tukafan21

Oh 100%, I wouldn't be against finding a way to trade for him right now, I think his speed is very much what we need for Bryce. But he's not the outside #1 WR that we need.

Here are the top WR's scheduled to hit the market in 2024 Free Agency Tee Higgins, Mike Evans, Calvin Ridley, Michael Pittman, Marquise Brown, Curtis Samuel, Gabe Davis, Michael Thomas, Darnell Mooney. Of them, right away, Mooney, Thomas, Davis, Samuel can be crossed off as they're not #1's (I'd actually love to get Samuel, but he's not the #1 that we need). Pittman and Ridley won't hit the market, I'm quite confident both will be back with the Colts and Jags respectfully. Evans, while still has game left to him, isn't the type of #1 we need to give Bryce, he's more of a big possession WR, which we have in Thielen. We need a quick twitch, fast, outside #1 and that's just not Evans game at this point in his career. Plus, if he leaves TB, it will be to go to a contender, not just the highest bidder (and that won't be us). Brown MIGHT fit that definition, but personally, I'm just not sold on him being worth it, I think he's more of a good #2, not a #1. That leaves Higgins as the only legitimate target among the players we know will be available this offseason. Odds are he doesn't hit the open market either, he will more than likely be tagged and traded. The other option is for us to go after a player like Tyreek or AJ Brown in recent years, guys who are due a new contract but their team doesn't want to give them one. Players who might fall into that category would be someone like DK or maybe Devonta Smith, but those are total guesses and it could be anyone, nobody expected Tyreek to be moved. If we're going to trade for Higgins or a yet to be known available WR, we'll need either a 1st round pick or an elite player at a different position. That's Burns or our 2025 First, and I'm not trading that 2025 First to pay out a big money contract for a WR, that wouldn't be smart when we could likely just wait the year and take a WR in the Top 10 or 15 and have them locked in on a rookie contract. So whether it comes down to trading Burns for the WR or trading him for the picks that we'd then flip for the WR just depends on who is available, who we target, and what those teams want, but all roads point to Burns being the only legitimate asset to get that #1 WR for Bryce next year. And I don't know about you guys, but if it's Burns or a #1 WR to help Bryce's development, then it's not even a discussion.

NO WE CAN'T!!!!!!! Dude, this is literally the definition of what I've been saying about you, that is Madden thinking to assume we can do both this offseason. Yes, you can have both on a team, but you can't do both in one offseason without the necessary resources and available players to do it. There isn't likely to be a true #1 WR available in FA this offseason, especially as Higgins likely will be tagged and traded. To get one, we'll need to trade Burns or draft picks, and I'm not okay with trading another future first of our own to get one, not when we're this bad and looking at trading top 10 picks. And hell, even if they don't tag Higgins, we won't be able to sign him if we tag and/or sign Burns to a monster $30+ million deal. What the Saints do, is find ways to write their contracts and manipulate the cap to re-sign their own already good players, not to bring in elite talent as FA's, that's the difference in what you want us to do and what we actually can do. This is the literal picture perfect example of why you don't understand how real life NFL teams function and view things from a Madden GM standpoint.

Look at it this way, which of the following would you rather have, as they're very real opposite sides of the same coin scenarios. Go into next season with......... Burns and our WRs being Thielen, Mingo, and a $8-10 million #1 WR or 2024 late round 1st pick pass rusher, WRs of Thielen, Mingo, and a Higgins level #1, cap room to spare, and likely another future 1st in our pocket Is that really a hard decision? You'd really rather go with the side that has Burns there while continuing to cut Bryce down at the knees by not giving him an elite pass catcher? The best (and maybe only) way to get a true #1 WR next year is through a Burns trade, whether him for a WR or him for picks that will be used to trade for a WR. If we re-sign Burns, I don't see a logical path to getting a true #1 WR next year, it's a simple as that with Burns right now.

