Player Contract Extentions And How We Can Make Them Work

[Airness McNairness]

Hey guys. I wanted to start a thread and openly converse on some up coming contracts for some good players on the roster and how we see them shaking out. This team is going from being a bad team that had boat loads of money to spend because we didn't have many good players to a team directly on the opposite end of that spectrum. Its a good problem to have but one that will cause some good players and fan favorites to leave because, as we all know, you simply cant pay everyone. With that said, here are some players and situations in question.

1. Kevin Byard- I think we could see him get a new contract before this season starts. He def deserves to NOT go into this season on a one year contract. 5yrs/80-85 million should secure his services. He should be a top priority.

2. Derrick Henry- I am a DHEN fan. If he has the year and consistency that we think he can have (1200-1500 yards rushing) I don't see why we just cant cut Dion Lewis after this year and use some of his money to offer Henry a 5 yr/40-45 million dollar contract with about half of it guaranteed and incentives to cover more potential breakout seasons. 8-9 million per seems fair for him. draft or sign a cheap late round back to spell him and he's your bell cow of the future.

3. I just don't see Daquan Jones and his 6 million dollar salary being on this team after this year. We are getting to a point were we are gonna have to continue to hit on our draft picks because this roster is gonna get expensive real soon assuming guys pan out and this team goes from good to great.

4. I think this is Logan Ryan's last year in two tone blue as well. With so much money tied up in the safety positions and adoree coming up soon as well as Corey Davis, a near 30 year old slot corner is probably out the door, regardless if he takes a pay cut or not.

5. Mariota is a obviously a big decision to be made. For the sake of this thread, lets assume he shows out and gets a 3 year/66 million dollar deal or 4 years/88 million. I think those are fair numbers for a quarterback who has shown to be inconsistent and would potentially be coming off one solid year in his last 3 if he performs well this year.

6. Jack Conklin- This is very much up in the air for me as with all of us and the organization I would assume. Even if he performs well and warrants a new contract, how much would that be and could we afford it?

 

I am gonna do some weird math here so see if you guys can follow what I'm saying. We have about 31 million in cap space right now. Cutting Jones and Lewis next year could potentially free up the money we need to sign Henry, so the cap may not be affected in that regard. Resigning Mariota to a deal similar to the one I listed should not hurt either because that's about were is on the cap right now. Roughly 20-22 million dollars. The big number will come from Kevin Byard going from a 2 million per player to a 15 million per year player, but that could be offset by using the 10 million we are paying Logan Ryan and sending it Kevin Byard's way since I'm assuming Ryan wont be back after this year. That's a net cap loss of only about 3 million bucks. That 3 million should be recouped because Wesley Woodyard is coming off the books next year and guess what his salary is? 3 million bucks. That would/should leave our cap number around what it is now, with jack Conklin being the only high end player that needs to be resigned. This team is gonna have to take the LA Rams approach and start really hitting on draft picks to become fast starters because the free agency frenzy we have seen the last couple years is about to come to an end.  Hopefully this all makes sense. Please let me know what you guys think.

Edited May 2, 2019 by Airness McNairness

[Adamc89]

You do realize we are going to have at least  55 to 60 mil in cap space next year? Plus we can cut around 30 mil in salary off if we want f too. We are going to roll over at least 20-25 mil of the remaining cap  to next year barring another huge signing like Ansah or Suh which I don’t see happening plus it’s going to rise another 10 mil or more. We will never be in a bind as long as we roll over cap space like we are  now. it’s so easy to clear cap space cut  and restructure to make deals work in today’s nfl. The cap really isn’t an issue anymore like it used to be. If we resign them it’s gonna be because Jrob  deems they are worth it. We can afford all of them plus more because they can just play with the numbers to make it work out how they want or need.

Edited May 2, 2019 by Adamc89

[Airness McNairness]

well per spoctrac.com we're only suppose to have 35 million so I don't know where you're getting 55-60 million from... with the salaries we already have on this team, that sounds wrong.

[Adamc89]

Sport trac doesn’t have the cap rollover figured in yet. That’s why we have so much each year. J rob doesn’t use all the money he could use and rolls it to the next year to have cap flexibility.

