HappyDays

Not really a fan of this. Lewis and Rapp are not guys you sign on day zero of FA. If they sign elsewhere so be it, we can find cheaper options on day 3 of the draft or in late stage FA. McDermott is a little too obsessed with continuity at depth positions IMO.

It's 3 years up to $50M. Not announced publicly yet.

No, dead money usually represents salary that has already been paid to the player and the team has used creative accounting to kick the salary cap implications to future years. Knox now is thinking about what money he'll be earning this year. Being released into a FA market versus taking say a $4M pay cut, his agent will tell him he's likely to lose more than that on the open market so take the pay cut. Restructure is not the same as rework. Restructure doesn't require the player's approval because it doesn't change the money in their pocket, it just converts salary into some sort of bonus (usually a signing bonus) that spreads the cap hit out over several years. A rework is a more polite way of saying pay cut, or occasionally a pay increase if the player is the one with leverage. No doubt about it, Knox has taken a straight up pay cut. Perhaps there will be incentives that can earn him most of the money back like what we did with Von, but it is still classified as a pay cut.

$19M AAV... Jeez, Danielle Hunter is gonna get close to $25M at this rate.

That almost certainly is not it. Everyone in the NFL is greedy, as they should be. They are getting advised by greedy agents. Players take pay cuts because the alternative is entering a crowded free agent market and risking an even worse salary than what the pay cut offers them.

Really interested to see the true numbers. I worry a bit about Dawkins' conditioning as he gets older but it's almost certainly going to free up cap space this year. He's supposed to cost $16.6M this year, maybe we cut that number in half.

For anyone who can't see the image he posted "It was good while it lasted Buffalo. Excited for this next chapter of my football career. Wonder if it's okay to eat ranch now."

Uhhhhhh... Maybe he is trolling?

This guy has had good info before:

It is a paycut. Players do it all the time if they know the alternative is a release and the risk of having to accept an even worse salary. And typically I am against the paycuts Beane gives out, historically they have still ended up being a waste of money. But in this case it was the only realistic means of saving money on Knox's contract without tying up more future money.

I was told a couple weeks ago Knox was approached about a paycut. I'm not sure what leverage we used considering his dead money hit would have been higher than his normal cap hit, but I'm glad to see he accepted the paycut. Perhaps we threatened a release with a post-6/1 designation? Glad to see Beane being especially ruthless this offseason. It is a necessary change.

Man this really screws the 49ers. They lose one of their better players, and owe a $26.1M dead cap hit this year and a $14.8M dead cap hit next year.

Yeah I had the same thought. 49ers are supposed to have a $26.1M dead cap hit if they release him (only $2.2M in cap savings). Did he agree to give some of that money back in order to facilitate this?

I just don't agree with this. White in his prime changed the way McDermott could call his defense. Having a CB that could singlehandedly take away an entire half of the field on his own made it so much easier to call plays without sacrificing the integrity of the defense. White also had game changing INTs many times, IIRC he had the most 4th quarter INTs in the league over like a 3 year time frame. Very good chance we edge past the Chiefs in one of our two divisional round matchups if White in his prime was on the field IMO.

Sneed singlehandedly stopped the Ravens comeback attempt in its tracks in the AFCCG. That is the definition of a game breaker. A game where the Chiefs offense scored ZERO points in the 2nd half and still won, I think you have to admit that their secondary was the primary reason they won that game.

Sneed gave up 0 TDs all season long until Shakir's TD in the divisional round. He was definitely an elite game changing CB this past season. Although I suspect the team that inevitably trades for him will be disappointed, much as great Patriots players used to leave for a different team and see their level of play diminish. The Chiefs elite coaching staff shouldn't be discounted in this discussion. They have a way of getting players to their ceiling at an astonishing rate.

It's hard to rank the Chiefs players in this discussion because in the realm of "elite" talent, Mahomes and Kelce and Jones are on an even higher level. But that doesn't mean Sneed, McDuffie, and a couple others on their team aren't elite players. They just aren't in the conversation for some of the greatest to ever do it. This was always my argument when people would say "Mahomes has Kelce, Allen has Diggs" as if that is an equal share of talent. No one would mistake Diggs as arguably the greatest of all time at this position. Even at his best he was closer to that Sneed/McDuffie tier of elite talent. Allen has never had a teammate that could say they were in the same tier as him. And that dichotomy between us and the Chiefs has only gotten worse. We didn't even have any players in that Sneed/McDuffie level by the end of this past season. It was Josh Allen sitting lonely in the highest tier, and then a big drop off from him to everyone else. Kincaid I think has a good chance to reach that 2nd tier of elite players this year or next. Other than him I'm not confident saying anybody else on the roster is going to hit that level. Maybe Rousseau, he's still very young and has battled injuries the past two seasons. I'd like to say Oliver but I need to see him make a true game changing play in a playoff game before he can be part of the discussion.