You went hockey, I just went with another Football team, just not the same football haha I've become a seriously die hard fan of Wrexham since the documentary started last year, it's a lot of fun following them and watching every game this season, WAY more so than the Panthers.

Sweet jesus you still can't see the forest through the trees. If you spend the money on Burns that you want to, that means we then need to hit on our mid round picks to fill out starting positions on cheap contracts. You're literally saying you don't trust the GM with a 1st round pick and cap space to make the right picks/signings but want to trust him doing it without cap space and with mid round picks instead. And don't ever tell me that you understand how the NFL operates and I don't, that's the biggest joke of a statement you've ever made LOLOLOLOL

This is yet again another classic case of you playing Madden GM and not real life NFL GM You want all the players and positions filled with elite talent at once, something that can easily be done in Madden by gaming the system. But it just doesn't work that way in real life NFL when you're trying to re-build a depleted roster. It gets done in stages over the course of a number of years.

Aren't you sick of the "we have no WR" topics? Right now, at this moment, it's one or the other, we can put our money into Burns or we can put that into a WR. Trading for Burns gives us the ammo to either draft a WR in the first or trade a first for a WR who wants a new contract (or hell, maybe both, if we get the 2 first rounders that come with the tag, we could take a WR with one and trade the other for a second if we really wanted to). The people who want to trade Burns completely understand the negative affect of that, but we also know that the #1 priority for this franchise right now is developing Bryce, not building an elite pass rush.

Still think this is missing the plot Sure, some people are just always unhappy and complain to complain, but most people unhappy with Burns aren't unhappy with the player, but the situation. I screamed all off-season to just pay him what he wanted and get it done, and I'd still more than welcome a long term deal at a fair number (somewhere in the 27-30 a year range). But it just seems pretty clear that isn't happening, and thus, I want him traded to get us past this situation, not to get us past Burns, there is a big and significant difference between those two things.

You're against trading him for a 1st rounder because you think we'll screw up the pick. But if we give him the contract, we then need to hit on our 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and maybe even 5th round draft picks for a few years to get starters and key rotational players on cheap contracts to make it all work. The logic in that so so inherently flawed that it's hard to comprehend. It's much easier to hit on 1st round picks than those mid round picks, you don't want to make the move because you don't think we'll hit on the 1st rounder, but somehow ignore that we're even less likely to hit on the mid round picks? You kill me man, you are the worst type of fan, one who looks at individual players instead of the full team.

What's wrong with it? You mean, other than the fact that Burns wants more money than that? Nothing at all But seeing as he wants more than that, and yes, it's pretty clear he does, as if he'd have taken 30, a deal would have been done before week 1, then yea, there is a big problem in paying him that since he won't sign that contract. Again, you keep arguing about just paying him the money... if you can't see that he clearly doesn't want to be here long term at this point, at least unless he's paid as a Top 3 pass rusher, then I don't know what else to tell you. He's not worth Top 3 money, not when this team has as many holes as it has, you pay top 3 pass rusher money when you're a SB contending team. And saying we're just going to screw up the draft picks is just a lazy and pathetic reason to want to overpay him, by that thinking, we might as well just fold the franchise and have 31 teams in the league. Sure, we might screw it up, but not making the smart move because you're afraid we won't then make the subsequent correct moves is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of. By your logic, I'd then argue that overpaying him will be an even worse decision as then we have $30+ million tied up in one player and then we're not going to be able to make smart mid round draft picks to fill out the roster on cap friendly contracts, like we'd need to do if we give him that contract. Again.... LOOK AT THE WHOLE PICTURE INSTEAD OF JUST ONE THING, it's your biggest flaw in critiquing this team and it's decisions, you do not understand how the NFL operates, it's so painfully clear.

