Extension season.

[Dcash4]

1 hour ago, 43M said:

At the very least, they should let this year play out and see how he looks in the new offense.   Then tag him next offseason and maybe work towards a new deal.  But there is no way Id pay him top end WR1 money based on what he has shown thus far.

I will say, I’m not against the tag, but it’s a one year solution where I want multi-year stability. Even if he is ultimately a high end 2. If you don’t like his number this year, you would hate it next year. I’m assuming with Khan heading things we won’t be changing our contract model (no guarantee after year 1), so we are likely looking at a 1 year deal at $20m with options for future years. That’s what I want. I’ll also have to revisit the tag rules, because it might be a cheaper option with those big contracts now to extend Vs tag, but I’m not sure  

If we did fully guaranteed contracts or even multi-year ones, I would be way more inclined to agree with you guys. But we haven’t and DJ isn’t a guy worth that. So I’d rather spend the money to get the options and if it works out we are golden in Kenny’s contract…but if it doesn’t, we can walk away. 

[warfelg]

There’s fallacies to that but I won’t bother since the response will be you can structure however you want have the cap hit a year later and cap goes up since there seems to be an inability to actually discuss doing something different. 

[Dcash4]

I’ll add one more piece to retaining DJ since we now know Weidl is on board and he has a background of teams with heavy asset management…

What are two of the most coveted position in the draft? WR and QB. What two positions would we not be worried about next year? WR and QB. 

I think we will be in the 10-15 range of pick next year. What kind of assets do you think we could get back to flip 10-15 and have Claypool available for trade? 

[warfelg]

3 minutes ago, Dcash4 said:

I’ll add one more piece to retaining DJ since we now know Weidl is on board and he has a background of teams with heavy asset management…

What are two of the most coveted position in the draft? WR and QB. What two positions would we not be worried about next year? WR and QB. 

I think we will be in the 10-15 range of pick next year. What kind of assets do you think we could get back to flip 10-15 and have Claypool available for trade? 

What exactly about Claypool makes you so eager to move him over letting DJ walk if Pickens/Austin play really well?

[Dcash4]

36 minutes ago, warfelg said:

There’s fallacies to that but I won’t bother since the response will be you can structure however you want have the cap hit a year later and cap goes up since there seems to be an inability to actually discuss doing something different. 

Ain’t no one cares as much about cap sheet integrity as you, War. Not even the actual NFL teams. 

I feel comfortable siding with them on this opinion. 

31 minutes ago, warfelg said:

What exactly about Claypool makes you so eager to move him over letting DJ walk if Pickens/Austin play really well?

I went over this before, but it’s because I find him redundant now and he showed no growth in year 1 to 2 on the technical side of the game…which he greatly needed to. And then just for kicks we can throw in that he has actually been immature on the field. Likely not headed for C2. 

Im very confident that Pickens could plug and play as Chase right now and perform better. He is a far more polished technical receiver and just as big and just as fast. He is what Chase was meant to be, just with a much higher ceiling  

Austin is an actual burner. He and DJ would do just as well in the Jet game. 

So he isn’t flexible and he isn’t exceptional…but he can produce. So there would be value to someone. 

[43M]

1 hour ago, Dcash4 said:

I will say, I’m not against the tag, but it’s a one year solution where I want multi-year stability. Even if he is ultimately a high end 2. If you don’t like his number this year, you would hate it next year. I’m assuming with Khan heading things we won’t be changing our contract model (no guarantee after year 1), so we are likely looking at a 1 year deal at $20m with options for future years. That’s what I want. I’ll also have to revisit the tag rules, because it might be a cheaper option with those big contracts now to extend Vs tag, but I’m not sure  

If we did fully guaranteed contracts or even multi-year ones, I would be way more inclined to agree with you guys. But we haven’t and DJ isn’t a guy worth that. So I’d rather spend the money to get the options and if it works out we are golden in Kenny’s contract…but if it doesn’t, we can walk away. 

Its a tough situation, admittedly.

Im not against paying players....but I am against overpaying for non elite or even non great talent, regardless of our cap space.   Id rather use that money towards the trenches or secondary.

I dont believe DJ is the caliber of WR that dramatically moves the needle of an offense.   I think he is a pretty solid weapon, and Im not against keeping him at all.   Im just against paying premium money at a non-premium position to a non-premium talent.   

At the end of the day, they are going to do what they want.   If it were me....he would be on the trade block yesterday.

[warfelg]

1 hour ago, Dcash4 said:

Ain’t no one cares as much about cap sheet integrity as you, War. Not even the actual NFL teams. 

