If there's anything I learned this weekend, it is that the difference between the Jets and a playoff team is enormous. Jets roster is devoid of NFL caliber talent at the middle and bottom end. Having an all-world corner eat up all of our salary cap on a very very undertalented team with no QB is a recipe for continued ineptitude. Free up the money. Build a better team.
Well, same can be said about EVERY position in the NFL. You don't always need an elite WR to beat out an average CB. You don't always need an elite LT to be good in the trenches. You don't always need Brady to win games. A solid run game against a weak run D can win games. You are talking about matchups. They work both ways. I get your point though. However, the needs and economics of the game dictate what a player will earn. I don't necessarily think Revis has inflated the market, or vice versa.
Mind you, that's not my argument and that will not be my argument either. My argument is specifically this: except at QBs, no player commands 10+M salary on a winning franchise. If any GM give those out like Jets do, he is risking the success of his franchise as a whole. Corollary to this is, if Cro is willing to take 10M or so for years down the road, then Jets would do really well to just move Revis, as he is not settling for 10M. (And Jets have to deal with other bloated contracts that are unjustifiable, like that of David Harris, Mangold, Ferguson et al. Revis contract would be the start, not the end.)
lol, build a better team by releasing your best player? With a few obvious cuts (players that have vastly underperformed based on their salaries), Jets will be almost $30 mil under the cap. i48.tinypic.com/28i2q06.png
Jets can clear up 30M. That will leave the team about 10M under the cap. With a lot of holes to fill AND rookies to sign. Who are the Jets cutting now? The cap is projected to be about $126M, and Jets cap figure next season is projected to be $146M+. If what you claim IS true (just for the sake of argument) then Jets should have a cap total of around 96~100M. Correct? (126-30=96. It's not a hard math; and I even gave you a leeway of about 4M on top of that.) Now, here are the top 10 guys: David Harris, 13M (Cap saving of -500k if cut; genius work of T-Bomb again.) Nacho, 13M <- Guaranteed Tone, 12.5M <- Guaranteed Jason Smith, 12M <- Ok. He's a goner. Calvin Pace, 11.5M <- Ok. Goner. (Cap saving will be at 8.5M) Cromartie, 10.75M (Cap saving of measly 1.2M if cut) Ferguson, 10.75M (Cap saving of whopping -7.5M if cut. Again, Thank you, T-Bum!) Mangold, 9.1M (Cap saving of less than 100k if cut. Just WOW) Revis, 9M (Cap saving of -3M if cut.) Bart Scott, 8.5M (Cap saving of 7.1M - he's a goner.) Pouha, 6.2M (Cap saving of 3.8M) Eric Smith, 3M (0 dead money -> He's a goner.) So all I see is about 30M clearance, starting from $146+M. That will pull the cap figure down to some 115M, nowhere near 96M. (About 20M difference there.) So where do you find that other 20M? And you are telling me Jets are NOT in cap hell now? How? Will you enlighten me how that math works out? P.S. If I am a GM of other team, I am not touching these contracts with 10-foot pole. It's THAT stupid. Almost every single one of them.
First of all, we need to stop using the word "elite" for every freaking thing in football. It's ridiculous. Secondly, how will teams be stopped from throwing against the Jets if Revis comes back and Cromartie plays well? There are still 4 receiver sets, and Kyle WIlson will have to cover. There will still be 22 personnel packages where LBs need to cover TEs. Revis and Cro will not stop that from happening. Keep Revis, for sure. But don't think that keeping Revis guarantees anything about the other 10 guys.
No, the Jets really shouldn't commit $10M a year to Cro because they can't get Revis for that. Nobody should be earning that kind of money for good performance. That's a great performance type of cap number and even then only at a few positions, QB, LT, DE/OLB (sacker). One of the big problems with the Jets cap right now is too many people who are not a QB, LT, pass-rusher are eating up too much cap space. A great GM who really understood how to build a great team would have both Revis and Cromartie headed out of town by training camp. He'd have Revis headed out because the Jets were going to get next to nothing for him after the season and no great GM would re-sign him at the dollars he will be looking for. He'd have Cromartie headed out because he is overpaid as it is and he's also an injury-prone player headed late prime.
