2022 Player movement rumors (Free agency / Trades)

[ThatJaxxenGuy]

9 minutes ago, ET80 said:

I don't think anyone in the Texans organization fits this room, either. I've made my thoughts on Jack Easterby very apparent over the past 3-4 years; Nothing has really changed. Ditto the McNair family, who has a documented record of subtle racism and oppression/retaliation of those who don't hold the same "views" as they do (look up Amy Palcic if you want an example of how close minded and petty the Texans ownership team can be). 

THIS part I question - even if the numbers were fabricated, the Browns still knew the number was at 22, with potential to grow. The Browns stated they did "their own investigation" and still chose to move forward with their trade and record setting contract - so either they investigated this and knew there were more cases, or they didn't investigate this at all. 

Either way, they took a chance knowing this could blow up (and even structured the contract to keep Watson from losing too much money when he was suspended). There's no scenario where the Browns deserve to get anything back. 

The "fairest" solution would be to remove the pick from both teams - neither Browns or Texans get it. Just have 31 first round picks the next two years. Texans GM Nick Caserio knew nothing about this issue coming into this job from New England, so he's the only "innocent" person impacted by this potential solution.

Everyone else has blood on their hands, IMO.

The crazy part of this is that if the Texans were helping cover it up, Watson’s not only a serial predator but willing to risk everything because of a tiff with the Texans?

guy had everything he needed to stay greasy under the radar but bit the hand that feeds.

what a weird, gross, and absurd situation. Turns out the people who thought Watson did it and the people who thought it was a hit job by the Texans were probably both correct?

just terrible people all around. I honestly just feel bad for Davis Mills.

[ET80]

22 minutes ago, ThatJaxxenGuy said:

Turns out the people who thought Watson did it and the people who thought it was a hit job by the Texans were probably both correct?

I still question the hit job piece of it - because Ashley Solis started her inquiry with Tony Buzbee during the 2020 season, while Watson and Cal McNair were still talking about the direction of the Franchise post Bill O'Brien.

Let's play a butterfly effect game here (based on factual information gathered during the Texans GM/HC search, not just speculation) - Cal follows the suggestion of Texans President and CEO Jamey Rootes and hires Pittsburgh VP Omar Khan as his GM. Khan promptly fires Jack Easterby (who was the source of Watson's disdain with the organization) and Watson provides insight to the Head Coach search (let's give the job to Matt Eberflus, who was a Watson favorite and mutually interested in the job UNTIL Nick Caserio was hired and Jack Easterby was retained). 

Does Tony Buzbee stop his forward press because of the events above? Or is that mutually exclusive to th the situation?

[bigbadbuff]

The Texans, and Watson deserve the absolute hammer. 
 

The Browns are screwed, and they did it to themselves by jumping into this mess. I’m more interested to see what happens with Baker, because i think Watson is getting 2 years. 3 years without being in the NFL is forever, and I’m not betting on him jumping back in and being an upper echelon QB again. Just an utter disaster and i cannot believe Cleveland took the risk before the NFL gave out a punishment, just absurdly stupid.

[Forge]

The niners have a slightly used Jimmy g for the browns 

[ThatJaxxenGuy]

12 minutes ago, bigbadbuff said:

The Texans, and Watson deserve the absolute hammer. 
 

The Browns are screwed, and they did it to themselves by jumping into this mess. I’m more interested to see what happens with Baker, because i think Watson is getting 2 years. 3 years without being in the NFL is forever, and I’m not betting on him jumping back in and being an upper echelon QB again. Just an utter disaster and i cannot believe Cleveland took the risk before the NFL gave out a punishment, just absurdly stupid.

I think if a full season as a starter for the Browns is sitting right there, Baker would be stupid not to take it even if the water of the well is poisoned.

 

his career trajectory if he doesn’t start this year is not going to go well.

[ET80]

17 minutes ago, bigbadbuff said:

The Texans, and Watson deserve the absolute hammer. 

