Houston Texans... You Suck!!!

[WUnderhill]

20 hours ago, frankw said:

Nobody making millions is truly "hurting". But he's not talking about the highest paid players in the league making upwards of 100-200 million or more. He's talking about rookie second round picks who would be making what 5-10 million at absolute most and have no guarantee of not getting a career ending injury before the end of their rookie contract. I don't think anyone is asking you to shed tears for them because you shouldn't but the perception of siding with Billionaire owners of a league that brought in over $23 billion in revenue last year is going to raise an eyebrow or two just saying.

Raise an eyebrow? Lol. Idgaf about the owner, I’m a fan of the Panthers as a team. Fully guaranteed contracts generally aren’t best for the team, I don’t want the team to pay more than they have to for a player who isn’t contributing proportionate to his pay. Now if it’s something like when Tom Brady took less than market value in total money but got his money fully guaranteed, that is something I can get on board with. There’s a give and take there. I don’t like the team taking all the risk.

[CanadianCat]

On 5/9/2025 at 1:48 PM, tukafan21 said:

No, the casual fan gets sucked into THIS^^^ kind of thinking, and it's so woefully incorrect that it's almost sad.

I mean I think its a bit disingenuous to call basically anyone here a casual fan. I don't think the casual fan creates a profile then logs into it, in the offseason, to comments on mundane offseason topics..

I dont think anyone on here would be considered a casual fan.

That said, I get your point. My POV is from the player. They sign this contract, move their family because of these contracts. When Clowney came him, we basically had a coming home party for him. 

So yeah, I get why we did it and I know that ultimately the owner doesnt 'save' money, but I can feel for the human side of the player, which is why I want them to get all they can while they can. 

[tukafan21]

4 hours ago, CanadianCat said:

I mean I think its a bit disingenuous to call basically anyone here a casual fan. I don't think the casual fan creates a profile then logs into it, in the offseason, to comments on mundane offseason topics..

I dont think anyone on here would be considered a casual fan.

That said, I get your point. My POV is from the player. They sign this contract, move their family because of these contracts. When Clowney came him, we basically had a coming home party for him. 

So yeah, I get why we did it and I know that ultimately the owner doesnt 'save' money, but I can feel for the human side of the player, which is why I want them to get all they can while they can. 

These players are making millions upon millions of dollars to play a child's game, more money in a year than most regular joes will see in their lifetime, so I don't feel bad when they get cut because they aren't playing up to the value of their contracts, whether they moved their family or not (and fyi, pretty sure most players don't move their families when they change teams late in their career when they're already bouncing around teams every couple years).

 

Edited May 11 by tukafan21

[PNW_PantherMan]

NHL has a hard cap and fully guaranteed contracts.

[Basbear]

On 5/8/2025 at 7:27 PM, tukafan21 said:

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/45057900/texans-jayden-higgins-makes-history-fully-guaranteed-deal

Seriously?  Giving a fully guaranteed contract to a 2nd rounder?!?!

They just made rookie contract negotiations with non 1st rounders so much more difficult as they're all going to be trying to get that moving forward now.  

It's been so nice since the rookie scale was instituted with so few players ever holding out, this feels like it could change things, especially for high 2nd round picks who are going to start asking for this immediately. 

I think the early 2nd rounders already had 80-90% of the contract guaranteed. Even the guys in 50s had around the same. closer to 70%

It is a start to a new standard, I wonder if the 35th guy got the same. The browns were forced to give Carson Schwesinger a full one cause he was 33rd. 

Someone has to stop the bleed.....Seahawks traded up for Nick, so that will hurt...

[tukafan21]

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.

[HaricotVert]

Fully guaranteed contracts for rooks outside of the top 10 or so is ridiculous and even that is reaching.

[LinvilleGorge]

I mean the #33 overall pick signed for what, 4 years $12M? Average $3M a year? That's barely over 1% of the salary cap. The Panthers routinely extend TEs who should be desperately competing for a roster spot more than that. Much ado about nothing.

[tukafan21]

2 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

I mean the #33 overall pick signed for what, 4 years $12M? Average $3M a year? That's barely over 1% of the salary cap. The Panthers routinely extend TEs who should be desperately competing for a roster spot more than that. Much ado about nothing.

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.

[LinvilleGorge]

6 minutes ago, tukafan21 said:

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.

Agents have been out-negotiating GMs for years. That's why they had to implement the rookie wage scale. Top drafted rookies were basically starting to walk into the NFL as some of the highest paid guys in the league. Take it up in the next CBA. In the meantime, it is what it is. Agents hold the upper hand in these rookie negotiations and they know it. The teams already have a significant unrecoverable investment spent on these draftees in the value of the pick that they spent. Given the rookie wage scale there's not much to negotiate other than guarantees and offset language and once again the agents are kicking the GMs' asses again.

[tukafan21]

28 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Agents have been out-negotiating GMs for years. That's why they had to implement the rookie wage scale. Top drafted rookies were basically starting to walk into the NFL as some of the highest paid guys in the league. Take it up in the next CBA. In the meantime, it is what it is. Agents hold the upper hand in these rookie negotiations and they know it. The teams already have a significant unrecoverable investment spent on these draftees in the value of the pick that they spent. Given the rookie wage scale there's not much to negotiate other than guarantees and offset language and once again the agents are kicking the GMs' asses again.

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.

[LinvilleGorge]

3 minutes ago, tukafan21 said:

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.

The ball keeps getting pushed down the field. Most of the 2nd rounders won't get full guarantees but they'll get a good chunk of the contract guaranteed. So let's say it's 75%. At the end of the day we're talking about a couple of million over the course of a four year deal. Basically a rounding error in terms of salary cap impact. It's much ado about nothing. 

[tukafan21]

1 hour ago, LinvilleGorge said:

The ball keeps getting pushed down the field. Most of the 2nd rounders won't get full guarantees but they'll get a good chunk of the contract guaranteed. So let's say it's 75%. At the end of the day we're talking about a couple of million over the course of a four year deal. Basically a rounding error in terms of salary cap impact. It's much ado about nothing. 

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.

Edited 35 minutes ago by tukafan21

[LinvilleGorge]

7 minutes ago, tukafan21 said:

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.

This is why they'll lose. The draft pick value is substantial vs. minimal cap impact.