2021 Free Agency

[Jeremy408]

5 minutes ago, Frankie2Gunz said:

These guys will never produce without a pass rush and that is a fact.  Fans can scream about "scheme fits" all they want but no scheme works when you have zero pass rush.  The interior Dline needs to be addressed before I make any assessments on back end defensive players because as of right now QB's will step up in the pocket will all day to pick apart our D.

I don’t disagree here. I’m just not sure personally that defensive tackle should be addressed in free agency at this point

[Frankie2Gunz]

4 minutes ago, Jeremy408 said:

I don’t disagree here. I’m just not sure personally that defensive tackle should be addressed in free agency at this point

What do you suggest we do considering our interior pass rush has been a soft spot for decades?  Roll into the season with the list of bums on our roster?  I would rather take a shot on Rankins if the price is right because as we all know the trash on our interior Dline are rotational back ups on nearly every other roster.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Frankie2Gunz

[Jerry]

Just wanted to say that I don't care about us really signing a WR in FA. We are essentially looking to replace 50 receptions and 8 touchdowns. I don't think we need to break the bank to make that happen. I think we will all be in better moods if we sign a decent OL and DB in the coming days. I've seen posters already talking rebuild, I think we need to pump the brakes on that one. 2 days and fans are writing suicide notes. Breathe fellas! Just breathe.

[Jerry]

10 minutes ago, Frankie2Gunz said:

What do you suggest we do considering our interior pass rush has been a soft spot for decades?  Roll into the season with the list of bums on our roster?  I would rather take a shot on Rankins if the price is right because as we all know the trash on our interior Dline are rotational back ups on nearly every other roster.

Trade for Aaron Donald. Trade the Las Vegas Aces to the Rams. Win-win.

[Humble_Beast]

32 minutes ago, Frankie2Gunz said:

Solid?  We have the same LB corp as last year, that same LB corp that lead us to the 30th ranked D in the NFL.  I would hardly call anything we have on D solid but to each their own...

I like our DEs now, we have decent depth at DT (Hurst, Irving). We do need to get 2 DTs! Control the trenches would help the entire back 7. Scheme does play a big factor too! 

[Jeremy408]

17 minutes ago, Frankie2Gunz said:

What do you suggest we do considering our interior pass rush has been a soft spot for decades?  Roll into the season with the list of bums on our roster?  I would rather take a shot on Rankins if the price is right because as we all know the trash on our interior Dline are rotational back ups on nearly every other roster.

Hahaha it’s funny that our Dline are bums and the solution is to get another guy who hasn’t done anything on one of the best D lines in the NFL. There’s better Options in the draft. 

[ragingraider]

I think we all need to relax. You can't pay 3 guys on a 54 man roster 20% of your salary when none of the three are QB, DE, WR. These are linemen. We aren't even talking LT. We had 20% of our cap room in Gabe, Rodney, and Trent Brown. 1 center, 1 guard, and a right tackle. That's not an effective use of our money even if these guys are all excellent players. Unfortunately, we rarely even saw these three on the field at the same time. 

And, we aren't exactly dismantling a superbowl championship team. We are getting rid of a right tackle who can't stay healthy or in shape. TB's game will continue to deteriorate as he ages and racks up injuries due to his terrible fitness and work ethic. Gabe is replaceable, although I think he is better than some others do. Rodney is clearly among the top players at his position. But, you don't need an elite center to succeed. In fact, Tackles are far and away the most important position on the OLine, and we have a franchise LT in Miller. We need to get a high quality starter on the right side. If we do that, our Oline performance won't drop off significantly. 

We can take the 30 million we are saving and add depth across the roster. Our premier oline netted us exactly zero playoff appearances. The amount of money invested in that unit was precluding us from improving the team overall, especially on the defensive side of the ball. 

Losing Rodney is a bummer, but he is a 32 year old center making over 13 million a year. We got great years out of him. In fact, we got his best years. His presence hasn't been the difference between where we are and where we want to be. Khalil Mack's presence wasn't the difference. Mack's presence hasn't been the difference for the bears either. The reality is, one even two guys aren't going to be the difference unless one of them is a QB. It takes 54 good players sprinkled with a few elite players at key positions and great coaching to be successful. We haven't been a deep enough team to overcome injuries, and I would argue that our elite players like Rodney Hudson weren't at the key positions that are determinate success. 

