Sgt Schultz

I don't think that helps them much. Essentially, they are playing that game without the trade with Brady right now. Somebody that understand the ins and outs of trades and dead money can probably help, but as I read it, his dead cap is mostly unamortized signing bonus right now, to the tune of $32M. They are eating $8M of that this year and the rest in 2023, at least as it stands right now. His 2022 salary is only $9M. So, depending on the timing of things, bringing him back and trading him may actually cost them a ton. I think the Watson drama would have to drone on for several months to avoid eating the rest of the bonus in 2022. It sounds like it might be ending even as we speak. But again, I might be all wrong on how that works.

His base salary in 2022 is $35M. Looking just at the cap, Seattle can afford Watson right now. They are the only ones that could take his salary without touching anybody else. We are second, but would be $6M under water. People also need to remember we'd have to clear more out than that, and the players being mentioned in a trade are still on their rookie deals so their cap impact is not dramatic. The Steelers are $2M worse off than us, the Eagles $6M. Those numbers are still in the realm of possibility without screwing everybody in the process. Tampa, the Saints, and Vikings in that order are all under water and it would take a lot of work to make room. Tampa has the most dead cap already, then the Saints. They have challenges already without even considering Watson's contract. Is it possible for those bottom three to get themselves into a position to take on a $35M contract this year? On paper, probably but it will take 6 CPA's and 2 or 3 Economists to figure out how to pull it off.

If we can have House and Senate Ethics Committees, Matt Rhule can give a seminar on being an NFL Head Coach.

For what?

A year ago I would have been in favor of spinning the Winston wheel, even if we intended to draft somebody. He was cheap and, if nothing else, would have been a reasonable #2 on the depth chart. We didn't have a legitimate #2 on the depth chart, and the #1 we had was being run out of town. If we didn't have Darnold for the upcoming year, I might still be in favor of it assuming he is still relatively cheap. Sure, he was an interception machine in 2019 in Tampa, but Arians' offense can have that effect on QBs. Let's see, we have a QB who throws interceptions so let's put him in an offense that involves more risky throws.....what did we think was going to happen? He threw a lot of everything that year (TDs, yards, and ints). But alas, we have Darnold to the tune of $18.5M this year. Adding somebody else in a similar situation, albeit more accomplished, is really throwing the dung against the wall at this point. Brady is a long-shot story. If Bledsoe had not gotten hurt, it is possible Brady would have been a footnote on pro-football-reference's website.

Hard to argue with that plan. I've always thought that an owner's job was to count money. The NFL delivers it in box cars, count it, count it again, take your shoes off and wade in it, hell, take a nap in it if you want. If you want to be more active with the team, do what Tom Benson used to do in New Orleans. When they won, he would take to the field after the game ended and dance. The fans liked it, it got his mug on the highlights, and it did nothing to interfere with the team other than if he took the field right away and they had to run around him to get to the locker room.

That won't work. We'd screw up the draft picks and wind up with 32 versatile guys who don't excel at anything.

That is the irony on the whole discussion of "tanking." The teams who are at the very bottom every year are almost always teams who were not trying to be at the very bottom that year. The ones that are trying to be at the very bottom usually wind up in the next tier, with us.

We would be the team that could not get a trophy in a league where everybody gets a trophy.

Do preseason games count? Scrimmages?

You two are arguing about what makes better manure: cow dung or horse dung.

With this year's QB crop, it sure would be nice to have a second round pick.....say, #38. They could grab a good LT in the first, then a QB in the second. I don't expect any of this year's crop to rip up the league for a couple of years, if any wind up doing so. But our QB depth chart is a vast wasteland. Even if the guy they wind up drafting is not the answer, there is a spot for him unless he is worse than PJ and Darnold, which might be an accomplishment. But alas, we don't have a second round pick. Or a third. We could possibly get one in a trade down, but that means we have to find a team salivating over somebody enough to part with multiple picks for our #6. Don't despair, though. PT Barnum was right.....and probably an optimist.

