Mr. Scot

This season and next, I believe.

I'm hoping it gets restructured so that the money is coming from another team.

There's not a competition. Darnold is the starter.

Yeah, about that thread title...

A conditional pick hedges on the traded player meeting certain standards. For example, a team could trade a third round pick that turns into a second if that player makes the Pro Bowl.

With who? Bridgewater? Walker? Grier? Darnold is the starter.

So...ummm, yeah. Apparently we made a move

There was a lot of speculation that whoever traded for Darnold might not pick up his option. Turns out the Panthers will.

The Panthers have made an official announcement that doesn't give any indication the picks are conditional.

Likely puts an end to the Deshaun Watson speculation too. (not that there was much left)

For those wondering, no indication that any of the picks are conditional.

Well, there's your quarterback. Not giving up as much this year leaves us in a good position to build through the current draft.

The notion that Watson doesn't know who's accusing him, yet could amazingly produce a long list of people who aren't, is a pretty huge stretch. And the spin on the consensual thing? Come on, dude. Also, again no this isn't a natural progression. The investigation is happening because somebody filed a complaint.

It was Florio who pointed out that it backfired. Hardin has been saying from the beginning that Watson had no idea who was accusing him. It was already pretty obvious that was bullsh-t. This makes it more so. Admitting that Watson had a sexual encounter with one of his masseuses probably didn't help either, even with the proviso that it was consensual.

Fair point.

Actually at least three women have claimed that, and it might now be four. Not really. Per the HPD statement, this is in response to an accuser filing a complaint with them. What I haven't seen yet is whether the complaint is from one of the ones already working with Buzbee, the one working with a different lawyer, or somebody entirely new (that'd bring the number of accusers to 26 if that's the case). Buzbee did say there are going to be more complaints filed, some with HPD and some with other agencies. The official lawsuits filed count is now 22.

This isn't a case of "thinking like a lawyer" because per Florio (who was a lawyer) statements like this are inadmissible in court. Plus common sense would tell you that even a hundred people saying "well, he didn't rape / murder / attack me" doesn't qualify as evidence that a defendant didn't do it to one. This is purely for PR, but it also kind of backfired. Florio pointed out that Watson being able to so easily produce the names of 18 masseuses who haven't accused him of anything undermines his claim that he has no idea who the others are. That besides raising the question "why does he need so many different masseuses".

Breer said the rationale behind it is that they believe they have a Super Bowl roster, and they don't want to risk things going bad if their starting quarterback gets hurt. With that said, my response:

According to Person, we weren't interested. Still haven't seen anything to confirm we're talking to Short either.

Another team's castoff took us to our first Super Bowl.

Relevant to this topic: Albert Breer is reporting that both Justin Fields and Trey Lance are each looking at having an additional pro day. The reason? They want another chance to impress the 49ers. (other teams would be allowed to attend though)

I get annoyed seeing people talk about mediocre quarterbacks having great workouts. For quarterbacks who look good in actual games like Wilson and Fields, a workout or a pro day just solidifies what you already knew. Yet every year, I see people ooing and aahing over guys that didn't look like anything special (Mond, for example) having a good workout, only to later see those guys wash out of the NFL.

You want to give that one to Bridgewater?

Don't think that's in the proposal, at least not that I've seen. Doesn't sound like they're going to allow kickers to wear numbers in the 90s either.

My guess would be because some players would like to be able to wear their old high school / college numbers. I'm not necessarily a big fan of the idea because I'm a grumpy old man and I don't necessarily want the NFL to look more like the NCAA, but realistically it's probably no big deal.