Furthermore, defensively speaking we can't imporve the back end until we can get after the QB. With all the rules that favor offense, the only consistent way to effect an opponent defensively is with your pass rush and ability to dominate the line of scrimmage. If you want to spend 20% of your cap room on three players and one of them is not a QB, then get your self three dominant defensive lineman. It is the only thing that defeats great offense in todays NFL. 

QBs- You need a top ten guy (25-30 million) for qb room

DL- 2 elite guys and solid role players (40 million annually invested in dlineman. Top two guys getting about 25 million of it.) 

WR/TE-( one elite two solid) 30 million for unit. 3 guys get about 75%

OTs- 20 million.  Gs&Cs- 15 million OLine total (35 million for unit)

DB- unit cost 30 million(one elite player)

LBs-15 million

RBs-10 million

This is a rough breakdown of what I would prioritize and budget. Based on these estimates, you need a few of these elite starters on rookie contracts to successfully field a team with solid depth. The budget above would be 15 million over the current cap. I don't think any category looks extraordinarily high. If you plug in the idea that we were paying three guys on the oline over 35 million, you can see we were killing our cap with those three contracts.

 

 

 

[ronjon1990]

58 minutes ago, NYRaider said:

I read that there was mutual interest in Agholor coming back but we weren't willing to pay him $13M APY. 

And there may well have been mutual interest. But Agholor really shouldn't have hit the open market in the first place. His resigning was one of the more no-brainer moves in the league, unless we were going after one of the top WR targets (which is seeming more and more unlikely as they start signing elsewhere). 

There's no way Agholor could have known he'd snag what he did. His production wasn't THAT great. 

We have a disgruntled and/or unaccountable lockeroom and now it's being reported that we have thus far lowballed on Good. Heck, we all seem to be in agreement (even Mayock's disagreeable burner FF account) that we got Yannick dirt cheap. Are we intentionally bargain bin shopping like FA is a Goodwill store? 

I have a feeling that either: a) whatever mutual interest Agholor may have shared was tanked by a series of lowball offers, which allowed him to reach the market and learn his value was nearly 2x what people thought (which, let's be real again, there's no way he could've foreseen that pay day); or b) he was disgruntled to the point that he was going to hardball us for a bigger than deserved payday and made it to the market where he got uber lucky. 

Neither option leaves the Raiders looking particularly well put together. The fact that it was such a long term "priority" per Mayock and Gruden to get him resigned makes it obvious that we're either chronically lowballing guys to the point of absurdity or, when taken alongside a guy like Hudson pretty randomly asking for a release out of nowhere, that the faith in the FO is so low that any interest heavily requires overpaying our own average FA's to remain an attractive option. 

Agholor couldn't get a deal done after what seems like 4 months or more of talks. Good hasn't been resigned and we reportedly lowballed him. Mariota won't budge on his contract, even at the midnight hour when his chance of getting cut and losing more money than he'll now get on the market has reached it's peak. Hudson wanted out, (reportedly) in relation to Good's contract negotiations. We got for Trent Brown practically what someone just got for Lee Smith. None of Jackson, Incognito, or Long have been signed and we've now backed ourselves into being an OL needy team with less leverage to get good deals via FA. And every year we seem to have a few big names come in and leave without being signed. It reminds me of our Zach Brown saga: seems like at least 3 times when he was a hot commodity we had him in for workouts and he escaped every time. 

What the hell is it with our FO and contract negotiations? Can't close deals. Constant rumors of lowballing. Can't speculate trade or draft value worth a crap. Every time we turn around, it's something else. Overpay average players left and right. 

It's an unmistakable pattern at this juncture. 

I'm not pissed that Agholor is gone. I totally get that his ceiling was a WR2 and he has issues with consistency. What bugs me about it is that there was mutual interest and nothing got done yet again. If there was indeed mutual interest, he should've been one of the easier players to lock up. And for whatever reason, we failed at it yet again and seem on track to do so with Good now too. And maybe Gabe and Ritchie as well. Throw in Hudson if his discontent is true, and that's 5 of our better players being lost to FA on one side of the ball due to poor management.

