The 2023 Offseason Thread

[EaglesFlySBChampsHigh]

4 hours ago, Shalodeep said:

Wish I had your faith sir. Either way, love I can have this conversation without the name calling and stuff

Sometimes you just gotta trust the process ..in this case it's Howie.

 

[EaglesFlySBChampsHigh]

4 hours ago, 4for4PhillyFan said:

LOL.  

Cue the frozen soundtrack 

[4for4PhillyFan]

53 minutes ago, EaglesFlySBChampsHigh said:

Cue the frozen soundtrack 

5 hours later.  Good lord man, move on.  One of the mods already suggested It.  

[Jroc04]

4 hours ago, UndyTaker said:

Because some fans dont see the bigger picture. Howie's roster construction is also the biggest reason why we werent a SB contender between those 5 years. We want to be a SB contender for a consistent period of time, but the way Howie constructs his rosters that will never happen. Some of you are happy just to get to the dance after X amount of years, and thats fine. You're used to losing and happy whenever a bone gets thrown your way. 

I say F that. We should strive for greatness every year. We should want our stadium to look like the Lakers and Celtics rafters. The Yankees, the Patriots, the Montreal Canadians or Red Wings, Barcelona, The All Blacks from Rugby.......

You watched the Andy Reid perennial SB contenders Eagles for 15 (?) years? You’d rather have that than the last 8 years? And it’s ok for you to want that. But one thing you can’t argue is success. And Howie did it in its entirety almost twice in the last 6 years. Something it took the whole damn franchise decades to try and achieve. 
 

Howie’s construction didnt work because Carson couldn’t figure himself out. But not only did Howie win despite that, he tore down most of the house, rebuilt it again to be the best team in the NFC in very short order. Maybe you haven’t really seen exactly why Howie’s ultimate roster construction plans look like. But boy did he make chicken salad and do it while shedding the worst contract in franchise history. 
 

No Eagle fan is used to losing anymore. We’ve spent the most part of a quarter decade being a good team. That’s an antiquated notion. Luries reign has been bountiful. There’s nothing to suggest it can’t continue. I don’t know what bone you’re referring to. 
 

We can’t strive for greatness every year. It’s not now the NFL works anymore. There’s too much parity. Unless you have a sure fire HoF QB it’s going to be tough. Making the SB twice in 6 years is literally the definition of success. What else are you looking for? 

[HazletonEagle]

Howie knows what he is doing with the cap and the dead money.

People have an outdated notion that dead money is bad, and happens by accident when a GM has Fd up.

Howie has gotten ahead of the curve and weaponized the dead cap. Sure, every team has it. None have planned it as well as Howie. 

This team could never have sustained the level of success it has achieved by limiting itself within each current years salary cap constraint.

Someone a few pages ago compared dead cap to a credit card. That conveys a clear misunderstanding of how Howie is using dead cap. Its nothing like a credit card wherein your debt carries a high interest rate for the life of your loan. Quite the opposite. Howie builds dept at a bank that allows him to pay it off at a fraction of the cost. Howie is basically taking student loan forgiveness every year.

The fact that a dollar today equals a certain percentage of the cap, and a dollar pushed to next year (with a higher cap limit) equals a smaller percentage of that cap means that he never has to fully repay his dept. It also means that a dollar puhed to next year is worth more than a dollar, effectively increasing his cap limit beyond whatever the stated cap is.

As such, this is a sustainable practice. It is equivellant to him working with a higher salary cap than any other team, in any given year (until they all learn how to weaponize it in the same way).

 

The only way it fails, is an unforeseen event such as a global pandemic which causes the cap to stagnate, or even decrease for the next year or two.

THAT is why we ran in to trouble after 2017 when he wracked up a bunch of dead cap to keep old vets trying to run it back. It got him in to trouble. But he quickly tore down, and rebuilt. To get us back to another super bowl in just 5 years is an amazing feat.

As long as we can count on the cap increasing yearly, Howie's plan is sound, and perfectly sustainable. So is the talent on our roster.

 

 

[HazletonEagle]

As for Henry, Im not interested in giving up assets to trade for him. And Im not interested in extending him for more (real) years.

The one scenario I can see, if Tennessee would do it, would be to trade Slay for Henry.

Its the NFL equivalent of trading expiring contracts.

Trading Slay results in about 5M in cap space being created for us. Taking on Henry at around a 10M cap number results in a net negative of ~5M. HOWEVER, with all the above said about dead money, we can likely create 2 void years. Take half of his 10M salary and convert it to bonuses which can be spread over his final 2 (fake) years.

Essentially still a 1 year contract, bringing his cap number down to the 5M created by swapping him for Slay. And spreading a miniscule 5M dead cap charge over the next 2 years.