No you don't. The first thing we do when news of a contract, extension, or restructure comes out is over react. I said that earlier in the Shaq restructure thread. But taking a breath, reading, and understanding the number is not the internet, social media, nor the Huddle way.

I guess that is about as optimistic as one can get right now. But it is all in the delivery. Compare "sh*t, that tornado is coming right at us" to "I'm optimistic that tornado will track right over us."

People need to sit down, because this will be a shock. We are over-reacting. I know, that has never happened before in the history of the Huddle. All they did with Shaq was shift some of this year’s cap hit to next ($5M+). The concern over dead cap is pointless unless we think he was going to be cut or traded this year or next. But it was fairly obvious neither of those things was going to happen for 2022. The major problem with Shaq’s value vs. his contract has never been the bonus/dead cap, but the escalation in his salary the last two years. That created a time bomb to make a decision on him, and he had his best season right before the bomb went off. Once they figured out he was going to be on the 2022 roster, this becomes nothing more than moving cap space from 2023 to 2022. In all honesty, the amount isn’t going to make any difference in 2023 unless they spend like drunken sailors. You know, doing things like exercising the 5th year on a QB you believe will be good under your expert coaching, but have seen no evidence of either him being good or your expert coaching when you decide to exercise the option. We'll have time to get upset and over-react when they do something stupid with that breathing room they created, but doing this to a contract that has only two years left is more accounting noise than anything substantive. It is either the equivalent of castling in chess or stacking the deck chairs on the Titanic.

My first choice is not on the list. We decided it was a good idea to exercise the 5th year on Darnold at $18+M, we're not paying him to ride the bench. Even if that is the best place for him. Especially when this is not a great QB year in the draft. Of what's left, I like #5 but I don't know if it is doable. Again, $18+M tied up in Darnold, it boils down to how much one of those guys would add to our QB misadventure. $18M is not a huge amount for a starting QB these days, but it is a lot for a guy riding the pine. If you can get somebody to do what Darnold was supposed to do for some small amount, then it becomes realistic. #6 is not my favorite because I want to build the line early in this years' draft pool. That said, our QB depth chart is two guys who could be selling insurance or real estate next year barring some seismic shift in one or both of their performances. I'd rather draft an OL in the 1st and QB in the 2nd in the scenario laid out, and if the QB looks like anything less that our future starter, draft another one next year when the pickings might be better. But, unless the guy stinks the place up worse than our current duo, at least we have one on the depth chart heading into next year, even if he is a backup. So, 1) none of the above, 2) #5 if the numbers can work, 3) #6 if we can pull off the trade and get an good OL with our lower first rounder.

I would have my doubts about this even if Tepper has given up on Rhule. Most likely, the only coaching candidates who are willing to come in to an organization who has traded everything away are.......college coaches or those desperate for a HC job. It is almost the situation Rhule came into when he got here, mostly due to a sorely needed salary cap purge for guys whose best years were behind them. But, an established NFL coaching candidate is most likely lured to an an organization that has a handful of pretty good players that under-performed as a unity due to coaching rather than one that peddled them all away for draft picks and the cupboard is bare. It's nice to think the coach wants to come in and completely "build the team in his image," but the reality is starting at ground zero is going to take too much time unless the "hit rate" on draft picks and FAs is nearly 100%. Even if you have a ton of draft picks, if you are lucky half of them will work out and that is if they are day one or two picks. Having Chinn and Horn looks pretty attractive as a starting point on defense. If Brown can get himself together, now you have some strength in key defensive positions and it is all young. The cupboard is pretty bare on offense right now, especially with CMC's playing time the last two seasons being minimal due to injuries. The paradox is people drool over Harbaugh and what he did at San Francisco, but their roster was pretty good when he walked in the door there. His results would not have been nearly as impressive nor immediate had they decided to peddle everything away for draft picks at the same time they were looking for a new HC.

Wrong place, sorry

I think Bidwill is Latin for dumbass.