Oh, and another problem with Burns being our best player is that we're constantly playing from behind which allows teams to run the ball more. Some of the best pass rushers tend to play on good teams, who play with leads, and thus it allows those elite pass rushers to pin their ears back and just go. That's not something Burns can do on this defense right now, they have to be ready for the run on the overwhelming majority of plays pre-snap. That's not insignificant at all

Burns being our best player actually probably hurts us right now more than it helps us. Teams are able to formulate their entire offensive gameplan around Burns and taking him out of the game because they aren't afraid of the rest of our defense in the slightest. No matter how elite a pass rusher is, unless you have other quality pass rushers to make the blocking scheme account for them and/or quality DB's to make the QB hold onto the ball longer, they are going to be minimized when they send double and triple teams at that pass rusher on every pass play. In a vacuum I'd love to keep Burns long term, but when you factor in the contract situation and the state of the rest of the team, keeping him isn't the smart play for the long term success of the franchise, no other way around it at this point unfortunately.

For someone who has been screaming about opening up the piggy bank to sign Higgins in the offseaosn (assuming he doesn't get tagged and traded, which is most likely anyways)... You sure seem to not grasp that tagging Burns instead of having that cap space available will likely take us out of the Higgins running from the jump.

C'mon guy, it's been explained so many times, there is only a small portion of the fan base who doesn't want to pay him. It's just become clear that he wants much more than the team is willing to pay him or else they'd have been able to get a deal done before the season started. At this point it's not about "not paying him" as much as it is moving getting much needed assets while avoiding a messy situation. If we have to franchise tag him in the offseason, I don't think he'll ever play another down for us again, as I don't see him playing on the tag and if we still can't get a deal done by that point, we just won't be. That means if we tag him, we then have to keep about at least $20 Million of the cap open instead of being able to use it to sign other top free agents once FA begins. All for a player that we'll end up having to trade in the end anyways. Much better to trade him now, get those picks, and then be able to use that cap space on day 1 of free agency. Again man, as I've said to you before, you only look at the surface of things, do we want this player or that player, not at the functional dynamics about how the real life NFL operates. If you want your opinions to be taken seriously, you need to start factoring in things such as that, as it's critically important in a scenario such as this. Particularly because if we have to tag Burns and he somehow does sign it and play, that will almost assuredly carry a larger cap hit for 2024 than if we were to sign him to a long term deal with how cap hits get worked out in contract details. So if we tag him, then we actually need to allocate more cap room for him in 2024 than we would if we just had him under long term contract. Sure, if we then got a deal done for him, it would lower his cap hit for the season, but that wouldn't do us any good on day 1 of free agency, as we'd lose out on guys we could have signed with the cap space.

Most people here played college football?!?!?! I'll bet less than 1% of the people on this site played any college sport, let alone football. And if you mean playing HS football, the locker room dynamic from that compared to what an NFL QB does to mentor a rookie, isn't even in the same galaxy of comparison. Also, no, not any vet QB can properly teach a rookie QB all the dynamics that go into their job, at least not to the level you'd like to support your #1 draft pick at. You need someone who has been in the league for 10+ years as an occasional starter (like a Colt McCoy) or an actual longtime starter like Dalton. A 5th round pick isn't worth more than the mentorship that Dalton provides Bryce, which is why I'd do it if we also could swap TMJ for KJ Osborn, but not just Dalton for a pick.

TOTALLY different things to hear things from a teammate than it is a coach, have always seen coaches/players talk about how different it is. A coach needs to be hard on the player at times, the teammate is the one to then put their arm around them, pull them to the side, and re-lift their spirits, it's an entirely different dynamic. Coaches also don't spend a lot of time in the locker room, they have their own lockers/area and let the players have their own. That's where Dalton is most beneficial to Bryce, just being there for him and for Bryce to watch how a vet QB goes about his business on a day to day basis. It might seem dumb, especially for the #1 pick in the draft, but it's the little things like that, that can help rookies grow and learn faster than if they're trying to figure it out on their own or from an inexperienced backup/teammate. I'd guarantee if they traded Dalton (which in itself still seems very unlikely), they'd end up then signing someone like Colt McCoy to come in and replace Dalton's role of mentor, you don't leave that job to a Jake Luton type.

