kungfoodude

https://www.carolinahuddle.com/topic/168088-big-rumor/

I think the fact that we as a franchise want to move on should tell the story if you couldn't see it with your eyes or deduce it from the statistics. He's a journeyman backup QB. That's why this will be the third team in 3 seasons to get rid of him. After all, the Jets chose Sam Darnold and Josh McCown over him, the Saints chose Drew Brees, Taysom Hill and ultimately Jameis Winston over him. What we know is that he didn't lose his job to PJ Walker and Will Grier, so I guess there is that.

$17 mil and $21 mil is not a great backup QB contract, however. I would assume that whoever we trade him to better be convinced he is starting material. I am still thinking we basically have to give up a pick to get rid of him.

I think that depends on how free agency and the draft goes. Shaq is in line to get cut at some point based on that salary but he is also the only real starting caliber NFL LB on our roster(Chinn is destined for safety). If we can't replace him this offseason, it doesn't hurt us to keep him around for one more season until we can replace him. We can't cut all the overpaid players at once and very easily replace them.

This is just one bit of data but the whole of the picture has been pretty clear. Successful teams don't spend mega-bucks on RB's or at least they don't for very long. We have 2-4 more years of interesting data incoming because we have a lot of guys in the past two years that got mega bucks deals and Barkley will probably be another one coming up.

Actually, it was more common back then it was now. Only 12 of those 40 instances are from 2016-2020. It's almost as if the league has decided that you shouldn't spend a lot of money on RB's..... In fairness, there are 7 RB's that will make $8+ mil in 2021 and 6 the two years after. This is of course assuming some of those guys don't get cut during that period, which is likely.

I remember people making that argument at the time. Admittedly, we couldn't have predicted the cap drop but it wasn't hard to predict that making a RB the highest paid in the league wasn't a good idea.

Flat $8 mil. There have only been 40 instances of a RB getting $8+ mil in a season during that period.

Some interesting data I complied from salary cap and production.

That wasn't a good price, however. The argument for extending early IS to get a good price and that simply did not happen. It was an a bad signing at the time and in hindsight it looks a lot worse. Doesn't mean he wasn't worth that money at all, but the timing was idiotic and the amount was directly counter to what the majority of winning teams in the NFL do.

At the moment, it has been far from a bargain at $25 mil paid for three games. He will need to stay healthy and produce for that to be the case. I don't think "bargain" and top paid player at the position are really ever in the same sentence without some serious team hardware to be considered.

It remains to be seen if CMC gets the workload that he did under Rivera or not. 2017 12.3 touches per game. 70% offensive snap count. 2018 20.4 touches per game. 91% offensive snap count. 2019 25.2 touches per game. 93% offensive snap count. 2020(only three games played) 25.3 touches per game. 77% offensive snap count. The snap count in 2020 is difficult to unpack. The only full healthy game he played was at 97% snap count and in the other two he was injured during the game. That makes this pretty difficult to surmise how exactly we would have used him in our new offense. His replacement, Mike Davis, fluctuated from the mid-50's to upper 80's in percentage of snap count.

The market is fluid but we were the team that "set" the current market, as Kamara and Cook's deals followed in the next few months. I don't expect we will see a new highwater mark for a bit after the cap drop. Drake and Aaron Jones are the only real threats this offseason and I don't see record deals being signed in either case. Then you have Chubb, Barkley and Ronald Jones in 2022. It's possible it happens that year but I wouldn't make a substantial bet on it. You never know, we aren't the only extremely stupid front office in the NFL, that is for certain.

It's tough to say what our course will be this offseason. If the Watson rumors are true, you almost have to throw the playbook out the window and just see what the inevitable cost will be before you chart a course in the draft. That is assuming it happens before the draft. If you remove Watson from the equation, you have to tag Moton until you get a deal in place especially with this new chunk of money available to spend. Then I think it comes down to who you really like in the draft at QB. IMO, it's unlikely we get a shot at one of the top 4 QB's in the draft at 8. If you like one or more of those guys, do you package to trade UP rather than trade down? If you decide to stand pat at #8, I think we need to see what is available at LT. If we can land a top 2 OT prospect in the draft, I would be reticent to trade down, as well. I might even make the same argument for an elite CB there. Other than that, I would try and trade into the teens to add some additional picks. Given the dire situation at OL, it would be nice to bolster this years picks and compensatory picks or add some 1st, 2nd or 3rd round picks next year. Ideally, given that this is a strong OL class, I would like to see at least 3 OL drafted in 2021.

Literally almost none. Furthermore, I don't see what real incentive we have to restructure him. I'd rather take the hit now and have more money in the future than spread out a hit over years that we will likely need that money to sign our core players.

