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Two schools of thought with roster building this year


CBrownsman

How would you handle this offseaosn?  

13 members have voted

  1. 1. How would you handle this offseaosn?

    • Spend big on big name Free agents. We have the cap space, use it to try and win now!
      2
    • Sign lesser players to smaller contracts like last year. We need to save the money to retain our core players!
      11


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So we are in an interesting situation this year.

We have what every team craves for, a young, talented QB and Pass Rusher both on their rookie deals for a few years.

However in 2 years from today we will be paying Myles Garrett the average of the top 10 DE's in the nfl (right now valued at 14.2 million), paying David Njoku the average of 3rd-25th highest paid salaries at TE (right now valued at 5.4 Million), and paying Jabrill Peppers the average of 3rd-25th highest paid salaries at Safety (right now valued at 6.3 million).

3 years from today we will be talking about whether we are paying those 3 players on long-term contracts as well as paying Baker Mayfield the average of the top 10 QB's in the nfl (right now valued at 20.1 million) and Denzel Ward the average of top 10 CB's in the NFL (right now valued at 12.4 million).

Though it currently seems like we have a lot of money with 80 million dollars in cap space this year, considering 58 million of that is rollover from last year, our team salary is technically only about 22 million dollars under the salary cap this year.  Granted it seems like the salary cap is consistently going up 10 million dollars a year, that still leaves us with less money to spend on our free agents when they come available then it appears on paper.

That being said, there are two schools of thought when it comes to spending this off season:

1.  We have two of the most valuable assets in the NFL.  A true franchise QB and a #1 Pass Rusher on their rookie deals.  We should utilize whatever cap space we have to try and build a team around them to win now.  Large spending on a big name DT (Grady Jarrett? Michael Pierce? Ndomukon Suh?) and a big name DE across from Garrett (Demarcus Lawrence? Frank Clark? Dee Ford? Jadavion Clowney? Trey Flowers?), a big name LB (CJ Mosley?).  Even make a big trade to help Baker like for Odell Bekham Jr.  Granted these moves could hurt us in a few years in our ability to re-sign our own guys.  I'm not saying we wont re-sign Myles Garrett or Baker Mayfield but it might make re-signing Denzel Ward more difficult.  Or at the very least long term contracts on other important players on our team difficult.  And in the mean time start drafting replacements for the guys we know we wont be able to afford to keep down the road and trying and get them experience so loosing Jarvis Landry? or Jabrill Peppers? or Denzel Ward?  or Joel Bitonio? will hurt less.

2.  We have the cap space so we can keep the core of this team together and build through the draft.  We sign guys similar to last year on prove it contracts so if the positions of need are not the BPA then we don't NEED to draft them, but none of the players we sign are anything to write home about.  We sign guys like Rodney Gunter DT, and Brandon Graham DE, Thomas Davis LB, resign guys who did well for us like Higgins, Perriman and Robinson, and use the draft to continue to improve positions like DT and LB if those are the best players on our board.  Then when Baker, Garrett, and Wards contracts come up we will be ready for them and have no problem retaining our core!

Honestly I am a little torn as I could see both of these arguments as very valid.  On the one hand we have the most valuable asset in the NFL, a franchise QB on his rookie deal, but on the other hand we don't want to be in cap hell when its time to resign them.  What would you guys do if you were in charge?  Maybe there is middle ground but I'm curious if you had to pick one of the two which way you would go.

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13 minutes ago, CBrownsman said:

So we are in an interesting situation this year.

We have what every team craves for, a young, talented QB and Pass Rusher both on their rookie deals for a few years.

However in 2 years from today we will be paying Myles Garrett the average of the top 10 DE's in the nfl (right now valued at 14.2 million), paying David Njoku the average of 3rd-25th highest paid salaries at TE (right now valued at 5.4 Million), and paying Jabrill Peppers the average of 3rd-25th highest paid salaries at Safety (right now valued at 6.3 million).

3 years from today we will be talking about whether we are paying those 3 players on long-term contracts as well as paying Baker Mayfield the average of the top 10 QB's in the nfl (right now valued at 20.1 million) and Denzel Ward the average of top 10 CB's in the NFL (right now valued at 12.4 million).

Though it currently seems like we have a lot of money with 80 million dollars in cap space this year, considering 58 million of that is rollover from last year, our team salary is technically only about 22 million dollars under the salary cap this year.  Granted it seems like the salary cap is consistently going up 10 million dollars a year, that still leaves us with less money to spend on our free agents when they come available then it appears on paper.

That being said, there are two schools of thought when it comes to spending this off season:

1.  We have two of the most valuable assets in the NFL.  A true franchise QB and a #1 Pass Rusher on their rookie deals.  We should utilize whatever cap space we have to try and build a team around them to win now.  Large spending on a big name DT (Grady Jarrett? Michael Pierce? Ndomukon Suh?) and a big name DE across from Garrett (Demarcus Lawrence? Frank Clark? Dee Ford? Jadavion Clowney? Trey Flowers?), a big name LB (CJ Mosley?).  Even make a big trade to help Baker like for Odell Bekham Jr.  Granted these moves could hurt us in a few years in our ability to re-sign our own guys.  I'm not saying we wont re-sign Myles Garrett or Baker Mayfield but it might make re-signing Denzel Ward more difficult.  Or at the very least long term contracts on other important players on our team difficult.  And in the mean time start drafting replacements for the guys we know we wont be able to afford to keep down the road and trying and get them experience so loosing Jarvis Landry? or Jabrill Peppers? or Denzel Ward?  or Joel Bitonio? will hurt less.

