The only guy that should be safe

[Sperm Edwards]

4 hours ago, bostonmajet said:

1. Money spent in previous years to a point is water under the bridge; you can only carry so much forward; also you need to spend the minimum; and not on each year, but EVERY 4 year average needs to be above the minimum; also, he wanted to make sure that Bowles had enough players to build inertia moving forward. Cro's deal may be a little high, but when it didn't pan out he was gone. It is impossible to a) pay minimum all of the time and get quality - some times a player doesn't live up to the hype - Cro had a good year before.

2. voidable futures is a perfect hedge on a wrong choice (either player not playing well or not a good fit); it wasn't like there were 5 other guys lying around we couldn't sign. the FA market often sucks with available players. You look for value where you can, but you don't always get it.

3. Sorry, you are wrong. The cap is complicated. You have to meet the minimum averaged over ANY and EVERY 4 year period. Some things count, others don't. So if you spend on the bonus one year it counts but the dead money doesn't (or visa versa - i am not sure). You have to be careful to make sure you are under the cap, but over the minimum and they aren't calculated the same way. Also, you can't just re-sign existing players as you have to field a full team and you only have so many picks. Had he not invested and the secondary sucked he would get hammered. Some players didn't pan out, so be it.

4. Wrong. If you need 20 players and only have 5 picks you have to sign 15 in FA. It is just the way it is. You can't leave the cupboard bare to save for the future - you see how that worked out for Idzik. You sign for need and draft for BPA. As the team gets more balanced and with more talent you can cut back on FA and target more. The team was devoid of talent in so many areas, you have to sign FA or the draft won't fill the holes and you and up reaching. Again, you also need to hit the minimum; with drafted players they are slotted, so you have to pay enough to hit the minimum - can't just sign players to big deals year one and not spend in year 2 (and visa versa).

5. You can't have it both ways. You can't complain that you don't want him to overpay and then at the same time complain that he didn't land someone. Sometimes not closing the deal is better; should he have just payed Lupita what it took? what happened if he wasn't great, you would be complaining that he overpaid and locked us into a bad signing.

5a. So not only do you not give him credit for getting value for Carpenter and not overpaying for Lupita, but now he doesn't get credit for Marshall because it was handed to him? He could have overpaid for Lupita, he could have not signed Carpenter; if he was just sitting there, why didn't anybody else sign him. The Jets were the only team that could have traded for Marshall. Now you are just being silly.

1. I didn't suggest the other extreme, as I said in my own post. The money you pay a player in the past is money you don't have to pay another in the future.

2. It is better than not having it, nothing more. It doesn't erase money spent poorly.

3. No, I am correct. Every 4 years they assess the money spent. It isn't cap space used up; it's dollars spent. The reason it's this way is because a team can get around it by erasing cap room with LTBE/NLTBE funny business. For example, say any outlier stat occurs, like player x returning 3 kickoffs for TDs last year. By the rules it is considered likely for that to occur a year later again. You restructure him to pay him $10M if he returns 3 KOs for TDs. (Or a LB returning a kickoff or something not repeatable like that). It comes off your usable cap right now (year 4 of the 4 year span), but you'll get it all back next year. They don't let you do this, under the current agreement though. You have to spend the cash. You can spend it on new players on existing players but you have to spend it. Far cry from saying we had to bring in all these FAs and pay them heavily because we didn't.

4. When did I suggest having a roster with fewer people? Frankly that's the mistake everyone else makes when cutting a player: they forget about player #52 getting bumped up into the top 51 (and so on). There is an in between, from signing a $3-4M stopgap or competition CB and $7M for Cromartie. And again for this player, and again for that player. It all adds up and so much went so overboard, that in 2 offseasons we went from being $50M under the cap to being $10-20M over the cap, being forced to use next year's money to get under this year. 

