Doggin94it

It's almost as though the answer is in the initial post. Under the section headed "Why does this work for the Jets?" Have you considered reading it?

Ha, me too. Honestly, it's been fun watching people lose their mind at the thread title

No, I'm not crazy. Yes, by the end of this post I think you'll agree with me. Let's start with Darnold's current situation. For 2021, the Jets will be paying Darnold $4,774,685 in cash; he has a 10M cap hit but the difference is in his prorated signing bonus. They need to decide by May 3 whether they're going to exercise his 5th year option, which is currently slated to cost roughly $25M; it's highly unlikely the Jets will exercise it, as things stand (the salary isn't guaranteed for skill, but it's guaranteed for injury; if they exercise it, Darnold sucks and picks up an injury, they'll be on the hook for the whole amount). In other words: Darnold has relatively little cash coming in this year (opportunity for the Jets) and a wide range of outcomes (opportunity for both). If the Jets end up starting him this year and he does well, he'll end up earning 25M or more per year on a long term deal. If they start him and he plays poorly, he'll be lucky to get a mid-sized backup QB contract on a 1 year deal, in the 3-5MAPY range. If they trade him, or bring in another QB and keep him as a backup, he's likely looking at something similar. What might an extension look like? OK, after this section I'll get into why a deal like this would make sense from the perspective of both parties, but to really understand that, you need to figure out what a deal could reasonably be expected to look like: How about a 4-year, $84M extension, at 21M per year. For context, that would make Sam the 20th-highest paid QB in the NFL, this year, tied with Teddy Bridgewater. That's probably where he'll stay after all is said and done next year; Rivers, Brisset, and Jimmy G will likely come off that list, while Mayfield, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen will likely get big-dollar extensions this offseason. Here's the key: while the new money kicks in for the 2022 season, you give Sam a 16M signing bonus and no guaranteed salary beyond that, and convert his current guaranteed roster bonus (roughly 3.5M) to guaranteed 2021 salary. So you have salaries of 17M/yr in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and his cap hit goes up by only 3.2M in 2021. And you agree that his 2022 and 2023 salaries become fully guaranteed if he's on the team by a designated date in 2022 - say the day after the start of the league year. Why does this work for Sam? A deal like this might appeal to Darnold and his agent because it locks in a big-money payment right now that Sam may never otherwise get access to; if he signs this deal, starts, and is terrible, he gets 16M in cash for this year and then gets cut before his extension kicks in; if he turns it down and that happens, he'll never see anything like that kind of guaranteed money again. Meanwhile, the downside risk to Darnold on a deal like this is actually pretty minimal. The middle of the QB market right now - the No. 11-20 contracts ranges from 21M (Bridgewater) to 29.5M (Tannehill). Yes, markets inflate, but there's going to be some contraction with the Covid economics and a reasonable positive outcome for Darnold - what a "good year" might look like, meaning a jump to league average or slightly better next year - would probably net him a deal in the 25M/year range. So net-net, his downside is he gives up about 4M per year to lock in a 16M signing bonus right now - and it's a short enough deal that he can cash in again as a relatively young veteran in 4 years. (Of course, if Sam goes out of his mind and plays like an elite QB, he's giving up way more than that. But that's not a realistic probability he or his agent should be counting on). And with the subsequent guarantee, if he does well this year, he ends up with 2 years of fully guaranteed salary; if he doesn't, he's released early in the FA process. Bottom line, the upside (that signing bonus) seems worth the downside risk. Does that mean this is a structure Sam would leap at, and definitely agree to? Of course not. But it would at least force him to make a decision; it's a reasonable offer he might (maybe should) take. Why does this work for the Jets? OK, but why should the Jets want to do this? Because it gives them the most important thing right now: options. Right now, the Jets have 3 or 4 possible futures at QB, depending on how you count them: (1) Run it back with Sam, see what happens (2) Trade for Deshaun Watson or Matt Stafford, trade Sam (3/4) Draft a rookie QB, and either trade Sam or keep him as competition. There isn't a scenario from those 4 where the Jets aren't meaningfully better off having extended Sam. Obviously, if they run it back with Sam, or keep him to compete with a rookie, the extension helps. If Sam develops, you have him signed long-term at a relative discount, congrats. If he doesn't, you cut him after 2021, and all it cost you was money and the 12.8M dead money hit in 2022. But with a rookie QB on a rookie deal, you can absorb that cap hit. How about if they trade Sam? If they trade Sam, the extension increases his value to the acquiring team substantially. Now the acquiring team gets Sam for just the 4.7M in 2020 cash, and if Sam pans out for them, they have him on a team-friendly deal with cap hits at 17M/year for four years; if he doesn't, no harm, no foul, they can cut him at no loss. So whether it's after trading for a veteran or drafting a rookie, extending Sam probably brings the Jets back more in value than they'd get for him on his current contract, where the acquiring team will have to sign Sam to a big money deal if all goes well. And the only cost to the Jets is another 11.3M in extra dead cap from trading him (as currently structured, Sam counts 9.8M on the cap. With this deal, he would count 21M if traded - 16M in accelerated signing bonus from the extension, plus the 5M in signing bonus proration from his first deal). Bottom line, the only thing an extension would cost the Jets is cap space, which they have enough of, and it would put them in a better strategic position moving forward. It's the right move

