Around the NFL III - The NFLiest Yet

[StevenK]

1 hour ago, Forge said:

At some point, the Saints are going to have a hell of a credit card bill. 

I thought they were already in debt?! One last magical ride for Brees and then retirement or at least with the Saints. 

[Forge]

2 minutes ago, StevenK said:

I thought they were already in debt?! One last magical ride for Brees and then retirement or at least with the Saints. 

They are in rough shape next year, they actually have some space this year. The reports are they are trying to restructure players to get more lol

[Melbourne 9er]

I'd definitely look at picking up Rosen for a 6th/7th. Worst case scenario is you lose that pick. However with our coaches training him up you'd think he'd only get better. Maybe to good backup/low level starter level. Then he's either trade bait, backup or improved draft position by letting him go in FA. No real downside here.

[y2lamanaki]

12 hours ago, Forge said:

Eh, to me you are. And that's fine. LIS, i get wanting to hold on to those picks just to see if you can shake something out. It's just a different valuation of those picks in a vacuum. I am fine with moving off them in situations like this and you would prefer not to. I don't think that either notion is right or wrong, just a different way of evaluating the worth of the picks and the players secured by them. 

I'm not sure you're convincing me that I am. I want to use 6th/7th picks in the way our GM/HC are good at using 6th/7th round picks and have had proven success in doing so - on players who make roster contributions. You wish to use a 6th/7th on a guy we hope never plays a snap. In this way, and in this way only, you have told me I'm overvaluing picks because I prefer A over B and not B over A. 

12 hours ago, Forge said:

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to fall in line with the idea that somehow Jullian Taylor's 200 career defensive snaps are something of considerable value that couldn't have been found on the street.

No? We picked Will Sutton up off the street in 2018 and Jullian Taylor made the roster over him. We picked up Niles Scott off the street in 2018 and Jullian Taylor made the roster over him. Last year we picked up Jay Bromley off the street and Jullian Taylor made the roster over him. Jeremiah Valoaga, Damontre Moore, Kevin Givens, Jordan Thompson - all off the street and off the roster with Taylor on it. Once Taylor went on IR, we brought someone off the street to replace him. That was the order of things. And certainly someone advocating messing up the QB room over $3M is not going to advocate bringing in a veteran player over the 7th round pick salary of Jullian Taylor, correct?

12 hours ago, Forge said:

Skule was the swing tackle by default last year after Coleman got hurt and still ended up getting benched for Brunskill. Just because he was all we had and had to  start doesn't make him somehow good or something. Maybe he's better this year (hard to be worse), maybe he's not. We will find out. Hard to say this early in his career, but the fact that he's a swing tackle right now doesn't mean much (that's like saying in 2017, "well, Nathan Peterman is starting games, so that was a great draft pick!").

Similar to the above, we understand that Justin Skule made the roster over Andrew Lauderdale, Najee Toran, Joshua Garnett, and Ross Reynolds, and while you could argue that some of them are not tackles, certainly if Skule needed to be replaced, he'd be replaced correct? And that the first player chosen to replace a tackle was Justin Skule, meaning he had earned that position over Daniel Brunskill, another tackle still on the roster. Yes he was replaced, absolutely. He was a 6th round pick who was forced into starting. But - having experienced worse tackles than Justin Skule at much higher paychecks, again I'm quite fine with keeping his low 6th round rookie contract around as the 8th offensive linemen. Guys like that have spaces on roster. Better to pay Justin Skule the $540k we paid him then to pay double that on a worse player like J'Marcus Webb as the Dolphins did. 

12 hours ago, Forge said:

Marcell Harris fills the void of a typical late round pick. When he's had to play defense, it certainly hasn't been great, though in fairness to him last year, he wasn't always awful. I mean, we both made arguments last year that Exum should have made the team over him on the podcast last year, so I'm not really feeling the idea that he was / is somehow an integral part of the team.

Yes, we both made arguments that Exum should have made the team. I acknowledge I am an imperfect being capable of mistakes - I also said on the podcast that the 49ers wouldn't lose again after the Ravens game, for example. In either case, Marcell Harris is still on the team and Antone Exum is right where we left him. 

