watching the 9ers game, I was thinking...'how are these guys all under the cap....there's so many top paid players at their position'

so I spent a needless 15 mins looking at it last night and remarkably, they're actually $40m under the cap this year!

https://overthecap.com/salary-cap/san-francisco-49ers

all of their top players are counting huge amounts less on the cap in 23 than the AAV of their contracts. EG

Trent Williams 12.5 cap 23 AAV
Arik Armstead 11.9 cap 17m AAV
Nick Bosa 11.0 cap 34m AAV
George Kittle 9.4 cap 15m AAV
Fred Warner 9.0 cap 19m AAV
Deebo Samuel 8.6 cap 23.8 AAV
Jevon Hargrave 6.6 cap 21m AAV
McCaffrey 3.4 cap 16m AAV

Now of course, that means that things will get expensive down the track and they are only $3m under the cap for next season. They have Aiyuk on a $14m 5YO that they can extend if they choose to and actually reduce his cap hit and they might want to re-up Dre Greenlaw and possibly Javon Kinlaw if he can stay healthy and produce. But this all should be really manageable given they can carry over most of the $40m from this season.

The biggest issue for them is that they have a ton of dead money on all these big deals still, so they need everyone to stay healthy and they won't have a huge amount of freedom to sign additional FAs

Obviously having Purdy for basically $0 for the next two seasons is ideal and if they do extend him to a big deal down the track then they can push the money further down the line. So if the vets hold up from a health and standard of play perspective and they get decent play out of the players from the low priced players from last year's, this year's and next year's draft then they look like they'll compete for the forseaable

Mike Sando touched on this a bit in his "Pick Six" today

3. The Carolina Panthers are 0-5. It’s tough finding wins for owner David Tepper as well.

The first five games of the Frank Reich/Bryce Young era in Carolina have gone worse than anyone might have anticipated. Five games aren’t enough to make firm evaluations about a new head coach or rookie quarterback. There will be plenty of chances for that in the future.

But the atrocious start, which has seen Carolina fail to cover the point spread in any game, let alone win, invites broader questions. Such as, what major decision has Tepper made or approved that looks like a big win for the organization? Possibilities include:

• Hiring coach Matt Rhule on a seven-year, $62 million deal
• Trading star running back Christian McCaffrey
• Abandoning plans for a new practice facility
• Declining the Rams’ offer for Brian Burns (two firsts, one second)
• Firing interim coach Steve Wilks
• Hiring Reich after the Lions’ Ben Johnson withdrew from consideration
• Trading to the top of the 2023 draft for Young

Again, the Reich and Young moves cannot be evaluated this early, but if the 0-5 start is giving fans some reservations, that would be understandable, given the broader Tepper context.

“What it shows to me is, just because you were successful in business does not mean you are going to be successful as an NFL owner,” an exec from another team said. “Where are his big victories? He hired the right coaches? Did he? He drafted the right quarterback. Did he? How does Tepper hang his hat on any decision he has made as an NFL owner?”

There is some context beyond Tepper and Carolina.

Seven quarterbacks drafted first overall have started at least 60 percent of their teams’ games since the 2011 labor agreement, which lowered salaries at the top of the draft. Of those seven, Andrew Luck was the only one to post a winning record as a rookie.

The table below shows those seven quarterbacks, their records and where their teams ranked in EPA on offense and defense/special teams, per TruMedia.



Luck went 11-5 (.688) with the Colts in 2012. The other six rookie first overall quarterbacks combined for a 28-63-2 (.312) record. That record drops to 28-68-2 (.296) if we count Young with the Panthers.

some context of the trio of BUF defensive injuries from the same Sando article



- - - - - - - - - -

ahh, and this from said article

FWIW, Mike Edwards is on a one year $3mil deal. If that's #13 on the Chiefs at 1.3% cap that shows how top heavy their salaries are.

I looked up DaQuan Jones on Spotrac. They show him at $7mil cash AAV for this season.

conversely, the Pats have $105m of cap space for next season.

