They’re only three million under, or worse off than everyone but the Cards.
Look at how much space the Bungles have!
Excellent signing, although last year Ryans wasn’t the player he’d been before.
Smith’s back with a three year deal averaging $8M a year. I don’t think they pay him that kind of money if they’re preparing to go with Kaepernick.
The Lions also retained linebacker Stephen Tulloch by signing him to a 5 year deal. That helps out a ton.
Patriots sign both Brandon Lloyd and Anthony Gonzalez. I really like the Lloyd signing and I hope reuniting him with McDaniels produces similar results to 2010. Thankfully, this likely signals the end for Ochocinco.
Gonzalez I don’t really know much about. He didn’t really make much of an impression on me from watching Indy games.
Did Gonzalez ever make it past week 3 of the season? I just remember him always being hurt.
ETA: He caught 94 balls in his first two years (2007 - 2008), but has only five catches in 11 games since.
I tried posting this earlier today but Board Express gagged on it.
One under reported angle is the Mike Wallace situation. I’m marginally shocked that no one has made a run at him yet. Particularly the Patriots, I know they just signed Brandon Lloyd who fills a similar role, but Wallace is younger and better and would be absolutely killer with Brady and those TEs around him. There’s no way the Pats are getting a player with the 31st pick who’s better than Wallace is, and certainly not one ready to contribute right away. If not the Pats, what about one of those other teams at the end of the draft. The Texans? Niners? Bengals? Um…Denver!!! Think Peyton would make it work with Wallace, Thomas and Decker?
The Steelers simply can’t afford him at the going rate and if you’re one of those AFC teams I mentioned you do a lot to weaken a potential playoff stumbling block.
Oh yes, I hope the Texans make a run at him. The Ryans trade maybe <crosses fingers, toes> freed up enough cap room to make it plausible. Especially if you cut Jones immediately afterwards. Wallace is one of the two best deep threats in the game today. It’s just that simple. Hopefully he won’t cost as much as Megatron. I’d rather the Texans cut bait with Dreesen, if it allows a run at Wallace.
As far as Ryans goes, he made way too much money for the Texans in their system. If he’s fully recovered from his Achilles’ tear—and he looked like he was getting back to his rookie form towards the end of this season—the Eagles have a very good MLB. If not, then it’s not a good deal. It’s much better cap relief for the Texans, trading him versus cutting him, if I read the cap rules correctly.
That’s true. The Philly-spin is that his down year was due to a number of reasons (all plausible, none I can actually attest to) :
[ul]
[li]The Texans switched to a 3-4 and Ryans is a traditional 4-3 Mike[/li][li]Ryans ruptured his Achilles in 2010 and this was his first season back[/li][li]Ryans only played 58% of his team’s snaps, down from 99%+ in 2008 and 2009[/li][/ul]
Let me preface by saying that everything hinges on whether Ryans is recovered from the Achilles injury. I’ve heard that those injuries are like torn ACLs/microfractures in that it takes two seasons to get back to form. Not sure if that’s true, but let’s say he’s healthy and he’s the DeMeco Ryans we saw before. This fills so many holes for the Eagles it’s unreal. Just having a leader on the defense who can (hopefully) prevent all the pre-snap hysteria and mass confusion would make a big difference on the defense.
He’s got outrageous potential, and while there are downsides, you can’t argue with the price. This is a chance you take for the cost of only a 4th round pick.
Considering the Texans probably would have cut him anyway (and weren’t getting his best in their system), this is a pretty good trade for both teams. Though it’s clear the Eagles got the better end of it if Ryans is healthy.
My understanding is that the Texans took a cap hit of about $2 million this season in the deal due to an accelerated signing bonus. They’ll save about $8-9 next season, though.
From when I last looked at his contract at spotrac, he was signed until 2016, had a current cap number of 7.15M and 5M left to be amortized on his bonus. If the entire bonus gets immediately applied to the Texans cap, it’s still a savings of 2.15M over playing him—so it’s the same cap hit this year if they’d just cut him. Next year though, when their 2nd team all-Pro LT Duane Brown, as well as Schaub, Barwin, and IIRC, Cushing and Quin need to be re-signed, it’ll make things a lot easier.
Still not enough of a savings to really go after Wallace though.
