Peon Awesome

For those balking at a 2nd, what are the chances a qb in the 2nd is better than Stafford? 1%? Stafford is 32 years old, not 50. You could easily keep him playing at a high level for the 4 years you'd have a rookie qb under contract for (assuming 2nd rounder). Then save pick 8 for a bona fide stud non-qb that could be a fixture for the next 5 years. I'd be surprised if he goes for a 2nd but we would be fools not to give that.

I would guess something like converting base salary into unguaranteed incentive money he has a low chance of earning (e.g. bonuses for a super bowl victory or 1st team all pro selection). Or they could tack on a low cost voidable dummy year that spreads the cap hit over 2 years. But I think it makes sense for both sides. I don't think they have an heir apparent on the roster and there are too many teams in the qb market with more ammunition for them to get in a bidding war. But you can't keep him at a $41 million cap hit.

For the record, McCaffrey had 2392 scrimmage yards and 19 tds in 2019. Mike Davis had 1015 scrimmage yards and 8 tds in 2020. You may have meant 40% when you wrote 80%. I'm not saying dollar for dollar it's the best investment but let's not ignore all of McCaffrey's value as a player. I'd love to see what he can do with a good qb in our new scheme.

I'm not opposed to the idea in theory about having a player like McCaffrey in a trade for Watson. The reason it's not practical is we would lose cap space by doing it. We're not flush with cap space as is; you take away the bit we have, add Watson's hit (despite being reasonable in 2021) and then still have to replace all of McCaffrey's production with somebody, likely a free agent, if not a 1st or 2nd round draft pick (whoops those went to Houston in the trade). Just not at all practical. A player like DJ Moore unfortunately makes a lot more sense since we'd actually save $2 million trading him. I'm not saying I'd want to do that but it's at least feasible to have a 53 man roster and do that. Impossible to have one, at least competitive one, by trading CMC and his dead cap.

Yikes I hope not for that team's sake. You'd give a raise to the 2nd highest paid qb in the NFL that will be taking up 20% of your cap after next, after giving away all your most valuable draft capital in the next 3 years that you could have desperately used to build affordable pieces around him?

You know the good thing about terrible posts on the Huddle is that if you're feeling doom and gloom about our qb prospects for next year, at least you can tell yourself "Well it could've been worse. Can you imagine if we had given up the 8th pick for Jordan Love?"

I'm on board with throwing our hat in the ring for Stafford at the right cost. My biggest issue with this proposed trade is that you don't know if Stafford will stay healthy. Say he's out more than half of the year and we stumble to another 5 wins and have to give Detroit a top 10 pick next year. If you can guarantee his health, I would say it's not unreasonable although more than I prefer. But you have to think in a weakened NFC south and the return of McCaffrey, we get at least 8 wins and the 1st rounder probably won't be better than 16 or so. That's just a big if given his recent injury history.

Look I realize I'm risking setting the Huddle record for most poo reactions, but is there any doubt Teddy Bridgewater would have taken off on that 3rd and goal and ran it in for the TD? He wasn't good for much but he was surprisingly ok at taking advantage of some space in the redzone.

What in the world was the returner doing? Terrible decision. Gotta think that's on the coaching staff too to not stress trying to run out the clock to the 2 minute warning.

When you fail to see the irony of trading the farm to get a qb who just led his team to a 4-12 record.