I feel comfortable siding with them on this opinion. 

I went over this before, but it’s because I find him redundant now and he showed no growth in year 1 to 2 on the technical side of the game…which he greatly needed to. And then just for kicks we can throw in that he has actually been immature on the field. Likely not headed for C2. 

Im very confident that Pickens could plug and play as Chase right now and perform better. He is a far more polished technical receiver and just as big and just as fast. He is what Chase was meant to be, just with a much higher ceiling  

Austin is an actual burner. He and DJ would do just as well in the Jet game. 

So he isn’t flexible and he isn’t exceptional…but he can produce. So there would be value to someone. 

So basically. You’ve given up on him because of year two, yet those that did so on DJ in year two were wrong? We all admit Ben was done last year and it’s used as an excuse as to why it’s ok to pay DJ but not to give Chase a year 4 to end his contract and see what happens.

 

Also teams still have tough cap decisions to make every year so the cap still matters. Sorry you don’t seem to understand that. I’ll side with the Steelers Way on this if he’s best off testing FA and if he’s offered more then he can walk.  You’ve gone in less than a year from $15m tops to $18mil tops to $20mil tops and now that $22mil and $25mil are thrown around you are ok with that too. Effectively $10mil more than you originally were. Why not admit that this isn’t about trying to (for some reason) put down anyone who has concerns about the impact it has and just admit that you think DJ is probably better than most people think he is. 

[warfelg]

54 minutes ago, 43M said:

Its a tough situation, admittedly.

Im not against paying players....but I am against overpaying for non elite or even non great talent, regardless of our cap space.   Id rather use that money towards the trenches or secondary.

I dont believe DJ is the caliber of WR that dramatically moves the needle of an offense.   I think he is a pretty solid weapon, and Im not against keeping him at all.   Im just against paying premium money at a non-premium position to a non-premium talent.   

At the end of the day, they are going to do what they want.   If it were me....he would be on the trade block yesterday.

Very much agreed, but like I said excuses to pay him on cap workarounds (which there’s none on gtd money, notice how that was sidestepped) are being made over the argument of is he worth it, which was the intent of what I was asking.  In my OP I did my best to try to peg contracts and players they likely slot around. It feels as though the overwhelming response is Minkah and Buz would be worth paying for that and DJ would not. So regardless of cap space or year one structure or future dead money, why is the argument being made to retain him at that high level of a contract. 
 

if the argument is because Pickett has a low cap hit we should invest around him heavily, why is DJ the spend. Because he’s a WR? He’s not a high level WR1. If Pickens outplays him, that means he’s a WR2. That’s $12-14mil tops. If he wants $20mil he’s gone. But, also look at FA next year and who could be there. 
 

Jesse Bates and Minkah Fitzpatrick could give us the best two high safety tandem in the NFL. Of Okorafor isn’t good Jack Conklin is one of the best RTs in the NFL. Hell, what if Deebo Samuels doesn’t get something done with SF and wants to hit the market? Same for DK. These names can’t be dismissed because we don’t know what will happen. Add on that next years FA has a deep group overall that can mean spending at multiple positions across the field. Add in the popularity of players asking for trades and extensions…look at that 2024 class and think who might want out. 
 

Worse yet…what if Trubisky and Pickett flat out suck. Now you need the ability to spend on a QB. 

[warfelg]

Just because I was interested in this, I added up how many top 10 positional contracts every team had (I did top 20 at WR, CB; top 15 at edge/DT/G to account for 2 starters at all those spots).  Left out FB, total contract value, and split out LT and RT.  Additionally if a rookie deal got us to top 10-15 in position contract I got rid of it.  I also left punter and long snapper out because you know....punting and long snapping.

Additionally I did it by guaranteed money because I was curious if teams that put out big contracts were tied to the money as well.

Lastly I took the painstaking time on some teams to try to figure out the spending habit of certain teams for when they threw this money around because that's something that matters here.

So here's what I've come up with:

Top 10 teams with those top contracts in order: 1 New Orleans (12); 2 Denver (10); T-3 Buffalo, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay (9); 7 San Francisco (8); T-8 Los Angeles Chargers, Los Angeles Rams, Indianapolis, Tennessee, Miami, New York Jets, Pittsburgh (7)

Top 10 teams with those top guaranteed money in order: 1 New Orleans (10); T-2 Philadelphia, Tampa Bay (9); T-4 Denver, Cleveland (8); T-6 Los Angeles Chargers, Tennessee, New York Jets (7); T-9 San Francisco, Indianapolis, Baltimore, Minnesota, Jacksonville (6)

Interestingly with this: Tampa, Tennessee, Minnesota, New Orleans are teams that have starting QB's who are outside the cutoffs in both top contract and top guarantees that aren't on rookie deals.