Br4d, obviously my suggestion for you fell on deaf ears. Look at some of the numbers: Broncos: Champ Bailey: 9M, Dumerville: 14M (the catch is, Von Miller is on his rookie contract.) Falcons: Brent Grimes: 10M, Dunta Robinson: 5M (The catch here is, their LBs are playing cheap.) Packers: Charles Woodson: 11M, Tramon Williams: 6M (And their LBs are playing at some 6M/yr. The catch here is, Aaron Rodgers is playing cheap at 9M/yr.) -------------------------------------- As you can see, it is not out of realm to consider 10M to a player in the secondary, but 1. he has to be damn good and 2. the salary can't grossly exceed 10M. So, if Revis gets some 10 or so (or even 11), it won't be grossly overpaying for a talent of his calibre. Now, if Jets do commit 10M to Revis (I don't think he's settling for this but) then Jets would have to either bring the cap figure down on Cro's contract or move him. On top of that, Jets would have to find a leveraging point, where they pay cheap money for elite performance (i.e. Von Miller from Broncos). --------------------------------------- I've been advocating the "trade Revis" thing for some time, because, in principle, I agree with you. Nobody outside the QB is worth 10M, HoF quality or not. Paying that kind of stupid money to a single player really weakens the entire roster. On top of that, it's highly unlikely that Revis would all of a sudden become a team player and choose to take less, for the sake of the franchise's success. He has never done that and I have no reason to believe he will have a change of a heart. Thus the "Trade Revis" thing. That said, I wanted to point out that, as long as Revis decides to be reasonable, there are ways for him to stay. PS. LTs are getting paid handsomely, but they still do not command 10M/yr price tag like some LT playing in NJ. Most of starter quality LTs get 3-4M, or 5-6M if good. 10M? That's a wrong ball park. Same with center. (RTs and guards make less than that. In total, you'd pay about 20M for the entire starting OL unit. In case of Jets, 20M goes to LT and C, with Moore sticking up for a few more millions, then Slauson and Howards making peanuts. That's not how you construct a strong OL.) If you look at the salary cap distribution, you'd find just about every wrong thing you can find in salary cap from Jets cap structure. It was this realization that turned me into a devout T-bomb hater.
Because he can leave next year (and most likely will) if we don't pay a king's ransom to retain him. It's not a simple matter of "get rid of him because he's not worth it" - if we don't trade him, he's going to walk and we're going to get a 3rd round pick - -and that's it.
i48.tinypic.com/28i2q06.png Copy paste the above link in the address bar. I simply forgot to mention the restructuring some obvious contracts. Jets will save almost $35mil with the obvious releases of Bart, Pace, Eric Smith, Jason Smith and possibly Pouha (not worth $6.2m). A few restructures can save them almost $15mil. Jets will not miss a single one of these players for what they were making. With the Jets almost $30mil under the cap, they can very easily sign 2-3 solid players. Keep in mind, thats the $30mil is just for 2013. Jets can sign the players so that their net 2013 cap charge does not exceed $30mil. For instance, assume for a second that Brady gets released and Jet really want him. He wants $20mil a year and Jets already need about $20m to spend on all the other vacant positions. With $10mil cap space and Brady wanting $20 mil a year deal, it can still be done with very ease. Jets hand Brady a 4 year $80 mil contract that includes $20 mil of signing bonus and a first year base salary of $5 mil. He'll only count for $10 mil in 2013 against the cap, yet we signed a player to $20mil a yr deal. Now Brady isn't being released anytime soon and certainly won't be coming here but you get the point. People can argue that this scenario will back-load contracts. Well, we know Santonio is not going to be in NY in 2014. Thats about $10mil off the books. We know sanchez is not going to be making $15mil a year here. Those two combined will be off the books for a whooping $25mil cap saving overall. The extension to Sanchez was crazy. Hindsight is 20/20 and at the time we were thinking that we actually saved money guaranteeing Sanchez his 2013 salary. We all though Sanchez wouldn't suck as bad as he did last year. So given the circumstances, I don't really blame Tanny for this. As for Santonio's deal, he should have been released before this season started. That was a huge mistake. Cap management wasn't Tanny's weakness. It was his ONLY strength. Player evaluation was why he was released. He could have very easily turned this "cap hell" in to a much friendlier cap year where Jets would have had the opportunity to pick up several new starters. And we'll see that this year. We'll see a huge turnover in our team this year not only because of a change in the FO/CS, but also because of the situation of the team.
And who told you we can trade him? Sure, we can trade him, but we'll get hit by a gigantic amount of dead money ($12m to be precise). Not really how I envision the management of this team. Most of the people have NO IDEA about MOST players cap situation. They only consider their talent and what can be gained in a trade, not the effect on the cap. Now the only reason I'd give up Revis is if we get something outstanding in return (such as couple of first round picks and a starting CB with cap friendly figures). Is that possible? Yeah. Is it probable? No.
I have seen the page. It makes no sense. The only correct figure on that pic was the cap saving on cuts (around 34.8M.) Jets won't be able to restructure, and they won't trade these bloated contracts. Hell will freeze over before that happens. Now, Jets do not even have established NT on the roster, with Ellis still not quite there yet - so you want to release Pouha? That's brilliant. On top of that, what incentive do these players have to restructure the contract? Jets will have to cough up more money to get them to restructure or worse yet, guarantee their contracts. Just what makes you think these players will willingly give up the money that is going to come in their way anyway? Will YOU give up your salary for the success of your company? If you won't, why do you think they will? And since you seem to have a short memory, let me refresh you a little bit. The reason Jets have these stupid contracts NOW is because Tannenbaum restructured their contracts one after another to get the salary figure under the cap. Now, the next GM should follow that trail? And fail? That's, again, brilliant. Last, but not the least, you know what? Let's just say, Jets DO restructure some of the stupid contracts for immediate cap relief. Do you know what that means? Jets postpone the impending doom. You can't keep restructuring over and over. At some point, you have to pay the piper. So, if you can get that done and over with NOW, why postpone that? To elongate failure? Again, that's brilliant. Drill this to your head. Jets won't be going 30M under the cap next season. Get that?
