Lions Land S C.J. Gardner-Johnson
NFL Offseason - The Detroit Lions have agreed to a one-year deal with former Philadelphia Eagles safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson, according to a report from NFL Network's Tom Pelissero. The deal is worth $8 million with $6.5 million fully guaranteed at signing.
Additional reporting from Philadelphia Inquirer's Jeff McLane, corroborated by NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, states that Philadelphia made a multi-year offer to Gardner-Johnson early in free agency. Gardner-Johnson was looking for more money, and the Eagles instead moved on and reached deals with cornerbacks James Bradberry and Darius Slay. Because the league "viewed him as risk," Gardner-Johnson sighed a one-year prove-it deal in Detroit.
The Eagles acquired Gardner-Johnson in a trade with the New Orleans Saints in the 2022 offseason. Gardner-Johnson played 12 games for the Eagles, sharing the league lead for interceptions with a career-high of six. He accrued 66 tackles and six tackles for loss with an additional three pass breakups.
Gardner-Johnson previously played with Lions head coach Dan Campbell when the two were in New Orleans.
Detroit has invested heavily in their secondary this offseason. On top of signing Gardner-Johnson, the Lions agreed to deals with former Steelers cornerback Cameron Sutton and former 49ers cornerback Emmanuel Moseley.
Comments
55 comments, Last at 23 Mar 2023, 10:04am
#1 by Pat // Mar 20, 2023 - 11:38am
Damnit.
Don't understand Philly's moves this offseason. I get the idea that Slay, Bradberry, and Cox play higher value positions, but they're much older than CJ. Plus CJ acts as a backstop for Maddox as well, who backstops both Slay and Bradberry. Yes, I get that Greedy Williams is in the mix, but a "1-year deal, terms not disclosed" (i.e. "not good enough to talk about") CB is not a backstop, he's filler.
Really don't understand the "bring it all back" mentality when everything went pretty much perfectly last year. You can't expect that to happen again.
#2 by Aaron Brooks G… // Mar 20, 2023 - 11:42am
Really don't understand the "bring it all back" mentality when everything went pretty much perfectly last year. You can't expect that to happen again.
We were great! Let's blow it all up! is a bold choice, too.
#4 by Pat // Mar 20, 2023 - 12:07pm
We were great! Let's blow it all up! is a bold choice, too.
If only there was a middle ground between those two extremes. Really sucks that the NFL forces you to either bring back as many expensive FAs as possible or none of them.
#9 by Pat // Mar 20, 2023 - 1:14pm
Yeah, and I'm making the bold and daring statement that if it would've been me, I would've leaned towards retaining fewer of the extremely expensive older vets and aimed more towards the younger guys, some of whom could've been obtained for a song, or just sticking with the draft and throwing the money at Hurts. Philly leaned more towards the older (higher talent!) vets. I just think that's too risky.
White, Edwards, Epps, Seumalo and CJ all signed for contracts well under pretty much any valuation of them (and very cheap), whereas Slay, Cox, and Kelce all signed for contracts well over (don't come at me on Kelce, I know many Eagles fans opinions are "just pay him") and very expensive. Bradberry and Graham were decent deals, I liked those. But I would've leaned more on the young cheap bargains and going for elite talent pickups in the draft.
Probably would've tried to keep White, Epps, and CJ, especially at the scales they signed for. Obviously I know they tried to sign CJ, but there were other safeties at that price point as well and they have none of them currently.
#15 by Oncorhynchus // Mar 20, 2023 - 2:13pm
Kelce is only costing 4M more on the cap this year then if he had retired. You get one more year of HOF center play a the cost of kicking the dead cap hits down the road another year ($10M in 2024 and $14M in 2025). It barely makes a dent in the cap picture.
I agree with you on Slay. I'm not a huge fan of the extension.
Cox is more like Kelce - though even cheaper. He was going to cost money on the cap anyway. As you pointed out before they were going to have to bringing a DT to take his snaps if he retire. He's only costing about $3M more on the cap than he would've anyway. His dead cap hits get pushed one year into the future.
I like Seumalo a lot, but he was redundant.
Kyzir White was a $3M signing in late March last year. He's earning double that from ARI. Edwards and Epps were earning less than $1M a year - on par with late round and UDFA on rookie contracts. They're now earning 6x that. CJGJ cost the Eagles 2.5M in salary, a 2023 5th round pick and a 2024 6th round pick. By him signing elsewhere the Eagles are getting back a 2024 5th round pick (LOL).
All of the guys in the last paragraph were fruits of the Eagles strategy of intelligent bargain hunting at positions where it's more important to make sure the player taking up the roster spot isn't a weak link, rather than making sure the player is a star. Two of them (two of the three you wished the Eagles would've re-signed) were late FA pickups.
Unless you've got a unicorn (i.e. Fred Warner, Derwin James) then linebacker and safety are two spots were it make sense to go cheap. That's what the Eagles will do.
This is the way.
#17 by Pat // Mar 20, 2023 - 2:29pm
Kelce is only costing 4M more on the cap this year then if he had retired.
