tukafan21

I love what Luvu brings to the team, but in no way shape or form is he a better football player than Burns. And if the team felt he was, there would be no chance we'd even be discussing a contract with Burns given what he is looking for, he'd have 1,000% been traded during the offseason if they felt that was the case. Luvu is essentially a journeyman LB and we're considering making Burns one of the Top 5 paid defensive players in NFL history, sorry, but there is no comparison there. Saying "Luvu was the best player on D last year" when talking about who is the best player on the team right now is like saying "Baker was better than Bryce for us last year" Nonsense given the matter at hand and doesn't mean a thing moving forward.

Then who would you consider the best player right now? On defense the options would be Burns, Brown, and Horn, can't see anyone else on that defense being in the discussion and of them, it's clearly Burns to me. On offense, it's what, maybe Sanders and Moton? Still, I put Burns better than both of them right now. I'm not talking about potential, where maybe you could consider Bryce, Mingo, Ickey, but right now, Burns is the best and most impactful player on this team right now.

You realize that he hasn't actually been practicing, right? He's there, but he's off to the side Just because they know it's a business doesn't mean it doesn't affect them. Burns' dad posted this picture of him looking depressed while his teammates are smiling, with the caption saying how unhappy he is. But sure, keep trying to convince yourself that nobody is affected by this at all

There are 32 teams in the NFL, to think that Higgins isn't one of the 32 best WRs in the game is just asinine. He might not quite be a Fantasy #1 WR right now, only just a high end #2 there, but that doesn't mean he's not a real life #1. Same way Moore isn't/wasn't a fantasy #1 but was in real life, huge difference between the two that too many fans fail to recognize these days with how everything is viewed through a fantasy lens. It's also not like Higgins is asking for or expecting to get Jefferson/Chase type of money like Burns is trying to do. Burns is trying to be paid like one of the Top 2-3 pass rushers, I'm sure Higgins is just looking to be paid like a top 15 WR, big big big difference.

Every image of him coming out right now looks like someone who's dog just died. His dad and brother are posting negative stuff on social media due to this. If you really don't think it's affecting the team when it's best player and Captain is doing that right now, then you really don't understand how an NFL locker room operates. 100% they feel it, not possible not to

At this point we have to look at him still being on a team as a sunk cost. It sucks that we turned down the 2 firsts and that we didn't lock him up before last year, but unfortunately we can't change that now and have to do whatever we can do now. I don't think him sitting out or letting him play out the contract are viable situations for the franchise, they both only have downsides. If he balls out, he'll get the biggest defensive contract ever, from us or someone else. If he doesn't, he'll still get a huge deal from someone else to steal him or even from us, but that would then also mean he didn't have a great season for us and thus hurt out defense this year. There really is no upside to him playing out the year for us on this contract, none. If I'm the team right now, he either signs an extension before Sunday or he's an inactive until we can trade him. I've also been screaming for months to just give him what he wants and that's still by far my #1 option here. I'm not just saying we should trade him out of spite and saltiness towards him. But him threatening to hold out this week after an entire offseason of saying how he needed to be part of this team because of what we're building, it's not good for us and it absolutely is going to affect the players right now, there is a dark cloud over the team at the moment due to it all.

Was interesting watching the game with a few Lions fans, we spent more time talking about the RT than I think I've ever talked about OL throughout the course of an entire season. Every KC snap in the second half we were all just staring at the RT pre-snap and calling out all his foot and hand twitches that have always been called as false starts in the past, he had 3-4 of them on every single snap. And I'm not even talking about the actual leg kick back that he also did half a second too early, just all the little twitching he'd do even before that.

We turned down 2 firsts for Burns, we weren't going to then turn around and trade him along with 2 of our own firsts to move up for Bryce. Plus, I don't think the Bears wanted Burns, they knew they needed WR help for Fields and there wasn't anyone close to as good as him available in free agency this offseason.

If they aren't going to pay Higgins, they're not going to trade him (and draft picks) for a DE that they have to give $10 million more a season for. Can't see any situation where they trade him this year, they are legitimate SB contenders with him, it's worth losing him for nothing after the season to make a run at the SB with him this year for them. Best guess is he plays out the year, then they tag and trade him next offseason.

Seriously, this going to YT is the best thing ever. Being a Panthers fan in Michigan and thus almost never getting our games on TV here, pre-Covid I'd go to BWW almost every Sunday of the season, maybe would get 1-3 games of ours each year on TV here to not have to go. That would run me anywhere from $25-40 each game depending what I would have to eat/drink on the day, over the season that REALLY adds up, but I would get to at least see the other games on to follow my fantasy teams. Then once covid hit, in 2020 I just shifted to finding streams and even though they sometimes weren't great, since we were terrible, it just made more sense to keep doing that than go back to BWW to spend that money again. So now I not only will get our games in high quality again, that also always work, but I can now also throw on any game at any time to watch my fantasy players. Freaking love it and so excited for this season because of that.

