BarleyNY

I can’t remember who did this, but someone in sports media talked to a bunch of offensive linemen about that kind of block. They all pretty much said that no way are they letting their QB get hit. They’re laying the block on the defensive player. So Ford isn’t alone here. If the rule isn’t getting changed then the blockers either have to use their hands to make contact or find a way to change their footwork so it’s legal. The footwork thing has to be tricky though. If the defender is running, then a blocker stopping is going to get plowed. Ditto if they change direction and stay between the ball carrier and the defender. OTOH defenders have to deal with a lot of rules that work against them. Maybe we just let them have this one. Splitting out a FB, TE or big WR in order to have them lay a blindside block on a defender can be devastating. That’s what the league is trying to avoid. The problem is that plays like Ford’s get caught up with all of that.

Thanks for posting the rules video. Every single one of those plays looked like football to me. It’s a terrible rule that was properly enforced with Ford. So now they have to teach players that they can only punch or push with their hands in those situations. Super.

Yup. I don’t blame him for not wanting to play for the Bungles. He can do his best to avoid that, but he has virtually no real leverage. He might have to suck it up and force his way out later. Play out his four plus fifth year option, then make them franchise him every year until they finally have to trade him or let him walk.

That’s a fair take. My issues with Lewis going in the first are the injury history and the lack of production this season when he was finally healthy all year. Who knows though, maybe he wasn’t all the way back from the ACL. He’s an intriguing prospect though.

I used to travel a lot for work. I never minded the person in front of me reclining. I reclined sometimes myself - especially if they did. I always thought that it is dumb to have the ability to recline if it was going to be seen as a problem. I recently flew on Spirit and those seats did not recline. Oh the other hand, I hope there’s a special place in hell for competent adults who push against the backs of other seats with their legs, bang on the seats in front of them, repeatedly drop their tray open and/or stick their shoeless feet through the spaces between or over the seats. F those MFers.

Yup. I really don’t think they’re worth much at this point except for getting an idea of what part of the draft players are likely to go and team needs. Things will clear up a lot after FA gets going. Then they’ll be worth debating. With that all said, Terrell Lewis at 22 is ridiculous. That’s like two rounds early. I’d expect some major explanation to go with that pick. It really wasn’t given. DE at 22, sure. Lewis at 22, uhhh, no.

I was listening to a podcast awhile back so this is from memory. A former GM was talking about the first open tryout they ever did - in Dallas I believe. They had a lot of people show up, many more than they were expecting. They divided them into two groups - WRs and everyone else. And the WR group was much larger than the other. The upshot of that is that there are a lot of people (relative to other positions) who have the minimum physical abilities needed to play WR in the NFL. That makes a lot of sense when you consider the different types of WRs there are and the different roles they fill. But success in the NFL requires a lot more than physical gifts. Some develop those and some don't, but the pool of people who might is so deep that those aren’t necessarily 1st round players. Sure, WRs who are big, fast and agile will be a bigger priority than those that lack one of those characteristics, but many of that latter group will surpass the former group even if they don’t have the same ceiling.

Two CBAs ago the owners were in disarray and took it in the shorts a bit, but managed to put a clause in to get out of that deal out early. Then they got their crap together, opted out early and hammered the players on the last deal. So I’d expect the players to get back a little bit here. But they are inherently at a disadvantage since they are so short term dependent while the owners can play the long game. I get the feeling that this might be the issue. That the players are looking at the last deal and thinking they should’ve done better and need to this time while the owners think they have the advantage and can get an even better deal. They’re both probably right and that’s going to be the issue. The easy way out is to find some more money by having an extra regular season game or more playoff teams. I have no idea where this lands, but it’s a situation ripe for an impasse. They’ve been negotiating. The league has been pushing a 17 game season and/or more playoff teams, but the players union has rebuffed them to this point.

Totally agree. The 8-8 Steelers and the 8-8 Cowboys or Bears would’ve made the playoffs last season. Yuck. It’s such diminishing returns for the NFL. They add Thursday night games and viewership of other games - especially Monday night - drop off. Now they want to add another playoff team which will make a lot of people just a little less interested in the regular season. Lots of bad things happen long term when people go after the last nickel.