Don’t get me wrong: I think the Ryans signing is a good move even if he plays exactly the way he did last season for the rest of his career. He’d still be an upgrade at your one glaringly bad weak spot.
What the hell is going on with Mike Wallace? A highly productive wideout who doesn’t have diva issues ought to be worth his weight in gold.
Especially when you consider what Laurent Robinson and Pierre Garcon signed for.
Isn’t Wallace is a restricted free agent? I’m sure a lot of teams would love to sign him, but they don’t want to give up a 1st round draft pick. (And the usual suspect, the Redskins, are out of the restricted free agent game for the next few years)
Yeah, he’s restricted, but why the hell wouldn’t you give up a first round pick for a player not yet in his prime who has already proven to have first round value? The odds say that you are not going to draft a better wideout unless you pick in the top five, and even then it’s a crapshoot.
In particular, the Pats have two picks at the end of the first round. Imagine how hard that passing offense would be to stop with Welker (2011: 1,569 yards, 9 TDs), Wallace (1,193/8) and Brandon Lloyd (966/5 despite a midseason trade)… and Gronkowski and Hernandez.
The Broncos also pick at the tail end of the first round, need a #1 wideout, and have cap room to spare. The Titans are in the middle of the round and have a huge question mark in Kenny Britt.
Yea, Wallace is a restricted free agent so he would cost a first round pick but if that pick is in the 20s to 30s he’d start looking very attractive to some teams. But the other aspect is the team would need to offer Wallace enough money that the Steelers wouldn’t exercise their right to match the offer.
If Manning had allowed himself to be signed at a more cap friendly number in Denver I’d think the Broncos would have been in an ideal position to snatch up Wallace but I don’t know how tight they are to the cap post Peyton.
Yeah, that’s why we’re pretty much only talking about those teams in the bottom 8 of the draft. Wallace is certainly worth a late First. It makes senses that teams like the Redskins and Jags would rather over pay mediocre guys since their picks were so high in the round, but for the Pats, Texans, Niners and Bengals that pick a pittance for a guy as good as Wallace. Not to mention that these are playoff teams that should want a finished product, not a rookie who’ll need time to develop.
That. NFL personnel types value draft picks far too highly, for the most part. Sure, there are your Redskins and Cowboys who trade them all away for shitty players, but most GMs are happy to make deals like the Brandon Marshall trade. The Dolphins got two third round picks, and statistically we can be almost sure that one will never see the field and the other won’t be as good as Marshall.
A bunch of wideouts were taken in the first round of the 2009 draft (the same draft Wallace was in). He’s significantly better than Darrius Heyward-Bey, Michael Crabtree (for now) and Percy Harvin. He’s at least as good as Jeremy Maclin and Kenny Britt. Hakeem Nicks is the only first rounder from that draft I’d rather have, and even his production doesn’t come close to Wallace’s if you look at their careers as a whole.
The point is that Wallace is a player who would be worth a first rounder three years ago; surely he’s worth one now.
From Mort and Schefter at ESPN on the Saints Bounty punishment.
Yikes!
Gregg Williams has apparently been suspended “indefinitely”. His career might be over.
In other news, the New York Jets have just traded or Tim Tebow giving Denver a 4th round pick. Holy crap, slow down NFL!
Wow. I’m not terribly surprised about Williams, but that’s harsher than I expected for Payton. I can’t say it isn’t deserved, though. I guess the Jets now have two guys who are arguably overhyped and underqualified as quarterbacks for an NFL team. I look forward to jamming my fingers into my ears as I try to ignore Tebowmania.
I don’t know what to talk about first. The Tebow thing is completely bizarre. First, the Jags are stupid for not getting him first. The ticket sales alone justify the move and who knows, it might have worked out. Gabbert certainly isn’t ready to be a starter. I understand Miami backing off of it, somewhat anyways. The Jets are truly baffling though, they just gave Sanchez a bizarrely guaranteed contract for the next 2 seasons and now they go out and get Tebow. They certainly don’t need any more attention, but this is the headline grabbing move that suits that organization ego I suppose. Ryan might be the worst possible coach for him and I don’t see Tebow liking the scrutiny in New York, but his agent and his publicist (not to mention his wing nut political friends) will be over the moon and busy as hell. Move over Jeter and Linsanity.