The contract figures for Huff just keep climbing and climbing. There are people talking about keeping him for $20 mil a year now. One poster is comparing Huff to Trey Hendrickson and saying we should pay him $20 mill for that reason. I dont think Huff is nearly as good as Hendrickson, but even if he is, Hendrickson is making $15 mill a year not $20 mill I think that (15M) is Huff's ceiling. Something like the 3 year/45 mill contract that Joe Douglas stupidly gave to Carl Lawson instead
It makes no financial sense for this team to franchise him (barring the miracle that there's a placeholder "sign and trade" deal in place) ... JD's big blunder was not extending him on "the cheap" when he had a chance
Not 20 mil a year. 20 mil 1 year tag deal. Then offer a multi year deal that has less than that annually but more total guarantees. Or perhaps another team offers that and we match it. I would trade JFM if we cannot get creative but I think there is a way to retain Huff AND sign another good free agent. Saints were above the CAP to start last offseason, and they were able to sign Carr to 150 mil dollar contract (100 guaranteed). There is a way to do it. I know transition tag is not used a lot, but this may be one of rare cases where it makes sense. Huff is not worth 23 mil, but 20 mil is closer to his value and we can match any market offer for him. Huff won't play on the tag as he is looking to get as much as he can guaranteed. Which means smaller annual value, but more total guarantees. No Jets tax, it will be a fair market price. For any other big name FAs there will be a Jets tax, and I am not sure if they want to come here or will even be available: https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/...nchise-tag-barring-long-term-deal-per-report/
The best they will get with Huff is a comp pick, although I think the FA activity may counteract that. JFM is another one trick pony even though he's strong as fuck. He's also a hothead and chooses some dumb times to show it. Borderline starter IMO, he can go. I doubt teams will want to take on the 16m cap hit he's due for this year or the 17mil hit he's due next season. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/new-york-jets/john-franklin-myers-25236/
Carr’s cap hit was $7.2 million last year so they worked a lot of restructures to put themselves in the same cap hell again this year. I wouldn’t exactly follow the Saints model for managing the cap. Higgins and Pittman were just an example. If we make $50 million in total cap space, how are you fixing the offense with Huff’s $20 million guaranteed number?
Tying up another high $ on another defensive end. Amazing. I like Shiff and if there is a way JD can get creative to make some roster moves and keep Huff, that would be great! we need some offense!
To me, one piece here influencing the decision is Micheal Clemons' regression. Not sure if it was the coaching staff having him bulk up, playing inside, or something else, but he seemed like a potential JFM replacement until last year. If I felt better about him going into this year, I might say cut JFM, prepare to have Clemons play more snaps, and use the money to resign Huff. But I don't think you can rely on Clemons anymore. The only way he got closer to JFM's game seems to be bad penalties. Hopefully the coaching staff has a plan to get him back to where he was as a rookie. That would be huge for the DL
I understand they are an example, but the point is that we will not be able to sign multiple star FAs anyway, we will be lucky to get one. IF for some miracle all the star players want to come here for fair price, we can rescind the tag when that happens. But it won't happen. Hence we need to be realistic about keeping the quality we already have. As far as fixing the offense, we can lower the CAP by restructuring others. We only did a few small restructures before and are not in CAP hell. Also, while initially tagging Huff will count full 20 mil, this will get lowered by a lot once we match longer term deal for him. And even if not, we can just restructure others, like Aaron, Mosely, etc... I think this year we do need to follow Saints model. And I don't think it will be that bad. Saints were in much worse spot and got a 150 mil QB plus others. Retaining Huff for a market value will not put us in the same position. The bottom line is this: transition tag Huff to at least have an opportunity to match his offer. If it is crazy from another team, then we may have no choice. But most likely it will be multi year deal in mid-high teens. We can then match this offer. Don't lose far and away best pass rusher on the team. The defense will be worse without him. And if there is an injury to Q and no Huff, we will be in a very tough spot. Pass rushers that can truly pressure QBs are not easy to get. At worst if we cannot switch JFM inside, we can trade him. And if like you said all the best free agents on offense are willing to come here for fair price, we already traded JFM to accommodate all these stars, and more of them still keep begging us to take them, we can revisit then. It won't happen though.
Tagging a player, forcing them to miss out on the beginning of free agency, rescinding the tag and trying to sign a top tier free agent to fix out offense simply isn’t happening. Tagging & rescinding to do something like that is also another thing players and agents will take notice of as far as the Jets scumming a player. There is just no scenario where a team that’s strapped with cash and has a loaded defensive line as it is should tag a guy who plays 40% of the snaps for $20 million.
Rescinding won't happen. This was in response to your hypothetical scenario where a lot of premium offensive FAs want to come here for fair price and we cannot sign them all, even if we trade JFM. It won't happen. We can do both: get a couple of good offensive FAs (maybe a WR and OT) AND tag at first and then re-sign Huff. We are not strapped of cash as you make it sound. We can do a lot of CAP manipulations with roster. Drop Uzomah and Laken, reduce and restructure Mosley, extend restructure DJ Reed, restructure Rodgers, trade or restructure JFM, and the list goes on and on and on. We are long way to go before getting to Saints levels of CAP manipulations, and even Saints were able to fit 150 mil dollar man (100 guaranteed). What should happen is we restructure the guys above and go after top FAs we want. Give Huff something like an offer of 3 year 55 mil, 35 of which is guaranteed. Then a transition tag if he does not sign it. Most likely he will check with other teams, and realize that's his market give and take. We will hopefully get a top FA or two. Then after Huff relatively quickly realizes his market is along the lines of what we offered, he will sign the 55 mil contract (or we match similar offer from another team), which will lower the CAP hit from 20 to a much lower # for 2024. At that point we can round out the roster with lower tier FAs. First two draft picks would be used for OL/WR as well, depending on what we get in FA market. I don't think it will be that hard to do both CAP wise: retain Huff and get good pieces on offense. The hardest part would be identifying good players in draft and FA market, and attracting good players to come here for fair market price, not finding CAP room for them. And Huff's pressure and sack rate remained identical going from 20% to 42% of snaps. He needs to see further snaps increase with JJ, McD, and Huff taking most snaps at ED with JFM moving inside or traded if we will need money, which again I don't think we will. It's not either Huff or offense, we can do both. And we have to do both this year. We have to give it a good shot with Rodgers coming back.
