That’s what I’m saying; they ran individual plays taken out of spread systems (there were a few plays taken straight from Urban Meyer) and slapped them into an NFL playbook. Hence “incorporate some spread and option elements into a basic NFL scheme.”
Quite possibly.
Where do you guys think Mario Williams ends up? Is free agency okay to talk about here? Might as well make this the general offseason thread.
My hope is that Mike Holmgren somehow works the magic he did to bring Reggie White to Green Bay. At least he should know just how valuable a huge defensive free agent signing can be. The Browns have been pointlessly frugal with cap space, not signing any valuable free agents… ever… so we’ve got plenty of cap space to spend. Certainly Cleveland isn’t anyone’s top destination, but Cleveland does have a good young defense that would be made instantly great with the addition of Williams. I’d be okay if they absolutely broke the bank, something like 7 years 110m would be fine with me.
I figured once the Super Bowl was over a new Draft and Free Agency thread would make sense. In the meantime I figure this is as good a place and any for speculation on cap casualties and such.
As for Williams, the Texans are saying all the right things as it applies to him and the party line is that they will do everything they can to bring him back. Personally, I think that’s frigging insane, he’ll get a Peppers sized contract and he doesn’t fit the new scheme that’s so successful without him. They didn’t add Barwin, Cushing and Reed for nothing afterall. I suspect Williams will get franchised and traded assuming they are able to come to terms with Arian Foster. Not sure where he’d likely land if that’s how it plays out, there’s plenty of teams who’d want him but I’m not sure how many would be willing to give up a 1st rounder for him and the Texans would be foolish not to get something back for him.
Off the top of my head, I think the Rams might be an interesting option. Fisher will want a dominant player on the line in his defense. The Falcons could be a great landing spot, but I’m not sure they have the cap room or picks to make it work. I’d kill to pair him with Peppers in Chicago, but that’s a pipe dream and I’d rather see the money spent on Bowe. Seattle, Arizona, Washington all could make room for him. Probably the scariest option would be him going to the Patriots and they have an extra 1st rounder to work with, but I’m not sure if Belichick is going to be willing to sink that much cash into a defensive player who may or may not suit the system. The Brownies are a pretty reasonable destination as are the Bills, but the real question will be if they are willing to give up a pick AND convince Williams to sign an extension.
I think this is right, except that he may feel like he wants the chance to win in Houston. He’s not some guy who came into the league undrafted and has never gotten a payday; he may be willing to sign for less than market value (even if only a short-term deal) in order to stay put.
If he does want to go, it will likely come down who is willing to give up the most to get him, both in money and picks. He could fit in any scheme.
A problem with franchising and trading Mario Williams is that his last year’s salary was so obscene (somewhere between $13.5 and $18M, depending how it was determined—I’ve seen figures within that range), that his Franchise Tender number won’t fall within the new, weird way they calculate it in the new CBA: it’ll be 120% of his old salary. Which, per Texans beat writer John McClain, means somewhere in the neighborhood of $22.9 M. I know that $18.1 M *1.2 doesn’t equal 22.9 M, but that’s what the man wrote. FWIW, for purposes of the new CBA, a player’s last year’s salary is pretty much everything except performance incentives. (Go to page 45 of the document, page 60 of the linked .pdf):
Even with cutting dead weight (Jacoby Jones, Matt Leinart, etc…), and telling all of the other upcoming FAs and RFAs to wait their turn, I don’t think the Texans can realistically tag him. If you can’t tag him, you can’t trade him. They certainly can’t offer him market value, not that an elite, injury-prone 4-3 DE is worth market value in Wade Phillips’s hybrid 3-4. So, they’re probably going to let him walk, which is profoundly irritating. I doubt he’ll get Peppers or Charles Johnson $$$$, but he’ll get way more than the Texans can realistically pay him.
Silly to not have addressed this problem before now. Tag him last year and trade him (I was hoping they’d have swapped #1s with Denver and possibly pried away Dumervil—the draft turned out O.K. anyways…) and his cap number would have been a lot easier to work with.
In a perfect world, I love to have the Texans franchise him, while working out a deal with, e.g., Cleveland for Cleveland’s second #1 and maybe another goodie. Another problem is that you have to work out a multi-year with Williams and his new team, but why would Williams agree to only negotiate with one team, when he can test the market on his own as a FA?
