tukafan21

Why is it so difficult for you to understand it has literally NOTHING to do with the cap hit of these 2nd rounders, like not even 1% of the issue here. If anything, it's "draft pick value vs future cap implications of being forced to give fully guaranteed deals to FA signings" and if that's the case, then the Agents will lose every single one of these battles, because teams aren't going to go down that path, as those are massive cap impact implications. There is a reason the #2 pick of the 2nd Round got his fully guaranteed deal and after that, the only other player to sign was the #1 pick of the round, who also then got a fully guaranteed deal. And spoiler alert, it's not because they're afraid of the minimal cap hit of these players, and they won't be swayed to give them the deals because of the draft pick value. If half the teams had signed their 2nd Rounders by now and they all gave the fully guaranteed deals, then I'd say you have more of an argument. But the proof is in the pudding, the teams don't want to give these 2nd rounders the guaranteed deals and I don't think the agents will win in the end, the players have more to risk than the teams in this instance. That the Browns haven't even signed their other 2nd rounder, who was only 3 picks later, is kinda telling to me. It says they knew they were going to be forced to give their first pick the fully guaranteed contract because of Higgins and then are drawing the line in the sand after that, nothing else would make sense for that deal to not be done yet unless that's the case.

You keep mentioning the impact on the salary cap, but that's literally not the point with all these 2nd Rounders, it's all about precedent and it being a slippery slope that would lead to more fully guaranteed contracts for veterans. That's what the teams are making sure this doesn't get to, because yes, you're right, the guarantees for a 2nd rounder won't have significant cap implications if the player doesn't work out. But you give that fully guaranteed 3-4 year contract to a FA who then shits the bed in year 1 and never regains the form that got them the contract, then yes, it's going to screw up your cap management and won't be a rounding error. And you can say it's a big leap to go from guaranteeing a 2nd round pick's contract to a big FA signing, but it's really not. Once teams start giving them out, it's only going to keep growing and be insisted upon by agents in other situations and once the ball starts rolling down the hill, it's going to be impossible to stop it's momentum. Also, the only reason a 2nd rounder's contract would be a rounding error, is explicitly because contracts aren't guaranteed and teams can finagle the cap hits with various tactics. Once contracts become more and more guaranteed, that won't be as easy to do, if even possible at all, and those individual rounding errors become serious problems in totality.

Agents only have the upper hand if they think/expect the teams to cave in the end, but that 30 of the 2nd rounders remain unsigned, it shows the Agents might not have it in this case. A 2nd round pick isn't going to sit out their rookie season as a holdout to re-enter the draft the next year and improve their draft stock and/or ability to stick in the NFL, you really need to be an elite QB prospect to even have the remote chance of doing that successfully. Teams have to draw a line somewhere, if they all say the line is the 1st round, then there isn't much the Agents can do about it if the teams all hold firm, which they should. And yes, you're right about the rookie wage scale, which is exactly why I don't think the Agents will be winning this battle in the end. The teams know they already screwed up rookie contracts once, they aren't going to fall down that slippery slope again and let it snowball on it's way down.

Except it's not about the money, it's precedent and teams not wanting to go down that path. Once you guarantee all the 2nd rounders, then the 3rd rounders will want it, and so on. If they keep viewing it as say, "well it's only X amount of money" then it's a slippery slope that doesn't end. Then you get Free Agents saying, "well if you're fully guaranteeing the contract of an unproven 57th pick of the draft, you clearly should be fully guaranteeing mine as your big FA signing this offseason" The NFL doesn't work with fully guaranteed contracts under it's current cap model. If you want to give them out to the true elite of the elite players at impact positions like QB and Edge, then so be it, but there needs to be a line in the sand or it will get real messy.

Was just reading the Ask the Old Guy story on the team's website and was shocked to see that only two 2nd Rounders have signed so far, 30 of them haven't. That isn't normal, the Texans really screwed things up for the rest of the league, no other explanation that I can think of for 30 of the 32 picks to still be unsigned at this point.

Except it wouldn't be Rodgers leading them on a postseason run, it would be the defense and he's there to not screw up their great games. Which is why..... This times a million. I didn't watch a ton of the Jets last year, but from what I did see, Rodgers himself didn't look like a bum, the team just struggled and was more than likely due to poor coaching on the whole. The Steelers don't need MVP level Rodgers to win games, they just need him to be good enough to make some plays when it matters because the defense is keeping them in games every week regardless. In their 7 losses last season, the Steelers scored 10, 13, 17, 17, 17, 19, and 24... while giving up 19, 20, 24, 27, 27, 29, and 34 in those games. With only marginally better offense last year, they probably end up winning a few more games too. They only scored over 27 points in 3 games last season. I think this is a great move by the Steelers and if Rodgers can stay healthy all year, will get them back into the playoffs and could make some noise if their defense is up to the normal level of a Steelers defense.