Youve now got Henery for the cost of no drat picks, no additional salary added on, and a miniscule 5M dead cap charge spread out over more years.

We arent going to want to extend Slay anyway. We can trade him for the opportunity to have Henery behind our OL for 1 year and really help take our offense up another notch.

 

Yes, a hole is created at CB. We should be planning to take Witherspoon or Gonzalez at 10 anyway.

In this scenario, keep Bradberry. Or double dip at CB early in the draft.

[Danger]

21 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

As for Henry, Im not interested in giving up assets to trade for him. And Im not interested in extending him for more (real) years.

The one scenario I can see, if Tennessee would do it, would be to trade Slay for Henry.

Its the NFL equivalent of trading expiring contracts.

Trading Slay results in about 5M in cap space being created for us. Taking on Henry at around a 10M cap number results in a net negative of ~5M. HOWEVER, with all the above said about dead money, we can likely create 2 void years. Take half of his 10M salary and convert it to bonuses which can be spread over his final 2 (fake) years.

Essentially still a 1 year contract, bringing his cap number down to the 5M created by swapping him for Slay. And spreading a miniscule 5M dead cap charge over the next 2 years.

Youve now got Henery for the cost of no drat picks, no additional salary added on, and a miniscule 5M dead cap charge spread out over more years.

We arent going to want to extend Slay anyway. We can trade him for the opportunity to have Henery behind our OL for 1 year and really help take our offense up another notch.

 

Yes, a hole is created at CB. We should be planning to take Witherspoon or Gonzalez at 10 anyway.

In this scenario, keep Bradberry. Or double dip at CB early in the draft.

Why would you do that? We already have numerous holes on defense and youre having us take on more money for a player at a lesser position who's proned to start falling off any time

[HazletonEagle]

Another thing about losing out free agents, and the cap.

The DT free agent class absolutely sucks. If we can keep Cox pretty cheap it goes a long way to shoring up depth. We are going to have to go DT at some point in the first 3 rounds. Someone like Redmond sounds like a Hargrave clone. 2 gapping NT who has hidden potential as a pass rusher ready to explode.

Keeping Graham cheap, in addition to getting back F head Barnett helps depth behind Sweat and Reddick on the edge. We are ok there 4 deep. Likely to add another talent early in the draft. There are some ok mid-priced free agent options like Fowler Jr. and is Leonard Floyd released? Saw his name on iggles blitz. If so, wouldnt count against comp pick formula. Ioanaidis is a guy who can add depth at both DE and DT.

Safety free agency is incredibly deep. Bates, and Love are perfect pivot options from Gardner-Johnson. But even if we strike out on ALL high priced safety options, there are a bunch of guys in the next tier that maintain a high level of talent on the back end for us. I am partial to Taylor Rapp in that group. But Thornhill and Vonn Bell can be excellent options as well. A notch below them is Adderley. And lastly, we can rely on the pro scouting department to determine which vet still has gas in the tank for a 1 season band-aid. Choices such as Poyer, Amos, and Jimmy Ward exist, as well as the injury risk with Keanu Neal. There are SO many options at safety, that I am not worried one bit about losing Gardner-Johnson. Heck, I might prefer a bunch of those guys at their lower cost.

We have two free agent starting LBs. Again, there is a solid list of options. Really no shortage there. Either our guys are going to be cheap to keep, or someone else solid is going to come cheaper. We just saw Wagner and Kendricks released so they wont count against the comp formula. Theres also Tremain Edmonds, Elandon Roberts, Germaine Pratt, Okereke, Cody Barton, Drue Tranquill, David Long, and Caden Ellis....

CB class is not strong either. But where DT and CB are very weak in free agency, the draft is strong.

 

We havea million options to find better values if our guys leave us for bigger money elsewhere. And at CB and DT where options dont exist, the draft is perfectly set up to save us as those happen to be its positions of strength.

 

We dont need a lot of cap room to retain or replace these guys effectively. We are going to be fine.

 

And on top of that, if Dessai is all hes cracked up to be, just a more competent DC is going to help. The level of talent we had last year- we probably underachieved. We shoudlnt need to have quite that level of talent to still have a great D. Some of these free agent alternatives should allow us to still field an excellent defense with a competent coordinator.

 

All that said, with an expected improvement on offense (another year of progress from Hurts, hopefully adding 1-2 strong runners/big back types, maybe improving on Quez), we are going to just about has hard to beat as we were last year.

[HazletonEagle]

2 minutes ago, Danger said:

Why would you do that? We already have numerous holes on defense and youre having us take on more money for a player at a lesser position who's proned to start falling off any time

Both are prone to fall off at any time. Many eagles fans think Slay already has.

Its a theoretical question. Do you just want a good enough D while continuing to focus on building the offense?

