Week 4 GDT: Broncos @ Chicago

[BroncoBruin]

VJ and Vic Fangio both coordinating bottom 5 defenses people had high expectations for this year is pretty funny.

[Dbrog24]

22 hours ago, AKRNA said:

Alright! Got my daily dose of Sunday humor. It would be more poetic if they tied.

I've been enjoying your technique of watching certain players and matchups. It's made our games so much more bearable for me and allows me to laugh when someone like Jeudy is wide open and still can't catch a ball to save his life 😄. Mclaughlin and Mims are just so fun to watch. I was trying to pay more attention to Sanders as well and had to crack up on the slowmo of him trying to tackle a bears player and bouncing off to the point that he was spinning in circles haha. Dude needs to hit the weight room or maybe take some martial arts so he can have more stability.

[champ11]

2 hours ago, broncos67 said:

Yeah, I mean I thought his clap back at Lindsay was hilarious personally, but I can't help but feel he's had this frustration boiling under the surface for some time. Lashing out at media members never goes well.

I think he'd be great with a good qb and a good offense. but you can say that about a lot of receivers in the NFL. don't see him lasting much longer here

[BroncoBruin]

Jerry needs to just play better. But a former teammate (and now hot take radio guy) talking about his money is probably going to provoke some reaction. It was a solid burn. And I wouldn’t say he disrespected Rod at all. They have a relationship, it probably is under-discussed how much of a mentor Rod has been for young WRs in Denver since he retired. 

I’ve also given up on Jerry ever being great. He just isn’t. It’s never gonna happen. He’s a good player with elite traits and a lot of flaws. He can never put it all together. Drops. Not fighting in contested catch situations. Losing yards dancing instead of getting upfield. Just an all around lack of effort, focus and football IQ. It’s fine. He’ll play for a decade+ and make a lot of money but he’ll never live up to his physical potential.

[lomaxgrUK]

We've had this conversation a lot since Peyton retired. Listen, I get people who want to lose (in a 'good' way) for draft position. I understand the logic, and for a dumpster fire team like this I will never argue with anyone having that opinion. That said, I just can't think that way. I just can't watch games and not want our team to win.

So, I'm glad we pulled out the W. At the end of the day, Russell isn't the reason this team is failing. In fact, I actually think he's playing well given the limitations at WR, TE and his OL (well, the OL is half decent when they actually let the ball get snapped).

The Defensive talent on this team is simply not good enough to beat competent teams. I just don't think we need to go any further than that. There can't be a worse front 7 in football than them, surely.

12 hours ago, rcpbawler said:

The bad: There are a lot of expensive guys on both sides of the ball that are not living up to their contract. Gregory, DJ Jones, and Russ contracts look pretty awful (yeah Russ has not been the probably but clearly not worth 50 mil per). Zach Allen has been pretty average. Powers has been better but still not playing great and McGlinchey hasn't been bad but not great either. Justin Simmons has missed 6+ games since getting paid which isn't ideal either. A lot of money distributed to guys who are net neutral or worse

I completely agree with this. The more time goes on, the less I'm actually worried about Russ' contract, the more worried I am about the contracts given out this past Summer to Allen and McGlinchey in particular, with Powers also but to a slightly lesser extent.

We aren't going to be players in the UFA market next year, so there is huge pressure on this Front Office to either find a cheap gem in the open market, and/or draft incredibly well.

 

 

[AKRNA]

8 hours ago, lomaxgrUK said:

 

We aren't going to be players in the UFA market next year, so there is huge pressure on this Front Office to either find a cheap gem in the open market, and/or draft incredibly well.

 

 

At the end of the day it always comes down to "draft and develop". The teams that do that best win.

[broncos67]

3 hours ago, AKRNA said:

At the end of the day it always comes down to "draft and develop". The teams that do that best win.

Yeah, I'd like to see a lot more of that. I am worried, however, that Payton's track record on that front is a bit mixed and that's gonna be a problem. Not to mention we lack picks again this year. 