It's hard to judge any of these options without knowing the cost. I'd be willing to give as high as our 2nd for Stafford but I have a feeling a team like Indy might decide giving away this year's 1st for Stafford makes sense since they're not missing much outside of a qb. Personally my preference would be this: Offer up to 2 1sts and a 2nd (not Moore or Burns) for Watson (very unlikely to be enough but you have to at least throw your name in). Then offer up to our 2nd for Stafford (may not be enough) Then wait and see who is available at 8 and draft one of the top qbs. If no one is avaiable that you like, trade back and with a later 1st or early 2nd, take a chance on someone in the next tier if available and you like their potential (Jones, Trask, etc). If that doesn't work out, build up the team as best you can and look into low-priced veterans to compete with Teddy (Winston, Trubisky) with an offer in the single digits (e.g. $5 million) and wait till 2022 to come up with your long-term qb plan. Notably not in play at all for me would be trading up for a rookie qb. We have no idea if any of these qbs will translate. If you screw up, you set your team back years because you've not only wasted this year's pick, you wasted multiple other picks including next year's 1st at minimum which will inevitably end up being a top 10 pick if the rookie doesn't work out. It's one thing to gamble a single top 10 pick on a rookie that doesn't live up. But multiple top 10 picks is crippling especially when you're already missing multiple pieces (including an entire O line). We can pretend we have faith in our new management but essentially every single team in the league had high initial grades on players like Sam Darnold and Blake Bortles (in most cases, higher than Zach Wilson or Justin Fields).

Poor McCaffrey being injured making people forget he's currently the only bona fide star on the team. Burns and Moore should be there but haven't received the national attention they deserve (highlighted by their zero pro bowl/all pro bowl nods). But McCaffrey was the talk of the nation in 2019. Despite having crap qb and O line play, he was the most impressive offensive player in the league. I won't begrudge anyone for picking anyone else; there are a couple good candidates. But if McCaffrey stayed healthy, I have to think he'd have a lot more than a few honorable mentions on here. And if we're fortunate enough to nab a great qb, I bet he'll remind people very quickly in 2021.

If we're trading Burns, we better be getting the 2 1sts!

That's fine. I don't think it's impossible to think some team with loads of cap space, and room for a qb on the roster might take on the $17 million for an extra draft pick. What about the Colts? They have zero qbs and at least $65 million in cap space. They've got an elite defense and talented young rb. You're telling me we offer to throw in a draft pick to take Teddy on a 2 year, $39 million contract with only $10 million guaranteed all in the 1st year when they have more room than they know what to do with and no qb and they wouldn't even consider it? Especially when they don't have many attractive alternatives. Anyhow I honestly don't care if no one bites for a 5th. I'm perfectly content keeping him as pricy insurance/mentoring like I said and then getting rid of him in 2022 with minimal dead cap. I'm just not eager to give away valuable draft picks just to save a little money this year.

I suppose a 5th? We save $10 million by trading him compared to cutting him if we really don't want him on the team. Let's say your 3rd round pick turns into a decent starter. What's the cap savings in being able to get a starter for 4 years for $1 million per year compared to a league average veteran at the position? Let's say it's a starting cornerback. You'd be paying a comparable veteran $8 million per year, easy. Same goes for a position like defensive end, wide receiver, most of the offensive line; all positions where a good GM can usually find a potential starter in the 3rd. So to save $10 million on Teddy's contract, you give up a potential savings of $30 million or more. Obviously the later you pick, the less likely you are to pick a decent starter caliber player, which is why a later round pick might make sense. If we believe in the combination of Rhule and Fitterer, no way am I considering a 3rd, and even a 4th is a tough decision. 5th or lower and I'd be down. Otherwise, you accept the lumps of having a pricy but high end backup and mentor for your rookie, trust in your drafting and cut him in 2022.

I wouldn't call us cap strapped this year. Our cap situation is very much league average and considering the cap is expected to decrease considerably this year, we're doing pretty good. We will almost certainly clear probably another $15-20 million in no-brainer cuts. We could in theory be big time free agent spenders by getting creative with our current contracts, shuffling money around and pushing a cap nightmare into the future like the situation the Saints are in. But why? Just resign Moton, get some modest priced free agents to round out the roster and draft well this year and we'll be good.

No I agree. I don't think Houston takes that at all. I'm saying that's what I'd be comfortable giving up so that we still have enough draft capital to build around Watson and make sure we don't turn into the 2020 Texans and have to give up a top 5 2021 pick to them. Watson is worth more than my offer. Just wouldn't necessarily make sense to me to give up more knowing how much we're missing on this team (entire O line, multiple defensive starters, etc).