12 hours ago, Forge said:

 Trying to advocate that these are important pieces and not easily replaceable parts is just not something I'll support (outside of Jones). If you want to value them more than that for the purpose of this conversation, feel free to, and honestly, hitting on that Jones pick may be enough to warrant not trading off these picks in such a manner. That's an entirely subjective view point that I may not support but would certainly understand.  That's where the line of demarcation is though because I'm willing to miss out on these depth guys of minimal net value and spend the pick on something else. 

They are important pieces. In case you haven't paid attention to the last like 15 years of 49ers football (I hope you understand this as the lighthearted joke it's meant to be - obviously I know you've paid attention), the people that make the 53-man roster are not the same 53 that will be there at the end of the year. The same 22 starters won't be the same 22 to start all the games. Players get injured and others need to play in their place. This team made the Super Bowl, not because of it's 22 starters, but because of its impressive depth that withstood the wear and tear of a football season. 

Are they easily replaceable? Year 3 for Taylor, Harris, and James, and yet all three appear ready to stick around in 2020. But could you replace them easily with other 6th and 7th round picks? Absolutely! So long as you don't trade them stupidly for a player who will never play a snap on the team when you already have multiple players who fit that job description and already know the system better. 

What I most don't understand - how you can so readily advocate saving $3M by trading for Josh Rosen and not understand that you will spend more to replace 6th and 7th round contracts - among the smallest in the sport - with players who will make more. And certainly $3M is greater than the $300k difference in some cases - no arguments there - but you need to build a roster with a lot of players making those $610k, $540k contracts, but that becomes hard to do if you are always willing to trade those picks for players on higher contracts. And you have always been willing to do so because you don't see the value in 6th and 7th round picks - you see them only as interchangeable bottom-of-the-barrel contributors (and with real luck, maybe a gem is uncovered). And you're not wrong - Marcell Harris is likely interchangeable with any other 6th round safety Shanahan and Lynch could find. But you need a 6th round pick to select him. 

You see Jullian Taylor, Richie James, Marcell Harris, Justin Skule, and Charlie Woerner as players no different from their nameless veteran counterparts (as you suggested with Harris and Cyprien), yet haven't done the math to add the extra salaries for five veteran counterparts, at which point now you might be adding $1.5M-$2M to a pressed against the cap team. Justin Skule, for example, does not currently count against our cap because he's not one of our top 51 salaries. Hroniss Grasu, who will not make the team, currently does count against our cap as one of our top 51 salaries. 

Put yet another way - the value of a 6th round pick and a $540k contract to the team is that maybe they can replace someone like Jullian Taylor in 2021, who by then will be making over $900k. That might save only $300k, sure, but if you instead sacrifice that 6th round pick for a $1M contract, you are actually losing $460k in value and space.

Put one final way - the value of 6th and 7th round picks isn't of the 6th and 7th round picks themselves - it's in them collectively. Because when you consistently find players like those mentioned above (as our front office has proven excellent at doing), you are keeping the bottom of your roster inexpensive and not replacing them with slightly higher priced veterans or slightly worse undrafted free agents (I think our front office has shown that they will keep the top 53, regardless of whom those players are or how they happened to arrive on the roster, hence the 6th and 7th round picks above were deemed superior to the UDFAs released on cutdown day).

(I don't speak to the accuracy of the exact figures above, but I do speak to the accuracy of the conceptual nature of the difference between rookie and veteran salaries.)

12 hours ago, Forge said:

James I will let others debate.

Sure. Here's the debate: 

Kyle Williams.

Now everyone understands the value of Richie James, and there should be no debate. Truly - not being Kyle Williams is the best attribute for a returner. Spelled out: Richie James doesn't fumble. Simply not turning the ball over does much more for our average starting field position than an extra 2 yards average per return on the 20 kick returns we take out of the endzone per season (he's top 10 in yards/punt return, so I imagine nobody faults him there).  