These are two guys who neither team wants to extend anyway. Which one makes us better this year? A CB who played on a defense who still couldnt stop elite QBs? or a RB who can make the offense even more dominant than it already is?

 

Theres really no question why we would do it. The real question is if Tennessee is looking to salary dump, maybe they wouldnt have any interest in taking Slay right now.

[Jroc04]

36 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

Howie knows what he is doing with the cap and the dead money.

People have an outdated notion that dead money is bad, and happens by accident when a GM has Fd up.

Howie has gotten ahead of the curve and weaponized the dead cap. Sure, every team has it. None have planned it as well as Howie. 

This team could never have sustained the level of success it has achieved by limiting itself within each current years salary cap constraint.

Someone a few pages ago compared dead cap to a credit card. That conveys a clear misunderstanding of how Howie is using dead cap. Its nothing like a credit card wherein your debt carries a high interest rate for the life of your loan. Quite the opposite. Howie builds dept at a bank that allows him to pay it off at a fraction of the cost. Howie is basically taking student loan forgiveness every year.

The fact that a dollar today equals a certain percentage of the cap, and a dollar pushed to next year (with a higher cap limit) equals a smaller percentage of that cap means that he never has to fully repay his dept. It also means that a dollar puhed to next year is worth more than a dollar, effectively increasing his cap limit beyond whatever the stated cap is.

As such, this is a sustainable practice. It is equivellant to him working with a higher salary cap than any other team, in any given year (until they all learn how to weaponize it in the same way).

 

The only way it fails, is an unforeseen event such as a global pandemic which causes the cap to stagnate, or even decrease for the next year or two.

THAT is why we ran in to trouble after 2017 when he wracked up a bunch of dead cap to keep old vets trying to run it back. It got him in to trouble. But he quickly tore down, and rebuilt. To get us back to another super bowl in just 5 years is an amazing feat.

As long as we can count on the cap increasing yearly, Howie's plan is sound, and perfectly sustainable. So is the talent on our roster.

 

 

Finally, someone else with some economics sense. 

[HazletonEagle]

Just now, Jroc04 said:

Finally, someone else with some economics sense. 

@downundermike is excellent at breaking down contracts, and understanding much of the minutia when it comes to cap, and other rules relating to roster construction. On an individual level. You guys will appreciate having him around, especially during this time of year.

When it comes to discussions on eagles cap from a global perspective....there seems to be a disconnect.

In fairness, I have 0 economics sense. Sometimes we all have trouble seeing the forest through the trees. Maybe itll take 10 more super bowl appearances, but Im confident one day Howie will have done enough for Mike to come around.

 

[Jroc04]

2 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

@downundermike is excellent at breaking down contracts, and understanding much of the minutia when it comes to cap, and other rules relating to roster construction. On an individual level. You guys will appreciate having him around, especially during this time of year.

When it comes to discussions on eagles cap from a global perspective....there seems to be a disconnect.

In fairness, I have 0 economics sense. Sometimes we all have trouble seeing the forest through the trees. Maybe itll take 10 more super bowl appearances, but Im confident one day Howie will have done enough for Mike to come around.

 

Sure but on a macro level you understand more than you’re letting on. It’s simple economics to understand how Howie is valuing today’s money as opposed to a less valuable dollar tomorrow. But much is missed by casual fans on that point. Good on you to understand that though. It’s way more complicated than it seems than just raw numbers. There’s a technique and finesse to the cap. It’s what makes Howie so good at it. 

[EaglesFlySBChampsHigh]

3 hours ago, 4for4PhillyFan said:

5 hours later.  Good lord man, move on.  One of the mods already suggested It.  

Lol next time I'll just sit on the computer the entire day so I can rapid fire the messages just for you. No one sits on here for hours get real

[EaglesFlySBChampsHigh]

The news is so quiet right now. Howie must be just hammering out Hurts deal. Hoping we hear about it within the next day or two

The writers are getting bored. Think it was McLane talking about trading for Ramsey now. Doesn't seem like a Howie player imo. Seems farfetched too

[AZ_Eaglesfan]

Call me crazy but I’d trade #30 for Ramsey no problem. An elite level CB at 28 years old paired next to Slay, try to bring Epps back at a reasonable price and either get a vet Safety or let Blankenship ride. Elite level CB play opens up a lot for Safeties and will make their jobs much easier. If we got an MLB and figured out DT our defense would be looking damn solid. Obviously a lot depends on the Hurts extension and who we are looking to bring back but they could get the money to get that deal done. 
 

I did hear rumors that BG and Cox’s market aren’t looking too great according to some Twitter rumors(take with a grain of salt obviously). Possible we could get one or both back on cheaper deals. BG is a rotational guy at this point and Cox clearly isn’t what he once was. Just something to think about.