Free Agent News & Rumors

I did read that part, I think in general it doesn't apply here. We've lost some guys to superior franchises like Thuney and Neal, yes. We've also lost a lot of guys to other loser franchises though.

Regardless, you keep responding with things like:

"Guys, the way to go about FA is not to foolishly spend a ton of money!"

when that's not what any of us are calling for.

 

“Lazy stance in life”

Stopped reading there because you obviously have no intentions of doing anything other than talking down to anyone that doesn’t share your opinion.

 

It'll take a few winning seasons to get players in that boat to come play with us.

 

Picking a non QB at 2 would be a fireable offense in my opinion. The options are pick a QB at 2 or trade the pick. Picking Sewell at 2 when you just used a 1st round pick at the same position last year would be an irresponsible use of draft capital. I could somehow bring myself to possibly live with them trading back from two and still drafting Sewell but even that would be dumb. You are just asking for a huge issue from either Sewell or Becton when one of them is pissed as hell that they are moving to RT and costing themselves millions of dollars. It JUST happened in Baltimore.

 

Sorry I upset you.

It's just the way I see it. I don't view you less than, greater than.

You're a fellow poster.

It wasn't meant to be taken personally.

I apologise that I came off in those terms. Was not my intent.

 

Perhaps I'm a bit confused but ppl on this board keep complaining about all this money JD has left to offer and are perplexed why we're not making bigger splashes. Our budget is getting tighter by the day. By the latest count, we have $26mm in cap space before Keelan Cole hits the book. So assume ~$20mm. We need ~$12mm to sign our draft picks so it's not like he's sitting on all this money to throw around. Can we cut Crowder and Lewis to create more space, of course. But we need a replacement in hand. And we all need to remember it takes two to tango. Most free agents are looking for one-year deals right now so they can take advantage of the expanded cap next year. Given that, it's not easy for JD. Players are looking to sign with teams who have a chance to compete for the super bowl and we're not there yet. He was in on JuJu (who was never coming here). He turned down $13mm from Baltimore and clearly wanted to return to Pitt. He was in on Neal, who would have been a terrific addition (and he would have reunited with Maye and Jarrad Davis from their Florida days!). And by the way, $5mm to play in Dallas (Texas) is not the same as $5mm to play in NY with our tax situation. I'm sure he was in on many others we don't even know about. Look, I get everyone's frustration, we've suffered enough! But let's give the guy a break and let it play out. We still have the draft and there will be plenty of players cut thereafter. I for one am excited about our future. I believe in JD and this front office and I'm certainly willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

We have no idea how those deals are structured so we have no idea how much space they have left. If Joe D wanted to (not advocating he do it) pay Thuney and Golladay and 2 other high priced FAs he could have made it work. Look at NE. It's all in how you structure the deals. Maybe he decided to front load these deals cause we had a lot of cap space which is fine. But money has ZERO to do with the non signing of FAs.

 

All good. Just seemed like you were trying to make it about something more than football for some reason.

For the the record, I didn’t even want to pay Thuney before FA started so I was definitely not upset when he signed with the best team in the conference. Neal is not applicable here. He would have been fantastic in this defense and I would have almost doubled the price on a one year deal if he didn’t want to sign for multiple years.

 

There is truth in what you say, but I don't think it's as cut and dried as you describe it.

In the past, bad choices were made in FA and those bad choices were amplified by overpaying them by ridiculous amounts. That definitely should stop. But imo, there should be some wiggle room there. Blindly always following some tenet or "rule" can cause one to miss a golden opportunity.

Let's look at K. Neal for example. He signed with the Cowboys for $5 million for one year. Let's say that JD set his value at that same $5 million. Would it have been awful to offer Neal $7 million with some incentives that raise the value of the deal to $9 or $10 million? Unless the Jets were right at the salary cap, overpaying by $2 million isn't going to break the bank or cause cap problems. It's within a reasonable range. I could understand why someone might have problems with the incentives upping the value to $9 or $10 million, but if he played well enough to earn those incentives, isn't the team going to benefit? If he has a great year, and the team improves, might he not choose to re-sign and stay with the team longer because they didn't go "cheap" on him? He could have perhaps been so effective in Saleh's defense that he made the Pro Bowl or All Pro, or grew to love Saleh, his teammates and the situtation, and could have become excited about being a part of building something here and potentially making the playoffs in a year or two. Maybe JD did offer something similar and was turned down. That's what makes it hard for us. We don't get the details all the time, so it's hard for us to know if JD is being fiscally responsible and not making mistakes, or if he is making mistakes and just being cheap or too tied to building through the draft.