The Jets are not going to invest in a FA RB unless they come in at a significant discount. One of the terrific things about the Shanahan system is there are a LOT of guys with the traits to do well (one-cut backs) and historically it's found success with low-investment backs (the Denver RB factory in the 90s, Arian Foster, Davonta Freeman, Mostert, Breida, Wilson, etc. - none of those guys were taken before the 4th round). Anyone still dreaming of Najee Harris or Travis Etienne needs to get used to disappointment, and the odds that we sign even a middling-expensive FA like Mack are very low

Yeah, this is not a correct legal analysis at all. While a court won't specifically enforce a contract for personal services - that is, the Texans couldn't go to court and get an order compelling Watson to take the field for them - a court would find for them on a breach of contract claim and award damages for his failure to perform, and absolutely would enforce the period of exclusivity imposed by the contract, since it was supported by legal consideration. And since the contractual tolling during a holdout is a collectively bargained term of the agreement between the NFL and the union Watson is a part of and that governs his workplace, a court would enforce that, too. So yeah, if the Texans wanted to (and Watson was equally serious about never playing for them again) they could absolutely end his career and sue him for damages for his breach of contract. They won't, because that wouldn't be to their benefit either now or long term. But they absolutely could, as a legal matter

People saying "Darnold is clearly not part of the future" based on this presser don't get it. He did his job here, which was not to box himself in to a point where what they eventually decide to do with Sam could potentially damage his credibility or trigger stories about he and Douglas not being on the same page. That meant he couldn't say "Sam's my starter" and he couldn't say "Sam's not my QB". He praised him, and said they need to get to work and evaluate everywhere. That answer leaves them able to do anything with Sam - keep him, move him, build around him in the draft, draft his replacement and have Sam compete with a rookie - without being painted as a liar based on a presser given days after he was hired and before the team came to a firm decision. That's exactly how he should've answered it, and if you're reading any tea leaves based on it, you're overreading things. (And before anyone says it: No, if the Jets had Mahomes that would be a different answer. But that's the point. It would also have been a different answer if they had Brooks Bollinger as their starting QB. The most you can say right now is that the Jets don't have a set answer about how they're going to handle the QB situation yet).

Ford's cap hit for the Jets (or any other team that trades for him) would only be 15.5-16.5M/year for the remaining three years of his deal. People need to understand how the cap works when you trade for players. You take on the cap charge for their salary and any bonuses you will have to pay. You do not have a cap charge for the prorated portion of the signing bonus. That stays with the team that originally signed him, and accelerates into the cap year of the trade, as dead money.

Yep. Great guy, legit results, compromised by injury. There were a lot of Dimensions to that debate

Yep. "How will you build your team if you trade for an elite QB and therefore only have 1 first round pick for each of the next two years and none in 3 years?" - i.e. how can you manage with 1 less first round pick than usual and an elite QB - is not a question that makes very much sense at all.

No way we deal that much for Watson, that's crazy. If you can't get him for Morgan and a 6, is it really worth it?

Austin confirmed

I think that's what we're seeing with the setup being OC and then both a Run Game Coordinator (Benton) and Passing Game Coordinator (Calabrese) below Lafleur - the hope is that if Lafleur leaves, one of the two will be ready to step into his shoes to keep continuity

You liked Dowell Loggains as OC??

First of all, Watson's 2021 cap number would only be $10.5M for the team that trades for him (his big dollar extension kicks in in 2022. If the Jets deal for him, and they're smart, they probably shift about 10M of his 2023 roster bonus up to 2021, making his total cap hits: 20.5M (2021), 35M (22), 27M (23), 32M (24), 32M (25). That's nowhere close to cap crippling this offseason (they'd still have 63M left if they trade Darnold and cut Henry Anderson, which are basic moves if you're dealing for Watson), Sign Allen Robinson (or Golladay or Godwin if by some miracle they hit the market). Resign Perriman, Poole, Maye, Maulet, Bring in Richard Sherman on a 1 year deal (he loves Saleh and would be ideal to teach our young CBs how to play in the system. Use our draft picks on best available IOL (Rashawn Slater or Wyatt Davis at 23 is the dream), RB at 34 if Harris or Etienne are somehow available, otherwise edge or TE in the second. You could build a very very solid team around Watson that way