You’re missing the point entirely. If you consider 20m to be roquans asking price, then that would be the STARTING price for teams offering him a deal in FA, bad teams with tons of cap space to burn, he wouldve been wined and dined and offered way more than what we’re likely to retain him for.
What a player gets paid to stay is way different from what that player gets offered on the open market. If you’re a team tight on cap space you aren’t gonna get the leagues elite when they hit open FA.
And sure you can choose to have poor ILB play because you don’t consider it a value position, but you won’t compete with the likes of KC, cinci, and Buffalo if you don’t have quality LB play, teams that use the screen game and TEs to lethal efficiency to move chains are the best teams in the conference right now.
What I’m saying is, and where I keep losing you, is that we have zero chance at getting roquan smith on the 2023 open market. If we extend roquan for 20m a year, you can bet there are at least 2-3 teams out there who wouldn’t hesitate to offer a good bit more, then we’re stuck deciding whether to extend queen or not because if he leaves we don’t have ANY ILBs. We give up a 2 and avoid that entirely and grab possibly the leagues LB1 long term. There is absolutely a benefit to getting a player in your building and integrated into the team before he hits the open market.
We’ve had a lot of failures in roster management and use of capital, trading for roquan smith was not one of them(unless he leaves in FA)