Edited May 2, 2019 by Adamc89

[deeluxx3]

cc @ragevsuall17

[Mariota615TN]

Re-sign candidates this year/next off-season:

1. Byard

2. Mariota

3. Derrick Henry

4. Dennis Kelly

5. Logan Ryan

Retire candidates:

1. Wesley Woodyard

2. Cameron Wake

Let walk in FA candidates:

1. Jack Conklin

2. Ben Jones

3. Austin Johnson

4. Correa

Potential Release candidates:

1. Dion Lewis

2. Daquan Jones

3. Malcolm Butler

4. Vaccaro

[ragevsuall17]

Assuming we don't sign anyone else, we don't use any cap this year to extend, we don't restructure anyone... Well have about 23M in cap space this year... Which is what we could roll over to next year (again, assuming no moves other than signing the rooks). 

So that would put us at about 58M under, but with a ton of holes. The following players are not counted towards next year's cap :

Mariota, Tannehill, Henry, Flu, Sharpe, Jennings, Pruitt, Jones, Conklin, Pamphile, Kelly, A Johnson, Woodyard, Bates, Correa, Ryan, Byard, Sims, Brinkley. All this players are expected to contribute as starters or froth /rotation players (I didn't include players that aren't expected to contribute much). 

So let's not act like we have crazy cap space next year.

In comparison, the Colts currently have about 55M they can roll over... To their already 65M they have protected for next year... Yep they have 110M again. The Texans are looking to roll over about 40M...to their over 72M projected cap space in 2020... Another team with 110M...that's 2 teams in our division, with double our cap space next season. 

[Justin615$]

We have plenty of cap space. That is so far down on my list of worries. 

Lets not act like Flu, Sharpe, Jennings, Pruitt, Jones, Pamphile, Johnson, Bates, Correa, Sims, and Brinkley are irreplaceable. They can be replaced easily and cheaply.

We can resign Byard and Kelly and be just fine and probably still have $50 million in space next year after the cap is adjusted and goes up like $10 million like every year.

We need to see how Henry does this year before signing him but no matter what it's not like we are giving him $100 million. He is a running back.

Finding out who our QB is should be the biggest worry and even if we resign him we could still have around $50 million in space after our important resignings. I tell people this all the time but just because you give someone, say $20 million a year, that does not mean $20 million is gone from your cap that year. It's all about how it's structured. Yeah we dont have $110 in space but not many teams do. We are not hurting at all.

Edited May 3, 2019 by Justin615$

[ragevsuall17]

Quality depth isn't cheap cheap... 1M here, 1M there, 2M over there... When you're having to replace close to 20 contributors, that money adds up quickly. 

.. And/or depth suffers. 

That's in addition to having to replace or resign good starters... (Byard, Mariota, Ryan, Conklin, Henry, Jones, Woodyard) 

Ryan has been our best CB the past 2 seasons... And yall think he's easily replaceable. 

Jones and Pamphile may be starters... So we're looking at possible 3/5s of our starting line being gone. Davis may be in place, but we need quality at C and RT.

We project to have a lot of holes... And 55M is not exactly chump change. But when other teams have over 100M (and QBs in place), you're not exactly living a charmed life. The market continues to swell, and 55M in the NFL isn't what it used to be even a few years ago. 

Throw in the fact that we've only had 10 draft picks total the past 2 seasons... Which is where the quality but "cheap" help comes from, it adds complexity. 

Well be ok though... As long as we hit on at least half of our picks this year. It's just gonna be challenging... It's been a while since we've had to make decisions on quality players leaving via FA. 

Edited May 3, 2019 by ragevsuall17

[KingTitan]

4 hours ago, ragevsuall17 said:

Quality depth isn't cheap cheap... 1M here, 1M there, 2M over there... When you're having to replace close to 20 contributors, that money adds up quickly. 

.. And/or depth suffers. 

That's in addition to having to replace or resign good starters... (Byard, Mariota, Ryan, Conklin, Henry, Jones, Woodyard) 

Ryan has been our best CB the past 2 seasons... And yall think he's easily replaceable. 