Going to keep watching, but what a really weird way to start the interview. "Is it true that you were the first Freshman LB to start at Miami since Ray Lewis?" "Yep, that's a true story" It's like they both seem to forget that yes, while Ray Lewis played at Miami a long time ago at this point, so did Morgan. Morgan's freshman season was only FOUR years after Lewis' freshman season (with the 2 years following Lewis' Freshman season being the years Lewis was still there, and thus not even an open spot for another MLB to start anyways" Not exactly some groundbreaking amazing trivia here, LOL

I like these two picks more and more every day and think there is a very real chance we found our two outside edge rushers of the future in this draft. In today's NFL, there are 4 positions that are more important than the others. QB, Edge, LT, and WR, and if Bryce ends up being that guy for us, there is a legitimate chance we filled all 4 of those positions in the last 4 drafts with Bryce, Scourton, Princely, TMac, XL, Coker, Horn Jr, and Ickey. If these guys pan out in the end, that's a generational run of drafting, especially when you take into consideration how poorly we've tended to draft over the years

That's awesome that us out of town fans will get to watch 2 of the games, but would have rather them only carried our 2nd game than both of the other two, as I have to imagine the starters might not play a ton in the 1st and 3rd games and the 2nd is where they'll get the bulk of their preseason snaps.

They're not really all that low as you think. Sure, some teams have had those HOF RBs who played their whole career there so they have 10k+ team leaders, but there are a bunch of franchises lower than us and some long time ones not much further ahead. Deangelo would be a leader for the Falcons, Saints, Bucs (crazy, our whole division), Eagles, Dolphins, Patriots, and Texans

When your QB weighs 200 lbs when soaking wet, then yea, you better put a ton of money in front of him

There's only two paths to that happening. First is that Theilen misses a significant chunk of the season, the other is that XL and Coker both either flop or have injuries themselves. I love the pickup of Renfrow as I think he'll be great in the locker/film room for all the young guys while giving us a natural replacement of Thielen in the WR room next year to be the wiley old vet in the room. But he has almost no path to getting snaps this year unless the guys ahead of him have injuries or just suck. Assuming he makes he squad, he's more likely to be inactive more often than he's active on game days. And he's not the best route runner on the team, that's still Thielen, who even at this point in his career is still one of the better route runners in the league.

But that's the WR4 this year, we only have one year left of Thielen. If Coker has injury issues and/or regresses and shows why he went undrafted, unless Horn ends up REALLY living up to the minicamp hype, we'd actually end up in need of another good WR option next offseason again. I love the potential of T-Mac, XL, Coker, Horn as our 1-4 next year and into the future. And while I of course have a million percent belief that T-Mac is going to be that guy for us, it's still a big year for the rest of the WR room to prove we're set at the position for the foreseeable future once Thielen is gone after the season.

Yes and no If there is someone we really want, maybe he's able to throw enough money to convince them to come here over somewhere else. But at the same time, if I'm an UDFA, unless I'm just looking for a quick money grab before heading into a normal career, I'm telling my agent to get me to the team I'm most likely to get a chance to make the team and/or be seen enough to then get picked up by someone else. Any good agent should be steering their UDFA's that way anyways, not like they're making all that much money on a "big" guarantee like these, they stand to gain much more from a client who makes a roster.

Honestly, it would haver been difficult for any WR to look that good with the type of rookie mini camp we held anyways, really it was either look bad or just look normal. At least from what we saw, there weren't any 1 on 1 drills like other teams did where a WR could have made a nice catch or beat a DB, it was just a bunch of running against air on very basic routes. You can certainly look bad if your routes/cuts aren't crisp or you drop some passes, but in a setting like that it's really hard for any player to stand out and look great unless the QB is making some terrible throws and they make some wild catches. With these type of RC MC's, DL can look good if they're firing through the drills and QB's can look good with their passing, most other positions you can really only look bad if anything stands out. Once they get into OTA's we'll be able to start to see some players standing out more.