While we’re discussing franchise tags, the Packers have an interesting conundrum. Do they use their franchise tag on Jermichael Finley or Matt Flynn. Finley makes a lot more sense: it would cost them about 10 million dollars less; he’s talented, yet hasn’t reached his potential, and they need another year to judge the TE’s they have behind him (Quarless, Williams, Crabtree, and Taylor). He’d be a fine use of the franchise tag. But he’s also woefully inconsistent, with half his games having less than 50 yards receiving and almost 40% of his TD’s coming in one game; and his hands aren’t reliable.
But there is a lot of interest in Matt Flynn (Seahawks, Dolphins, and Browns are rumored to be quite interested), and the QB is the premier position in the NFL. Since he’s an unrestricted free agent, the Packers will get nothing in return for losing him this year unless they franchise him. If they do franchise him, they may be able to swing a couple 2nd rounders ala Matt Schaub, for him; which would be a huge benefit with the needs on defense. But it’s also very risky, because the tag would cost them roughly 14.4 million for a guy who would only be a backup and they would likely lose Finley.
My guess is that the Packers are negotiating with the interested teams to see what they can get for Flynn and, if they get an offer they like (and Flynn agrees to a long term deal), they’ll franchise Flynn and immediately trade him away. If they don’t get an offer, or they are convinced that Finley will develop further, they’ll franchise Finley. It will be interesting to see how this works out.
I don’t think anyone is going to trade you anything significant for Flynn and putting the franchise tag on him (which for QBs is like 18m) is pretty risky. Flynn has all the power here and has good reason to test the open market. I would guess there’s less than a 5% chance of them franchising him, but what do I know.
Edit: Unless they make a sweetheart deal with Miami and it’s been preplanned with the head coach thing.
Why not? The Falcons got 2 second rounders for their backup and the Chiefs gave up pick #34 for Cassel. Flynn, in his two starts, has looked pretty damn good.
I understand that, as a Packer fan, I likely see more value in Flynn than others, but I also see a real solid QB with nice upside and at least 3 teams with huge gaping needs at QB. I suppose those teams could be more willing to take the risk that the Packers won’t franchise him and rather spend cap money and commit guaranteed money in the subsequent bidding war rather than part with draft picks, but I think Flynn is more valuable than that.
Flynn’s performances so far have been overrated stat-wise. He’s never going to be an elite QB I don’t think. Which isn’t to say he can’t be a capable mid-level starter.
But the important thing is that teams know that the Packers aren’t going to carry an 18m QB on their roster - they’ll have to trade him, which reduces the asking price. The deal would also be contingent on Flynn signing a long term deal, and it’s in his best interest to hit the market rather than have his contract set by one team in a trade.
It just seems like Flynn has the power here and he’s best served by hitting the open market. The only exception I could see is wanting to stay with his OC and heading down to Miami, a deal may be worked out that way.
Which is probably close to what you would have said about Cassell, Schaub, and/or Kolb, all of which who garnered at least a second round pick plus something else.
It’s not up to Flynn if he hits the open market, it’s up to the Packers. I suppose he could go all hardcore and tell the Packers “Fuck you! I won’t even talk about a trade, so franchise me or fuck off!!”, but I really don’t see that happening. Flynn would certainly be involved in any trade negotiation and just because he could possibly make more on the open market doesn’t mean he’ll refuse any offers.
I’m inclined to agree with **Beef **on this one. I think Flynn will be a fairly decent QB in the league, but I think a team that trades for him will regret it. As a FA he’s a good signing, as a trade and signing it’s a bit of a mess. You’ve compared Flynn to Cassel and Shaub, and I think those guys are pretty decent analogs, but IIRC neither of those guys were franchised. Both were still under contract when they were traded. The comparison would have been apt when the Packers traded him last year, not this one.
The franchise tag would put Flynn at like $18M and everyone and their brother would know the Packers had no intention of keeping him at that price. If the Dolphins are able to negotiate a deal with Flynn long term, they’ll just wait until the Packers release him and sign him to the same deal or add a year to ensure they won the bidding war.
I can’t think of a single instance where a team franchised a player who they never intended to keep solely as trade leverage. They will almost certainly franchise Finley and let Flynn walk. It’s a nice idea to franchise him and trade him, but it simply isn’t practical.
That’s probably true of Mario Williams as well, though there’s at least a middling chance that the Texans will resign Williams and/or bite the bullet on the huge 1 year salary of they can make the math work.
