The NFL is slowly turning into the NBA where the players rule and they go where they want when they want regardless of contracts and what not. It doesn’t apply to Deebo but the league also has an issue where players sign a 4-5 year deal after they get their second contract and force their way into a new deal or to another team two years in. They should explore getting rid of the fifth year option for first rounders or make rookie contracts three year deals with a fourth year option and installing Bird rights so that the drafting team can offer more money without cap repercussions.
The fact that guaranteed money over four or five years is infinitely easier to come by in the NBA than the NFL is ass backwards. I don’t even know how they would begin to fix that because owners would fight that to the death.
The issue with fixing it is that the top 1% of NFL players are the representatives that negotiate these deals. Jeff Smith will never have a seat at the table and the top players are also the top paid. They could give two shits about the bottom half of rosters not having guaranteed contracts.
NBA CAP is even more of a balloon than NFL. Every contract is fully guaranteed and you can easily take on more salary if you want to keep going over and over the soft CAP. NFL's CAP can obviously also be manipulated by pushing the contracts over multiple years, but not to the same extent as there is a certain hard number for the season. Birds rights I feel is another way to bypass the CAP and will do more harm than good. At the end of the day there is a system in place where if a player does not want to play,. he will not get paid. This is not perfect, but the best system that can be around. Very few people are willing to sit out. Only Deshaun and Bell come to mind in recent memory. Others are traded for a good compensation, and ultimately it's much better than NBA CAP balloon structure. I would make a couple of tweaks where the amount you actually pay to players is what counts against the CAP, regardless of signing bonus, roster bonus, etc. Also, franchise tag being used two years in a row for the same guy seems like a draconian practice, once should be good enough.
The problem is that in NBA you can give every contract guaranteed, because effectively there is no CAP. The CAP is used to decide who pays luxury tax, but doesn't really prevent you from getting players. You can do signs like sign and trade for expiring contract, and many other things I won't get into. How is it relevant? NFL has a semblance of hard CAP. That means if you have a fully guaranteed contract on the books, it's much harder to take on new salary. Again, manipulations like restructuring with bigger signing bonus, etc, are being done, but still, if you have all contracts guaranteed, there will be a lot of guys who underperform, and would need to be paid. With hard CAP, that leaves less money for other players, who are better. The hard CAP number is derived from % of revenue the players agreed to split with owners, and owners are required to be at or around that number each year to ensure revenue money is being split fairly. At macro level, what fewer fully guaranteed contracts do is ensure that better players who are performing get bigger slice of the pie than underperforming ones, that's really it. If you want to get away from the above semblance or hard CAP system, then yes, you can put rules in with more guaranteed contracts, more money thrown into this, and it will become more like baseball or European soccer, which is where NBA is going to. Basically pay as much as you want. One thing I like about the NFL is that there is a level playing field. Anyone has same opportunity to win, not just rich owners, same teams every year. I personally don't want NFL to get away from that.
Here we go gaga for a big name FA. Except this situation smells like old fish. Look at the long game. Samual only lasted 3 years in SF, which included 2 NFC championship games. How long do you think he will last here? Don't be fooled. Not only is this about money - its about becoming the highest paid WR in the league. And if that is with us, it will require a massive payout that JD absolutely wont agree to. So, do you want to trade a bunch of capital on a 2 year rental for a guy who couldn't honor his rookie contract on a top team? This is the type of move that keeps us in the cellar for several more seasons.
For the life of me I cannot understand this sentiment. For like the third time in the last two pages of this thread: JD was willing to pay Hill upwards of $25 mil per year and was going to give up picks to do it. He is ready to pay top dollar for top tier players. Which is absolutely the right call when all of your current offensive cornerstones are on rookie deals.
The problems with NFL player contracts run deep and at this point there is no way to turn back. Owners won’t approve anything that turns the tide in favor of the players and as mentioned, the top 1% of players don’t want the current structure changed. So the elite players will make elite money and everyone else will pray they can make it more than three years in a row with guaranteed money.