No. He costs $14.25M. That's what he costs. Period. You can push 10M of it forward all you want, but it's still going to cost you $14.25M. And again - with Hurts going to take up around ~15% of your cap long term, pushing money forward is only an extremely small derating.
Yes, Kelce's a Hall of Fame center. I've been saying that since 2017. It doesn't change the fact that paying 14.25M to a Hall of Fame center is overpaying. I do not necessarily mind them doing it, but then you've got to be more careful elsewhere, and they weren't.
I just disagree with the way you're ignoring long-term cap stuff. You're totally ignoring it, and I'm saying it's risky. That's all.
Cox is more like Kelce - though even cheaper. He was going to cost money on the cap anyway.
Again: it's $10M. That's what it costs. It doesn't matter where you put it - this year, next year, the year after. Once Hurts is signed you've got this *massive* balloon that you can push around to whatever year you want. The single year cap amount no longer matters. Only the multi-year scales do. It's like the Chiefs. They can generate cap space in any one year freely because of that massive Mahomes number. So being able to push money forward from other contracts is pointless.
Kyzir White was a $3M signing in late March last year. He's earning double that from ARI. Edwards and Epps were earning less than $1M a year - on par with late round and UDFA on rookie contracts. They're now earning 6x that.
What you're saying is "the Eagles had super-ultra bargains before, so therefore instead of signing bargains, they should sign guys who cost more than they're worth."
You're pretending the total money hits don't matter for Kelce and Cox and then suddenly pretending the total money hits are what matters for White, Edwards, and Epps. It's money. Bargains matter for a team in Philly's situation.
And again. I'm not saying that it can't work out. Of course it can. It's just risky.
#31 by Oncorhynchus // Mar 21, 2023 - 12:59pm
This is the way.
This is how the Eagles do business. You may not like the strategy, but it is a strategy. They will continue to push money into the future - particularly for their home grown veterans who will work with them. They will make liberal use of void years and June 1 to smear cap hits across years. They will continue to carry dead money every single year. The cap for the Eagles will never be the official cap - it'll always be somewhat less than that because they will continue to pay for the past in the present. That is a really good strategy if you're willing to bet that the cap is forever rising - because 14M spread over two future years is not 14M in terms of the cap. Discount it by at least 5% each year.
Howie's strategy is built on anchor veterans, cheap one-year rentals, and rookie contracts. You may feel that it's a risky strategy. And it is. But that's only because there is no such thing as risk-free strategy in the NFL - not if you want to win Super Bowls. You're advocating a different strategy - one with a broader base but fewer anchors. That may be an equally valid strategy, but it'd be hard for the Eagles to pivot there because they'd have to spend a season or two clearing dead money.
Now granted we haven't yet seen Howie manage around a franchise QB contract (except to magically escape from being handcuffed to the corpse of a franchise QB pretender). That's going to be a lot bigger anchor. But it's not going to be 15% of the cap long term. He'll layer option bonuses to pay Hurts early but charge the cap later. At some point Hurts will have a massive dead money hit for a player whose not on the team. But hopefully that's far in the future.
As an aside, have you seen the numbers for Bradberry's contract? It is so eminently affordable it's ridiculous. His cap hits are $3M and $4M in 2023 and 2024. 2025 is the big decision year - he'll be owed a $16M optional roster bonus. They'll likely cut him then or extend him depending on results over the past 2 years. I doubt he actually sees that option. If they June 1 him in 2025 he costs $3.5M in 2025 and $9.5 in 2026. Which is totally reasonable.
#32 by Pat // Mar 21, 2023 - 1:48pm
This is how the Eagles do business. You may not like the strategy, but it is a strategy.
Dude. Howie Roseman isn't the freaking Mandalorian. Things have changed over time. They haven't always viewed defensive backs in the first round as plague-ridden disease carriers and first-round wide receivers as the Messiah. He has not always borrowed 25-30% of the cap. He's been there for a quarter-century. These tactics weren't even available ten years ago.
These are recent things. I do not believe you can keep doing this every year, and I don't think Roseman thinks it either. We apparently just disagree as to when they need to shift veteran valuations. Philly didn't even do heavy-leveraged contracts until 2020 and 2021.
And the whole "wait until August!" thing is the same. This doesn't happen every year. It happened last year. It's just recency bias.
That's going to be a lot bigger anchor. But it's not going to be 15% of the cap long term.
Yes. It will. Or close enough. Roseman does not have magic pixie dust and a fairy wand. The market is what it is. Philly actually got Wentz to sign an under-market deal before, but that was with 2 years remaining. Hurts has all the leverage in the world.
Again. Once you have a quarterback contract, the cap hit values no longer matter. The only thing that matters is money. Pushing $10M off to years 2 and 3 has no advantage, because you're going to be spending a ton in years 2 and 3 anyway.