12 hours ago, Forge said:

I mean, I don't have Bourne's salary next year baked into our projected salaries, nor have I advocated for re-signing him. In fact, I had previously (like 6 months ago) labeled him as a dark horse to get cut because I would want his salary back for next year and if we had a situation where we felt comfortable with Aiyuk / Pettis / Deebo / Taylor, then he really wasn't needed at that price point.

You missed my point, but that's because it was very poorly stated so I can't blame you in any way. In fact, I can see that you are already actually in agreement (which I expected you would agree with this point if it was properly explained), so that's a nice starting point, haha. 

To put what I was trying to say another way - imagine an alternate 2020 where there is an offseason, and imagine in this offseason, we have coaches who get to examine the players from May through July as is generally the case, but was not the case this year. As you noted, if there was a situation where the team got to see Deebo, Aiyuk, and even just Taylor on the field together, they may have easily come to the determination that Kendrick Bourne would be at best the 4th option. To add Dante Pettis into the mix, simply complicates whether or not Bourne might always be #4 among the wide receivers. Even without a full offseason, there are some who thought Jauan Jennings had a chance to sneak onto the roster, but maybe with an offseason, he'd have made a case to be worthy of making an NFL roster. 

At that point, certainly we can see the value in 7th round pick Jauan Jennings making $610k over Kendrick Bourne making $3.25M, correct? We both agree that Bourne is a nice depth piece in a deep receiving corps - that's where he's settling in - but if we can replace that with a 7th round rookie, we do - right? And we understand that if we had traded that 7th round pick last year, we'd have no expectation that Jauan Jennings would even be an option to replace Bourne, correct?

---

I suppose in the end, it's not even so much looking at trading a 6th for Josh Rosen in a vacuum, where conceptually the idea doesn't affect me much, and if given no other context, I'd say 'whatever' and let it go. But given the context of being a team that has demonstrated the value of quality depth, given the context of a team up against the cap and in need of cheap labor that doesn't lower the quality of the depth on the team, given the context of this being a team that has traded a number of picks in recent years to obtain players for starting roles (all of which - Ford, Sanders, Williams - I have supported for filling vital needs on the team) - I can't advocate getting rid of more cheap labor to find a player who we hope never plays a snap, when that player doesn't ALSO notably upgrade the position. 

And I guess one final point - where is everyone getting this $1M figure from? I found the number $2,079,796 for this season and $2,879,694 for 2021 at the following link. On Sportrac, that 2020 projection was off by less than $100k as his current cap hit is $2,169,796. If $2.1M would indeed be what we have to pay, let me note that would be an INCREASE in nearly $1M (assuming we cut Beathard and not Mullens, it's even greater if it's the other way) in 2020. And Sportrac has a number that is once again, just around $100k higher at $3,049,694 in 2021. 

https://www.hogshaven.com/2019/3/4/18251017/how-much-salary-cap-space-would-be-used-in-a-trade-for-josh-rosen

Given these numbers, wouldn't the difference between Mullens on a 2nd round tender in 2021 ($3,259,000) and Rosen in 2021 ($3,049,694) be exactly $209,306?

Because if that's the case, the answer is no I don't want to trade a 6th round pick for $209,306 in savings and for a possibly worse backup QB situation that lasts exactly one year. I'm feeling I could have saved myself a lot of typing if I had looked this up sooner.

[y2lamanaki]

11 hours ago, Melbourne 9er said:

I'd definitely look at picking up Rosen for a 6th/7th. Worst case scenario is you lose that pick. However with our coaches training him up you'd think he'd only get better. Maybe to good backup/low level starter level. Then he's either trade bait, backup or improved draft position by letting him go in FA. No real downside here.

You agree he wouldn't play in 2020, right? So how are you going to trade him in 2021 (the final year of his contract and last year you have control over his contract) for a better pick than what you used to trade for him in 2020? And if he doesn't beat out Garoppolo for the starting job, what does it matter if the coaches train him up and make him better? 

[Forge]

2 hours ago, y2lamanaki said:

And certainly someone advocating messing up the QB room over $3M is not going to advocate bringing in a veteran player over the 7th round pick salary of Jullian Taylor, correct?

