LinvilleGorge

Rhule and Fitterer playing poker

Doing some sleuthing around, OTC shows Shaq's base salary this season as $10.18M. Sportrac is showing his base salary this season as $990k with a $1.83M restructure bonus over the remaining three years of the contract plus two dummy years on the back end. Assuming this is correct, Shaq's restructure will free up $9.19M this season at the expense of pushing $9.19M down the road. AKA - classic Hurney restructure. Moving on... looks like we just covered Moton's franchise tag. These restructures will clear up roughly $14.5M in cap space and Moton's tag will hit us somewhere between $13.5M and $14M.

Has anyone seen the details on Shaq's restructure. Weird that the specifics of the CMC restructure became available very quickly and still seemingly crickets about the detail on Shaq's.

Anyone mad at Shaq for signing his contract simply isn't very intelligent. Same for Teddy. Both guys proved to be exactly what they had shown to be in the past. Anyone disappointed about their play after they got paid wasn't paying attention to their play before they got paid. The only thing that changed was their pay check and their cap hit.

It's baffling that so many blind homers can't understand this. Shaq is a decent starting LB. The issue is that he's paid to be one of the absolute best LBs in the NFL. He's nowhere close to that level. You don't solve that issue by converting non-guaranteed salary to guaranteed bonus. That's the last thing you want to do with that contract.

The greatest description of Gastonia is that it's the hometown of Fred Durst. That perfectly encapsulates the essence of everything that is Gastonia.

Honestly, I think it's a little bit of both. The fear causes hesitation which leads to the pick. I honestly don't think that a Kirk Cousins is anymore physically talented than Teddy, but the guy plays with guts.

Teddy isn't the answer. Period. Now that that's out of the way, here's how I rank our options: 1. Trade for Deshaun Watson. Yes, it'll take a fortune. But, you're getting a proven MVP caliber 25 year old QB. The problem is that not only would it take a fortune, but the Jets and the Dolphins are both much better positioned to give the Texans a better offer than we can. That's why I honestly think it's a long shot. I think we're gonna try really hard, but I also think that we need both the Jets and the Dolphins to bow out of the race for us to get him. I would mention Russell Wilson here too, but evidently we're not on his list so that's a non-starter. 2. Trade up and draft Zach Wilson. Hell, this might be an even longer shot than trading for Watson. If the Jets stay put at #2 I see little chance they don't draft Wilson. I see very little chance that they actually choose to move forward with Sam Darnold. Now that the long shots are out of the way, let's talk about what I view as the more realistic options continuing the rankings at #3: 3. Target either Justin Fields or Trey Lance and trade up to get him. This would mean jumping up to as high as #3. If we have one ranked considerably higher than the other (which I think is very possible), I don't think we can afford to sit on our hands and hope the draft board falls our way. We're going to have to be aggressive and go get our guy. 4. Sit tight and hope one of Fields and/or Lance falls to #8. This would be extremely risky and I think you only make this play if you're also willing to entertain another QB option in the draft. 5. Sign Mitch Trubisky. He's a free agent so no trade would be necessary. It would be a "prove it" deal so signing him wouldn't necessarily eliminate any of the other draft options already discussed. I would much rather sign Trubisky to a prove it deal than draft Mac Jones at #8. 6. Trade back and hope Mac Jones slips. This would be a good play if we signed Trubisky. I want no part of Jones at #8, but picking Jones would be a lot easier to stomach if it was in a trade down that netted us additional draft assets. 7. Draft Kellen Mond in the 2nd or 3rd. I do not love this. But that's why it's #7 on the list. IMO, we'd basically be drafting next year's #1 pick's backup. Kellen Mond would be our new Jimmy Clausen to deliver our future Cam Newton. I do not agree with Chris Simm's evaluation of Mond. The physical tools are there, I just see way too much inconsistency. 8. Trade for Garner Minshew. The Jags are drafting Trevor Lawrence. Minshew has real value as a backup, but so would a mid-round pick to help them build around Lawrence. Minshew is also still on a dirt cheap rookie contract so this move would have minimal cap implications. Some of y'all might be rolling your eyes at this suggestion, but do understand that we are WELL into the "oh fug, this is NOT going our way" portion of the list. 9 though infinity

I think Rhule and Tepper have already said plenty to let us know that they realize this. I think they're realizing that they've said TOO much about it at this point.

He plays scared because of his physical limitations IMO. When he tries to press, he throws picks.

FTFY

The fans are already pissed. We'll be immediately unpissed if we can land a legit QB or legit QB prospect. If we're trying to trade Teddy, we gotta walk back some of the shade we've thrown at him because teams might otherwise be thinking they can get Teddy for less after we release him.

You're not wrong. Bridgewater should've never been signed. Bradberry should've been re-signed (or tagged if he was balking) and Shaq should've been allowed to walk. Bradberry is the better player AND he plays the more premium, harder to replace position. That was a low hanging fruit decision and we botched it.

He's a mid-rounder who I've been thinking about if we go DB or IOL in the 2nd. Seems like a boom or bust guy. Definitely intriguing potential but also definitely not plug and play (which is honestly a pipedream for a mid-round LT anyway).

And a 6th? Cool. I was thinking only a 5th. Every little bit helps. Another dingleberry of poo to fling at the wall to see if it sticks.

Sweet. That's not bad.

Some other lesser paid JAG. Keeping a massively overpaid player for fear of fielding a worse player is terrible roster building logic. You don't have to pay elite LBer money to get Shaq level play.

Definitely interesting that this was unintentionally leaked mere hours after releasing a "we won't be doing poo in FA" article via the team website. Kinda seems like we were sandbagging publicly while preparing ourselves to have the space to potentially make some moves if the opportunity presented itself.

Cap space. And he wouldn't be released until after this season. He is WAY overpaid for what he is.

It's a critical error to restructure Shaq. Restructuring a player who should be being released is peak Hurney. It's as if he never left.

Fug. I was really hoping we wouldn't touch that Shaq contract. There's minimal guaranteed money in it beyond this season. Hurney clearly wrote it to restructure it. I was hoping once Hurney was gone we would be out of the game of restructuring players we should be releasing.

Yeah, but they've competed most every year. That's all you can really hope to do. Just compete. You gotta catch some breaks to win it all. Like having the Chiefs forced to play without an OL.

Yep. Outside of QB, LT and CB are our two big "premium position" roster holes.

Yep. QB is a HUGE piece of the puzzle and by far the biggest piece, but ultimately if you have enough big holes on your roster even the best of QBs won't be able to hide them all. Just look at Mahomes in this year's SB for the latest example.

You said win with any roster. The Texans won fewer games than we did.