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The Random Thought Thread

Ellicottraven said:
Hey guys serious question. I have this morbid fear that we may lose in the playoffs for the 3rd straight year. For no fault of his, my son will be blamed and it petrifies me about how one would have a counter narrative if the unthinkable happens. The hateful media is just waiting to pounce on such a failure to scream - 'see I told you so' and I don't want to give them that moment. Am I overthinking it because he's my adopted son? Overreacting? Or can somebody console my bad premonition about the playoffs? I've been very wrong lately and that is definitely a comforting thought. How about you guys? How do you feel my son'll do in the playoffs? Will his supporting cast fail him? Will the play calling of Roman fall short again? What do you guys think? Do we actually go on a run and win the whole enchilada?
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blame Roman, it's the easiest and most accurate thing to do. That being said, 3rd times the charm and Michael Jordan will come through.
 
JO_75 said:
How do teams let the cap get so bad? The Packers one is quite crazy as I didn't think they were close to being over the cap.

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Well the Eagles and Saints largely mortgaged the present to go all-in on these seasons to win again.

If you want general ideas of what's happening on the four "bad" numbers on that list:

Packers:
Rodgers costs $15M against the cap more in 2021 than 2020. $21.6M cap hit this year, $36.3M cap hit next year.
There's some general increases for other players, but nothing huge.
Will see if they do some sort of restructuring for him. He's owed $14.7M in salary and $6.8M as a roster bonus. Likely they'll convert some of that into a signing bonus and kick the can down the road on that a bit.

Falcons:
Basically, see Packers. Matt Ryan costs $19M against the cap in 2020, and he's scheduled to count almost $41M in 2021.
Including Ryan's gargantuan number, which I imagine they'll try to re-do, they have five players with cap hits over $18M, and not much they can do with any of them except Ryan. Julio, Jarrett, Matthews and Fowler are all pretty early on in their latest contracts, and have a lot of dead money.

Essentially, their entire offseason boils down to Ryan. They'll have a very high draft pick, and if they opt to move on, they could look to trade him and go cheaper. One way or another, they'll need to lower his cap hit significantly. He's due $23M in salary, so they'll likely convert to bonus and prorate to free up space. That'll balloon his 2022 cap hit to like $45M or more, however.

Eagles:
I've beaten a dead horse with this team, but long story short, its a textbook example of the drawbacks of structuring all contracts to win "now" and mortgaging the future.
Wentz costs $18.6M in 2020, goes up to $34.6M in 2021. So that's a $16M increase for a player you benched, with really no way to cut or trade him without major cap implications.
Brandon Graham increases from $6.3M to nearly $18M.
Lane Johnson goes from $10.3M to $17.8M
Darius Slay goes from $4.3M to $15.7M
Jason Hargrave goes from $3.4M to $15.2M
Brandon Brooks goes from $7.8M to $14.5M

They've got some major problems and some tough decisions to make. The good news is they do have some guys that can free up good space that are obvious cuts. Alshon Jeffery, DeSean Jackson, and Marquise Goodwin, three receivers who did basically nothing for them this year, can easily be cut and save them in the neighborhood of ~$17.5M. They'll need to do a lot more than that of course, but that'll be a step in the right direction. I think they'll trade or cut Zach Ertz. I think they'll try to extend Derek Barnett and backload the crap out of his deal.

Expect them to do a TON of contract restructures and/or extensions to get them much lower.

Saints:
In similar boat to the Eagles. A lot of backloaded contracts catching up to them:
Brees goes from $23.6M to $36.1M. Will be interesting to see what happens there. If he retires, they'll about $13.5M against the cap.
Cameron Jordan goes from $9.1M to $18.9M
Michael Thomas goes from $7M to $18.8M
Terron Armstead goes from $8.3M to $16.3M
Taysom Hill goes from $4.8M to $16.1M
Janoris Jenkins goes from $4M to $14.2M
Kwon Alexander goes from like $1M to $13.4M (he's getting cut, certainly)
Andrus Peat from $3.6M to $11.6M
Ryan Ramczyk from $2.8M to $11M

Just becomes tiresome at this point, but you get the idea. When you backload your contracts and kick the can down the road, you have 2,3,4x jumps year-over-year for the same player. Horrible cap management. Right now, on a salary cap that could be as low as $175M, they have Brees and Hill combining to take up $52.2M of that.