I think we need to likely trade off one or two assets to accumulate some picks. Especially if FA won't be as robust this time around. 

[jolly red giant]

On 10/3/2023 at 8:58 AM, lomaxgrUK said:

We aren't going to be players in the UFA market next year, so there is huge pressure on this Front Office to either find a cheap gem in the open market, and/or draft incredibly well.

We won't be able to go after FA signings - Wilson, McGlinchy, Powers and Allen alone add $50m to the cap next year. Only other option is to trade players like Simmons, Sutton, Bolles and Patrick to get it back. Nobody is going to trade for Patrick so he will have to be cut which will cost £6m in dead cap.

[Broncofan]

4 hours ago, jolly red giant said:

We won't be able to go after FA signings - Wilson, McGlinchy, Powers and Allen alone add $50m to the cap next year. Only other option is to trade players like Simmons, Sutton, Bolles and Patrick to get it back. Nobody is going to trade for Patrick so he will have to be cut which will cost £6m in dead cap.

If it's a rebuild year, we shouldn't go after high-priced FA's anyways.   FWIW, the obvious candidates to get cut are DJ Jones (13M cap hit, 3M dead cap - 10M savings), Randy Gregory (16M cap hit, 6M dead cap - 10M saved) and Sutton (17M cap hit, 7M savings for 2024) - if we trade him, we'd save over half of his 14M 2023 salary, so that seems like a no-brainer).    Patrick will cost 6M dead cap, but those are sunk costs (like the other dead cap hits) - and it still saves 3.5M

Looking at this, it's so obvious we should trade Sutton - because if we do it before Week 8 deadline, we save literally 17M (half of the 2023 season salary, and 10M from 2024's guaranteed $ - the dead cap hit still applies) for next offseason.  And while he's not quite up to Sutton's abilities, Brandon Johnson sure looks like he can do about 90 percent of what Sutton does - but at rookie level contract salary.     

Combine a Sutton trade with Gregory & DJ Jones & Patrick, we've then saved 50M and don't have to worry about cap health going forward (again, I wouldn't go after high-priced FA's, but we're also set to re-enter 2025 in good shape if we draft well, and need to extend core guys, and then add in FA where needed).   

If we lose to NYJ this week, Payton & Paton should be very open to dealing Sutton.    We won't get the 2nd round pick they were hoping for in the preseason (LOL), but even a 3rd - for - 5th swap (keeping in mind our 5th will be early), or a straight 4th, would still be winning value-wise, given Sutton would NOT qualify for the comp pick formula if we cut him (that only applies to players who leave for FA in their last year, not players who are cut with more contract years left).

Edited October 4, 2023 by Broncofan

[broncosfan_101]

2 hours ago, Broncofan said:

If we lose to NYJ this week, Payton & Paton should be very open to dealing Sutton.    We won't get the 2nd round pick they were hoping for in the preseason (LOL), but even a 3rd - for - 5th swap (keeping in mind our 5th will be early), or a straight 4th, would still be winning value-wise, given Sutton would NOT qualify for the comp pick formula if we cut him (that only applies to players who leave for FA in their last year, not players who are cut with more contract years left).

Take the rest of Court’s salary this year, pay it to him as a bonus so his new team only has to pay him minimally for the rest of 2023, and you’ll get your 2nd. 

[Broncofan]

5 minutes ago, broncosfan_101 said:

Take the rest of Court’s salary this year, pay it to him as a bonus so his new team only has to pay him minimally for the rest of 2023, and you’ll get your 2nd. 

If the other team is cap-strapped, that's a super creative solution.   Kudos (obv depends on the other team, though, but still, that's a scenario that might work).

Edited October 4, 2023 by Broncofan

[BroncoBruin]

Every year people forget the #1 pick isn’t decided in September. 

[Cutler06]

59 minutes ago, BroncoBruin said:

Every year people forget the #1 pick isn’t decided in September. 

And the easy part of our schedule is over, barring injuries