HappyDays

I don't want us adding any void years to existing contracts on older players this year. It might be painful but I want us using this offseason as a means of getting the cap back in order. I don't want players like Morse or Poyer still on the books in 2025 for any amount of money. If Poyer accepts a pay cut I would be okay with that. I just don't see any way he is worth a $7.7M cap hit, not with an extremely deep safety market.

I'm starting to think we should definitely release Poyer. The safety market is so deep. Poyer can find out for himself that no one is giving him $7.7 million this year. If he wants to come back for $3 million this year, fine. But if not we can easily find a cheap and capable option to replace him.

Yeah I HOPE we use all of these picks. One way Beane could stop the bleeding with our cap issues is to replace the likes of Tim Settle and Ryan Bates with late round rookie contracts. Instead of paying players like Siran Neal and Tyler Matakevich, find special teams aces in rounds 6 and 7. The biggest thing hurting our team right now is that the bottom of the roster is full of bloated contracts. We need a big philosophical change to our spending habits, starting with this upcoming draft.

So I think about NFL roster building like a game of whack-a-mole. It's impossible to solve every problem and often times solving one problem creates another problem elsewhere. So I accept that losing Morse creates a problem, namely in continuity like you say. But if we use his savings to solve a different problem at a more important position it is still a net gain for the team. I would rather lose IOL continuity to gain WR or EDGE talent than vice versa.

CB is a lot more important than center though. I've said elsewhere if they cut Douglas for the cap savings and force Elam onto the field I don't have a problem with it, but for me if it's a choice between Morse and Douglas I'm sticking with the more valuable and difficult to fill position. Offense vs defense only comes into my mind if we're talking about equal positional value, i.e. WR vs EDGE I would rather spend our resources on WR.

I don't agree with this at all. Dawkins is inarguably our most important OL. I think center is the least important position on the OL. As long as they are capable and can snap the ball reliably, and you have a vet QB that can set his own protections, I just don't see it as a difficult position to fill. I'd much rather have two stalwart guards than a stalwart center.

The reason you move on from Morse is it frees up cap space to fill holes at more important positions, namely EDGE and WR. $8.5M is significant.

See I don't think Beane made this trade happen. Like he wasn't shopping Bates. I think Ryan Poles initiated the whole thing. They say every player could be moved for the right price. For a backup offensive lineman that's already reached his ceiling it would be stupid to turn down a top 150 pick.

Technically. But he was never going to see that $5.4M next year. We were almost certainly going to cut him and take $2.5M in dead cap, so I'm looking at it as we save $1.4M in 2024 and $2.5M in 2025 by trading him now.

Yeah it is certainly just about the pick. I would bet Ryan Poles has been chasing down this trade ever since he stupidly wrote Bates' contract for us in the 2022 offseason. Finally he just made an offer Beane couldn't turn down.

? Who is Bates supposed to be playing over? He's just a good backup. I would have liked him as a baseline replacement for Morse but you don't turn down a 5th round pick for that caliber of player.

Splitting hairs but actually $1.433M in space saved because we're doing it before March 15. Also we avoid having to take on a $2.567M dead cap hit in 2025 when we inevitably would have released him next offseason. Still I don't think this has anything to do with cap space. Ryan Poles just weirdly has a hard on for Ryan Bates so we are happily accepting his overpay.

From a pure value standpoint I like the trade. Bates is probably worth a 7th as a player, we got a 5th for him. Cool. Not sure what the Bears are doing but I'll take it. If this means we are keeping Morse though I don't much like the outcome. It's time to get younger and cheaper. I would rather have Bates at center and Morse cut. Maybe Beane will surprise me and still move on from Morse even after this trade. That will tell me he understands what kind of offseason this needs to be.

I heard his bone was "delayed" in healing but no further complications or damage. There was a divot in the bone where he got hit, which takes longer to heal.