2.  We have the cap space so we can keep the core of this team together and build through the draft.  We sign guys similar to last year on prove it contracts so if the positions of need are not the BPA then we don't NEED to draft them, but none of the players we sign are anything to write home about.  We sign guys like Rodney Gunter DT, and Brandon Graham DE, Thomas Davis LB, resign guys who did well for us like Higgins, Perriman and Robinson, and use the draft to continue to improve positions like DT and LB if those are the best players on our board.  Then when Baker, Garrett, and Wards contracts come up we will be ready for them and have no problem retaining our core!

Honestly I am a little torn as I could see both of these arguments as very valid.  On the one hand we have the most valuable asset in the NFL, a franchise QB on his rookie deal, but on the other hand we don't want to be in cap hell when its time to resign them.  What would you guys do if you were in charge?  Maybe there is middle ground but I'm curious if you had to pick one of the two which way you would go.

Really I want somewhere in between. Spend enough to get a starting DT and a OLB but keep enough that we can still sign the players that we drafted. 

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I take option b. It is more sensible. 

However, I want one moderate to big time free agent on a rental contract that last two years. 30 million year 1, 10 million year 2, trade cut year 3. I think renting top talent as not part of build would be a reasonable strategy for us. The rams have done this with Suh, and he gave them a great playoff run and a decent season. 

 

I'd love Cameron Wake on a 1 year 7.5 plus incentives deal. Old pass rushers can still do it into their late 30s at times. 

If we got two top players on short deals and 2-3 players on good moderate deals I'd be stoked.

We need to build to win, as well as keep a few of our top picks. 

All 3 of dachis 2017 1st had great 2nd years and I want to hold onto them.

 

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1 hour ago, buckeyesNut0623 said:

Really I want somewhere in between. Spend enough to get a starting DT and a OLB but keep enough that we can still sign the players that we drafted. 

This is about where I am, although I would lean toward filling two holes with trades and/or FA (probably not DT because this draft is deep there) and the rest through the draft.

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9 minutes ago, hornbybrown said:

Taking option A doesn't have to prevent us from being able to retain our own key players. Just sign deals that we can get out of after 2-3 years.

Exactly, if we have to front load a contract or 3 to achieve a playoff run so be it. We have 3 years so if we are gonna do that we need to do it asap. Randall is gonna be needing a contract extension sooner rather then later and I would much rather keep him around then Peppers, at least as of right now imo. 

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There’s no one way to do things, it’s always gotta be a mix of both.

If you have the opportunity to sign a blue chip stud, you do it.

If not, you try to plug some holes with smart contracts and move on via the draft.

What you absolute can’t do is sign good players to elite money.

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Pay for 1-3 key dudes at positions that are strong in FA (Gerald McCoy, Demarcus Lawrence, etc.) and then fill out the roster with the type of contracts Dorsey did this offseason (essentially one year contracts but with team options).

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The following is coming from one of the most "plan for the long term, trust the process" dudes in here.

This is our window. This, right now. We have three years of Baker making 1/4 of what he'll get on his second contract. That's an extra 20ish million per year to play with. Add another 10 million or so For Myles' contract in two years. That means we have a window here where we can sign 30M per year worth of players for the next couple years that we won't be able to after that. We need to use and abuse the heck out of that window. IMO, you go BANANAS on team building to win a superbowl between now and 2022, you just make sure that only the truly elite, young guys have contracts that aren't escapable after that.

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3 minutes ago, freakygeniuskid said:

The following is coming from one of the most "plan for the long term, trust the process" dudes in here.

This is our window. This, right now. We have three years of Baker making 1/4 of what he'll get on his second contract. That's an extra 20ish million per year to play with. Add another 10 million or so For Myles' contract in two years. That means we have a window here where we can sign 30M per year worth of players for the next couple years that we won't be able to after that. We need to use and abuse the heck out of that window. IMO, you go BANANAS on team building to win a superbowl between now and 2022, you just make sure that only the truly elite, young guys have contracts that aren't escapable after that.

Yep.

And honestly, if DePo and Dorsey go with what they've done the last year or so, I envision a lot of up front deals with about 2 years guaranteed and walk away options after that.

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3 hours ago, freakygeniuskid said:

The following is coming from one of the most "plan for the long term, trust the process" dudes in here.

This is our window. This, right now. We have three years of Baker making 1/4 of what he'll get on his second contract. That's an extra 20ish million per year to play with. Add another 10 million or so For Myles' contract in two years. That means we have a window here where we can sign 30M per year worth of players for the next couple years that we won't be able to after that. We need to use and abuse the heck out of that window. IMO, you go BANANAS on team building to win a superbowl between now and 2022, you just make sure that only the truly elite, young guys have contracts that aren't escapable after that.

The whole rookie contract QB window thing is over blown. Russel Wilson is the only recent rookie contract QB to win a superbowl. Vet QB's win superbowls.

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