Philadelphia, Los Angeles Chargers, Miami, New York Jets, Baltimore are the teams that show up on here with rookie contract players.

Now here's the interesting: Buffalo, Denver, Cleveland, Los Angeles Rams all went into their massive spending while their QB was later in their rookie year contract.

The only teams to spend and have a high priced QB at the same time were New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia.

So the one to really watch:

Jacksonville is the outlier in terms of spending with a rookie level contract.  Most teams have waited until year 3 of a rookie contract to spend on their roster with massive front loading in terms of guaranteed money.  Jacksonville is one of the few to spend in year 2 of the rookie contract.

[Dcash4]

sigh....

18 minutes ago, warfelg said:

You’ve given up on him because of year two, yet those that did so on DJ in year two were wrong?

Why do you do this stuff? Who is talking about how anyone felt about DJ? When did I ever talk about anyone giving up on him after year 2? Stop making stuff up. 

But no, it's not me giving up on Claypool. To be fair, I never liked him from the start. I questioned his abilities that were flaws at Notre Dame and they are still showing up in the NFL. His ceiling is average because of those flaws and his traits replaceable. He's a big guy that plays small, is fast in shorts, and has very little ball skills. I am hoping that last year was a humbling experience for him and it was just a lack of preparation from his successful rookie season...but this is now 3 years of the same concerns since we drafted him and watching his senior year games. 

There's nothing to suggest there is a better receiver there to this point. More productive? Sure. But talent and production are not equal. So if he is redundant, limited, and talent capped -- why not flip him? So if you are comparing DJ's drops to Chase Claypool's issues -- apples and oranges between a mental block holding a player back and someone lacking the necessary tools to grow. Did DJ get over the hurdle of mental issues? Not entirely, but he did make some pretty solid strides. We will see what growth Chase has, but I am not holding my breath. 

25 minutes ago, warfelg said:

Sorry you don’t seem to understand that.

I am sorry you still don't understand how flexible the cap situation is, especially when you consider how we do contracts. 

28 minutes ago, warfelg said:

You’ve gone in less than a year from $15m tops to $18mil tops to $20mil tops and now that $22mil and $25mil are thrown around you are ok with that too.

I have quite literally never done this. I have never put a cap on his pay. I have quite often said I am comfortable with what the going rate for players within their comparison group is. I also have consistently said $20M for DJ, you are the one continually saying $25M. 

So all of that is made up. 

29 minutes ago, warfelg said:

Effectively $10mil more than you originally were.

Just separating this so to point out again that it's made up, seeing as the only place I ever was is the going rate. 

33 minutes ago, warfelg said:

just admit that you think DJ is probably better than most people think he is

I don't have to admit it like a secret... I have literally said as much before. I have --  pretty consistently -- said he was not a top guy, but in that next tier of low end 1/ high end 2. So, probably around the 15-25 mark in the league. Interestingly enough, based on the last couple pages of this thread -- seems like that's actually the consensus, don't ya think?

[jebrick]

DJ is exactly who I said he was coming out of college.  Electric with the ball in his hands because of his short area quickness and poor hands/concentration.  CA3 is going to be the same with the exception of his hands which are outstanding.  I think the Steelers drafting CA3 are hedging vs letting DJ walk if he wants too much.

[MOSteelers56]

Just now, jebrick said:

DJ is exactly who I said he was coming out of college.  Electric with the ball in his hands because of his short area quickness and poor hands/concentration.  CA3 is going to be the same with the exception of his hands which are outstanding.  I think the Steelers drafting CA3 are hedging vs letting DJ walk if he wants too much.

I like Austin because of that, plus his amazing straight line speed. 

[warfelg]

42 minutes ago, jebrick said:

DJ is exactly who I said he was coming out of college.  Electric with the ball in his hands because of his short area quickness and poor hands/concentration.  CA3 is going to be the same with the exception of his hands which are outstanding.  I think the Steelers drafting CA3 are hedging vs letting DJ walk if he wants too much.

He definitely is the same.  He was a good route runner then too.  At this point I think he is what he is.  

[warfelg]

 

[43M]

31 minutes ago, warfelg said:

 

He needs to focus on football, but the coaches needs to learn how to use him more to his strengths.