If you're the Dolphins, how do you not at least offer Tua, #3 and next year's #1 for Watson? And if you're the Panthers, how do you outbid that without completely ruining your chances of building a complete team? In the off chance Miami decides not to offer a trade and Watson decides he would refuse a trade to the Jets, maybe there's an offer that could make sense. I like Teddy, the 8th pick, and an extra 1 and 2 as my max offer. Or if they don't want Teddy, you can leave him out. But since we're paying his signing bonus, you're talking about a mediocre bridge for whoever they draft at 8 for like $17 million that they can cut with no dead cap.

OK fine. I'll even try to minimize using much hindsight and even pretend like I don't have the tremendous resources and information at my fingertips in the early parts of the pandemic that the president had, instead limiting to what was widely known and available to the public. So how about start by not treating it like it was nothing and simply going to go away immediately, instead giving a clear message to the public that this was a serious virus that required vigilance, frequent hand washing, avoiding of high risk behaviors. That way, when scientists and politicians start making recommendations to slow the spread, people don't assume it's just an overblown hoax attempting solely to infringe on our liberties and do the exact opposite. Let's not forget before the US started shutting down, we had already seen thousands dying in Italy with whole hospital systems getting overrun, even if you want to discount China's problems for a month or two before. The US had the benefit of being one of the last industrialized nations to get hit hard and failed to take full advantage of learning from the rest of the world's experience. Now subsequently when it became public knowledge that masks were vital to slowing the spread, he should have stressed how important they were rather than treating them like a political statement and sign of weakness. Words matter. Many people for better or worse trust the president over scientists and physicians. His rhetoric led people to go against the very measures that other countries have taken to get the numbers down to highly manageable levels. Even if we missed a bigger opportunity by wearing masks in March, if he stopped the bleeding by reiterating CDC guidelines in April about how important they were, it would have made an enormous difference. And if that's all he did, he would have helped save several tens of thousands of lives and many more hospitalizations already. But beyond words, which is such low hanging fruit, I would have directed millions in federal funding upfront to get PPE and testing supplies (e.g. swabs, reagents, etc) to hospitals around the country, and encouraged manufacturers to ramp up production far sooner. Again we played a ton of catch up. And with a virus that has potential for exponential spread, even a couple days make a huge difference. There's no reason hospitals should have been running out of masks for the first 3 weeks when we knew how bad the virus was months earlier. Similarly it took forever to get testing so people were running around with the virus unbeknowst to anyone, spreading it far and wide. And perhaps it would've helped us recognize and achieve these things if Trump's administration hadn't dismantled the pandemic response team. Listen, Trump isn't the only person who made mistakes. The CDC, even Dr. Fauci screwed up at points of time. The difference is, they typically acknowledge their mistakes and try to correct them. Trump doubles down repeatedly until the truth is so far in his face, he's literally one of the last people to acknowledge it. Plus as the president, he ultimately bears the most responsibilty whether that's fair or not. He got dealt an unlucky hand to be president during one of the worst public health crises we've ever faced. But he was elected to lead us through whatever problem came our way. He doesn't get to throw his hands up and say "Man this is hard. Tough luck America!" I admit, even if he handled this amazing well, it doesn't mean people wouldn't have died or our economy wouldn't have been severely affected. But the above measures are very simple things well within the president's purview that would've made a big difference and put us in better shape than we are now, similar to the position the vast majority of countries around the world are in. And I'm no public policy expert or epidemiologist so you could get a much better and more complete answer elsewhere. But these are some no brainers that require little hindsight.