If we forget for a moment the history of BB, his legacy etc and the political/emotional difficulty of moving on from him, conditions really are ripe for a full tank, cleaning of house and then a roster overhaul and rebuild with a new GM HC combo

1-4 starrt to the season and generally awful play
QB they don't believe in
Best two defensive players injured for the foreseeable
declining coach who will be 72 next season
declining GM who wil be 72 next season
QB heavy draft
huge cap space

Thanks for sharing. Mike about sums it up. The more things go on, I have to think Dave is the main reason Ben withdrew. I was really disappointed at the time, and it just got worse when Frank was the pivot.

There is nothing on Dave’s resume that qualifies him to be involved in daily football decisions. If he wants to be involved from a personal character standpoint, then by all means. He paid a **** ton of money to own the team. But all he is doing by being heavily involved in the personnel and football decisions, is pushing the franchise further and further down.

As the other NFL exec said, just because Dave was and is an incredibly successful businessman doesn’t have any bearing on his ability to be a successful NFL owner.

I didn’t always like some of the decisions Jerry Richardson made, but he knew the best way to win was to hire the guys he thought could do it, and then step back. And Jerry was actually somewhat qualified to be involved, even if the game was much difference than when he had played.

anyone think Tepper could just give Belichick 30M a year to do everything? He seems to be dying to make a splash

So Bryce cost the panthers Moore, the pick that would have been Carter (lol bears on that one), a couple of 2nds and drawing live to the #1 overall pick

Not great Bob.gif

Patriots Twitter is calling for Belichick's head. ****ing boston fans. Dude should have earned a lifetime pass to do whatever he wants with that team. Like Pop in San Antonio. Only San Antonio fans aren't fairweather spoiled children and are fully on board with that.

Ahh well the marketing company would likely steal the concept anyway. And there would be difficulties copyrighting "The First Purdy" due to Purdy's name being in it. He could circumvent my trademark and I'd be bleeding money in legal fees with futility.

nope, they're right. Team has been badly coached the past few years and the roster badly constructed. He's 71 and it's not getting any better. Build him a statue, give him a huge payoff, call it a retirement but he should go.

Good thinking. All that would have blown right past me.

you guys did some great work in this thread today

kudos

Is that good?

Feel free to award some SE Forum Points as you so wish!

lol pickett

Contrary to how it probably felt being a Patriots fan for the last couple decades, dominating your division every year and making regular trips to the Super Bowl is not normal. What is normal is being awful sometimes. This period they are going through is just how football works. Blaming the guy who brought you all of that winning, is not only a giant cockslap in the face to him, it's illogical. Good luck finding a better coach then Bill Belichick.

I'd rather they keep him but that is also because I'm not that emotionally invested in the team. So if they keep being brutal with him, I think that is just part of the tradeoff for letting him run his course.

I do think it is more compelling to see if 1 of the best coaches ever, guy who has ruled this century with an iron fist can claw his way out of this mess.

A lot more compelling than just seeing them with a new QB/HC and being like 20 other NFL teams trying to claw their way into contention.




You got bros paying $300-400 a ticket, smashing natty ices against their forehead and spending their entire sunday going to games though, can't blame them for not wanting to see some of the trash they've seen the last 4 years.


He is going to be 72 in April though, obviously that is a big part of people wanting to move on. If team needs a rebuild, probably tough for him to be the guy. He's also run the team into the ground last 5 years so you could make a decent argument finding someone better than him as GM/coach isn't that hard.

The game has passed BB by and the ‘Patriot Way’ is an antiquated load of bullshit that doesn’t really work anymore when you don’t have the greatest qb of all time taking like 75% below market value to play football

Let him cash in on his name either with a paytonesque deal or heading over to fox but the days of him being a relevant head coach are beyond done

I woulda thought having your options at OC being butthole bill and the diddler and not naming an OC cuz you wanted to keep it super duper secret woulda been the last straw but here we are

this

i never understood the other side of this thinking

FO types and coaches always tell players "it's a business". doesn't this apply to FO types and coaches too? even legendary ones?

it's not personal. it's business

if everyone everywhere says i'm wrong then i probably am to some degree. i thought this was just a boston crybaby thing.

It’s so secret they don’t even tell their QB what’s what.