It's all just a terrible look, and one not just explained away by "We got Yannick for cheap!". In the grand scheme of things, Yannick coming cheap to us is an aberration, not indicative of the norm for us. And dude was wanting $22m/year last year. If he has even a decent season for us, is he really going to want to stick around or is it going to be another round of brutal negotiations that burns us all again? History is not on the positive thinkers' side when it comes to that.

Edited March 17, 2021 by ronjon1990

[Jeremy408]

6 minutes ago, ragingraider said:

I think we all need to relax. You can't pay 3 guys on a 54 man roster 20% of your salary when none of the three are QB, DE, WR. These are linemen. We aren't even talking LT. We had 20% of our cap room in Gabe, Rodney, and Trent Brown. 1 center, 1 guard, and a right tackle. That's not an effective use of our money even if these guys are all excellent players. Unfortunately, we rarely even saw these three on the field at the same time. 

And, we aren't exactly dismantling a superbowl championship team. We are getting rid of a right tackle who can't stay healthy or in shape. TB's game will continue to deteriorate as he ages and racks up injuries due to his terrible fitness and work ethic. Gabe is replaceable, although I think he is better than some others do. Rodney is clearly among the top players at his position. But, you don't need an elite center to succeed. In fact, Tackles are far and away the most important position on the OLine, and we have a franchise LT in Miller. We need to get a high quality starter on the right side. If we do that, our Oline performance won't drop off significantly. 

We can take the 30 million we are saving and add depth across the roster. Our premier oline netted us exactly zero playoff appearances. The amount of money invested in that unit was precluding us from improving the team overall, especially on the defensive side of the ball. 

Losing Rodney is a bummer, but he is a 32 year old center making over 13 million a year. We got great years out of him. In fact, we got his best years. His presence hasn't been the difference between where we are and where we want to be. Khalil Mack's presence wasn't the difference. Mack's presence hasn't been the difference for the bears either. The reality is, one even two guys aren't going to be the difference unless one of them is a QB. It takes 54 good players sprinkled with a few elite players at key positions and great coaching to be successful. We haven't been a deep enough team to overcome injuries, and I would argue that our elite players like Rodney Hudson weren't at the key positions that are determinate success. 

Furthermore, defensively speaking we can't imporve the back end until we can get after the QB. With all the rules that favor offense, the only consistent way to effect an opponent defensively is with your pass rush and ability to dominate the line of scrimmage. If you want to spend 20% of your cap room on three players and one of them is not a QB, then get your self three dominant defensive lineman. It is the only thing that defeats great offense in todays NFL. 

QBs- You need a top ten guy (25-30 million) for qb room

DL- 2 elite guys and solid role players (40 million annually invested in dlineman. Top two guys getting about 25 million of it.) 

WR/TE-( one elite two solid) 30 million for unit. 3 guys get about 75%

OTs- 20 million.  Gs&Cs- 15 million OLine total (35 million for unit)

DB- unit cost 30 million(one elite player)

LBs-15 million

RBs-10 million

This is a rough breakdown of what I would prioritize and budget. Based on these estimates, you need a few of these elite starters on rookie contracts to successfully field a team with solid depth. The budget above would be 15 million over the current cap. I don't think any category looks extraordinarily high. If you plug in the idea that we were paying three guys on the oline over 35 million, you can see we were killing our cap with those three contracts.

 

 

 

I said this earlier today but I said like a shorter version of it.  But like I’m also said earlier, when your favorite makes the playoffs once in 20 years  things are always worse than they appear to be. 

[NYRaider]

3 minutes ago, ragingraider said:

I think we all need to relax. You can't pay 3 guys on a 54 man roster 20% of your salary when none of the three are QB, DE, WR. These are linemen. We aren't even talking LT. We had 20% of our cap room in Gabe, Rodney, and Trent Brown. 1 center, 1 guard, and a right tackle. That's not an effective use of our money even if these guys are all excellent players. Unfortunately, we rarely even saw these three on the field at the same time. 