With practically everything in life, things aren't totally cut and dried, black or white. There is middle ground and gray. I think that's all that some of us are saying. Because we don't know for certain, it seems that JD may be too conservative or too tied to building through the draft. But then there's his trying to sign Chris Carson which I thought was a total waste when we can easily draft a RB who will be as good or better than Carson. Then with Thuney it came down to the Chjefs and us. So it seems that JD isn't as tied to building through just the draft as some of you claim. The point is that he could be making mistakes in both directions and we might never find out.

 

It's part of the overall equation though.

You have this mindset that all scenarios and players are created equally within this process.

That's not how it works.

Just because you see a player take on a contract with another team, that doesn't mean that same contract would've been good enough to get that same player on our team.

There are a ton of variables with that.

What I do know is the patterns of JD and Co.

They clearly have a set figure for certain players. They are willing to go up to that number but not above that number.

If a player is willing to go to another team for less money unless you pay way over the value you have set for that player, the result is still going to come down to the player and money.

You and others seem to think that all teams and situations are created equally. That's not true either.

Again. Just because you see a player take a reasonable contract from another team, that doesn't mean that same contract was good enough for us.

That stuff matters.

So unless we overpay for a lot of these players they are going to go somewhere with more upside for sometimes less than what we were able to offer at maximum value.

This stuff isn't automatic. You can't make players come here, even when you offer more sometimes, that's just not enough.

 

Something that might be getting overlooked in this discussion is that it takes two to tango. If a player is willing to take less money and go to another team or wanted to play for a team that has a better shot at winning a title, there's not much Douglas can do about it.

 

Especially with all of this 1 yr deals. If we overpaid 5 guys an extra 2 million per or 10 million total and sold them on the team's vision. Instead of Cole , sign Ju Ju for 10. It is one yr. Overpay Neal 6.5 million for 1 yr. There were so many talented players out there just looking for places to show their talent for next yr, we could have improved the whole team and changed the mindset of the team. Yes these guys could walk after the season but if they feel like they are part of something we could also keep them. Sign them to extensions late in the season if they like playing here. Would we really miss 10 million dollars next yr, especially if we are smartly rebuilding in any way possible and have a 8-8 team with a few holes to plug compared to a 5-11 team . In yr 3 of rebuild. Maybe JD is a good drafter but is not closer in negs. We seem to have our names linked to the right guys just always seeming to come up short in FA 2 yrs in a row

 

I understand your perspective and I agree that quality of franchise plays a role in where guys want to go in FA. NC and Belly's Lies did a good job of summing up my thoughts in response to that in their last posts so I'll defer to that instead of rehashing.

 

Really gonna miss the 2 garbage sacks a year

 

They get reported to Spotrac. Below is a link to the cap breakdown currently for 2021. I'm no cap expert so I'm not sure whether we're going by the Cap Room with Top 51 contacts which is around 35mil or Cap Room with All which is around 25 mil but since we have so many picks this year including another first rounder, the estimated Cap pool for the draft is around 15mil.

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/new-york-jets/cap/

So I guess we're either at 10mil or 20mil in space now. (Carl Lawson has the highest cap hit this year at 15mil.)

 

That's my overall point.

We don't know.

I do agree that being responsibly flexible financially Is a good structure to have. Can be smart.

I just don't believe that's the problem.

So really it boils down to perspective.

Without all the details, it's hard to say overall.

So. I am choosing to believe JD is being smart and is flexible in those terms. I have no reason to believe otherwise right now.

With your example on Keanu Neal. I truly believe that exact effort was likely there. I truly do. I think it's far more likely that Keanu was attempting to use use to get max value from the team he already knew he wanted to go to, when the boys called his bluff. He signed a very team friendly deal.

In no way do I think JD didn't offer more. I think it's far more likely we were trying to be used again.

JD has shown he doesn't play that game.

Which gives me even more confidence In him.

I don't think he's being super conservative. I think he understands where we currently stand In the eyes of players, fans, etc... It's a factor.

I think he understands value. I think he understands where value and worth meet.

I just know it's hard to get a lot of players to come play for a dumpster fire team like we've been, at reasonable pricing. Yet, he's finding ways to do so with high upside players.

Until we start winning, consistently, that's how it's going to be unless we are severely over paying for these players to come to this team.

That's all I mean.

 

Thats all great, but what’s the point of having cap space if you refuse to use it to your advantage?

Don’t buy the nonsense from people who say “players don’t want to come here”. In the NFL more than any other league free agents go to the highest bidder.

You want Keanu Neal? Here is $1.5MM more than what Dallas is offering. I have the cap space they don’t.

 

There was a 2 year stretch where he had 15 combined sacks. Better than anyone else Jets had recently........which of course is still a problem.