As far as cuts, its hard to tell. Kwon Alexander is an easy one. Emmanuel Sanders could likely be one. Nick Easton is a possibility. But those guys only really add up to about $25M, so they'll need to do a lot more. I wouldn't even know where to start with teams like the Saints/Eagles. Tough roster decisions, extensions/restructures of contracts you really shouldn't be touching, and QB situations that are murky at best or disastrous at worst.
 


ooft more browns positive - if they're having an outbreak the NFL has run out of leeway surely to postpone games... unless they're gonna start moving playoff games which seems unlikely

also would make this the most browns-y way to miss the playoffs - lose a lay-up game vs the jets with their entire WR corp on the covid list and then potentially lose against a backup steelers roster because they have to play their practice squad...
 
RL52TheGreatest said:
The media is always going to criticize Lamar, fairly or not, so I don't think another playoff loss is really going to affect that too much. What are they going to say that they haven't already said? I would just expect more of the same narrative that Lamar can't win in big games, needs to improve his passing, etc. In any case, my thought and hope is that Lamar will get his first playoff victory this year. We peaked too soon last season, but we're coming together at the right time this year and playing our best ball. It also helps that we won't have a bye week this time so we can continue to stay in the groove instead of getting rusty on extended rest (I really hate how we rested our starters in week 17 last season in addition to the first round bye).

And if we do lose? Fuck it, still not going to feel as bad as the Titans loss. That shit was devastating after watching the most dominant season in team history. We're playing with house money this year so let's see if we pull something off.



This team has been through the ringer this year and I feel like we're better suited to deal with whatever comes our way during the playoffs. We also tend to play a lot better when we're the underdog anyway so I just feel a lot better about this team.

I also get the sense that if we can just slay one of our demons in either the Titans or KC then there will be no stopping us after that. I had the same feeling in 2012 when we finally beat Peyton's Broncos that no other team stood a chance after that. We beat the Titans and/or KC then this team is going to have all the confidence in the world going through the rest of the playoffs.
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Again, I hope like hell we face all 3 of our boogeymen, I wanna knock the Steelers tf out and make their fans cry, I wanna go into Tennessee and kick their teeth in like we did in 2000 and 2008, I wanna exorcise the KC demons and watch their fans cry about refs and watch them openly hope for a Lamar injury, I wanna see all theee piece of shit fan bases absolutely miserable over the fact that they’ve talked so much shit about Lamar for 2 years and now they’re looking stupid.

I mean... they gotta actually win those games first lol, but man it would be beautiful
 
rossihunter2 said:


ooft more browns positive - if they're having an outbreak the NFL has run out of leeway surely to postpone games... unless they're gonna start moving playoff games which seems unlikely

also would make this the most browns-y way to miss the playoffs - lose a lay-up game vs the jets with their entire WR corp on the covid list and then potentially lose against a backup steelers roster because they have to play their practice squad...
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I know it's not going to happen for monetary reasons, but otherwise, you could justify the Steelers forfeiting this game if they wanted to move it. They want to rest a lot of their guys anyways, so this could give them a bye week since they haven't really had one since early in the season. But it's all moot since they aren't giving up a game check obviously. But still fun to think about.
 
Simba said:
I know it's not going to happen for monetary reasons, but otherwise, you could justify the Steelers forfeiting this game if they wanted to move it. They want to rest a lot of their guys anyways, so this could give them a bye week since they haven't really had one since early in the season. But it's all moot since they aren't giving up a game check obviously. But still fun to think about.
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the problem is the game-check issue and no way are any of the players giving up those checks

the only other way is if the NFL themselves decided to cancel the game and screw KC by adding the 8th seed to the playoffs
 
rossihunter2 said:
the problem is the game-check issue and no way are any of the players giving up those checks

the only other way is if the NFL themselves decided to cancel the game and screw KC by adding the 8th seed to the playoffs
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Hell yeah! 8th seed to the playoffs. Makes too much sense.
 