The Texans need to be investigated at the very least. Brent Naccara isn't the only person in the organization who knew about this (IF he knew about this). Giving someone an NDA isn't a precursor to covering up a crime, NDAs are used in very legitimate business dealings. Watson was a brand, he was a business owner who opened up a few restaurants and had his own lines of clothing, was building up his girlfriend's brand - an NDA can be a precursor to those discussions (we know it WASN'T meant for those, but hindsight is 20/20 when evaluating this sort of action and the actions leading up to it).

If Naccara knew what Nia Smith meant when she contacted Watson via Instagram, and he ultimately knew WHY Watson needed the NDA, then emphatically YES - the entire organizational structure needs to be investigated, fined and ultimately banned from the NFL. Texans will need to be sold and the McNair family need to be barred from the league much like Jerry Richardson. Denver was just sold for $4.65b, Texans are rather profitable from a revenue perspective, so we'll assume a $4.5b sale price. Some funds from this sale need to be put in escrow (managed by a trust led by Tony Buzbee) to fund current and future litigants against Watson.

The lone survivor from that regime - Jack Easterby - also needs to be banned from the NFL permanently. As the VP of Operations, there's no way he did not have vision into such a situation brewing with the 2nd highest paid player in football; So if Brent Naccara knew why Watson needed the NDAs, Easterby would no doubt know (and as somebody who was on Robert Kraft's staff after his run in, he'd have a playbook on how to manage this...with the benefit of hindsight at his disposal).

The only comparison I have to this is the Penn State/Jerry Sandusky scandal. Watson is Sandusky and it's looking more and more like the Texans are the Joe Paterno of this scandal; knew about it, but didn't do anything about it... and even enabled it.

[ET80]

2 hours ago, ET80 said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/sports/football/deshaun-watson.html?source=pulsenewsletter&campaign=4399641

Hardin has said the women who have accused Watson of sexual misconduct are lying. He had ample opportunity to make his case to the district attorney’s office. Through a public records request, The Times reviewed the communications between Hardin and the prosecutors in Watson’s criminal cases. These messages revealed extensive communication between the two sides and demonstrated, at the least, the value of a well-paid and well-connected lawyer.

But yeah - Rusty Hardin totes didn't have any influences on the Grand Jury and that outcome. [/sarcasm]

Don't want this paged. There's someone on my ignore list (who I know reads this thread) who insisted this was impossible...

[Forge]

 

Making room for Baker!

[Jakuvious]

5 hours ago, ThatJaxxenGuy said:

Hmm makes sense I definitely wasn’t paying attention to who was lost. I guess I’m more just annoyed with fans who think acquiring good players is a net loss if they’re well paid. 

I do disagree that you have to mortgage your future to keep them. I don’t see why the Rams couldn’t do the void years thing kicking the can down the road until the inevitable collapse of society. 

So, you can....to an extent. This will be an over simplification of how this would happen, but hopefully this will get the idea across.

Let's say you want to do this. You're a GM with minimal cap space, and you want to add a couple of guys you can't really afford this year. Let's say player A wants $20M, and you don't have that. You could instead give them a 1 year deal with a $5M salary, and add two void years, with a $15M signing bonus. The player makes $20M this year, but you only pay $10M....right now. You'll pay $10M more next year, when theyre likely gone. Now player B wants $15M, and you don't even have that. He wants a slightly longer deal, so you offer him 3 for $45M. You can't pay that on the cap, so you again go $5M in base each year, a $30M signing bonus, two void years, and you only have to pay $11M each year you have them. But you pay that last $12M in year four when they leave.

 

Problem one here, is the only way to do this is with guaranteed money. So if you're the Chiefs, making Mahomes salary into a signing bonus to spread the hit out, that feels pretty safe. You know you won't be cutting Mahomes, so the risk of the guarantees is low. If you do this with a less safe player, whether they're inconsistent, or even just near retirement, you may be paying a ton of money for a guy not on roster. This happened recently with a number of QBs, actually. Goff, Brady, Ryan, etc. Second, you can only prorate over 5 years. So no adding on void years to a 5 year deal, it won't change anything. So it has to be short contracts, or already in progress long contracts.