Ummm, that’s exactly what the Patriots did with Cassel before trading him to the Chiefs. They franchised him on Feburary 5th (for 14.5 million), and traded him to the Chiefs on February 28th.
I stand corrected, but I think the Pioli-Pats-Chiefs connection might make that a unique situation.
If the Dolphins refuse to do a trade with the Packers, how much risk would there really be that he’d go elsewhere once cut? They’d be bidding against who? The Redskins? The Seahawks? I’m not seeing a hot enough market for Flynn for the 'Phins to give up extra for exclusive negotiating rights.
NFL teams in need of a starting QB? Seahawks, Browns, Dolphins, and Redskins. The market is there. The market for high upside QB’s is always there, if Cassell, Kolb, and Schaub are any indication. If Flacco was well worth a mid first rounder, one would think Flynn would ne worth a t least a second rounder.
That’s not the point. Flynn is worth a second rounder. I think he’s worth a 1st rounder to the right team. I think he’ll fail, but his credentials thus far justify that price. But, and it’s a biggie, he only justifies that price if you’re convinced that you cannot get him without giving up that pick.
Every one of those teams will save the pick and simply up the contract they offer instead. Since the Packers cannot keep him, he will hit the open market. None of those teams will be desperate enough to give up the picks considering the depth in the draft.
FWIW, I’d love if GB tried to play that move and demanded draft picks to reduce the chance the Browns landed him, since I am fully on the RG3 manlove wagon.
Where does RG3 score on the universally accepted standardized manloveometer.
.6 JH’s? 1 JH? 2 JH’s?*
*JH of course is Jerome Harrison, the manlove unit by which all other Beef manloves are measured.
0.75 with the potential to grow.
What’s really weird is that a lot of Browns fans are totally against RG3 because he’s apparently a project because he plays in the same sort of spread option offense that most college QBs do, but then they’ll turn around and say they want to draft Tannehill. Who just switched positions for one year to QB! Who also ran a spread shotgun offense. Often those people say RG3 is the next Akili Smith.
At some point I have to suspect that racism becomes an issue at some point. Not in the “I hate blacks and don’t want them on my team” sort of way. But more in a “well, he’s black and he’s fast, so there’s no way he can be smart” sort of unconcious way. That’s why they think it’ll be such a huge undertaking for RG3, who’s actually extremely smart and academically accomplished and a hard worker, to switch from the shotgun spread to a pro style offense, but apparently all of the white QBs that have to do the same (including Colt McCoy, who no one questioned was smart enough to do it) are capable of it.
What especially drives me nuts as that these guys often approve of mock drafts that land us Tannehill and Blackmon. So they acknowledge that the Browns would be smart to draft a QB and WR in the first round, but they decide the WR - who’s not even all that special - is more important than the QB. Griffin and Wright/Jeffries/Sanu is so much better than Blackmon/Tannehill that it’s nuts.
The rest of them just believe QB skill doesn’t matter, that QBs are just a product of the talent around them. If you swapped Colt McCoy and Aaron Rodgers, McCoy would put up the best NFL season in history and Rodgers would pass for 6 yards per attempt. And that if we drafted a QB, we’d “ruin him”, because A) NFL QBs are 6 year old girls that need to be coddled or they quit and B) the 2012 Browns are equal in terms of talent as the expansion team that was the least talented in league history.
I wonder if how the front office’s background fit into this. Holmgren has traded for lower tier quarterbacks and made his name that way. Flynn? Heckert hasn’t been in the position of needing a top tier QB, but the last one Philly took was McNabb. Childress and Shurmur were also the Eagles’ offensive staff through McNabb’s development. RG3 isn’t that similar to McNabb, but they’re at least somewhat comparable, so I can only hope that their positive experience overall with McNabb makes them look more favorably on Griffin.
I’m generally not the sort of fan that makes ultimatums, but if a team that has lacked a quality QB for almost 3 decades passes up a shot at one, I will be thoroughly disgusted. It’s hard to maintain enthusiasm for a shitty, hopeless team for long and I think I’ve done a pretty good job of it, but if they have the shot at RG3 and don’t take it, that’s just going to kill my interest and enthusiasm. Some way to land Luck or RG3 should be the only priority.
As a Rams fan, I would be happy to trade our #2 for your 1st round picks to make sure you get whichever one Indy leaves, too. 