My honest opinion? This is one of the weakest highlight videos I've ever seen for a supposedly 1st round talent. First of all nearly half the video is punt returns. Not a good sign when you have to fill time in a highlight video with plays that will be irrelevant when he hits the NFL (unless you are drafting a punt returner in the 1st round). More importantly every single pass catching highlight is the same. He catches the ball in open space and then zips by the defense at lightning speed. Where are the routes? Where is the shiftiness with the ball in his hands? Where are the catches outside of his frame? Can he find holes in zone? A couple times in these highlights he catches a vertical pass that is a tiny bit out in front of him and he falls to the ground while securing the catch, like a simple soft catch knocked him over. This looks like a mid-round pick to me. For him to be successful the play has to be set up specifically for him to receive the ball in space because he isn't going to set plays up on his own. The pass will have to be perfect and he'll have to hope the defense takes a bunch of bad angles. I don't see any shiftiness on his tape at all. He actually gets caught from behind more than a couple of times because he doesn't understand how to force bad angles. He's the definition of a straight line player. If any team takes Worthy in the 1st round it will end as badly as John Ross IMO.

My favorite memory of John Ross is that he would have won his own private island if he had run the 40 while wearing Adidas. Instead he wore Nikes.

The only thing I have disagreed with Gunner on is McDermott, but I'm not going to spend the whole offseason whining about him. In fact I would tell anyone to trust Gunner's scouting evaluations over mine, I am certain he has done much more work on these players than I have. This time of year what I am looking at is traits and how they won in college with just enough film watching to feel comfortable that I know the profile of the player. I'm no scout. Other people can highlight the technical details of these prospects much better than I can. I just know what wins in the NFL and more specifically what our offense is missing and what would mesh well with Josh Allen's skill set. To your question, Coleman for me. I like Legette's profile, I am just scared away by his age and being a one year wonder.

Yeah the unwritten playoff rules have affected Diggs in particular more than anyone. He has never been a physical WR so when CBs are allowed to grab him his skill set is nullified somewhat. But that's life in the playoffs. Every defense is allowed to get away with it just like every offensive line can get away with manslaughter. And this is why I like Coleman actually. Go ahead and put your hands on him. He'll bully his way right through you.

In fact we faced the most man coverage out of every team in the league. It has been a real problem in the playoffs in particular for several years now. Our WRs can't beat sticky man coverage when the CBs are allowed to be more physical. Getting a WR that can beat 1v1 coverage has to be our #1 priority in the draft.

If it helps, my guide for determining a WR's 1st round worthiness is answering these two questions: 1) What is his elite trait? AKA can he make a living in the NFL doing one thing better than almost all of his peers? 2) Does he do anything else at an above average level? My criteria is that a 1st round WR must have a clear answer to #1, and "yes" to #2. So for example players like Brian Thomas and Xavier Worthy I can clearly answer #1, but question #2 is a no for me. With Mitchell I can't find his elite trait, the one thing he is going to do better than anyone else on the field. He is a good all around WR IMO. So I would place him in round 2. To give a positive example, I would say Coleman's elite trait is his high pointing skills, but he also is above average with the ball in his hands and boxing out defenders. All of that being said I am not going to pretend my word is gospel. Even people that scout as a full time job have a less than 50% hit rate. I'm not going to throw a tantrum if we draft Adonai Mitchell in the 1st round, in fact I'll be happy that Beane took a shot at a WR and I will root for him. Just not my cup of tea personally.

He can't run a track and field drill as fast as others but he can run in a straight line while plucking footballs out of the air better than any of them. I know which of those drills I actually care about.

Yep.

Mitchell to me is an example of why the combine is dangerous for evaluation. Suddenly because of his 40 time he is a 1st round talent. But everything I've read and watched on him shows that he is an inconsistent route runner and struggles against press coverage and isn't a particularly high-effort player. Very impressive 40 time but it changes nothing. The tape doesn't lie.

You might be surprised to know that I almost always agree with this. The first time I saw Coleman's profile was "contested catch specialist" I was out on him. But the more I've seen the more I have liked him. He has more nuance to his route running than the moniker would have you believe. He also moves very well with the ball in his hands. Not going to speed by guys of course but he will bully through him and fight for tough extra yards. Mike Williams is a pure contested catch specialist with really nothing else to write home about. And even he has two 1000 yard seasons on his resume, he has just unfortunately dealt with a ton of injuries.

WRs are running their 40s now. Finally. We can now throw out all of the film evaluation and simply rank WRs by their 40 time.