You raise a valid point, one that Douglas absolutely has to do his due diligence on. My hunch is that Deebo actually wants to wind up in Green Bay with Rodgers. But if he wound up here, would he play to his full ability, or would he try to finagle a trade out of here by playing at less than that? None of us can know the answer to that, and even Douglas may not be able to know, but Samuels is certainly a perfect fit, and would significantly transform this offense, so IMO he's worth the risk. There's good reason to believe that he'd be happy coming here and playing for coaches he knows, and with a young upcoming team and a QB who is better than what he's played with (of course not as good as Rodgers...yet).
Let's say we draft Williams and Ruckert. We'd have Uzomah, Conklin, Moore, Davis, Berrios, and the two rookies. Not a great group, but one with which Zach can develop if he's FQB material.
Schefter reported that Deebo wants to play on the east coast because he’s from South Carolina. Not sure Wisconsin satisfies that… then again neither does New Jersey so who knows.
Hill played 6 years in KC. He wasn't trying bail on the team that drafted him during his rookie contract - and SF is one of the easiest places to play media wise. If Hill wanted 25 million per year, Deebo is going to want 28, and make it 30 for the Jets tax. Expect him to demand a new contract next year, or ask for a trade. This is likely a 2 year rental - maybe a 1 year rental. Once you dig beyond the surface it starts to stink.
You’re making this way too black and white and it’s just not. He wants to play on the East coast apparently, he doesn’t want to be used so heavily in the backfield (rightfully so) and he wants to get paid before taking hits coming out of the backfield and risking injury, essentially risking money. He’s 26, he’s a stud playmaker and he wants to be paid as such. I don’t see the issue. At least I don’t see the issue in 2022 where this is commonplace.
I agreed with your post until this part. Our QB finished last in the league. Zach isn't an upgrade from Jimmy G and no WR is thinking it would be great to play with him. Even Lance, in only two starts, performed much better than Wilson.
Listen to yourself. Do you really think bailing on your team because they are on the wrong coast is a valid excuse for a 3rd year player? It has cry baby written all over it. Too many here can only see the upside and are blinded to the down side.
Yet again you are ignoring the bigger picture. Finding something wrong with every star player that becomes available is a big part of why we’ve been inept as a franchise for the better part of 15 years. Another big part is pretending you can build solely through the draft and unfortunately for us, we’ve had shit talent evaluators. Judging by his words and almost actions, Douglas seems to be the smart blend of risk taking and conservative.
My whole point is the bigger picture? All you see in your head is Deebo running around the edge for TDs in green and white. Signings like this are a big part of what has kept us a losing franchise. Lets look at the FA WRs we've targeted: Deebo went pick 36. AJ Brown went pick 51 DK Metcalf went pick 64 Tyreek Hill went pick 165 These are why these teams win. Not by attempting to rebuild with the most expensive FAs they can find.
Stopped here because I don’t really want to get into a convo with someone who is telling me what I think then basing their argument off it. I’d much prefer he didn’t do it anywhere near as much as he is.
The NFL’s cap is just as fake as the NBA’s. The Saints and Packers have been fucking around with being over for the past couple years with no issue. Bird rights might work better in the NFL because the contract lifespan is shorter so players need to make as much money as quickly as possible since their careers are much shorter so they’d be intrigued by making more money immediately following their rookie deal. There also aren’t a ton of undesirable markets in the NFL (sans Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Green Bay and all three have their own draw from a football standpoint) when you factor in travel schedule. NBA players don’t want to be in Oklahoma for their four game home stand especially when they’re on the road half the year. We have not really seen players shy away from going to smaller markets in the NFL like we have in the NBA provided the team is willing to spend to get them there (Green Bay and Pittsburgh traditionally are not willing to spend). Every single NFL franchise also gets national attention with ease. The Hornets and Pacers do not for 90% of the year unless they make the playoffs. And all drafted players flee those cities.