Said it in the other thread, Dalton is too important to Bryce's development to trade away for a mid to late round pick. However, if we can get KJ Osborn and a 4th for Dalton and TMJ, I'm all in on that trade. I think most likely scenario if they go the trade route would be for Jacoby. Howell is their starter, they're not contending so don't need to keep an experienced QB around in case he gets hurt, and they're in sell mode anyways.

Same reason I struggle to see how the Cardinals are going to be able to trade him very easily, the money owed on his contract. Unless the Cardinals are able to re-structure his contract to pay him a sizable signing bonus before a trade and eat a lot of the cost, he's owed a ton of money over the next few years, I doubt many teams have that cap room to take him on. If I'm reading it correctly, he's owed over $40 next year and over $50 the year after that. I'm not sure he puts them into SB contention this year and they'd just be better off re-signing Cousins again for a much cheaper number. More likely for them would be to go after Jacoby or someone like that.

This is just nonsense Look at our schedule, our 6 losses are against 4 first place teams and the other 2 losses are to teams who are in second place to one of those other losses. Dolphins, Lions, Seahawks, Falcons are all in first, Vikings and Saints are both in 2nd to one of them. Sure, maybe we should have been able to beat one or both of the Falcons or Saints, but realistically, we aren't a good enough team yet to beat the others. I'm not saying we're some amazing team of course, still have lots of holes and I'm not sold on Bryce having true elite potential, but we can be a decent team the rest of the year. Colts, Bears, Titans, Bucs, Saints, Falcons, Packers, Bucs are all winnable games, the Falcons and Saints are the only teams in that group that aren't below .500 and they're only each 4-4 themselves. I think they'll be able to ride this momentum to be up for and win the game against Frank's old team in the Colts at home, then carry that momentum to beat the bad Bears on the road to get to 3-6. Say we lose to the Cowboys and Jags as I figure we will and that is 8 losses. If we then go even just 3-3 in the other 6 games and we finish 6-11. Not quite what we wanted coming into the season, but that would be a more than respectable finish for a team that started 0-6 and looked as bad as we did in doing so.

I think it was right on the borderline of the flag or not. Rookie QB isn't getting that call, the Mahomes, Burrow, Hurts, Allen, etc of the world probably get that one. Would have liked it in the moment, but not one to be upset about

I'd prefer to keep him around to mentor Bryce But if we could maybe send them Dalton and TMJ for KJ Osborn and a 3rd or 4th round pick, I think I'd jump all over that

Just went and looked at his contract, looks like we're probably stuck with him for next year as well, it would cost us about $750k of the cap to cut him. And I don't mean that would be the dead cap hit, that means his dead cap hit is about $750k higher than his cap hit if on the team. Even with as bad as he's been, I can't see them using $8.4 million of the cap next year to ask him to leave, just pay the 7.7 Million to have him be the most expensive backup in the league (and then eat the $3 million dead cap to cut him after next season).

Thielen - A+ Hurst and Chark - D+ Sanders - D- And you left one out... Dalton - A Dalton has more than done his job in being there to mentor Bryce, help him learn how to be a QB in this league, and then step in and play if/when needed. Chark might get a C- if just based on his play itself, but when taken into account that he was given $6 million and supposed to be our #1 on the outside, D+ might even be too generous. Same with Sanders, he's been a D- on the field, but take into account his contract and it's an actual F

I think it was less about trying to freeze the kicker than it was just trying to time the snap perfectly to try and get the block for the win, especially the second one after we got the 15 yarder, at that point the FG was a gimme anyways. So if you don't guess the snap and are offsides, either he still makes it and it doesn't matter, or he misses/blocked because of the offsides and he has to try again. But if you happen to guess perfectly on the snap, you have a chance at a block to win the game, just no downside to trying to guess it and get lucky. The mistake was by the refs blowing the second one dead, should have just let it go and it would have been over since he made it anyways.