BarleyNY

Semi-competence or better at GM usually gets the “magician” label here. Sigh. Probably 28-30 fan bases are convinced everything their GM just did was genius. That includes fans of the GMs who didn’t do anything in FA yet and are waiting for the prices to come down. SMH

But an expensive ($11.5M this season) RB about to hit 28 that we have to trade for doesn’t make much sense. I could see him having one more quality season before his production drops off, but that’s not guaranteed. I’d say it is unlikely if he gets stuck behind a poor run blocking OL, which we have. I am not saying that having a good RB or a good run game isn’t a good thing. It is. But acquiring Dalvin Cook will not give us that. It’ll just be throwing away resources.

Not all contracts have team option restructures in them. The ones that do have it generally only have it in one or two of the early seasons. Diggs’ extension was probably one that did have it. Also the option can’t add void years so if you see that done it was with player approval.

Nothing wrong with letting FAs like Poyer test the market while leaving the door open. Sometimes it works out. Waiting on contract details before finalizing my opinion…..

In fact, very few have had success post Cheatriots.

The Browns have had multiple HC interviews with McDaniels - on two different occasions. Even they passed. Twice.

Sal is correct. The team option restructuring clauses I’ve seen are always at the beginning of the contract - usually set up to execute in year 2. Diggs is going into year 2 of his extension. The extension was initially structured so that a restructure at this time was going to be make sense. Beane is a competent GM so he knew they’d likely need the space. I expect that he had the foresight to include the clause and Diggs would have had no reason to object to it. So, yeah, these clauses are pretty standard practice as they eliminate some red tape for GMs. Also agents would usually add a small increase to the contract for doing it. But they are not common in later years though. Dawkins is a good example. He’s got two seasons left on his deal and would not want to restructure without an extension. That is a clause that would be fought by an agent.

I’d expect Dawkins to require an extension rather than agree to a restructure at this point as there are two seasons left on his deal. I think the Bills will leave this one alone this season and decide what to do next offseason.

Yes. And the money was guaranteed when the extension was signed so it was in escrow anyway. Also it is unlikely that the Bills even needed Diggs’ permission to do the restructure. The option to do so was almost certainly already in his contract.

Giving out guarantees at signing for up to 3 seasons seems to be the generally accepted limit. Cousins got a fully guaranteed contract - but it was only 3 seasons. I believe that only Cleveland went beyond that to 5.

I think we will see some other QBs ask for the same guarantees soon. No team wants to be the second one to give in to that though and the Ravens were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We don’t know what contract he was offered. We just know what was leaked by the Ravens. The info seems plausible, but when teams leak imo they usually make their offers seem better than they really are.

bored beyond belief

I can’t imagine that the Chargers will get anything close to a second for Eckler.

Welp, we do now - and there wasn’t as much improvement as I had hoped. Bummer.

Trades cannot be designated post 6/1, they have to be executed post 6/1 if the team is to delay some of the cap hit. The 6/1 designation is only for cut players. Lots of people are missing some details on a Diggs trade. The only time this season that he can reasonably be traded is before his $16M roster bonus is paid. It is due between 3/15 & 3/21. Most people look at Spotrac and see $37.6M dead cap and -$17.3M in cap savings if he’s traded and think it is impossible. But those figures include the $16M bonus. Without that the dead cap is “only” $21.6M and the cap implications of trading him is only $1.3M in lost space. That’s not great, but it is definitely possible.

That would not be a surprise based on his age and late season injury.

Correct position, but I don’t know about the specific player and contract. Seems like we could’ve done better at that price. At least his arrow is probably pointing up, unlike Saffold who was done a year before we signed him. Nothing to do now but hope for the best and see what he’s got. They were, especially the run blocking grades. That all gives me some optimism.

Contract in the expected range. I knew some team would overpay him and one did. I do not blame him one bit for making the most money possible, but those are also the players I don’t mind seeing leave. He/his agent was smart going with a 4 year deal. I’ve been wondering if he’d go that route. He’s leaving room to get another big contract before he hits 30.

In Ohio the only options are the state fund and companies self insuring. The state does not allow any competition from carriers. Workers’ compensation prevents workers from suing employers for injuries sustained on the job. While that legal avenue is fraught with roadblocks I’m not sure how the Bengals would be able to avoid litigation in the future. Maybe through clauses in the contracts they offer? This seems like a tough and volatile way to claw back some money - especially by a team that got an unbelievably good deal from the county on their last stadium deal and is getting handed a $400M check at the start of this season.

The Browns also are expected to carry over about $20M a season. I recently read an analysis of their cap management strategy. A key takeaway is that they can spend cash at a rate of about 115% of the yearly cap by structuring and manipulating contracts the way they are. That’s not out of line with how many teams operate. Some are more conservative and spend at close to 100% cash to cap. And then there’s New Orleans on the other end of the spectrum.

my daughter agrees with Poyer, Diggs and Milano. wrt #3 says “maybe Knox or, low key, Tauron Johnson. Or maybe Hyde.” I think she’s got her pre FA and pre draft top 5.

The main issue with recovering signing bonus money is that it has to be due to a voluntary retirement (and the contract details also matter). We saw what happened with Eric Wood. He had to make it clear that he was retiring because the physical toll he took from playing football would not allow him to play any longer. That’s a pretty simple thing to assert and in most cases it would be very difficult to disprove - especially where veteran players are concerned. On the team side they use roster bonuses to get injured players off their roster between seasons.

Oh wow. Bold take.