The sole trick that Roseman has with a QB is an ultra-long contract. But that's up to Hurts. So I'm not going to sit here and say "they'll be fine, Howie will sign Hurts to a friendly deal." But no, this is not me saying "THEY'RE DOOMED" - this is me saying I have no idea what's going to happen, so the only thing I can do is look at the typical things that happen. Hurts could sign a 10-year contract. Or he could say it's fine, let's just wait until next year and you can tag me and we'll start from that point (which would suck).
The "Howie will manage it" mentality drives me nuts because it means you can't even appreciate what he's actually doing. Last year was a great bet on veteran players who deserved it. Seeing Howie interact with Cox, Graham, and Kelce - he obviously loves those guys. I think his nostalgia is pushing him a little too close to the edge. That's all.
It is so eminently affordable it's ridiculous. His cap hits are $3M and $4M in 2023 and 2024.
It's 20M guaranteed for two years with a 3rd year option at 18M. The cap hits themselves are meaningless, they have nothing to do with the contract itself. Philly's just so tight they fully leverage all of their contracts now.
It's very light for a starting CB, but again, Howie loves himself some 30-year old DBs now.
#33 by guest from Europe // Mar 21, 2023 - 2:38pm
I do not believe you can keep doing this every year, and I don't think Roseman thinks it either. We apparently just disagree as to when they need to shift veteran valuations.
Why do you think any team can't or shouldn't be doing this with dead money pushing into the future? Because it might snowball in some year, so financial reasons? Or because veteran players might age quickly in some year and then be overpaid + future dead cap, so performance reasons? I have no opinion on this, it just looks reasonable at first glance, what Oncorhynus (spelling?) wrote: cap grows almost always, so dead cap% in future will be lower. I am no finance guy.
It is funny how all these contracts, either Eagles players that left in free agency, or veterans re-signed cost less than one Daniel Jones.
So if Jones costs 16-17% cap, Hurts should get closer to 20%, right?
#34 by Pat // Mar 21, 2023 - 3:01pm
Why do you think any team can't or shouldn't be doing this with dead money pushing into the future? Because it might snowball in some year, so financial reasons?
It's not "dead money pushing into the future." It's borrowing. That's how you should think about it. Period. Last year, Philly paid Kelce $13.25M and accounted for 3.546M of it. They borrowed 9.704M from future years. This year they're paying him $14.25M and accounting for 3.782M of it and also paying 2.617M of the 9.704M they borrowed before. Meaning they have now borrowed a total 17.555M from future years (the 9.704M they borrowed previously, plus the 10.468M they borrowed this year, less the 2.617M they paid back).
Should be pretty obvious that's not long-term sustainable. Yes, the cap grows, at a long-term average rate of 6%/yr. Going from borrowing 9.704M to borrowing 17.555M is a growth rate of 81%, not 6%. Yes, spreading money forward is smart, spending cash more than cap is not sustainable. Just math.
It is funny how all these contracts, either Eagles players that left in free agency, or veterans re-signed cost less than one Daniel Jones.
Uh, no. Kelce+Cox+Graham+Slay+Bradberry is waaay over Daniel Jones.
So if Jones costs 16-17% cap, Hurts should get closer to 20%, right?
Again, QB contracts are bounded by the franchise tag because repeated tags don't escalate to the stratosphere.
#37 by guest from Europe // Mar 21, 2023 - 4:36pm
It's not "dead money pushing into the future." It's borrowing. That's how you should think about it. Period. Last year, Philly paid Kelce $13.25M and accounted for 3.546M of it. They borrowed 9.704M from future years. This year they're paying him $14.25M and accounting for 3.782M of it and also paying 2.617M of the 9.704M they borrowed before. Meaning they have now borrowed a total 17.555M from future years (the 9.704M they borrowed previously, plus the 10.468M they borrowed this year, less the 2.617M they paid back).
i didn't know the accounting details of the contract. Theoretically speaking on any contract, (let's consider this one), a team can borrow 9.7M this year, and extend the player next year for 14M and account it for 14M and still push that 9.7M dead cap a year further when the cap grows and dead money Hurts less:). That would be the idea, right? I didn't know the Eagles are borrowing even 10.4M more. That looks bad.
Uh, no. Kelce+Cox+Graham+Slay+Bradberry is waaay over Daniel Jones.
i didn't consider Slay because he was not a free agent. Other four are about 40M + Bradberry 1 more year 10M and Jones will be 40-50M/year.
So if Jones costs 16-17% cap, Hurts should get closer to 20%, right?
Again, QB contracts are bounded by the franchise tag because repeated tags don't escalate to the stratosphere.
I don't understand. Hurts should ask for such money. He is better than Jones. If Eagles don't want to pay that, then he should go Cousins/Jackson route over franchise tags, and those are lower than 20% cap. Is that what you are implying? However, he would get eventually such a contract in free agency after franchise tags, like Cousins, perhaps in 2026. Am i correct? I just can't imagine Hurts taking lower contract than Jones...
there are contract negotiations and leverage and injury risk...and Hurts is under contract for 1 more year.
#43 by Pat // Mar 22, 2023 - 11:22am
a team can borrow 9.7M this year, and extend the player next year for 14M and account it for 14M and still push that 9.7M dead cap a year further when the cap grows and dead money Hurts less:).