Jones and Pamphile may be starters... So we're looking at possible 3/5s of our starting line being gone. Davis may be in place, but we need quality at C and RT.

We project to have a lot of holes... And 55M is not exactly chump change. But when other teams have over 100M (and QBs in place), you're not exactly living a charmed life. The market continues to swell, and 55M in the NFL isn't what it used to be even a few years ago. 

Throw in the fact that we've only had 10 draft picks total the past 2 seasons... Which is where the quality but "cheap" help comes from, it adds complexity. 

Well be ok though... As long as we hit on at least half of our picks this year. It's just gonna be challenging... It's been a while since we've had to make decisions on quality players leaving via FA. 

Well if teams like the Colts want to pay Sharpe a huge deal, then let them. 

They have money but is there going to be a pool of quality players to spend that on. They had lots of money this year and didn't go wild ( talking about the Colts). 

If we lose our depth to wild deals so be it. I don't think anyone here wants to resign Ben Jones to a $60 million deal lol. 

[ragevsuall17]

I'm saying we have to sign quality depth... to replace the players we're losing.  F...orget Sharpe... I don't even think he makes the roster this year... was just using the complete list... but someone like Brinkley has been important and underappreciated (by fans at least... he's making 1.5M).  He could be replaced by cheaper... but at what cost.  When's the last bad STs snap you remember?  Bates has also been a key clog in our STs unit (I don't think he's been C... but maybe?)... he's making $2... and we have to resign him or replace him.  That's where I'm talking about with depth.

If we let Henry go... and he's what he expect him to be this year... is a rookie going to come in and not miss a beat?  More likely they resign Henry (a chunk of change) and cut Lewis and replace him instead... but there's still cap space needed for all that.  Resigning Byard, Ryan, etc... that all takes cap space... so that $55 quickly starts evaporating.  That's all I'm saying.

As far as the Colts and Texans having more money definitely affects us.  Say we can't work out an extension with Byard this offseason, and we have 60M set aside for him next offseason... and the Colts come in and blow that offer out the water... or say it's similar money... but they guarantee and structure it more favorably for him because they can?  Or another FA goes in looking for a prove it type deal... Where we can offer 8-9M (and that all hits the cap that season), the Texans could offer 12M... That's just a couple examples where other teams with more money come in to bite us.

We have money... but we're scheduled to lose a good amount of starters... and some solid contributors. 

[SerenityNow]

Honestly, I'm not worried about this at all. I have so much faith in Jon that I know he won't let key players walk, and the guys that we do end up losing he's going to find a way to replace them in the draft. He was able to draft an All Pro Franchise center piece safety in the 3rd round with Byard, a potential Pro Bowl running back and a key piece to our offense if he keeps up his pace from the end of last year in the 2nd Round with Derrick, and another potential Pro Bowl linebacker that's quickly turning into a focal point of our defense in the 5th round with Jayon Brown. Not to mention the countless depth guys that he's brought in to hold the team together. If there's one thing I'm not worried about it's Jon's ability to keep our core pieces and restock our roster with talent once some of them inevitably can't be retained.

Edited May 4, 2019 by SerenityNow

[TitanSlim]

The most interesting thing for me (contract wise) is what kind of contract Derrick Henry is going to get if he has another nice year.

In today's NFL, how much do you pay a RB who's a great runner but isn't really a threat catching out the backfield? 

For me, you have to be an Adrian Peterson type talent for me to break the bank for that type of running back.

[Airness McNairness]

14 hours ago, TitanSlim said:

The most interesting thing for me (contract wise) is what kind of contract Derrick Henry is going to get if he has another nice year.

In today's NFL, how much do you pay a RB who's a great runner but isn't really a threat catching out the backfield? 

For me, you have to be an Adrian Peterson type talent for me to break the bank for that type of running back.

he's not a threat because they don't throw it to him not because he's not good. Henry has looked very able on screens and dump offs. its definitely not what I would call a weakness to his game. in a more open offense, I definitely could see Henry work his passing offense similar to how Gurley works his. Very similar skill set. Gurley is just a tad bit more explosive.