tukafan21

The problem with the way you're putting it is that it only works that way when looking at everything individually, not the collective. There are only so many players at every level, for example, let's say each position really only has 3 truly ELITE players, then each position has another 7 great players, another 10 really really good, another 10 that are pretty good, etc, etc. Yes, in a vacuum and when looked at individually, only those 3 elite players in a position group should get that very top end money, then a step down for the next 7, another step down for the next 10, and even within those groups there is a sliding scale of course. When the options are overpaying for someone in that second level or not having anyone in the Top 25 of a position, teams overpay because it's better than the alternative. Sure, sometimes you can pass on the overpay and use the same money towards 2 other players who can be more effective for you than the 1, but that's not always the case. When you have someone with Burns' upper end potential, you overpay to keep him because it's better than the alternative of losing him. As the saying goes, sometimes a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush

I'm not going to bother with digging into it with all these contracts, but there is also a difference between guaranteed money and "guaranteed" money with how teams structure contracts these days to manipulate the cap. A lot of time there aren't actual guarantees, but the contracts are written in a way that there are essentially non-guaranteed guaranteed money. They'll do something where Year 3 of the contract isn't guaranteed at signing, but it becomes guaranteed if you're on the roster on Day 1 of the league year after the first year of the contract. Those are the type of things where even if the player has an injury or epic bust of a season, they aren't going to cut the player before year 2 starts solely because of the dead money hit they'd have to take. That's a way for players to get "guarantees" that aren't actually considered in the guaranteed money up front when the deal is signed. Same thing with how contracts can be structured to where some of the early years of the contracts are full salary payments, knowing they won't/can't be cut due to dead money hits, and in each offseason the team takes that upcoming year's salary, re-structures it as a roster bonus and then vet min salary for the season to keep pushing the cap down the road. Miller is on the back end of his career, so that guarantee seems right, but it wouldn't shock me if the Chubb deal had some of the above things in the structure of the contract to where he knows he's actually "guaranteed" more money than that in the end.

I'm definitely not against it, I just hope that when the time comes, we don't feel the need to do that and can use that money elsewhere. There is a very real possibility that Mingo shows #1 potential by the end of the year, if he does that and TMJ has his best year yet, I think we could look at them as the Top 2 next year and put that $15-20 million towards another need. The other problem with going after him is that it seems very unlikely that he'll ever hit unrestricted FA. Unless the Bengals need to use their franchise tag on someone else, I'd be shocked to see them let him walk away for free, they'll tag him to be able to trade him for a good draft pick. I don't really want to have to give up our 2nd rounder and then give him a $20 million a year deal on top of it, not when we're already lacking draft picks at the moment.

No, the delusion is thinking Higgins isn't a clear cut #1 WR in this league, which he is, even if he's the #2 on his current team. I said this the other day, people really struggle to differentiate the difference between a #1 in real life football and in fantasy football. No, Higgins is not a #1 WR in fantasy football, just a high end #2. But there are 32 teams in the NFL, to think Higgins isn't AT WORST a Top 20 WR and quite probably a Top 15 is just people kidding themselves. And any WR in the Top 20 in today's NFL is easily a #1 WR, with Higgins likely solidly in the Top 15 at the position, it's clear as day that he's a #1. In the 4 weeks that Chase was out injured last season, Higgins had 26 catches, for 371 yards and 2 TDs. Extrapolated out across 17 games, thats 110 catches for 1,576 yards, and 8.5 TDs. That would have been good for 3rd in both catches and yards in the league last season. In what world are those NOT #1 WR numbers?

I was already okay with giving him 28-30 before this, hadn't realized how much the cap had really risen since Watt's deal, this makes it seem even more of a no brainer to give him the money.

That's literally how the sport works though Are you saying because he might blow up over the next 3 years and thus be able to hold out again and demand more money, you don't want to re-sign him right now? Maybe one of the craziest arguments I've ever heard. He might be so good that we have to do this again in 3 years, so let's just avoid having 3 years of his great play so we don't have to deal with that. You do realize that you're basically saying there is no point to ever signing good players out of fear of them holding out at some point, right?