And sadly, this is where I mainly stopped reading and deciding this wasn't worth my time.

 The minute you get hyperbolic about decisions being made all as one and not independently of one another just to try and make your point look good, I'm kind of out. Never mind acting as though being willing to move one pick means you'd have to be willing to move them all. These are not blanket decisions and treating them as such, or acting as though I would treat them as such is disingenuous since nobody would possibly think that arguing for a single action would mean or imply that I would perform a similar single action every time. This is troglodyte internet style arguing that I don't really wish to have any part in (frankly I feel that you've handled this conversation a couple of times with derision and mockery). To be candid, some of the comments I find to be uncouth, and it's hard to hide my disappointment. If you believe that I have made comments such as that, I apologize as that was not my intention, but several of your comments have felt that way to myself, in full disclosure. Sometimes, I will pay the extra 300K for a vet, and sometimes I won't...and you know what? That's the way everyone should approach just about every decision with regards to this team and its players. 

It's a shame too, because you corrected a mistake I had made with regards to Rosen's contract thinking his roster bonus was a signing bonus and only counting the base for that reason, which would certainly change my tune on his acquisition. Shame you didn't just lead with that because that would have led to me saying, "oh yeah, I'm out" lol. 

[oldman9er]

Go 9ers!?!

[y2lamanaki]

3 minutes ago, Forge said:

It's a shame too

I think it's a shame for two reasons, because I think I corrected the things you accuse me of in that post through the entirety of the argument, and I did my best to add some language that would hint that there was no negative tone intended in my post - meaning you jumped to some pretty wild conclusions without moving through it. You're reading far too much into it. Somewhere in "no disrespect intended" in my original post in this conversation and "with all due respect" in one of my replies, I suppose you found disrespect and no respect due. I cannot begin to imagine why when we've been largely in agreement on football over the years and in which we've spent hours conversing with one another through podcast creation, giving you plenty of firsthand knowledge of my general tone of voice. I'm lost here. 

I'm especially lost, because YOU first called MY valuation odd and excessive, which seems like a point I should be taking up with you - especially as you had quoted the post where I specifically typed out that I intended you no disrespect so that you would take none. After all - why would I intend any? We're talking about opinions on the value of 6th and 7th round picks, certainly there would be something more valuable to argue with. 

This forum is way too mercurial and I'll never understand it. 

[John232]

[Forge]

I said that I find your value of them odd and excessive, and then went to great pains to try and make it very clear that there was nothing wrong with that and that it just differed from my own.  I also find Shanny's love of CJ Beathard odd and excessive as well. I'm not right and he's not wrong. If you took that as mockery, as I said previously, I apologize. That wasn't the intention, and I wouldn't think that it would come across that way, but that's why I wanted to address it previously just in case you did and that may have been why you were unhappy. I'm cognizant of the fact that some of my words can be very abrasive if I'm in the wrong mindset, and I'm sure others on this forum have felt that wrath a little bit (though the full power of that is typically saved for my Mafia brothers). I did not feel that I approached this conversation in that manner but I can never be sure. 

 

 

[Forge]

Cardinals released Hakeem Butler. Hype on him was out of control last year

[757-NINER]

13 minutes ago, Forge said:

Cardinals released Hakeem Butler. Hype on him was out of control last year

Wow...he was that bad?? I was big on Butler as a prospect. Seems odd to show him the door already unless there were some major work ethic/attitude issues that were not known outside the fanbase.

[757-NINER]

Seriously....if the Saints land Clowney that's going to be a hard team to beat. On paper at least, that defense would be rock solid at every level. 

[Forge]

Bears rolling with Trubisky, so they are likely out of the playoff hunt. 

Kind of wasted that window they had with the great defense. 

[GW21]

3 hours ago, 757-NINER said:

Wow...he was that bad?? I was big on Butler as a prospect. Seems odd to show him the door already unless there were some major work ethic/attitude issues that were not known outside the fanbase.

He went on IR last year. I wouldn’t mind trying to bring him onto our practice squad.