The way borrowing works is that you take a player's salary, pay it up front and spread it over (up to) 5 years, and just pay the proration. For a 1-year contract that's easy to figure out, the borrow is just (salary-1M)*(4/5ths), roughly.
If you do this continually with the same salary each year, obviously the total amount you borrow will grow by roughly 80% per year. If you do this for, say, 6-7% of your salary cap, your borrowing grows as the cap grows, and it's sustainable. If you do this for 20% of your cap, it's unsustainable. Keep in mind "unsustainable" does not mean "bad," it just means it's only a temporary tactic. That's why I didn't have a problem with Philly doing it last year, it was a completely reasonable risk to take.
This year it makes me more nervous, because their cheap years have run out. But again: nervous does not mean convinced they're going to fail. It just means I see the potential for a collapse looming on the horizon. I don't understand why acknowledging a potential problem suddenly means I'm a doomsaying negadelphian, but whatever!
If the cap wasn't (temporarily!) growing faster than 6%/yr, I'd be really worried, but it's likely to be close to 9%/yr until 2027 so what they're doing isn't crazy, it's just risky. Doesn't give them much margin to get help in free agency, as evidenced by the fact that they didn't.
However, he would get eventually such a contract in free agency after franchise tags,
There's no reason you can't just keep applying franchise tags to QBs over and over, so they never hit free agency. So Hurts can't demand 20% of the cap on a 3-year contract (3 yrs, 170M) because the Eagles don't need him to agree to anything to get less than that (not much less, mind you). It's the same thing that happens in the NBA with max contracts.
The careful reader will note that that number (170M) is between 5-10% more than what the 3 major QB contracts signed in 2022 got, guaranteed. This is not a coincidence - QBs basically get 3 franchise tags worth of guarantees in their contract, and then the final AAV is pulled down by the additional years added on.
So again: quarterback contracts have basically nothing to do with performance. Barring bizarre situations (Aaron Rodgers, Deshaun Watson) they're basically all NBA-type max contracts.
For every other position that's not true, because the franchise tag escalates to the QB tag in the third year. Free agent markets at the top end still show sign of compression because the franchise tag still exists, but it's not as extreme as you get for QBs.
#48 by Oncorhynchus // Mar 22, 2023 - 2:12pm
If you do this continually with the same salary each year, obviously the total amount you borrow will grow by roughly 80% per year.
Not exactly. Take Kelce for example. If he had retired or been cut this year the Eagles would've owed ~ 21.4M in dead money. They'd have paid that out over 2 years, 2023 and 2024, split about 30/70. If I recall, his dead money hit would've been about 7.25M in 2023. Instead they re-sign him to a new 14.25M contract. So rather than paying 7.25M in dead money on the cap for a player not on the roster the cap charge is ~10.75M for a player on the roster. They're now one the hook for ~24.9M in dead money if he retires or is cut in 2024. Again that'll be spread over 2 years, but it'll be more like 40/60. So the amount they borrowed only increased by ~3.5M or about 16%.
The cap is projected to increase to 256M in 2024 and 282M in 2025. Those are increases of 14% and 10% year-over-year (2025 is 25% higher than 2023). So they're on track to be paying 4.2% and 4.9% of the cap to Kelce dead money in 2024 and 2025, rather than paying 3.2% in 2023 and 4.2% in 2024. 2024 looks the same either way. So all we're talking about is whether it's preferable to take the dead money hit in 2023 and not have Kelce in 2023 or take the dead money hit in 2025 and have Kelce.
So it's not as dire as you're describing it. They can keep doing this indefinitely to an extent. They do want to avoid intentionally having a bunch of guys retire or leave in the same year - because that's when this strategy can hamstring you. And yes, obviously, their risk in this strategy is losing guys sooner than you expect so you wind up having to pay out more dead money in a given year than you'd like. Brandon Brooks and Carson Wentz are prime examples of exactly this playing out.
And yeah, I agree you don't want to go too overboard with proration. But their dead money is looking better this year than it did in previous years (54M compared to 60M+). They're going to have to dead money for Kelce, Cox and Graham in 2024 and 2025 (and probably Barnett barring a really big year from him) - but nothing like the past three years.
As for Hurts contract, yeah $170M in guaranteed money sounds about right. But if you franchise tag a QB - the QB doesn't seen the money until the year they're tagged. So for Hurts, that starts next year. But from a player's perspective $45M in 2023 is worth more than $45M in 2024 and $50M in 2024 is worth more than $50M in 2025. So they can offer Hurts slightly less by paying him earlier - meanwhile the cap toll doesn't hit until later.
So say they offer Hurts a contract this year that includes a $50M signing bonus. That get's prorated over 5 years at 10M a year. So cap hit in 2023 is $10M. Then next year, they have a guaranteed option bonus that's also $60M again you prorate it over 5 years. Now your cap hit is something like $25M - $30M, but Hurts has already gotten 110M and is richer than if he got tagged. Then you do it again for slightly less. Keep prorating. They can pay Hurts more money sooner but keep his cap hit reasonable. Look at Aaron Rodgers, his cap hit never exceeded 15%, until now at the end of his career when a big dead money bill might be due. Do that with Hurts. Ideally you take the dead money hit when he retires and you've got a rookie QB again. If you embrace dead money you can keep dedicating roughly the same portion of your cap to the QB - even when he's not there anymore!