I said last year I wanted Slater once Sewell was off the board. #8 was a little higher than most had Slater projected, but our need was also higher than the average team. Or a team with a poor OL for that matter. I can't criticize the Horn pick other than that because we have very limited results to base it on. If Horn turns out to be a shutdown corner, that makes it a tossup in my eyes because we do know Slater is pretty good at his trade. I'm still trying to figure out how we appear to have more needs now than we did a year ago at this point. That took real skill.

This. I can accept Tepper was initially giving both Hurney and Ron the benefit of the doubt. Was the problem one or both of them, or were they trapped in an organization controlled by the owner? It was a fair question, although I think we knew the answer (the problem was all of the above). But firing Ron, while completely justified, and putting the coaching resulting search in the hands of a guy whose ability and fate is, at best, in front of the jury, and at worst, awaiting a date the the executioner, still has me scratching my head. In a perfect world, Hurney would have been shown the door before Ron. In the first runner up world, Hurney would have had absolutely nothing to do with the search despite the fact he was still here.

From everything I've read (which could be completely wrong), they only liked Lawrence and Wilson in the draft, so you are correct, Darnold was never insurance in case they missed out on either of them....because unless they traded the farm to move to #2 or #1, missing on them both was a virtual certainty and they knew it. The panic was the situation they created by engaging in a public tit-for-tat with Bridgewater for daring to criticize Camelot. It torpedoed the original plan of starting him for a second year, or even a third. Suddenly, they realized their QB was PJ, Grier, the non-existent chance they were going to get their hands on Lawrence or Wilson, or a FA/trade. Add the delusion that we were a playoff team if we just had a better QB. It is at that point where I believe reality and panic set in. They now had to get their hands on a QB, and looking at the options above, the answer was not PJ, Grier, or the availability of Lawrence/Wilson. That left a trade or FA. I'm sure they sat down, discussed, and did weighed the pluses and minuses of Darnold and others. That part of the decision was calculated. It wasn't even a horrible gamble, because on the surface all they were doing was swapping out the second year of Teddy for Darnold in the original plan. Fair enough. If Darnold works out, it was the same as Teddy working out. If not, they buy time to find the next temporary or long-term solution. It was still a reasonable situation. But they made it unreasonable when they overpaid for him in the trade and then exercised the 5th year. All because they thought he was a modern day $6M Man, adjusted for inflation, given their impeccable coaching. So, the process of settling on Darnold was not panic. The fact that they had to use that process was. And again, self-inflicted. Truth was, Teddy's criticisms were largely correct. Instead of launching the nukes, they could have kept their mouths shut, decided he was not going to see the third year, and gone about the business of finding somebody to replace him after his second. Pretty much exactly where they are right now, only $18.5M of cap and a few draft picks better off. But they were much too clever for that.

Most of us did, me included. He was a breath of fresh air after seeing the same game plans every week and speeches about missed opportunities.

That was completely understandable mistake. The Panthers overperformed in 2020, despite only having 5 wins. 2 would have been about what most of us expected. What none of us knew was that Rhule chiming in was not about sticking up for Brady, but his own insecurity or narcissism.

Darnold was a panic move. They burned the bridge with Teddy publicly (to the applause within the Huddle), swung and missed at a couple of veterans who wanted to win now, and apparently only liked Lawrence and Wilson in the draft class both of whom were going to be long gone by the time the #8 pick came around. That left very few options. Tannehill did become better as time went on, and Gase was horrible. That does not mean Darnold can follow what Tannehill did, and Gase being horrible may have only added to Darnold's deficiencies, not been the root of all of them. Our coaching staff liked what they saw of his raw talent and had some misguided belief that they were good enough to resurrect him. The real problem was entering into a pi$$ing contest with Teddy publicly rather than just sticking to the original plan. The Huddle would have rioted had Teddy been the starter last year, but the Huddle riots over a lot of things. The Huddle would have turned into Chernobyl had the drafted Jones, too, despite some saying we could have drafted him if we didn't like Fields. The second problem was thinking we were only a QB away from being a "playah." OL is also on the list of our worst problems, but that and QB are not our only problems. The third problem was exercising the 5th year option on Darnold. This one compounds the other two.