BarleyNY

This Edge draft class is weak (Chase Young excepted). That’s only going to raise the value of the FA Edge players. Add in the expectation of a big jump in the cap with the new CBA and things are gonna start to get crazy.

That’s also a fair point. Valuing young, elite players as worth significant draft picks plus a big contract is one thing. Saying that Ngakoue is one of those players is another. I’ll be honest on that, I haven’t looked closely enough at him to have an opinion there.

Whichever one is dirtier, I mean, has the better personality.

I’d love to have the tough decisions that come with winning a Super Bowl. People often overlook the value inherent in trades like this. The certainty of getting an elite player that otherwise would be unattainable except by drafting that player is of enormous value. Simply put, the success rate of hitting on even first round draft picks is only about 50% and the threshold for “success” is pretty low. This article got a 53% success rate for players averaging an AV of 5. To put that in perspective 581 players in the NFL had an AV of 5 or greater. https://theriotreport.com/scout-camp-2018-about-the-author/ Finding an elite player is much less likely, obviously, and elite players change the outcomes of games. The possibilities of draft picks are fun, but they’re just lottery tickets. And cap space is only worth something when it’s used effectively. I’d give 22 and more plus a market value contract for a young, elite talent - especially one who plays a premium position. That allocation of resources would almost certainly help the team more than drafting with those picks and signing FAs with the same cap space.

One issue that I can’t find an answer to is how signing and other bonuses factor into the 30% rule, if at all. I can’t find where it does, but it seems like bonuses could be used to get around the rule if they are not included.

It seemed to work out okay for the two teams in the Super Bowl this year. The Chiefs tagged Ford, traded him to SF and SF then gave him a big contract. Seattle tagged Clark, then traded him to the Chiefs who then signed him to a big contract. Really, it’s okay to trade for proven talent and then to pay that talent. Really.

Thoughts on scheme fit? He seems like he’d be best suited a power scheme. I’d question his ability to pull in our gap scheme and I’d rather not take the chance at his current salary. Anyone have a more informed opinion?

Yes, don’t draft a guy because when he was 6 or 7 years old he wanted to play with Hot Wheels cars and not sports. Seems like pretty iron clad logic there. Now judging by your juvenile comments in your previous post you might not have changed a lot since then, but most of us did in the years between 6 and 21. Care to tell us about all the incidents along that common theme? Was when he realized his blocking was lacking and he busted his hump to become an good blocker? Or in HS when he saw his team in need of a CB so he told his coach he wanted to learn to play it - and became a lockdown there? Again, legit reasons for concern with him at 22, but you’re ignoring those for this crap.

I’m not saying that I’m all on board with Higgins. I’m not. His speed and injury history are definitely concerns. But criticism like the above is just juvenile BS.

This. Not running or participating in work outs and drills at the Combine does nothing to a player’s stock. Doing very well might solidify or raise that of a player like Higgins slightly. Best case scenario he’d be #1 in the second tier of WRs on everyone’s board. But if he were to have run a 4.65 or, God forbid, a 4.7 forty instead of the expected 4.55 he could’ve plummeted. Just one tenth of a second could hurt him badly. And he’d be going up against a field of players who had a big advantage over him. Some people here may not realize how serious the training for the Combine is. These players train very specifically for the events starting right after their last game. In fact, one trick to watch is for players who only do speed events at the Combine and then do weight ones at their Pro Days. They drop weight to get faster and bulk up to lift better. That will give a false overall impression because it doesn’t translate to an attainable combination of playing speed and strength. Higgins could’ve worded his reasoning better, but there are a lot of posters clutching their pearls in this thread. Parts sound like a group of old ladies sitting on their asses bitching about why little Johnny didn’t become and Eagle Scout and how he is never going to get into a good college now. All while ignoring that he graduated with honors and worked a job for years. Higgins was going to get picked in the bottom third of the first round or the top half of the second round before the Combine. After not running or working out he’s going to get picked in the bottom third of the first round or the top half of the second round. 22 was about the earliest he was going to go - and he’s still a possibility there if not a perfect fit. But the funniest thing is reading the “next Sammy Watkins” comments because I can definitely see KC taking him to replace Watkins. He’d be fantastic in that offense.

I worry about his tackling. His miss rate would be alarming for a first round pick.