For me it's about the Burns situation, it's casting a shadow over the entire team right now and it's all our front office's fault. We turned down 2 firsts for him, we lost all leverage, give him what he wants and instead of our best player being upset and moody, he'll be upbeat and bring endless energy to the rest of the team. But instead he's threatening to not play and it's clear that the entire team and fans are feeling the affect right now. Sign him or trade him, this can't go on any longer.

If he sits out, Fitt has to trade him, honestly I'd then make him inactive in week 2 and moving forward if he sat our week 1. If after all this and all that all about how we're building something special and he knew he needed to be there, he pulls this crap and holds out of actual games, time to trade him for whatever we can get, chalk it up as a bad mistake, fire Fitterer for not making the trade last year and just move on with our lives.

I've said for a while that we can't let him play the season out, either need to get a deal done before Sunday or trade him before then. Playing out the year is the worst case scenario for us and will hang over the team all season long like a dark cloud

If they're really just ironing out the details, then this not only needs to be done before Sunday, it needs to be done before practice starts tomorrow. There is a cloud hanging over the team right now, the defense in particular. Getting a happy and up beat Burns at practice tomorrow will be a vibe that will radiate throughout the entire defense, if not the entire team as a whole. Get. It. Done.

No, it's not, because it hurts the team more than Burns. First, the 50k I'm pretty sure only applies to players holding out during camp and/or only vets on their 2nd or later contract, not players who are still on their rookie deals or during the regular season. Second, the keeping of his 16M isn't a threat as he'd always show up in time to accrue the season, so he'll still end up with 4-6 of it in the end. Plus, he's going to sign a monster deal by next offseason regardless, he's not concerned with losing 10ish million this year when he'll then sign a deal with about $100M guaranteed. Again, we have no leverage whatsoever here.

That's not leverage, it's cutting off your nose to spite your face. Bell is the only player I think that has ever done that, every other player who has held out has shown up by week 12 or whatever they need to show up by to get their season counted and generally ends up with the player walking away in FA or being traded at some point, they don't usually do that and then sign a long term deal with the team. Burns sitting out until then and showing up is literally the worst case scenario for us as it then can only play out one of two ways. And both of them mean we don't have him for 10-12 games this year (I'm not sure what week they have to show up by to get the season towards FA) which only hurts the team as well. 1. He completely balls out and because of that is able to get a contract above Bosa from either us or someone else (clearly worse than just re-signing him right now for $30 million a year) 2. He struggles a bit from being away from the game for so long but someone still offers him a monster contract because of his potential and reason he struggled because of the holdout (and they would) and we lose him for nothing The only way we're able to sign him next offseason for less than he wants right now is if he plays 17 games and really struggles while only putting up 4-5 sacks and that seems very unlikely. We have zero leverage on this one, none, absolutely zilch.

Burns having all the leverage is exactly why he doesn't have a deal yet, because he's really holding out for absolute maximum top dollar. If the team had even the slightest bit of leverage, they'd have been able to get him to come down on his demands a bit and the deal would be done. Literally the only leverage the team has is that he's under contract this year and if he sits out, he losses about $1 million per game. But even that is only minimal leverage as he knows how important he is to the team, we can't really afford to let him do that as it would significantly hurt out chances of winning games. Once we turned down 2 first and it went public that we did so, we never had even an ounce of leverage in this negotiation.

And everything you just said is more of a reason to overpay him right now. His price isn't going down after this season unless he plays 17 games and puts up like 5 sacks, which flat out isn't happening. Even an average season and someone would throw bags of money at him next year and explain it away as the change in system and getting him back in a 4-3 as a DE will unlock him again. Which full disclosure I don't think would even ever happen, I'd be shocked if he had less than 12 sacks this year (assuming he plays a full year) and I fully expect it to be over 15. For a guy you can sign right now for about 28-30 million a season, you can't let him go out and put up 15 sacks and become a FA as we'll then have to beat what Bosa just got, because if not, someone else would. Hell, if he did that and we franchise tagged him, I'm quite sure some teams out there would just sign him and fork over the 2 first round picks to do it. Just slightly overpay for him now and it will look like a bargain when in 2 years he's the 10th highest paid pass rusher.

No, he doesn't, not sure why you're telling me I'm wrong for a second time now instead of just a quick google search of Burns. He was drafted in 2019 and his rookie contract covered 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, with this year, 2023 being the 5th year option for first round picks. He has 0 years left on his contract after this year, if we do not re-sign him or franchise tag him, he is an unrestricted free agent when FA starts in 2024. When we're talking about possibly overpaying a guy to keep him from signing somewhere else, a guy going into his last year of the deal is the same thing as "him going into FA", particularly when he's threatening to hold out until he gets his deal. He very well could decide to sit out until Week 10ish to limit injury risk and just hit free agency in the spring.

No he doesn't, this is the 5th and final year on the rookie deal. If we don't re-sign him now or franchise tag him after the season, he's an unrestricted Free Agent come March.