I have no idea why both a player and a front office wouldn't prefer this approach. The player gets paid sooner. The front office gets to spread the cap hit out more. Dead money is different from the guaranteed salary approach in only one respect: you're screwed if you trade the player because the money has already been paid. But if he's cut or retired, it's basically the same.
#50 by Pat // Mar 22, 2023 - 3:10pm
Not exactly. Take Kelce for example.
I mean, you're right in the sense that it's not *continually* 80% year-over-year, because you're just adding debt, not proportionally increasing it. Kelce's debt only increases a bit by percentage because they'd already done it so much. But you're still adding debt faster than you're paying it off, and the rate that you're doing so with the whole team is exceeding cap growth (once you factor in Hurts's contract).
So it's not as dire as you're describing it. They can keep doing this indefinitely to an extent.
The difference here is what you and I agree is "to an extent." You cannot spend cash over cap more than a few percent continually. That's just math. Right now they're spending more than just a few percent.
Then you do it again for slightly less. Keep prorating.
Yes, and if you continually prorate, you'll hit the year-over-year average by the final year and the next contract will just keep adding. So from a proportion of the cap perspective, only the first few years helps.
That's why I said I'm not saying "they're screwed!" They're still likely to have a decent cushion in '24, but by '25 it will be rapidly disappearing. Which means they're likely to stay constrained in the free agent market for the next few years (and longer if they keep borrowing!). Which is why I say it's risky.
Ideally you take the dead money hit when he retires and you've got a rookie QB again.
Hurts is twenty-four. You cannot push money that far. See above. You can only spread 5 years, which means basically only the first 2, maybe 3 have real cushions. After that it's negligible.
Just to put numbers to it, if you start off with 250M over 5 and then in 5 years you jump to 350M/5 (which would be conservative!), cap percentage (assuming it drops back down to 3-4% growth in the latter half of the media deal as it did in previous contracts) would look something like 4%, 8%, 11%, 13%, 15%, 16%, 17%, 18%, 18%, 19% (with 140M outstanding at the end, or 36%).
And to be clear, we'd be in the "4%" year right now. So you've got that cushion in '24 (which you're spending this year!) and a little in '25, but then it's basically gone.
#52 by guest from Europe // Mar 22, 2023 - 4:42pm
Thank you for the information!
There's no reason you can't just keep applying franchise tags to QBs over and over, so they never hit free agency.
I thought that 3rd and 4th and each additional tag costs 20% more than the previous one.
So, why didn't Redskins continue doing it with Cousins? Probably they didn't think he was worth that much money. And Cowboys with Prescott eventually gave him the highest contract in the league. Cowboys also abandoned the path of franchise tags. Do you think they made a mistake?
#53 by Pat // Mar 22, 2023 - 11:20pm
Not sure you understood what I was saying - I said the QB franchise tag sets a ceiling on negotiations. As in, no team (basically) will be willing to go over the tag, plus its 20% per year growth, barring extreme (Rodgers, Watson) situations. Teams don't want to use the tag. Players should want them to be using the tag, but obviously that entails risk.
So obviously if a player is willing to just wait and force them to start using the tag, at some point they'll cave and give a more aggressive contract, like the Cowboys did with Prescott (or just let him go, like the Commanders did with Cousins).
Contracts like Daniel Jones's are below market - the 3 year total is only 112M (roughly 15% flat cap), whereas the top market is more like 140-150M (roughly 21% flat cap). It just seems like it should be more below the market, because he's, well, not that good. But the entire top of the market is compressed because of the tag.
#54 by guest from Europe // Mar 23, 2023 - 3:35am
So obviously if a player is willing to just wait and force them to start using the tag, at some point they'll cave and give a more aggressive contract,
So we basically agree that Hurts can get such a high contract after franchise tag year(s). That is what i wrote, that he maybe gets it in 2026. He has a contract for 2023 and then franchise tag. I do think he should demand such money because both Prescott and Jones are in the same division, are his competition in every way, he has earned only a few million in his career... Maybe it will be 18-19% of cap, but it should be more than D. Jones.
I don't think he should take a cheaper contract now. Next year he will get at least a franchise tag level money.
Now, this is a quote from your comment #43:
There's no reason you can't just keep applying franchise tags to QBs over and over, so they never hit free agency. So Hurts can't demand 20% of the cap on a 3-year contract (3 yrs, 170M) because the Eagles don't need him to agree to anything to get less than that (not much less, mind you).
That is the part i didn't understand. I don't think it is saying this (#53):
I said the QB franchise tag sets a ceiling on negotiations. As in, no team (basically) will be willing to go over the tag, plus its 20% per year growth, barring extreme (Rodgers, Watson) situations. Teams don't want to use the tag.