5. I'm pointed out Iupati (took me a minute to figure out who Lupita was) because his best FA acquisition only came about because he tried again to just get the most expensive player. Iupati was $8M per year (and it's what he was expected to fetch). If he truly wanted Carpenter he would have gone after Carpenter first. What both ways? I'm saying he was lucky to lose yet another negotiation because Carpenter at $4.8M/year is a better pickup than Iupati at $8M/year. He preferred the latter and whiffed. Carpenter was his consolation prize. Good for us, because he's better than advertised.

The Jets were the team Chicago wanted to trade Marshall to. Unless you seriously believe MM called them up and swindled them to give up a player they valued and wanted, you're kidding yourself. We were expected to be staring at taking a guard at #6 or Kevin White. With the team recently letting go of Percy Harvin, and having basically Decker and nobody, it was clear the Jets would seriously consider White. That is, unless they filled the position prior to the draft. Or do you believe Chicago really felt a 5th round pick was the highest they could get for Brandon Marshall, and decided to not ask anyone else in the league because MM is such a shrewd negotiator? We know that isn't true, since he hasn't "won" a negotiation since then.

He's just ok. Possibly better than ok, possibly worse than ok, but right now he's just ok. If he whiffs on Hackenberg - particularly if Lynch isn't a bust - then he looks like a fool. Other way around, and he looks smart. Too early to say which so far, but it doesn't look good. 

I'm not calling for his head. I just think he hasn't earned the free pass. 

[bostonmajet]

3 minutes ago, Sperm Edwards said:

1. I didn't suggest the other extreme, as I said in my own post. The money you pay a player in the past is money you don't have to pay another in the future.

2. It is better than not having it, nothing more. It doesn't erase money spent poorly.

3. No, I am correct. Every 4 years they assess the money spent. It isn't cap space used up; it's dollars spent. The reason it's this way is because a team can get around it by erasing cap room with LTBE/NLTBE funny business. For example, say any outlier stat occurs, like player x returning 3 kickoffs for TDs last year. By the rules it is considered likely for that to occur a year later again. You restructure him to pay him $10M if he returns 3 KOs for TDs. (Or a LB returning a kickoff or something not repeatable like that). It comes off your usable cap right now (year 4 of the 4 year span), but you'll get it all back next year. They don't let you do this, under the current agreement though. You have to spend the cash. You can spend it on new players on existing players but you have to spend it. Far cry from saying we had to bring in all these FAs and pay them heavily because we didn't.

4. When did I suggest having a roster with fewer people? Frankly that's the mistake everyone else makes when cutting a player: they forget about player #52 getting bumped up into the top 51 (and so on). There is an in between, from signing a $3-4M stopgap or competition CB and $7M for Cromartie. And again for this player, and again for that player. It all adds up and so much went so overboard, that in 2 offseasons we went from being $50M under the cap to being $10-20M over the cap, being forced to use next year's money to get under this year. 

5. I'm pointed out Iupati (took me a minute to figure out who Lupita was) because his best FA acquisition only came about because he tried again to just get the most expensive player. Iupati was $8M per year (and it's what he was expected to fetch). If he truly wanted Carpenter he would have gone after Carpenter first. What both ways? I'm saying he was lucky to lose yet another negotiation because Carpenter at $4.8M/year is a better pickup than Iupati at $8M/year. He preferred the latter and whiffed. Carpenter was his consolation prize. Good for us, because he's better than advertised.

The Jets were the team Chicago wanted to trade Marshall to. Unless you seriously believe MM called them up and swindled them to give up a player they valued and wanted, you're kidding yourself. We were expected to be staring at taking a guard at #6 or Kevin White. With the team recently letting go of Percy Harvin, and having basically Decker and nobody, it was clear the Jets would seriously consider White. That is, unless they filled the position prior to the draft. Or do you believe Chicago really felt a 5th round pick was the highest they could get for Brandon Marshall, and decided to not ask anyone else in the league because MM is such a shrewd negotiator? We know that isn't true, since he hasn't "won" a negotiation since then.

