tukafan21

We. Turned. Down. Two. Firsts. Why is this so hard to figure out? The second we did that and it was known, it meant we were going to have to overpay to keep him, we lost ALL negotiating power. He has us over a barrel, just pay the man because keeping him on an overpay is better than losing him for nothing (wouldn’t even get a comp pick as we’d be flush with cap room that we’d use on another FA).

That was also a deal signed 2 off season's ago though and that's why so many of us are yelling to just give Burns what he wants. It may be an overpay right now, but in 2 years when 10 more players have signed deals for more than him, it will then be a bargain. Once we turned down 2 firsts, we lost all leverage and made it so we HAD to re-sign him, just get it done.

Is it weird that hearing this today makes me a tad more interested in our WRs (particularly Thielen) in my fantasy draft in a few hours? If he holds out, that hurts the defense, we give up more points and end up needing to pass the ball more than planned/expected. Plus I absolutely LOVE Theilen in a PPR if it's a deep league like mine (12 teams, 2 flex, 7 bench) as he's going to get 4 for 40 minimum each game as Bryce's check down guy, can't ask for more from your injury and bye week filler guy from the bench.

Honestly, he probably just assumed a deal would have been done by now, so he said what he did to look like the good team player he was trying to be, never expecting it to get this far and force his hand.

The problem is that we're not going to get the same offer the Rams gave us, a team that is fooling itself thinking it's one player away from contention and thus ending up giving us a Top 10 pick, plus more, for him. Best we could hope for would be for an actual contending team wanting him and get a late first for him. Having said that, I'm not against trading him for 2 firsts still, but I'd rather he stay. I just see a lot of downsides to letting him play out the year without having signed an extension, and none of them are good. There is a very minimal chance that he has the season we're all expecting/wanting him to have and that being a good thing for us if he hasn't already signed his deal.

Underrated is the WR room because we don't have a true #1, but I think we have 4 guys who if they pan out this year could all be a good #2 on most teams with Shenault being a solid gadget guy. Lacks the shiny #1 leading the room, but overall it's a rock solid group that I think people are sleeping on (if they can stay healthy)

The theory you put out here, about Burns' worth because of his run defense should be less than those guys, is just a fallacy based in non-reality about how free agency works in the NFL. What you are saying makes sense if there are regularly available elite players every year in free agency, particularly pass rushers. The problem with your theory is that it couldn't be further from the truth, pass rushers of Burns ability rarely, if ever, hit the open FA market. Even if for the sake of argument, you say that Burns is the exact equivalent to Crosby or Highsmith as a pass rusher, but lacks in the run defense, it doesn't mean that we should be trying to pay Burns less than them because of it. If there were a half dozen elite pass rushers available in free agency every year, and we could then pay one of them more than we want to pay Burns, it would make more sense, but it doesn't work that way. Take run defense out of the equation, solely look at pass rushing ability, players of Burns' ability just don't become available in free agency, they sign long term deals before it gets to that point. Because of that, if by some miracle a player of Burns' pass rushing ability does hit free agency, then some team out there in desperate need of pass rushing will pay him a monster contract to get him, rush defense aside. So in the end, it comes down to........ Are you really going to try and hold Burns' feet to the fire over a few million dollars per season because you don't feel he's an elite run defender? If we don't re-sign him this year and we don't franchise tag him (because c'mon, players on franchise tag rarely works out for the team in the long run), one of 3 things happen next off season..... 1. He balls out, gets 15+ sacks and to keep him from someone stealing him, we have to make him the highest paid defensive player in league history and overpay him more than we would have to right now. 2. He balls out, gets 15+ sacks and we refuse to make him the highest paid defender and someone else does, we just lose him and likely end up not even getting a comp pick for him because we'll be flush with FA money that will be spent elsewhere and thus negate getting a comp pick in return. 3. He doesn't ball out because he struggles with the new scheme and we lose him because someone who runs a 4-3 will still give him a massive contract and then we still lose him for nothing. I don't know about you guys, but none of those options look great to me, I'd much prefer one of the following two options......... 1. We re-sign him now for above his current market value, he balls out and gets 15+ sacks, then when new monster defensive deals are signed in the next 2 off seasons, he falls from being one of the top 3 paid defenders to being borderline top 10 and we have a bargain contract for him. 2. We re-sign him now for above current market value, he struggles in the new scheme and it's proven that he should be in a 4-3 system. So we decide to eat the cap hit and trade him like the Raiders did with Khalil Mack and get 2 Firsts and potentially a few more middle round picks for him.