Maybe you were thinking something that you didn't write explicitly in #43, perhaps i missunderstand because i am no native english speaker. Anyway, comment #53 is easy to understand and i agree with it.
#55 by Pat // Mar 23, 2023 - 10:04am
So we basically agree that Hurts can get such a high contract after franchise tag year(s). That is what i wrote, that he maybe gets it in 2026. He has a contract for 2023 and then franchise tag. I do think he should demand such money
It's just risk. Holding out on a year-to-year franchise tag is obviously better for the players, but it entails a huge amount of risk for them. It's easy to look and say "it's obviously better" but it's a hell of a lot to ask someone to risk generational money on a wrong step on a bit of turf. Or the owners suddenly turning fickle and saying "yeah, we don't want to risk you anymore" if you have a down year.
#38 by bubqr // Mar 21, 2023 - 5:24pm
My take:
1. They tried to retain CGJ first, he declined the offer, they moved on. I would have liked him rather than extending Slay for sure. Very worried of 2 starting CBs above 30 years old too. They did try in the right order, failed and settled on an average outcome.
2. Cox is an overpay. They needed a DT for sure, but I hated the Cox move for reasons you outlined. I would have preferred a younger player. However the DT market has been hot.
3. Hard disagree on Kelce. They needed to replace OC + OG. Considering what Seumalo got, and OL in general, I struggle to see a better outcome than keeping your HoF, Pro-bowl center and team captain + having a sophomore step up in Jurgens, rather than Jurgens + a FA overpay, or no FA.
#42 by Pat // Mar 21, 2023 - 9:40pm
They tried to retain CGJ first, he declined the offer, they moved on.
This isn't purely about CJ. If they knew they needed a safety, he's not the only one and he wasn't even necessarily the best option.
Hard disagree on Kelce.
I know. That's why I say over and over and over that everyone's going to disagree with me on Kelce. I get it. I understand. I'm effing torn on it too. Kelce plus Cox makes me cringe. Kelce alone is just a sigh. I can live with sighs.
Also I don't know what the heck you're talking about with Seumalo, that contract is awesome for the Steelers. Again, I know everyone's going to disagree with me (do you have any idea how long I've been pushing for Kelce for the Hall?) but long-term I think they might've been better off with Kelce retiring and resigning Seumalo. Seumalo's way better than people give him credit for because Jason duplicates a lot of his skillset.
But again, let's be clear: Philly just gave $54M to 4 guys well past 30 for 5 player-years, none of whom were quarterbacks. The fact that I have to sit here and defend this as risky just baffles me. I'm not even saying it's bad! I'm just saying it's risky!
#40 by Oncorhynchus // Mar 21, 2023 - 8:57pm
It's not "dead money pushing into the future." It's borrowing. That's how you should think about it. Period. Last year, Philly paid Kelce $13.25M and accounted for 3.546M of it. They borrowed 9.704M from future years. This year they're paying him $14.25M and accounting for 3.782M of it and also paying 2.617M of the 9.704M they borrowed before. Meaning they have now borrowed a total 17.555M from future years (the 9.704M they borrowed previously, plus the 10.468M they borrowed this year, less the 2.617M they paid back).
Yes, it's borrowing. But as long as the cap keeps increasing it's borrowing at negative interest rates. If the bank offered you a loan for 100K today and told you that you had pay back 95K next year (or even better 24K next year and 68K in two years) would you tell them: "NO! I'd rather live within my means!"?
"Oh no", says Pat, "in 2 years that means I'll have 68K less money to spend. That'd be bad!" Dude... you can just borrow another 120K from the bank of First Howie United.
"That's not long term sustainable."
Pat, human civilization is not long term sustainable. But cap shenigans can go on for a long time. And honestly it makes sense for both the team and the player. The player gets their money up front rather than waiting for the next year. That means in negotiations you can offer a player less than a competing team by pointing out that in the real world 14M today is worth 16 or 17M next year. But under cap magic 14M for the team costs only 12.5M in the future (because the percentage under the cap is less).
THIS IS THE M***** F****** WAY.
#41 by Pat // Mar 21, 2023 - 9:27pm
Yes, it's borrowing. But as long as the cap keeps increasing it's borrowing at negative interest rates.
Yes. At 6%. That's the long-term cap growth rate. Which is why I said you can do it slightly.
Just do the math. They're not doing it slightly.
#35 by theslothook // Mar 21, 2023 - 3:03pm
I don't have a dog in the above argument, but you've raised an interesting question. Just what are the real problems with pushing dead money far out into the future?
It would seem to me, it has one clear negative - it reduces your flexbility as the more committments you have planned out into the future, the more gymnastics it requires.
However, I do think at some point if you feel like you are out of contention, then it has a clear detonate and absorb all in one year kind of deal to it.
#36 by Pat // Mar 21, 2023 - 3:47pm
Just what are the real problems with pushing dead money far out into the future?
Sigh. The problem here honestly is that cap reporting stuff is beyond terrible.
