kungfoodude

They can only come after it on a season by season basis, not all in one chunk. Agreed. I don't expect it will extend into the season, although they may be dumb enough to do that.

I'd probably pony up the 3 1st round picks but probably not the 2 seconds, as well. Let's not forget that is also a team lacking pretty heavily in talent. If I were to pick a team that would have the LEAST issue giving up those, it's probably Miami. They already are a good team so winning now might suit their purposes a lot more. For the Jets and us, we still have a lot of building to accomplish. Miami just needs some fine tuning.

Yeah, I am not super surprised by that. The sports media tends to be very monolithic about their draft takes. Actually, it's probably more groupthink than anything. The NFL scouting process seems to rarely work this way. By that same token, the NFL is a very copy-cat league, so seeing a creative gunslinger like Wilson will probably make some of these guys think about Murray, Mayfield, Mahomes, R. Wilson, etc.

He has the $30 mil signing bonus but they will eventually be able to get all that back if he really did sit out his entire contract. No, in the 10 Burns scenario, Chinn is our QB.

Yeah and what we offered for Matt Stafford was a very, very fair deal, IMO. So, I do have some faith that we aren't going to lose our minds and spend an absurd amount to get Watson. All of that is likely fan/media overreaction. It may be a crazy market but that doesn't mean we as a franchise have to do crazy stuff.

He isn't the future of our team, he isn't going to be here for the future. There is no sense in having an aging "bridge" QB in our current situation. Not to mention it doesn't make any logical sense for him as a player. He has played his entire career with the Steelers. Were he to leave, I imagine he is going somewhere to chase a title next season. That isn't us.

It's funny that you believe only NFL owners can act on principle, whereas players of a certain "sort" only see green. Says a lot about your worldview.

And the best GM's and coaches in the NFL do understand that a single pass rusher can make a huge impact in every game. The fact that you are using sportsbooks as a reference for positional value really shows how little you understand about actual football.

Oof. If I were the Steelers, I'd work out a restructure or something. They are already $30 mil over the cap without that hit.

His arm is starting to decline somewhat, as well.

Ben makes little to no sense for us. He is rapidly declining, he don't have a line currently that could protect him adequately and his cost doesn't make any sense whatsoever for a 1-2 year deal outside of a veteran minimum contract. At that rate, why wouldn't he just sign cheaply somewhere that could actually bring him a title?

Didn't Roethlisberger state publicly that he would work with him on getting that $41 mil figure down? Now, what I will say is, Big Ben has been showing some definite signs of decline over the past two seasons. It may just simply be that the Steelers want to move on in general. I can't say that I would blame him, as I don't think Ben may have more than a year or so left in the tank.

The complete and utter lack of understanding of NFL positional value in the Huddle amazes me sometimes. Literally all you have to do is pay attention to the contracts being signed, the positions being drafted in the top 15 and that is it. It's not hard.

No he isn't. No matter what you think in your head, that is not the case in the real world.

No, you really can't. Elite QB's have an established track record of translating to titles(divisional, conference, Superb Owl, etc). RB's just don't. Feel free to peruse the leading rushers and leading passers over the past decade. I've posted about this before, the trend is extraordinarily obvious. We really shouldn't need much in the way of proof of that. While CMC has been putting up historic numbers, it has been leading to more and more losses. He's an amazing and elite player at a completely devalued position in the modern NFL.

If you can't see it, we can't make you see it. All I can I say is that you might want to get some film study in.

Yeah but we are all making hypothetical offers anyway. We have no idea what the ACTUAL price is nor what each team is even prepared to offer. What other teams offer at some point becomes irrelevant. We had the opportunity to snag Matt Stafford but LA outbid us. At a certain point, your price is just your price. I would rather miss out on this deal entirely than make some completely insane offer that puts us in Houston Texans territory.

This is also not including any money he has made in endorsements or other typical athlete revenue streams. Yes, they may be minimal in comparison to what his annual salary would be but he could still easily net substantial amounts of endorsement or appearance money while he is sitting out. More than enough so that he would likely never have to touch what he has already made.

The money still counts against the cap. They can avoid actually making any payments to him but they don't get to spend that money. Once the season starts, if he is on the roster, his salary counts against the cap.

Even the best RB in the NFL is still just a running back. Ladainian Tomlinson was the same sort of RB that CMC is. He also retired without any Super Bowl trophies. Marshall Faulk didn't have any titles until Kurt Warner showed up. That I am talking about eras in which RB's mattered a great deal more. Take a look at the last 15 leading rushers on the Super Bowl champions and the cost will stick out like a sore thumb. The fact of the matter is, it is a losing strategy to have a running back as one of your highest paid players.

How about you paint the scenario of their owner eating $35-42 mil in dead cap for 5 years over some sense of "pride?" He will fold, or he wasn't a very smart businessman, he was just very lucky.

Yeah, we can't just give the entire future away WITH a shitload of first rounders. Our core players are extremely valuable because we have so very few of them. Guys like Burns, Moore, Chinn and perhaps Moton, Brown, YGM, CMC, etc.....those guys are the future of this team. We don't have many on our roster that will likely be here in even three years(and some of those on that list may not either). You have to keep those kind of players around or you are doomed to be in a perpetual rebuild.

He has enough money to live comfortably for the remainder of his life. As long as he doesn't do foolish things with it or take unwarranted risks investing it, he shouldn't have to work another day if he so chooses.

They'd be completely insane to not take that deal. A move down to 8, another first and an elite pass rusher on a rookie deal for the #2 overall pick? Yeah, you are really overvaluing that pick by a massive margin. I am not saying Houston wouldn't turn down my hypothetical Burns offer but any deal involving Burns is going to have to knock that starting price down. A LOT. I have no issues making a trade but there is no reason to trade a player of his caliber away and then give them a boatload of draft picks that absolutely remove any and all ability we would have to replace him.

Hence why you don't make a RB one of the highest paid in the NFL. See Hurney 1.0, 2.0 and I am sure eventually 3.0 for the WTF's.