this year and easily next year aren't who you honor with more guaranteed money.

We only save $200,000 cutting him this year. That's not even enough to cover half the salary of an undrafted free agent. Keep him one more year to see if he can make anything of himself as an emergency backup, but unless he really turns it around, cut him in 2022.

Yes and no. You're correct if by cutting him next year, you actually meant this year. His contract is up next year. We only have this opportunity because the contract has dummy years on it to lower the cap hits of the last couple years. This move essentially commits us to keeping him for his last year because now cutting him doesn't save us any money since it nearly fully guarantees his contract. The benefit is we save money this year when the cap is depressed and push some of the cap hit to next year when the cap is expected to go up and we'll have plenty of extra space. Smart move if we're sure Paradis is part of our 2021 plans.

Multiple concussions didn't affect his brain?

It is baffling how many people say you trade for Watson no matter what you have to give up because a franchise qb changes everything, even though a Houston playoff team traded away multiple picks to win now, gets a fantastic year from a healthy Watson, and actually LOSES MORE GAMES THAN THE PANTHERS. Wake up people. Yes, make an aggressive offer for Watson. But be reasonable about it. If it doesn't afford you a realistic opportunity to build a complete roster, then we shouldn't do the trade. It's as simple as that. Unless of course your goal isn't super bowl wins and just having a more fun offense to watch. But I'd prefer bigger picture.

You have to be out of your mind if you think Brian Burns, the 8th pick and the Panthers 2022 1st rounder isn't enough for pick 2. Any GM who would trade all of that for the 2nd pick would rightly never work anywhere within a billion miles of an NFL front office. I shudder to think anyone would even consider that trade for the Panthers, let alone think it's not enough.

Why stop there though? If you're Houston and trading away Watson and I'm offering 3 1sts, 3 2nds, Burns, CMC, and Donte Jackson but not including DJ Moore, Chinn and the next 3 3rd round picks too, are you taking my offer seriously? I mean you're not offering every single valuable asset you have? What kind of fool do you make me out to be?! How dare the Texans even consider an offer including 3 1sts and a promising young pass rusher in Gross-Matos. Get out of here with that weak crap.

If we learned anything from last year it's that jumping to sign players at the start of free agency rather than being patient and waiting for players' values to declare themselves is not smart business. That's how we ended up handing out a big contract to Bridgewater rather than sitting tight and seeing that comparable players were getting paid peanuts. I hope we stay minimally active for the next couple months outside of perhaps super low ball bargain contract offers. As time goes on, fewer and fewer teams will have any cap space and even better quality players will get cut as teams scramble to make more.

2009-2011 was almost historically awful. The numbers don't even tell the whole story. It includes the Everette Brown trade up in 2009 and Armanti Edwards in 2010. Cam Newton was the only player worth a damn in 2011 despite picking number 1 in each round. Hurney was very rightly fired after that although drafting Kuechly and Norman in his final year was his saving grace. That being said, by the same metrics Hurney was surprisingly excellent before 2009. He was top 10 in 6 of his first 8 years, and 12th one of the other 2. He really only had 1 bad year in 2003 but even that draft had Jordan Gross and Ricky Manning Jr. So much for that start.

Your numbers seemed too good to be true so I had to double check. Unfortunately the number you're quoting doesn't include our dead cap. Our cap hit is actually the number you quoted plus the dead cap number you mentioned. So you have to take out another $20 million. So we actually have about $18 million right now. Of course that number will be a fair bit higher after more obvious cuts take place like Weatherly. I figure when all is said and done we'll have about $30 million without trying and could be significantly more if we wanted to get creative or offload some contributors but that seems unnecessary.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/hof/hofm_WR.htm This is a pretty neat resource. Puts Steve Smith kind of on the bubble but their average Hall of Fame value is skewed by Jerry Rice blowing everyone out of the water. The only eligible players not in the HoF ahead of him (and not by much) are Reggie Wayne and Torry Holt and I suspect they will both get in soon. They both probably would have been in by now but suffer from being overshadowed by another player on their team already in the hall (Isaac Bruce and Marvin Harrison) whereas Smith doesn't suffer from that problem as the bona fide #1 his career. Also if you alternatively sort the list by approximate value, only Reggie Wayne is above him. My guess? I think he is comfortably in and should get elected by around year 3 of eligibility but first ballot seems unlikely. As an aside, both Julius Peppers and Luke Kuechly comfortably make the thresholds, so expect them to be in, probably 1st ballot, even with Kuechly's abbreviated career.

That's the thing though. You're referencing the past whereas I'm referencing the future. Where did I praise our handling of the last few years or suggest teams are envious of the Panthers of the last few years? I am in no way praising our previous management. You're completely missing the point of my post if that's the takeaway. The whole point is we've been mired in an awful cap situation for the better part of the decade and saddled with tremendous amounts of dead cap the last couple years and finally, when lots of teams are seeing the squeeze of a contracting COVID-effected cap, our cap situation is above average and only likely to get significantly better with the last few bad contracts of the old regime set to come off or with an easy out by 2022. Granted, that's assuming our new GM doesn't eff things up, but I think most people are cautiously optimistic he has to do a better job than what we've had. Yeah, we have holes, who doesn't? We only have 2 free agents worth a damn to sign, 1 of whom honestly won't be worth paying his market even if we had $70 million in cap space and the other we will easily afford with little cap manipulation. We don't even have to make a single hard cut like lots of other teams. Cut just the deadweight that isn't helping our team anymore (Short, Weatherly, Palardy) and we'll have more money than we need. We're not at the point where recklessly spending millions in free agency makes any sense so why do we need $80 million anyway when the $40 million we'll probably end up with when all is said and done will more than suffice. Especially when teams like New Orleans are sitting without a qb and have to gut 1/3 of their roster just to get under the cap without signing a single free agent. Would I rather be New Orleans from 2017-2020? Hell yeah. Would I rather be New Orleans moving forward? Open to debate but for me, honestly no.

You got it all wrong. We have very little dead money on our books now. Most of it is Kuechly's. We'll add some to it with Short but it's not going to look anything like the last year or two. Our cap situation, as long as we don't screw it up moving forward, is looking pretty damn good over the next couple years. Stop living in the past. And I highlighted the absolute worst teams cap-wise for comparison. Some of them are good teams, but a couple are even worse than us. You're also forgetting we have the 15th most cap space. That means 17 teams have less cap than us. Not just the few I mentioned. Way different than having the worst cap situation in the league. Literally every single team with more cap space than us either has no real QB (like the Colts and Patriots) or a rookie QB, except for the Bucs, which damn, kudos to them. They also got Brady at a bargain. But goes to show, when you have a cost controlled player at the most expensive position in football, you're going to have more money to work with. We're already ahead of the curve despite having little cap to roll over with all the dead money last year. Now give us a 1st round qb and unload Teddy's cap hit next year and we'll be sitting near the top of the list.

Moton deserves a big payday and I predicted a couple months ago that his agent would clamor for him to get paid comparably to the highest paid left tackles. But there's a difference between what your agent is going to demand and what a team is realistically going to offer. Using Ronnie Stanley, a 1st team all pro left tackle the year before his contract extension, as a starting point for Moton, a right tackle who has never made a single pro bowl or all pro team, is silly. I'm fine with something around $15 million per year but anything pushing $20 million is getting a bit ridiculous.