Pushing money forward is never a serious problem. It's free. You should always do it as much as possible. Any unused space you don't use just rolls over to next year and cancels out the allotment that you pushed to next year.
Cash spending over the cap (at least significantly) is a problem. You can do it short term. You can't do it continually. It's just money. The cap isn't magic. When you don't have a QB, overspending isn't a significant issue because you've got such a huge buffer to deal with. You're essentially working with a bigger cap than everyone. As soon as the QB comes along, that buffer goes away.
#3 by Harris // Mar 20, 2023 - 11:55am
I think he misread the market and he's an asshole, so they decided they'd rather just be rid of him. The Saints decided they'd rather have a midround pick than a top NB who is also an above average safety, after all.
#5 by Pat // Mar 20, 2023 - 12:22pm
They should've known this before free agency even hit: it should've been extremely simple. Look, here's our offer, if you think the safety market's going to be higher, fine, but we'll probably extend similar offers to other free agent safeties as well. CJ wasn't the only one on the market: Thornhill, Wilson, and Bell all ended up with very similar contracts. They knew the agent. They knew what it'd be like. Could've also just said, look, fine, and went over to Epps's agent. But right now there's no one, and not really anyone of merit left in FA.
It's $53M for basically 5 player-years when they're going to be up against it hard due to Hurts's contract. You're at the part where you need to start looking for bargains, and those weren't really bargains outside of maybe Graham. And no, Greedy Williams doesn't fall on the "bargain" part. Guy barely had any snaps last year. (And Penny's a running back.)
Again I'm not really being negative here, it's just not the way I would've gone. Seems too much of a risk.
#10 by Pat // Mar 20, 2023 - 1:24pm
I'm really not. It feels like everyone thinks there are only two kinds of fans: those who think their front office can do no wrong and the team's awesome and everything they do is great, and those who think their front office is terrible and a bunch of idiots and everything they do is stupid.
I'm not either of those. I don't believe that every choice that the front office makes is brilliant and will work out. I get why they made certain choices, even if I don't agree with them. If someone says "hit me" on 19, I'm allowed to look at that and say "oh, that's a super-dangerous move" even if they get dealt a deuce. Even if they're up a ton.
I've been big fans of lots of choices they've made that haven't worked out (picking up Barnett's fifth year option). I've been critical of choices they've made that have worked out (drafting Hurts).
Players don't play forever. We know this. Philly's going to have to say goodbye to these guys. It's just a question of when, and you always want to be on the right side of "when," and they're getting really really close to the edge on that. They might not be hitting on 19, but that number's pretty up there, and I'm allowed to look at it and say "oh that's risky" - even if it works out, and even if I have a high opinion of them in general.
#6 by Oncorhynchus // Mar 20, 2023 - 1:00pm
Seems like you're talking about two different ideas here or maybe three - given your reference to Hurts in a comment below. One idea is that they shouldn't have brought back the old dudes. I sort of agree with that, but I'm not sure that all the moves combined affect this years cap too much.
The second idea is that they should've prioritized bringing CJGJ back. I think they did prioritize that. His own agent seemed to publicize the terms of the deal the Eagles offered him. First thing to note: the tweet makes no sense. The 3 yr $24M deal mentioned doesn't say anything about guaranteed money. If there was no guaranteed money, then the tweeted contract structure is illegal. A players base salary cannot increase by more than 25% each year. So my take is CJGJ's agent is an idiot. So the only way to interpret 17M in year 3 is as the cap hit in year 3. The guy is an idiot.
Jeff McLane offered more details (if you believe him). The Eagles made a multiyear deal in FA. Apparently they made the first offer to CJGJ first - before Bradberry. But CJGJ misgauged his value and the Eagles moved on.
You can't sign a player if they don't want to be signed. So it's not like they didn't try to make a deal with CJGJ and probably a fair deal given the current safety market.
So after CJGJ fell through, yeah, they moved on. Jalen Mills is still out there if they really want to add another safety for not that much. And Mills is similarly versatile if only mid. But mid is fine. You don't need an elite player at every position, you only need to make sure you don't have an obvious weak link. Bradberry and Slay are getting older, and yeah, I think they're spending too much money on them. But as long as they're not injured and off the field, then older and slower is fine. They'll play more zone. They can make it work. It gives them the room to draft and develop without needing to hit on lottery pick. (Remember the draft is a lottery).
As for Hurts, I imagine Howie had an idea of how much space he need to reserve for that contract. It sounds like Slay/Bradberry/Cox/Graham/Kelce deals all fit that structure. For the latter 3 they all only took like 5M from the cap, while filling important rotational roles. Slay's restructure will add to cap, probably more than Bradberry took away. They might make one or two low dollar moves later on, but Hurts is only big move left.
They also have a lot of draft picks in 2024. It wouldn't surprise me to see Howie pull off a couple of late off-season trades for players with 1 year remaining on the contract. Nothing wrong with using Day 3 picks rather than cash for 1-year rentals. That's what Quinn and CJGJ turned out to be.
#12 by Pat // Mar 20, 2023 - 1:34pm
I sort of agree with that, but I'm not sure that all the moves combined affect this years cap too much.