How much do you have to be grasping at straws to defend Trump when your argument is "Well H1N1 wasn't as bad as it could have been!" It doesn't make Trump's disastrous handling of COVID suddenly good. Sorry man. This very weak version of whataboutism is incredibly sad. As far as ICUs, I think your study supports my point far more than yours. So ICUs at their busiest are around 80% and on average in the 60s. July is one of the least busy times of the year, but let's just throw you a bone since you need help and assume Miami was going into their absolute busiest season by chance. And then realize jumping from 80% to 120% is a damn big deal. We're saying the ICUs are used to being somewhere between half to 2/3 as full as they are now. For good measure, our hospital system's most recent numbers show us at 70% ICU capacity and we're doing all of our elective surgeries. And cases in NC have been hitting record levels. So for Miami to be that overrun in comparison just shows how bad things are. And they're not the only one. Several hospital systems throughout the country are panicking about potentially exceeding available resources. Finally, I completely stand by my point about elective surgeries not having an appreciable effect on ICU bed occupancy. I'll take my experience working on the frontlines in the hospital approaching 10 years over your N of 1 case of your dad. Long invasive surgeries ending in the ICU, sure not crazy. The number of elective surgeries that qualify as that are quite low. Elective surgeries are far far more likely to be same day or next morning discharges. And finally what's the point of the CDC's political contributions? They don't make up the numbers. Hospitals report them and they publish them. And of course more of their contributions go to democrats. Scientists and well educated people in general lean democratic. It probably doesn't help the Republican party that they often ignore or downright deny science in many cases. Either way, it's more grasping at straws rather than facing the cold hard truth that we are not handing the COVID situation well compared to much of the rest of the world. Instead of pointing fingers and making excuses, we'd be better served to actually acknowledge that the problem exists and do something about it. But that doesn't seem to be this administration's preferred strategy and people like you let them get away with it rather than demand they do better when we deserve that much.

It seems pretty clear you enjoy parrotting the inane talking points of the president, which I guess is why he does it. Yeah let's break from the rest of the world despite having the highest number of cases by far and stop tracking a highly virulent disease which helps identify outbreaks and control spread, as well as gives information on the safety of gradual opening of business and reduces the risk of overwhelming health care systems. And let's pretend because we stopped hypermonitoring H1N1 cases after a few months, a disease that was far less deadly and debilitating, that it's perfectly justifiable to do that for COVID. Just look how almost step by step the world is treating COVID like they did H1N1, huh? Even if you think that it wasn't the best decision to stop meticulously tracking H1N1, it would in no way excuse not closely tracking COVID now. Even Trump is trying to say it was terrible that they stopped tracking it. So he must acknowledge that if the US would stop tracking COVID now, it must be damn near criminal. Look we get it. It's embarrassing for Trump how bad our numbers look compared to the rest of the world and I'm sure for his contingent of die-hard fans, nothing would be nicer than pretending the numbers don't exist. But sometimes the greater good and the interest of public health should be considered more important than the president's ego, as crazy as that might sound.

What's your point? No one said every patient has COVID. But in the absence of COVID, cities are almost never pushing their total ICU capacity. Also, I don't know why you mentioned elective surgeries. The number of patients admitted to the ICU after an elective surgery is close to zero. Pretty much only happens when the surgeon makes a serious mistake or there's an unforeseen complication. Has nothing to do with the situation they're in. I also suspect many Miami hospitals will be shutting that down at this point if they haven't already since COVID is taking all of their resources. Also why minimize the situation in Florida because it's not every hospital in the state? Good for them. I'm sure New York was patting themselves on the back in March when tens of thousands of people were "only" dying in New York City. No one is being unfairly critical here. Florida is one of the world's current epicenters for the virus and there's not a lot of sugar coating you can do with that. And before you start celebrating that not every hospital is pushing capacity, give it some time. That's how viruses work. They spread from one person and place to another.