This is insane. A great GM never boots his two best players of his team. Maybe that's how you envision a rebuilding year. But even when a team is in rebuild mode, it needs quality players to be somewhat competitors. Im assuming you like Kyle "I flip a finger everytime WR drops a wide open pass" Wilson and Trufant so much that you'd be ok getting rid of Cromartie and Revis. I don't. A great GM will not cut a player and take on $12m of cap hit when the player's salary is $9m. Who would have thought a player with one missed game in 7 years is injury prone? Only the most knowledgeable poster on TGG.
I never said Jets will trade a bloated contract. I said $35 m, which doesn't include any none obvious player. Jets can keep Pouha. He's just not worth $6mil a yr though. It leaves the Jets with about $26 mil in cap space. And who said Jets wont be able to restructure contracts? Do you know anything about NFL contracts? Is there a restriction on restructuring multi year contracts? Wow...u really have no idea about contracts. Who said any player will cough up money? Again, you don't know how NFL contracts work. Restructuring contracts means changing the language of the contract and in most cases, players get the same amount of money (changing part of players base salary in to a roster bonus, which would then spread over the remaining part of his contract evenly). Why would a player do so? Because doing so ensures the player that releasing him next year would be that much harder for the team due to the cap hit associated with it. Please do not argue with me about contracts if you have no clue about them. Maybe you didn't read my entire post? I did mention that Holmes and Sanchez contracts will be off the books in 2014 (and probably Revis). Thats about $35mil off the books for 2014 so there's plenty of leeway to push a few mils back to 2014. Thats where the new GM is going to be tested, whether or not he can bring in a decent roster with in his limits. Jets have been labelled to doom for years, as far as cap situation is concerned. I already mentioned above why and where we have the leeway. Most of the roster will have a turnover within the next 2-3 years and we'll have brand new contracts to worry with. New GM will have plenty of money to work with in 2013 and 2014. Then in 2015, he'll have most of the old contracts off the books and his own new contracts on there. You only restructure players you know for sure will be here and perform at high level, presumably (Mangold, Harris, Brick, Cro etc.) Never said it is what they will do. Just mentioned where any GM would find a way to be $30mil under the cap. Drill this to YOUR head...Jets will restructure a few contracts (probably not all the contracts I mentioned, but most). The only player I'd give u is Pouha, which I didn't necessarily agree with either but to save money, I think its time to see what we have in Ellis.
Ok, Genius. Enlighten me. Changing the language part is easy - as in swapping the roster bonus and etc. Now, what's not clear is: 1. So why would you want to do that? Isn't that what started the bloated contract in the first place? As it stands, Ferguson's cap hit is spectacular - if he is cut, Jets will have a cap saving of some -7.5M. (or cap hit of 17M) In other words, unless they cough up more money, Ferguson has no incentive whatsoever to restructure. It is near impossible to cut him in the next few years. (Same for some of these stupid contracts.) So that "making it harder to cut" incentive has no place in it. What else? Why would these guys with 10M coming in their way will restructure? Nacho and Tone has their contract guaranteed - they will get their money, whether they get released or not. So what other incentive can you provide? They already know they are both goners at the end of next season anyway. So why will they restructure? 2. If you didn't realize yet, the easy 30M comes on because they have little cap hit. Other bloated contracts have massive cap hits already - so you want to extend that misery? 3. Lastly, it's 35M or so - and the current cap figure is at 146M. If you take 35M off, you are STILL at 110 or so. That's about 15M below the cap at best. (That is, after releasing Pouha.) You need to find extra 15M that does not exist. Pushing that off to 2014 and beyond? That's what Tannenbaum did in 2009 and 2010. And the Jets paid for it the next two seasons. So Jets should go back to that practice? That's brilliant.
No CB in history has ever made a bad team good. Yes, you absolutely trade your corners for good value when the alternative is to watch them suck up valuable cap space otherwise. If the Jets are going to go 4-12 next year there's no way that losing the CB's makes that much worse, and we'd actually like it to be much worse.
Guy, they get a big cap hit whether they trade him, he walks, or if they extend him. It's all in how the hit can be mitigated. The issue is not how much of a cap hit because we're getting pounded either way. It's how much we can get in return for the guy. You seem to be missing that point for all your talk about how well you know contracts. This isn't about knowing contract in general - it's about the result of said contract.