12 seasons as a HC, only had a winning record 3 times, and has won 2 COY awards. It really doesn't make sense how someone has cobbled together that kind of career in an age where most coaches can't go more than 2 seasons of losing records without getting fired. But it all goes back to my problem with him while he was here, he's a great Monday to Saturday coach, his players all love him and love to play for him, but he's a beyond terrible gamely coach who realistically would have never risen above being a DC.

I’d have no issue with this if we didn’t turn down two firsts for him. It doesn’t matter if he wants more than we feel comfortable giving him, once that was known we had no negotiating power and we have no option but re-signing him. Just get it done, if we passed up 2 firsts and then can’t/don’t re-sign him then people need to be fired immediately.

Not sure how that's possible when Burns is already better than Shaq has ever been

Maybe he wasn’t trying hard because he/they didn’t actually want to win the game? I realize so many on here we’re all about sneaking into the playoffs, but now that we’re where we are at, can people finally admit that rooting against your team at times can be unbelievably beneficial to the future of the franchise? The Bucs snuck into the playoffs with a losing record, got beat, and ended up with the 19th pick in the draft and go into the season with Baker and Trask as their top 2 QB’s. If we made the playoffs and had the 19th pick, there is a literal 0% chance we have Bryce and probably less than a 5% chance we could have even got high enough to get AR. We’d have ended up drafting Levis or signing someone else like Carr or Jimmy G. Would sneaking into the playoffs just to get blown out in the first round really have been worth screwing up our future? I’ve always said REAL fans aren’t those who root for their team to win every game regardless of the implications, but those who can objectively step back and root for what is best for the franchise moving forward, this is a picture perfect example of that. I wasn’t rooting for us to lose going into the season, but at the end, when it was clear the two options were a high draft pick or sneaking into the playoffs only to get blown out and set the franchise back another 2-3 years, it was an easy call at that point to want us to lose.

no, he hasn't shown much of anything and unfortunately for him and the Eagles, thanks to the pandemic draft, it will go down as one of the worst drafts of all time. Taking him one pick before Justin Jefferson will always go down rough on it's own, add in that thanks to the pandemic draft, there is the video out there of Vikings coaches laughing at them for doing it and rushing Jefferson's name to the podium, and it's an epic draft failure. https://youtu.be/RBx7lfkJiFE?si=IUFADGQ4EWpaTqMV

Have I just missed us adding a QB to the practice squad? Because we can't be going into the season with Dalton running the scout team, he sure as hell isn't going to get us ready for a mobile QB in Ridder that we'll face week 1. That's why I was hoping we'd keep Corral on the 53 man roster, so he could be the scout team QB this year which I think he'd be better at than almost any PS option we have out there right now.

Eh, think that's a little bit revisionist history and a little bit misguided. Nobody could have predicted Horn's injury issues and I still think he can be alive if he can stay healthy, so still not upset about taking him instead of Surtain, but that's really the only one of those players I'd have been okay with there. I'm still convinced Fields will end up as a bust, he can't throw the ball and at some point he won't be able to run it every play (even when he did, they ended up with the worst record in the league). Parsons wasn't what he is now coming out, he was a MLB, which we weren't taking at 8. In a re-draft right now, he goes #2 behind Lawrence and if everyone knew he'd end up the pass rusher he is, he probably ends up going 3 after Lawrence and Wilson at the time anyways. And Slater would have been a reach there are the time, I'd have been okay trading back a bit to get him, but not at 8 then.

I'd actually say waiting until now would be the smart move, much smarter than what Bosa is doing. You learn the new defense, show the coaches how valuable you can be while also making sure you're fully prepared for the season. Then threaten to sit out and hope the deal gets done before Week 1, which if it does, will put him in a better place to be ready for the season than someone like Bosa would be if he signs before next weekend as well.