Don't take this the wrong way because I'm legitimately curious about a couple things. 1. Where are you gathering your information regarding the state of medical education to judge the validity of a medical doctor's opinion? Do you audit medical school programs as part of your profession and have firsthand witnessed the decline in their training quality? 2. What is your opinion of what qualifies as "lately"? Because the divide is largely centered on the opinion of Dr. Fauci vs Donald Trump. Fauci is 79 years old and graduated medical school in 1966. 3. What do you mean by a doctor paying for his degree? Are you suggesting that you can buy a medical diploma and that it isn't one of, if not the most competitive graduate program to get into in the United States? Also, do you discount the several years of residency training required (where you are getting paid, not doing the paying), working upwards of 80 hour weeks where you have to demonstrate competence before you can independently practice medicine? I'm not saying all doctors' opinions should be revered without question. But if I have a question about trash, I'll ask a trashman and if I have a question about a virus, you bet I'm going to ask an Infectious Disease specialist. But that's me personally. Some have called me unconventional.

It's strange that you still don't understand. I am rendering judgement based on the results we already have today. Those numbers already demonstrate failure. They don't have to get any worse for that to be true. Which is the point. Like I said the final results might make him a bigger failure but there's no scenario at this point that would make his handling free of significant criticism. Your argument would make sense if I said months ago when De Santis first allowed everything to open up that he failed. That is not where we are. The fact that anyone is going to defend his handling when the state is in disarray confuses me. But you're entitled to your opinion if you think he's handling it well or that there's a scenario where he'll be proven to have made the right decision. We'll just have to disagree which is fine. But let's stop harping on some misguided interpretation of my words.

You seem to be twisting my words and sentiment. I never said I didn't care how many people die. I said the exact number wouldn't change my opinion that he's acted foolishly and bungled the state's response thus far. I firmly stand by that. Theoretically it could sway just how monumentally terrible his leadership with regards to the virus will turn out to be but either way it's bad. But as I was saying, even if it turns out to be less bad than the worst projections, I'm not going to say he handled it well. Because that would be dismissing the thousands of people that end up in ICUs and die which could have been avoided if he actually took it seriously. https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/07/09/florida-adds-record-high-120-coronavirus-deaths-411-hospitalizations-on-thursday/ The numbers are staggering. Over 400 newly hospitalized in 1 day. That's like transferring half of all of North Carolina's hospitalized COVID patients to Florida's already busy numbers in a single day. A record 120 dead in 1 day; recall that a record number of new hospitalizations today should translate to record deaths in about 4 weeks and realize we're just getting started. My follow-up point, trying to meet you halfway, was in response to your New York comment. I said I'm willing to concede the possibility it might not get quite to New York's level and said we could revisit that in 2-3 months to throw you a bone. But my point being it shouldn't matter when deciding that de Santis screwed up. But why? Other than the fact that it minimizes all the people who will end up in the ICU and/or die. No situation should ever rival New York City. The largest city in the country, one of the most densely populated in the world and a population dependent on crammed public transportation at a time when nobody was appreciating the threat of the virus, wearing masks or social distancing. And we didn't know the best way to treat patients and were doing therapies that we now know are not helpful or possibly even dangerous, without the availability of treatments with some proven benefit like remdesvir. Who could now replicate that scenario? Miami and Tampa are by far the hardest hit in Florida and they combine to make up about 10% of NYC's population. And now we know so much about the virus, how to slow it down and how to monitor and treat it. If your threshold is that it doesn't get as bad as early New York, that's a very sad bar. The fact that we can even entertain the possibility of that debate as it relates to Florida is even sadder. So yes to my very original point that started this back and forth, if de Santis thought the important message to the media is that they weren't as bad as New York and using that as justification for his handling of the virus, then he's a fool. If Roy Cooper was asked about our hospitalizations, which probably were at worst not much different than Florida's when de Santis gave that soundbite and said "Listen we've been in phase 2 for 7 weeks and we're nowhere close to New York. Get off my ass!" I'd say he was a damn fool too. But instead he's consistently said we need to be careful, wear masks and socially distance so we don't move backward. That's the difference.