So, how is that different than this situation? Burns is set to be a FA and most of the league is desperate for a pass rusher of Burns' ability. That's been my point the whole time, that if we don't sign him now and let him play out the season, unless he totally busts, we'll end up needing to pay him more than Bosa got just now to keep him. Either that for franchise tag him and then we have to deal with this all over again for another year.

Yea, like you said, there is just zero comparison to the Yankees (or any MLB team). They can spend whatever they want, however little or small, completely their choice and is generally based on how much money the team makes. The NFL pays each team $300 million a year from the TV rights, they then set the salary cap based on those payments, and then implement a minimum spend as well. This whole thing with that guy started by him saying because fans pay for merchandise and products from advertisers, it's like we're paying the player's salaries so we have a right to complain how it's spent. But he just can't seem to grasp how even though the NFL gets a stupid amount of money for these TV rights, the commercial cost to the individual brands isn't even a blip on the radar for them with how much revenue they bring in each year.

You have zero idea what you're talking about, I do this for a living with the brands that advertise on the NFL... hell, early in my career I literally worked on GMC's sponsorship of Monday Night Football. You don't understand how brand awareness campaigns work, you don't understand how media buying works, and you don't understand just how small of a fraction of a percentage of revenue these brands spend on TV commercials. You said you didn't read what I posted, but I laid it all out there. The cost of these tv commercials, while MASSIVE for the NFL's income, is the equivalent to you spending the pennies you find in your couch cushions. You're too hung up on thinking it costs these brands so much money to run these commercials, but it doesn't work that way, go read that post, I explained it all with actual real life revenue and advertising numbers from Ford. I also fully explained how they do care about ROI and they study it (I actually agreed with you on that in my post). They know they need to get their commercials in front of X number of eyeballs, Y number of times, so they pay what it takes to get Z number of commercials run. With how small a fraction of their revenue is spent on commercial time, the cost of it doesn't matter to them, it's about hitting those numbers and they pay what it takes to get that done. Again, go read the post you refused to read, it clearly explains how it all works, but if you don't want to believe someone who literally works in this field and for this brand, that's your choice.

I think you're getting too hung up on the brands "paying a premium" for NFL game commercial time and what kind of effect paying that premium has on their bottom line. I also think you believe those relative costs of commercial slots to be much higher than they actually are to these brands as well. The staggering amount the networks pay the NFL makes it seem like the brands are paying an arm and a leg for commercials 18 Sundays and Thursday/Monday nights a year, but that's just not how it works. It's kind of like how the money college's football and basketball teams bring in allow the rest of a school's teams to even exist since they don't make money. The networks sell commercial time in massive bundles, the ones with NFL games cost much more, that's why they pay so much to get the rights to the games, it helps them sell their "worthless" ad slots for more. Plus, the networks get more out of the deals than just ad sales anyways, but that's besides the point. But again, that "paying much more" is still a very relative term for the types of brands that run commercials during games...... Look at Ford for example, as I said, they had a $170 Billion a year revenue in 2022 and in that year they had a $1.4 Billion US advertising budget, that's 0.8% of their revenue for their entire US ad budget. That budget would include their marketing departments, ad agencies, costs to produce commercials, print, radio, outdoor, online, etc ads, and all that before even getting to the costs of the ad space itself. I've spent over a decade of my career working for Big Auto's advertising agencies and on the automotive accounts (I'm from Michigan), this is an industry that I know very well. When you whittle it down to the amount of money these brands spend on any TV commercials, even for the NFL, it's not even a drop in the bucket compared to what they bring in each year. It's literally probably something like 0.000001% of their revenues to run commercials during NFL games. This again is why you generally mostly see the massive global brands during NFL games, because to them, it's barely even a rounding error to run commercials during an NFL game compared to The Office re-runs. If the NFL was just not a thing, as if it has never existed, all of those companies would still bring in literally the exact same amount of money as they do with it in existence and them advertising during games. Ford would still sell the exact same number of cars, McDonalds would still sell the same number of burgers, and the same amount of people would still sign up with AT&T for cell service. They're not selling more product because the NFL is a thing and they get to advertise through it. But that doesn't mean they aren't going to spend the money to advertise during the games though, because of how minuscule that cost is to brands of that size. Getting the commercial time during NFL games versus not getting that time is basically the equivalent of you finding a couple pennies in your couch cushion for these brands. As you said, brands know the metrics about who needs to see their tv ads, what channels they need to be shown on, and how often they need to run, in order to maximize profits. So given the comparative cost to revenues, they just pay whatever the networks charge to get the time/channel slots they want. So if the NFL was never a thing, they would still get their commercials seen by the right people, the right amount of times, because their research has shown they need to in order to maximize profits, just like you say, we agree there. The only difference is without the NFL's existence, they might save a rounding errors worth of their TV commercial budget. In essence, the NFL exists as it does right now because both the league and TV Networks are smart and greedy. They know how much they can help the other make and know they can do so because the people paying them make so much substantially more themselves. All because of the number of fans who watch the NFL, but in no way because of how much money those people spend on those products BECAUSE of the NFL or the advertisements during the game.