Do you guys think Queen has a legit shot at DROY?
 
JoeyFlex5 said:
Again, I hope like hell we face all 3 of our boogeymen, I wanna knock the Steelers tf out and make their fans cry, I wanna go into Tennessee and kick their teeth in like we did in 2000 and 2008, I wanna exorcise the KC demons and watch their fans cry about refs and watch them openly hope for a Lamar injury, I wanna see all theee piece of shit fan bases absolutely miserable over the fact that they’ve talked so much shit about Lamar for 2 years and now they’re looking stupid.

I mean... they gotta actually win those games first lol, but man it would be beautiful
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I would be so very happy if this scenario plays out lol
 
JAAM said:
Do you guys think Queen has a legit shot at DROY?
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nope

will be Chase Young or Jeremy Chinn

Derrick Brown should be in the discussion but won't be

Queen might get some votes but I wouldn't bank on him being in contention for the actual award
 
Sidenote:

Is there any reason why these current I/R DTR and practice squad rules shouldn't continue moving forwards?

one of the better innovations for this year - don't see any reason why they shouldn't also be there for the future...
 
rossihunter2 said:
Sidenote:

Is there any reason why these current I/R DTR and practice squad rules shouldn't continue moving forwards?

one of the better innovations for this year - don't see any reason why they shouldn't also be there for the future...
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NFL still likes the "competitive" aspect of it... like forcing teams to make tough decisions sometimes. But I'd imagine teams are going to push hard for similar things to stay in place. Might not be as lenient but I'd certainly imagine they'll keep aspects of the rules put in place.
 
rmcjacket23 said:
No. Chase Young will get it. Jeremy Chin should be a frontrunner also.
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Why is Young the consensus pick? His stats aren’t otherworldly.
 
RL52TheGreatest said:
also get the sense that if we can just slay one of our demons in either the Titans or KC then there will be no stopping us after that. I had the same feeling in 2012 when we finally beat Peyton's Broncos that no other team stood a chance after that. We beat the Titans and/or KC then this team is going to have all the confidence in the world going through the rest of the playoffs.
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Different situation, but man I really thought the same thing after the Orioles beat the Tigers in 2014. I'm still not over that.
 
Simba said:
NFL still likes the "competitive" aspect of it... like forcing teams to make tough decisions sometimes. But I'd imagine teams are going to push hard for similar things to stay in place. Might not be as lenient but I'd certainly imagine they'll keep aspects of the rules put in place.
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practice squad can be shrunk back down and maybe they go back to the old limit on players with accrued seasons but the PS call-ups and the unlimited IR-DTR need to stick around I think

the NFL should like the idea that more better quality players are able to come back and play and teams dont have to end guy's seasons over a 5 week injury

it might be that they up the minimum period on I/R so that it's somewhere closer to the 8 weeks it used to be and not at the 3 weeks it's at currently
 
JAAM said:
Why is Young the consensus pick? His stats aren’t otherworldly.
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but they're better than the rest of the rookie class... sack numbers aren't insane but he's got absolutely tons of pressures (think derrick brown might technically have more - at least according to PFF)

and you just have to watch him in games to see how good he is

i think it would be tough if chinn won because im not sure he's even the best defensive rookie on the panthers
 
rossihunter2 said:
but they're better than the rest of the rookie class... sack numbers aren't insane but he's got absolutely tons of pressures (think derrick brown might technically have more - at least according to PFF)

and you just have to watch him in games to see how good he is

i think it would be tough if chinn won because im not sure he's even the best defensive rookie on the panthers
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I’m still not buying it. Guess we’ll see
 
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