Lets not over rate Huff. He isn't an elite end that explodes into the backfield and racks the QB. Most of his sacks were coverage sacks where he cleaned up a collapsing pocket, and he disappears when Q isn't in there. Yeah he had 10 sacks but in a 17 game season that isn't elite anymore. And he only had 8 sacks going into NE, who were barely trying and gave up 7 total sacks, and a 20 QBR. He is also a rushing specialist that is pretty bad at the LOS against the run. His stats are padded and he's not worth more than 15 million tops. We've already used pick 15 on WMD, who should be able to match Huffs production, or he's a bust. Either way its time to find out. We cant let pick 15 continue to be a backup on his rookie contract while Huff gets Trey Hendrickson money.
Completely agree with this; we drafted edge in the 1st round in back to back years. Our true elite player on the line is Quinton. There’s too much we’re going to try to fix with vets (either in a trade or FA) - OL, b/u QB and WR - where we’ll need every bit of cap we can make available.
What do you mean a lot of star players want to come here at a fair price? I didn’t say they’d want to come here at a fair price. I said I’d rather spend $20 million or $20 million+ to improve the offense via a Tee Higgins or Pittman than Huff at $20 million flat. And yeah. I’m down. Let’s restructure all of those guys and fix the cap for next year and dump all that money into the offense rather win a DE3/DE4.
I am pretty sure that last fall I had read that the Jets salary cap for 2025 was going to be tight due to Rodgers huge cap hit of $51.5 milion and the money from other restructures pushed into 2025, but I just looked it up and Spotrac shows that we will probably have $78 million in cap space, so the Jets should be able to renegotiate some deals and push some of their money into 2025 and backload the contracts of younger players who are playing well. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/new-york-jets/cap/2025/ If JFM is cut, I don't remember if the money from 2025 would escalate to this year, and if so, it would make him uncuttable, but if he isn't on the Jets roster in 2025 his contract sets him to receive $17.464 million, and if cut that year, it would save $11 million more on the cap. Lazard is set to get $13.2 million in 2025. If cut then he'd have a dead money hit of around $6.5 million and a cap savings of around $6.5 million. I can't find potential 2025 Jets FAs. In terms of dead money from players no longer on the roster, the Jets will still have $2 million from Mecole Hardman.
We'll have money in 2025 because several contracts expire, though not most of the bigger ones. We only have 33 players signed for 2025. This will require signing a lot of new players. JFM's cap number would count against this year if we cut him. But the biggest decision is Rogers. Next year he counts 24 million towards the cap. If we don't release him after next year he counts 63 million against the cap, or a dead cap of at best 28 million. If we were to release him now it would cost 49 million this year. (In a trade we could eat less money and still get a decent pick for him though. For example, offer to eat his salary this season, 17 million, in exchange for a 2nd. This gets him off our future books and gets us a decent pick for 17 million.) Another problem with 2025, like you mentioned, is finding money to keep Garrett, Breece, Sauce, and JJ, all while needing to sign several new players. Signing Rodgers screwed us in so many ways, including signing and carrying players, like Lazard, who should be released. But probably wont be. I cringe at who we will bring in next. Pushing money into the future for this sham season is going to wreck us for years. Were on a course that leads nowhere. The time to pivot is now which makes discussing our current plans revolting to me. Anyone else tired of being the stupid desperate team with stupid desperate plans?
A big issue is that in 2 years the 2022 draft class has to get paid. That includes Sauce, G. Wilson, Breece and Jermaine. That will cost big money.
Definetely something a GM needs to consider for sure, thanks for bringing it up. I personally dont think this is a SB roster, going all in to secure Bryce Huff like it is a SB roster, could bite hard in 2/3 years when the core players you mention come due
Then why couldn't others on the team sniff his pressure rate or get sacks? I mean they had Q also, no? They also played in NE game. It's apples to apples comparison. At this point you are underestimating Huff. Also, check out this article with focus on the facts. #1 pressure rate in NFL, according to ESPN metrics (PFF has him also as one of the top guys). And, "with him on the field, the Jets allowed a stingy passer rating of 69.8, compared to 83.1 when he was on the sideline -- the biggest differential among the Jets' defensive linemen." And his run defense according to ESPN is league average - in the same article. So, he holds his own in run game and a beast at pass rush. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle between 15 and 20. Tag 1st , and like I said, 55 for 3 years with 2 years 35 guaranteed sounds like a fair deal. It's not about dumping money on offense and overpaying, it's more nuanced than that. We have specific needs we can address, using both FA and draft, while still not making defense worse. I know there is a way to do both, and already described how in this thread. We need to hit on 1st and 3d rounders, established OT and/or WR, tag then re-sign Huff, and round out the roster with solid OL guys, like Cleveland, Risner, etc. All of that is doable, while keeping a balanced roster with some pass rush, which we will need.