 

Third, and the reason for the sample, is you do start paying it as you do this. So the sample is year one. If you want to do this again in year two, you can....but player A now comes due. So you either have $10M less in the first place, if you let A walk, or you have to retain him and push it further. Same with player B in year 4. You can keep pushing these hits, but only if you retain those players. Once they're gone, be it free agency, trade, retirement, you have to pay that overdue bill. So let's say player A flopped, you're now debating between eating a $10M sunk cost and retaining a guy who underperformed. Maybe B retires after year 3, and since what you owe in void years is money already paid, it will accelerate to whatever year he retires on the cap. So you only get the real befit the first year you push these hits down the road. Because while in year 2 you can push hits to year 3 and 4, you then are paying for the ones in year 1. And so on. And thats where you have the Pats taking a year off, basically. The Chiefs had a modest year this year in free agency to let things settle. The Saints lost a couple pro bowlers and had a hall of fame QB retire and are still tight as they pay old bills. It feels like Tampa can just keep this rolling, but they're paying right now, fairly heavily, for Suh and Gronk to not be on the team. And there's more of that to come for them.

[Mox]

4 hours ago, ET80 said:

The only comparison I have to this is the Penn State/Jerry Sandusky scandal. Watson is Sandusky and it's looking more and more like the Texans are the Joe Paterno of this scandal; knew about it, but didn't do anything about it... and even enabled it.

I'm pretty sure that's not what happened.

[ET80]

10 minutes ago, Bullet Club said:

I'm pretty sure that's not what happened.

Feel free to enlighten me.

[Mox]

11 minutes ago, ET80 said:

Feel free to enlighten me.

The assertion that Joe Paterno did nothing (factually untrue), and enabled this behavior (baseless) is based off a report that speculated all of its conclusions. There is at least some evidence that the report was orchestrated by Freeh and the NCAA, and when taken to court was found not to have followed due process, hence why Paterno had his wins reinstated. He was crucified over unconfirmed speculation.

Edited June 8, 2022 by Bullet Club

[ET80]

7 minutes ago, Bullet Club said:

The assertion that Joe Paterno did nothing (factually untrue)

Then what did he do?

7 minutes ago, Bullet Club said:

There is at least some evidence that the report was orchestrated by Freeh and the NCAA, and when taken to court was found not to have followed due process, hence why Paterno had his wins reinstated. He was crucified over unconfirmed speculation.

Only evidence I've seen is a rebuttal document - nothing refuting the report, mind you (subtle, yet important difference - this rebuttal was attacking the methodology, NOT refuting the conclusion).

They may have restored the victories, but that's a phyrric victory at best, as the $60mm fine levied to the university was not rescinded. 

[Mox]

2 minutes ago, ET80 said:

Then what did he do?

Only evidence I've seen is a rebuttal document - nothing refuting the report, mind you (subtle, yet important difference - this rebuttal was attacking the methodology, NOT refuting the conclusion).

They may have restored the victories, but that's a phyrric victory at best, as the $60mm fine levied to the university was not rescinded. 

What does a fine to the school have to do with Joe Paterno's involvement? It's a fact that Paterno did exactly what he was directed to do. It's speculation to say he enabled this behavior.

[ET80]

1 minute ago, Bullet Club said:

What does a fine to the school have to do with Joe Paterno's involvement?

What benefit is there to restoring victories, then? Really, what does it accomplish in the grand scheme of things?

3 minutes ago, Bullet Club said:

It's a fact that Paterno did exactly what he was directed to do.

Ok, what was he directed to do? And a speculative question outside of report or rebuttal - do you think he did the right thing? 

4 minutes ago, Bullet Club said:

It's speculation to say he enabled this behavior.

Not doing anything in revelation to THESE sort of accusations is enablement to me. Maybe you feel different, but I don't.