In what way? My friends are all die hard Lions fans and have always talked about the Lions in this way our whole lives. They love the team, love to watch them, hope they win, but never allow themselves to get too far ahead of their skis because it's still the Lions. They've won 1 playoff game since 1957 and that came in 1991. It's not hard to love your team but never really get too high of expectations when that's been the case your whole life of 35+ years of watching the Lions operate. They've watched the franchise throw away the careers of the best RB in league history and one of the best WRs in league history.

Lions fans have been able to stay loyal by giving up on hope, accepting that their franchise is going to screw things up, and enjoying any little bit of good they get each season. Seriously, I'm from Michigan and live half an hour north of downtown, all my friends are Lions fans. Even during the Stafford and Calvin years, they never really allowed themselves to have legitimate hope going into seasons and once things started going well they just accepted something bad would happen at some point. Watched the game last night with a few Lions fans and even with how excited they were, right away last night they said how amazing it is, how they finally have real hope for the first time in their lives about the Lions, but they still figure they'll end up crapping out in spectacular fashion at some point, just maybe in the playoffs for a change.

I'm actually not very worried about Ickey I think with how the pre-season went for him, they're going to run a lot of TE sets next to him to give him some chips and help the first few weeks. Just like the team did last year early to help build his confidence and get him into a groove. So Ickey with help and Bryce's mobility in the pocket, I think we'll be good there.

Depends how you mean it I'm personally in the camp of saying we just need to pay the man what he's asking for, that in 2 years it will be borderline top 10 for pass rushers anyways (plus I think he's going to break out for 15+ sacks this year). If his play doesn't live up to it, I won't say we overpaid, because we do need to pay that to get him longterm right now in this market, but I'll say that he's not playing like he is being paid to and I'll put it on him. Unless he's asking for like $32 a year and we give it to him, it will always be on him to live up to the contract, not about whether Fitterer made a bad deal. I understand why the team is trying to get it lower, but paying 28-30 a year for him is a completely fair and justifiable price for him right now in this market. But yes, the people who don't want to give him that number right now will of course say we overpaid for him if that happens.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of You'd rather give up yet another first round pick to get to pay $30 million (and thus likely not able to pay Brown at the same position next year) over just paying that $30 million to Burns and then still keeping our 2025 first round pick and then able to re-sign Brown? That's basically taking Chris Jones over Burns (who is 4 years younger), Brown, and a 2025 First (remember we don't have our 2nd that year anymore either)

But the argument isn't about the cost/value balance, it's about who is the better player. If you want to talk about value per cost, then I'm not sure all that many elite and top dollar guys would even make that list. Far too many players who are outperforming their contracts that would be further up the list. But again, the NFL isn't a sport where you re-set rosters every year and can just pay for the value you want to pay for. You're limited to choosing from the select player pool allowed to you, which is why everything can't be viewed in a vacuum of X dollars for Y player's value. When you turn down paying Y player X dollars because you don't think the value is there, you don't just get to then spend X dollars on Z player that you think has that value, because 99% of the time in this league, when dealing with players like this, there isn't that Z player even available. I don't understand why so many people struggle to recognize this in today's NFL.

I think people under rate how important a "one dimensional pass rusher" can be and it's asinine to use that as the excuse to not pay him. First, it's not like there are elite pass rushers with well rounded skill sets beyond pass rushing that become available with any regularity to make the argument that we shouldn't pay Burns while waiting for one of them to fall in our lap instead. Second, an elite, even if one dimensional, pass rusher can unlock so much else for the rest of the defense. Their pressure alone can help the DBs by forcing QB's to get the ball out quickly. The need of double teams opens things up for the rest of the line and pass rushers to get to the QB. If you're truly elite at rushing the passer (which I think Burns is right there and will be moving forward), then the rest of it doesn't matter. Sure it would be great if you're also great against the run, but even if not, you're then worth the money for the trickle down affect to the rest of the defense. This is yet again another instance of people thinking real life NFL is anything remotely close to Madden where you can manipulate the system to make any trade you want or make sure you can sign any FA you want. It doesn't work that way, you can only get the players who are available at the time, and pass rushers of Burns ability don't hit the open market, if you want one, you have to "overpay" to get/keep them.

I never said he didn't have a great season last year, but that's irrelevant when discussing who the best player on the team is right now. If I told you both Luvu and Burns would play 17 games this season (contract distraction aside) and said you HAD to bet your life savings on who would be the better player for us this year. Are you really putting the money down on Luvu? No chance in hell

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.