It isn't a nonsensical take. The list of HOF RB's with Super Bowl rings isn't large in the past 25 years. I think it includes 5-6 players. It was a crazy overspend. The market was SET by us, that is a classic Hurney move. The other big recent deals came AFTER the CMC contract. I'm not saying CMC isn't worth $16 mil, I'm saying NO NFL RB is currently worth that. Ask all those teams that have been paying top 5 RB money over the past 5-7 years. It's not what smart, winning franchises do. It isn't a coincidence that we haven't been a smart nor winning franchise.

I mean, you can gyrate all you want but the stats were what they were. The "he can be a slot WR" crowd is truly perplexing. If he can transition to being a slot WR(which he most likely cannot), how does that make him more valuable? I can get a much more effective slot WR for far less money. Frankly, if I have $16 mil/year average to replace him with a RB and a slot WR over the next five years, I can definitely get his level of production from two players for less money. He's being paid for the thing that he does...which is being an elite RB. Same reason Kamara got a pile of money(also another guy that could easily generate 1000/1000 seasons if he ever had the workload CMC does). Same reason Dalvin Cook got a pile of money. The argument against paying CMC has never, EVER been about who he is as a player. It's about what RB is as a position and it's relative value in the modern NFL.

@Moo Daeng This might illustrate what I am talking about a little bit more, I took performance metrics from a variety of sources to get a broad look at how he performed. Pay in 2020: 18th Performance QBR: 17th QB Rating: 22nd QB Yardage: 17th QB TD: 24th QB Wins: 23rd Completion Percentage Above Expectation(NFL Next Gen Stats): 13th Deep Passes Ranking(The Deep Ball Project): 25th PFF Ranking: 29th DVOA(Football Outsiders): 19th DYAR(Football Outsiders): 18th AV(Pro Football Reference): 16th Since this was almost across the board the best season of his career and his performance was at or below his 18th ranked pay, is there much hope he will improve in 2021 or 2022? At that point he becomes a top 12 paid QB. If he merely remains static, it makes that a terrible contract indeed. It would probably represent the worst active QB contract in the NFL IF that happens.

Contracts are largely judged on what you get in return. The Foles contract was awful because he couldn't produce to match it. The Brock Osweiler contract was awful because he couldn't produce to match it. The Mike Glennon contract was awful because he couldn't produce to match it. The Teddy Bridgewater contract is awful because he couldn't produce to match it.

Yes, his fans seem to think this, however it just isn't true. The breakdown of his comparison to slot receivers showed he was one of the lowest rated slot players in the NFL. He is just a RB. An elite RB, a dual threat RB, a HOF caliber RB, but just a RB.

He already got paid $24 mil last year and is on schedule for $10 mil guaranteed this year(which he would get even if we cut him if that is fully guaranteed money). There isn't a dramatic incentive for him to restructure, nor should we bother kicking the can on a player that likely has no future with our team past 2020.

He has the 13th highest cap number at QB in 2021 and the 10th highest cap number in 2022. That will likely drop one spot with a Dak Prescott deal but other than that, he is likely to remain in the top 12 paid QB's in the NFL. That is absolutely AWFUL for a backup QB. He isn't any better than Nick Foles is and he is also a backup QB. He is certainly worse than Ryan Fitzpatrick is and he is also a journeyman/backup QB.

He isn't some unicorn player. He is the same thing Ladainian Tomlinson, Marshall Faulk or any of these other high caliber dual threat feature backs were. That doesn't change that he is a HOF talent, however. The thing that you are failing to see is that RB's don't win games based on being great, especially in the modern NFL. It isn't a requirement to have an elite or HOF caliber RB to win a Super Bowl. The post you are responding to is absolutely correct. There is a reason why most of these recent Super Bowl champions don't have large sums of money tied up at RB. What you do largely see in those teams is them having elite or HOF caliber QB's in the overwhelming majority of those games. That isn't an accident.

At $8-12 mil/year he would still be consistently in the top 5-6 at RB in terms of pay. Even without the signing bonus hit on the cap, not many teams are going to want that much money tied up in a RB. That is precisely why very, very few teams in the NFL have that kind of money tied up in a RB. If you notice, almost none of them are good teams. As fans, it's easy to see CMC's greatness and why any team should want him. But if you look at it from a front office perspective, it's easy to see why it is an extremely poor allocation of resources. But, yes, we CAN afford to trade him. I would caution that he has never been worth less in a trade than this moment in his career. He is coming off an injury plagued season and in the first year of a very large contract.

It's very stoppable if we don't improve this OL. That's an element that can effectively stop both CMC AND an elite QB.