That’s what they said, but really it’s about protecting teams’ investments. Let’s fact it, it does help the final product by helping with continuity and parity. The tag rules suck for young teams with cap space that are trying to find difference makers (like the Bills now), but are pretty damn good for teams with established playmakers (like the Bills should be soon).

He’s not a tag and trade candidate with a one year, $18.5M fully guaranteed contract. That’s negative trade value. I think House is probably right. They’re probably just trying to spark the trade market and get something - anything - for him.

I can’t imagine how that is accurate. He’s 31. The last 4 seasons he has played in 10, 16, 9 and 0 games, respectively. That is about half of the total games over that period. Spotrac estimates his value at 2 years, $18.2M which is $9.1M AAV, or just less than half of what the franchise tag is. To me he seems like a prime candidate for a heavily incentivized contract with fairly low guarantees and salary, but big incentives achievable if he were to stay healthy and produce like he used to.

$18.5M to franchise tag a WR this season. Fully guaranteed. Wow.

Great Googly Moogley. The WR franchise tag number should be approximately $18.5M this season. AJ should sign that fully guaranteed contract as it comes off the printer. Even if it is for Cincinnati.

Ok. So are we now at a point where we’re talking about a reasonable trade up to the tail end of the first round if a quality player at a position of need falls there? I doubt you’ll get much pushback for that.

I think it seems good to you because you don’t have a realistic idea of the cost. The JJ trade chart is probably the best case scenario of what we’d have to give up: https://www.drafttek.com/NFL-Trade-Value-Chart.asp?RequestTeam=Buf I’ve got no problem with being aggressive, but it’s got to be for real value. I can’t imagine what player would both fall to the bottom of the first and be worth giving up so much for. We’d be better off looking at moving up in the second.

Great listens. Thanks for posting!

Watkins was a lot of people’s #1 WR that draft, yes. Personally I had him very closely rated with Evans and OBJ, but with a higher risk due to concerns about injury and route running. Still, he was top 10-15 even with me. But he was not a generational talent as a prospect. That is a big overstatement. Those prospects are incredibly rare in the draft - and they’re either the first player or the first non-QB taken off that’s a widely held opinion. I’ll leave the rest as a disagreement. I’m of the opinion that we need difference makers, especially on offense, and that we should look to acquire at least one this season even if it means trading up. Yes, that includes next year’s first.

Gotta be honest, that’s why I don't think we re-sign Shaq. I think the bidding just gets too high. It’d be nice to keep him here, but some team will pay him very well to be a starter. The need for Edge players is is just too great.

Yeah, that’s how most mocks are done - especially early ones. I also agree that early rounds are better served drafting for value rather than simply filling needs. One thing that stood out to me was how many teams have a need at Edge. With such a weak draft there I see available FAs getting PAID. I see a lot of Edge players getting overdrafted too. People who want to cut Murphy are not looking at the big picture there. There are going to be some real steals at WR in this draft too. That’s not news, but the closer I look the crazier it is. Teams will be getting starting quality WRs in round 3.

Rivers is expected to be headed to Indy. Seems like a pretty done deal. With the CBA expected to jump up cap allocations by 2021 there will be teams that substantially “overpay” free agents this off-season. That’s because they expect those bloated looking contracts to be bargains in a year. It’s going to happen with young players like Clowney and Conklin.

The quality of info seemed to vary widely by team. I almost didn’t post this because the Bills stuff seemed like mostly educated guesses rather than actual intel on others. That’s a good thing from a leak standpoint. Also I thought that some of the write ups would be useful in determining where we might need to trade to and still get the kind of player we should be looking for. And the McDermott interview might be good.

I think that is true, but I also think they’re learning that mixing up what they do with their free defenders in C1 and C0 is much more effective. Allen did effectively hit quick slants against those defenses. That’s the one pass that hurt teams that played it a lot. Now I expect them to disguise and alternate using the free defenders to blitz, drop into shallow coverage to take away that quick slant and spy Allen. In fact it’s easy to have a player do a combination of those on the same play: shallow zone to spy, spy to delayed blitz and shallow zone to delayed blitz are all good tactics. One more thing on the deep throws. Allen rarely lifted those passes properly. Often he floated lofts too far off the mark or threw hard, without loft so WRs couldn’t adjust. Getting used to the proper trajectory is something that I believe can be learned. That’s what I’ll be looking for this fall.