He's just ok. Possibly better than ok, possibly worse than ok, but right now he's just ok. If he whiffs on Hackenberg - particularly if Lynch isn't a bust - then he looks like a fool. Other way around, and he looks smart. Too early to say which so far, but it doesn't look good. 

I'm not calling for his head. I just think he hasn't earned the free pass. 

I think he has quite a bit better than okay. Look what he has done in just 2 short years.

It is not every 4 years, it is every 4 year avg. So, between 2010 and 2013 those four years need to average out to be more than the minimum; also 2011 to 2014, and 2012 to 2015, and 2013 to 2016; you cannot drop below the minimum on any of the ranges. Next years money was only used really for Fitz; the others were exactly what you said you wanted; split cap over years. If you mean he WHIFFED on lupat you mean he wouldn't out bid who landed him? You cannot always grab the guy you want if someone else is willing to pay more than you want to spend. That is not a whiff.

Really, you don't buy that Mac did a good job in negotiating and took a chance on Marshall, but you believe that Chicago only contacted the Jets and the Jets were the only team they were willing to trade Marshall too. Okay.

[Sperm Edwards]

1 minute ago, bostonmajet said:

I think he has quite a bit better than okay. Look what he has done in just 2 short years.

It is not every 4 years, it is every 4 year avg. So, between 2010 and 2013 those four years need to average out to be more than the minimum; also 2011 to 2014, and 2012 to 2015, and 2013 to 2016; you cannot drop below the minimum on any of the ranges. Next years money was only used really for Fitz; the others were exactly what you said you wanted; split cap over years. If you mean he WHIFFED on lupat you mean he wouldn't out bid who landed him? You cannot always grab the guy you want if someone else is willing to pay more than you want to spend. That is not a whiff.

Really, you don't buy that Mac did a good job in negotiating and took a chance on Marshall, but you believe that Chicago only contacted the Jets and the Jets were the only team they were willing to trade Marshall too. Okay.

Let me rephrase. Every year they look at the last 4 years. The wording changes nothing, in that spending so much on so many new incomers in 2015 was not required, which was the original assertion. They could have spent more cash without spending so much on so many.

Next year's money was used for more than Fitz. They restructured Skrine well after Fitz was re-signed so they could free up flexibility while retaining Breno (instead of just cutting him like they should have done, especially with him headed to the PUP list). They backloaded Mo's contract as well, months after they restructured Carpenter to clear enough space to allow Mo to continue to fit and still re-sign Powell, sign Forte, sign McLendon, and sign Jenkins.

No, he didn't take a "chance" on Marshall. The Jets were the exact team that they wanted to trade with, for good reasons, and it's why he was not shopped around the league so it was a surprise move. They wanted/needed to separate Marshall and Cutler, but wanted to replace him with another premiere WR prospect at #7 to sell to the coaches, the rest of the team, and the fans. That falls apart for them if the Jets take Kevin White. As it turned out, he got injured anyway in preseason, but no one predicts that to happen.

There's no evidence we got outbid (or if there is I haven't seen it). All we know is Iupati signed with Arizona for around the same (arguably less) than he was expected to fetch before the FA period began, and we "aggressively" pursued him. Are we now down to he's successful if he lands the player but he's not unsuccessful if he doesn't? This was the player he wanted and chased. Just like he wanted to re-sign Mo last spring and whiffed, following by trying to trade Mo and whiffed (twice), only to cave after those 3 failures of what he truly wanted to do. Just like he wanted Fitz for lower and then came crawling back with his tail between his legs (culminating in the classless, public, "OK we'll cave to your demands, Fitz, but you have until 5pm today to get here and sign it or GFY."  Just like he wanted to trade up to #1 and whiffed. Just like he wanted to trade up to #2 and whiffed. Just like he wanted to trade up to #10 and whiffed. Just like he wanted Vernon and whiffed. Just like he wanted Beachum and whiffed. 

I really like some things he's done and really dislike others. Considering the massive resources at his disposal when he took over, his track record is just ok.