Have they said when the Blueprint Draft episode is going to be released? Kinda weird to put out the teaser but not a date for it, already itching to watch all the T-Mac stuff

Honestly, for me, I actually don't care all that much about being the 1st overall pick and him living up to that selection. It's the trade we made to go get him that he has to live up to for me. You can't be even just an average starting QB after a trade like that, because if that's all we're getting out of it, we could have kept going with journeyman type of QB's or taken a shot on a Jalen Milroe type in the 2nd to get similar play but then have kept Moore and all those other draft picks to build around them.

I'm less concerned about Young getting hurt while rushing, because like you said, he doesn't take a ton of risks when he scrambles. I'm far more concerned that at his size, a crushing sack by a big DL might snap his body in half. But this topic is exactly why I'm not very high on Jayden Daniels long term outlook unless he drastically changes the way he plays. He basically looked like RG3 pt 2 out there last year, he runs with reckless abandon and doesn't protect himself from hits very well. If he keeps that up, he won't have a long career and/or he's going to miss significant chunks of time every season due to picking up injuries.

I think the "Top 10" classification is much more simple than people think, at least for me. Put every QB in the league into a re-draft of only QB's, does this player go in the Top 10 of that draft or not? If they do, they're a Top 10 QB, if they don't, they're not. And yes, things like age/contract would matter in a real QB draft, but in this instance things like that or future injury concern are thrown aside, essentially looking at it on a year to year type of thing as you're talking about a current Top 10 list.

And we all know Cam also struggled as a passer at times, but he MORE than made up for it with what he brought to the running game. In one of my posts I also mentioned how if he was putting up Lamar like 75+ yards rushing on a weekly basis that it changes how to view the lower passing yardages. Cam might not have been averaging 75 yards a game, but he had more than a good amount of rushing yards and also holds the record for most rushing TDs by a QB in NFL history.

Yea, I don't really care what PPF ratings you're trying to talk about, if you think Bryce was the 6th best QB over the final 8 weeks of the season last year, then you're out of your freaking mind. You're probably the guy who goes to a strip club and thinks the stripper is in love with you. The 6th best QB in the league doesn't throw for more than 251 yards only twice in that 8 week span and not even real 300 yards once, just nonsense to think otherwise, drops or WR play aside, it's just crazy talk.

Exactly He's played two seasons and started 28 games. He's well beyond the point of being able to point to 2 or 3 games and being able to say, "THAT is the QB he is and will be in the future" Of course he can get there, but anyone trying to use just those couple of games to rank his place amongst the games QB's today and their full career's worth of playing at that level, is just asinine. Mahomes, Allen, Lamar, Burrow, Hurts, Herbert, Daniels, Stafford, Goff, Geno, Purdy, Baker, Love, Dak, Tua, Kyler, Lawrence That's 17 QB's right there that have played better over their careers than Bryce has played at his best. And I'm not saying they're all studs or guys I'd want to be our QB moving forward, Tua for example I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole, but his body of work is a million times better than Bryce's has been. It's also not including any of the other QB's drafted in 2023/2024 other than Daniels. So again, say you believe in Bryce, say you think he's going to prove he can and should be our QB of the future, that's all fair and totally fine. But nobody can say he's been an above average QB in his career thus far, it's just an asinine notion.

Do you even know what the term "below average" means? Because I'm genuinely not sure if you do. There are 32 QB's in the league, which means to be playing "above average" he'd have to be the 15th best QB at the league, and even then, that's in essence the "average NFL QB" still. Even going by these rankings, which have him 20th, that by itself is the definition of "below average", and that's before you consider there are multiple QB's ranked below him in this list that I'd 100% trade him for in a heartbeat. Again, no matter what you think the eye test tells you, he's made 28 starts and has a grand total of FOUR games over 247 yards. Drake Maye has made 10 starts, all with a significantly worse group of pass catchers than Bryce has had, and he already has 3 games over that number himself. I don't need to see or know anything else beyond that to determine he is a below average QB in this league so far and I don't know how anyone can honestly argue against that. If he was a Lamar Jackson type putting up 75+ yards rushing on a consistent basis, then you can look at those passing yards differently, but that's not the case here. Could he still improve and get to average or better? Of course. But you're trying to extrapolate a few throws/drives/moments from a handful of games and trying to say that makes him even an average, if not above average, QB in this league. Which is just nonsense when the players you're comparing him to have played at that level for full seasons or their entire careers.

He'd be a huge upgrade for this year, but we're still not going to be contenders with him and I'd rather keep the cap space to roll into next season to spend on a younger player who can be an impact starter for us for the next 3-5 years while we're hoping to contend.