It's not about the money or the positions at this point. It's about how poorly our front office is at managing personnel decisions and the shady tactics they're trying to use this offseason. We were essentially planning to hold Brown hostage to force him to take a pay cut and are currently doing the same thing to Gabe Jackson. We cut Richie Incognito so we wouldn't have to pay him in hopes that he'd come crawling back after seeing there wasn't much of a market for him in free agency. We low balled Denzelle Good after he played a key role for our OL and was willing to do whatever the team asked him to do.  

We've completely mistreated some of our most important players and guys are upset. It's a terrible look as a lot of guys in the league are friends and more importantly big agents/management groups represent a lot of players. The way we've treated Trent Brown, Gabe Jackson, Richie Incognito and Denzelle Good pissed Rodney Hudson off so bad that he asked to be released. It's a terrible look as we continue to rebuild because why would an agent be motivated to negotiate with the Raiders after seeing how we've potentially treated some of his other clients? 

[Frankie2Gunz]

17 minutes ago, Jeremy408 said:

Hahaha it’s funny that our Dline are bums and the solution is to get another guy who hasn’t done anything on one of the best D lines in the NFL. There’s better Options in the draft. 

Hasn't done anything?  Rankins was a top 15 pick, has an 8 sack season under his belt and is stout against the run.  He has had 2 major injuries that hampered him over the last 2 season and is only 26.  That is upside that you take a risk on considering the massive discount one should get with him.  Barring injury he is a massive upgrade over anything we have as a 3T and at good value. When he was 100 percent healthy he was and can be an impact 3T and we can get him at a reduced cost.  That is called a value signing with limited downside risk barring injury. 

Here is a little film study of what he can do and if you think the bums on our team are on the same level as Rankins then you need to have your head examined. 

https://www.si.com/nfl/2021/03/12/film-study-with-sheldon-rankins-underrated-free-agent

Edited March 17, 2021 by Frankie2Gunz

[NYRaider]

2 minutes ago, Jeremy408 said:

I said this earlier today but I said like a shorter version of it.  But like I’m also said earlier, when your favorite makes the playoffs once in 20 years  things are always worse than they appear to be. 

Not even about who we let go or traded though. It's the fact that we essentially tried to strong arm Brown/Jackson/Incognito and low balled Good, which offended Rodney Hudson so much that he came to the team and asked to be released. 

[ronjon1990]

Just now, NYRaider said:

It's not about the money or the positions at this point. It's about how poorly our front office is at managing personnel decisions and the shady tactics they're trying to use this offseason. We were essentially planning to hold Brown hostage to force him to take a pay cut and are currently doing the same thing to Gabe Jackson. We cut Richie Incognito so we wouldn't have to pay him in hopes that he'd come crawling back after seeing there wasn't much of a market for him in free agency. We low balled Denzelle Good after he played a key role for our OL and was willing to do whatever the team asked him to do.  

We've completely mistreated some of our most important players and guys are upset. It's a terrible look as a lot of guys in the league are friends and more importantly big agents/management groups represent a lot of players. The way we've treated Trent Brown, Gabe Jackson, Richie Incognito and Denzelle Good pissed Rodney Hudson off so bad that he asked to be released. It's a terrible look as we continue to rebuild because why would an agent be motivated to negotiate with the Raiders after seeing how we've potentially treated some of his other clients? 

Say it louder for homers in the back! 

[Jeremy408]

1 minute ago, Frankie2Gunz said:

Hasn't done anything?  Rankins was a top 15 pick, has an 8 sack season under his belt and is stout against the run.  He has had 2 major injuries that hampered him over the last 2 season and is only 26.  That is upside that you take a risk on considering the massive discount one should get with him.  Barring injury he is a massive upgrade over anything we have as a 3T and at good value.  If he was 100 percent healthy he can be an impact 3T and we can get him at a reduced cost.  Here is a little film study of what he can do and if you think the bums on our team are on the same level as Rankins then you need to have your head examined. 

https://www.si.com/nfl/2021/03/12/film-study-with-sheldon-rankins-underrated-free-agent

OK so if we do that, David Irving had eight sacks in seven games the last full season he played in. What exactly does Sheldon Rankins do better than him even if you compare them both at their best. 

[Jeremy408]

2 minutes ago, ronjon1990 said:

Say it louder for homers in the back! 

Notice how you personally have not responded to what I said prior. Just resort to name calling again lol.