Both are due roster bonuses on March 22nd. $750k for Kroft, $500k for Smith. $2M of Kroft’s salary guarantees in that date as well. No sense paying them that if they aren’t in our plans. I’d certainly expect Kroft to be cut before then. His contract was always ridiculous. Smith is making less and he has $1M of his salary guaranteed. We are going to pay him $3.25M to play for us or $1M not to. Don’t know what’ll happen there, but he’s certainly replaceable if we move on.

Seriously. Y’all gotta take care of ya chicken. That’s just common sense. I mean, everyone knows that.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thevikingage.com/2020/02/18/report-minnesota-vikings-looking-move-diggs/amp/

I’m not sure how much of the rift between Diggs and the Vikings is his fault. So there’s some locker room risk, but for a second I pull the trigger. He is worth more that so I’ll take the discount to our second due to that risk.

Any competent GM would’ve cut them. They are among the players that those around the team expected to be cut, traded or asked to take a pay cut. Hubbard, Richardson, Burnett, Mitchell and Kirksey would be the others.

In general, I’d only consider such a deal if we were getting some significant value beyond the draft pick equivalent of the cap hit - especially considering the pick would be a year away. In this case, it’d depend on the compensation. We’d be paying Johnson $11.15M to play for us in 2020 or $10.2M not to. I’d expect the latter. Cleveland took a second to eat $16M. That’s a big discount so it is not my ballpark. I pass unless I get their 2021 first, which won’t happen even with us giving a 2020 third or something like that. What’s likely to happen is that Arizona eats part of his salary and trades him.

There were two special circumstances that led to the Osweiler trade: 1) Houston needed cap space immediately. Arizona doesn’t. They’re unlikely to be able to use all of their space almost no matter what they do. Even if they go totally nuts this offseason they can easily push out first year cap hits on their deals. 2) Cleveland needed to work around a big issue. They could not get free agents to come there without massively overpaying. So it made sense to use some of their ample cap space to buy a draft pick - a pick in the following season due to league rules by the way. Buffalo isn’t a premier destination, but things aren’t remotely in that ballpark here. Think about it this way: The Bills would want to be fairly compensated for eating X dollars of cap space. Each draft pick has a dollar value equivalent. Simply put that'd be the market value of an equivalent FA player minus the contract of the rookie (total over 4 seasons). The Bills would want that to be compensated with whatever pick equated to X dollars - or better. Why would either team make that trade without some additional incentive? Neither team here really has that.

Please control yourself. You’re making a spectacle.

Not with these cuts. All had way underperformed their contracts and were expected cuts before the regime change.

Arizona is estimated to have $51.5M of free cap space in 2020. They can pay Drake fair value and Johnson for one more season if they want. Incidentally, Spotrac estimates Drake’s market value at 4 years, $22M or $5.5M AAV. That’s nothing for the Cards to take on right now. They are fine. The big difference with Houston was that they were in awful cap shape when they made their deal with Cleveland. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/arizona-cardinals/kenyan-drake-19023/market-value/

Or one will make a mistake. You just have to wait and see. Nothing wrong with “We’d love to have you back, but we know this is a business. Check around and see what is out there for you and please talk to us once you have.”

I agree. The thought of Jones and Oliver manning the interior of the DL on passing downs while Star plays running downs with one of them makes me giddy. But Spotrac estimates Jones’ MV at $19.2M AAV. That’s just too much in resources to have tied up long term in the 3 man DT rotation.

Yeah, this is the kind of deal the OP was talking about. It isn’t a bad idea at all, but the Cards are fine with cap space (unlike Houston at the time of the BO deal) so they aren't in a bind. Also we’d have to wait until 2021 for the 3rd. Cleveland had to wait a season for their 2nd when they got BO and a 6th for a 4th. Prior to that, the league vetoed a trade where the Browns got a better pick and BO for a lower pick all in the same year.

Ok. That’s fair.

I didn’t know that you work at Lowe’s.

Once a new CBA is agreed to there will be rollover to 2021. No way does an agreement happen without that.