His last 3 seasons he's gone 9, 9, and 12.5 sacks on bad teams that faced offenses who were able to run the ball a lot because they were playing with the lead. We already knew he'd be in a new scheme when we turned down 2 firsts for him, you don't do that if you then need to see him in the new scheme before committing to him. What more do you want to see out of him to pay him like a Top 5 pass rusher? We could make him the highest paid defensive player right now (won't happen, but just saying if we did) and within 2 years he wouldn't even be in the Top 10 anymore. Absolute worst case scenario if we don't re-sign him now (outside of injury) would be that he struggles in a new scheme and puts up 8-10 sacks. In that case, we either lose him for nothing (or a 3rd round comp pick) or we still have to sign him to a massive contract to keep him since some other 4-3 team out there would pay him big money to steal him from us and play him as a standard DE again. Worst case scenario if we do sign him to a big deal now and he struggles in the scheme, we then are able to flip him for a haul of draft picks, like the Raiders did with Khalil Mack. I see no reason to not re-sign him before week 1, just get it done.

The problem is if he then goes and balls out this year, puts up 15 sacks, we’ll have to make him the highest paid defensive player in league history to be able to keep him. The odds aren’t good that he’ll suck in the new system, particularly since he’s still going to just be rushing the passer on most snaps. Better to lock him up now and maybe over pay his CURRENT market rate than risk having to pay market rate next offseason, which will 100% be higher if he has a good year. We turned down 2 firsts for him, have to lock him up long term on a deal that doesn’t make him the highest paid defender in the league

Little weird that he couldn’t just say, “no it’s not contract related” if that’s the case. Need to get this done before the season starts, just give him a tad less than Watt got, his agents can’t be expecting more. It will look like a bargain for us if he explodes this season when compared to what it would then take to keep him from leaving in FA.

Very honestly think it could be any team except the Bucs, they’re going to be garbage unless Baker magically found his game again this offseason. Having Godwin and Evan’s can help mask a lot of problems, but they have issues.

Only way we gift the Bears a top 5 pick is if Bryce gets hurt or this staff really screws up. We weren’t even a top 5 pick this year, I think people forget at times that we traded up to #1 and that we weren’t the worst team in the league. We had the 9th pick, upgraded the roster at every position other than WR #1 (but improved the room) and people think we’re going to be worse this year. Make it make sense

I think much of this is an odd overreaction that many around here have had and I struggle to understand why, because all of the following are true…… Bryce, even as a rookie should be better than what we had at QB last year. We brought back the entire OL Sanders is an upgrade over Foreman (no, not over CMC but we were terrible when we had CMC, didn’t go on the run we did till after he was gone) Yes losing Moore hurts, but our overall WR room is better than it was last year. Defense really didn’t lose anyone of significance while we added a few good pieces. Coaching staff as a whole is significantly improved. When you take a 7 win team and then do everything noted above, I don’t get the doom and gloom some people have with saying it will take time. I think we’ll be decent pretty quickly, there really isn’t any reason for them not to be when you look at it like the above. But I also don’t think we’re legitimate contenders, I think we’re a 7-9 win team who will be in almost every game in the 4th quarter and challenge for the division or a WC spot.

Just because you’re unable to view the team objectively and think we are legitimate contenders this year doesn’t mean expectations are low moving forward when people speak in realities. Been trying to tell you this for months but you just keep sticking your head back in the sand trying to ignore facts.

Wait a second… you’re telling me our waiver claimed UDFA couldn’t pick off the top pick of the draft?!?!?! What a scrub

Maybe, maybe not. Might have done it hoping with all the other QB cuts that happened, he'd pass waivers and they could get him onto the practice squad. I still contend that we're one of the best places for him this year, to learn from this great staff we've put together, as he's not getting a shot at a backup role this year anywhere, he'd be a 3rd QB at best anywhere else right now.

Seriously? We structured his contract to have over 12 million in dead cap hits combined in the 2 years after his contract was over? For a guard? What the hell?!?!?!