It's money. Money's money. It's gonna hit the cap at some point and considering you're going to spend $250M+ on Hurts, you're gonna want every dollar. And it's a lot of money. Graham at 6M is not bad. Cox at 10M and Kelce at 14.25M are just luxuries that they're going to regret later. And I have serious doubts they're gonna get $23M worth of play out of Slay for the rest of his career.
Also please note: the frustration with Slay is more just that it likely continues Howie's string of thinking that you just buy CBs on the market rather than draft them, and I extremely extremely disagree. Just look at the Eagles track record of drafting defensive backs in the past decade. They very clearly don't care. Not as much as they don't care about linebackers, but they don't care.
The second idea is that they should've prioritized bringing CJGJ back. I think they did prioritize that.
No, the second idea was that they should've prioritized bringing a veteran safety in. CJ would've been my choice. He's a headcase? Fine, there were plenty of others at exactly that same price point. Keeping Epps would've been even cheaper.
At this point all you've got left are dregs that no one wanted, and that's frustrating.
#14 by Pat // Mar 20, 2023 - 1:47pm
Also:
It wouldn't surprise me to see Howie pull off a couple of late off-season trades for players with 1 year remaining on the contract.
See, this is where people don't understand what I'm saying. When you say something like this, you're saying "it wouldn't surprise me to see Howie pull a rabbit out of his hat." Because that's what that is. Getting a quality player in a trade is out of your control. It's dumb luck. Does it happen? Yes, obviously. It happened last year. It didn't happen in previous years when they got hit going shallow at certain positions later. As in, 2019, when they flipped a pick for DeSean Jackson, and we were all on cloud nine saying "fleeced 'em again" for a grand total of one game.
Right now they're relying on another team making a big mistake. It might happen. It might not. If it happens, I'll slow clap and say "OK, now we're good." But right now I look at the decisions and say "yeah, not what I would've done." I don't count on magic fixes showing up because they don't always happen.
It's the same thing with the draft. I don't know. They could friggin' draft a safety in the first round who could be awesome. No idea. Right now I look at the season and think this was risky.
That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying these are horrible moves, like, I dunno, if Philly traded for Aaron Rodgers or something wacko. I'm just saying they're risky, and I don't think the team has quite the margin you'd like making risks like this.
#16 by Oncorhynchus // Mar 20, 2023 - 2:24pm
They're not going to draft a safety in the 1st round any more than they're going to draft a running back or a punter in the 1st round. Especially in a two-high world, safeties just aren't that important. It's a place where it make sense to go cheap. That's what they're going to do. And it'll be fine.
#20 by Pat // Mar 20, 2023 - 2:51pm
This may shock you, but I don't give the slightest $#!+s about third, fourth, fifth WRs, because amazing as it is, whether or not they succeed in a season is pure freaking luck. I honestly don't bother remembering their names. I had to look up who the heck Pascal was.
Unless they plan on spending a 4th first round pick in 4 years on a WR (we're the Lions now!) or signing someone for $15M+/yr, stick a random UDFA back there and he'll do just as well.
#23 by Aaron Brooks G… // Mar 20, 2023 - 5:18pm
4th first round pick in 4 years on a WR (we're the Lions now!)
The Lions do okay on WRs drafts, really.
Charles Rogers busted hard, and they took The Other Mike Williams, but Johnny Morton and The Other Roy Williams were long-time starters (and Williams was traded for a 1st-rounder). The other two guys were Herman Moore and Megatron.
Where the Lions really suck is at taking TEs in the first round. Hockenson is the best of that set.
\TORW turned into Pettigrew, for instance
#21 by LondonMonarch // Mar 20, 2023 - 4:34pm
Semi-agree with Pat here:
1. Was not in favour paying G-J double-digits, but surely if Eagles had matched Detroit he would have stayed?
2. Would rather have G-J + one of the old CBs than both old CBs and a void at safety
3. With Hargrave gone I think you kinda had to re-sign Cox and Graham. Graham is only getting $6m, you wouldn't get equivalent production for that in the open market or from a rookie
4. Surprised they did not re-sign at least one of White, Edwards or Epps. Matching their deals elsewhere would be a slight overpay but worth it for continuity.
5. In two minds about letting Seumalo walk to keep Kelce. A lot depends on the Jurgens unknown.
#22 by Pat // Mar 20, 2023 - 4:46pm
Was not in favour paying G-J double-digits, but surely if Eagles had matched Detroit he would have stayed?
I think focusing on CJ misses the point - there were several safeties available at the same rough price range. I mean, the people talking about Philly going after Byard just kinda cracks me up. Totally different pay scales.
It's more just why would you let both safeties walk without a desirable replacement when they're that cheap? It's not worth the risk. (note that by 'desirable' replacement I mean one that actually has a market across the league)
With Hargrave gone I think you kinda had to re-sign Cox and Graham. Graham is only getting $6m, you wouldn't get equivalent production for that in the open market or from a rookie
Graham I'm fine with. I think they could've gotten better and younger from a rookie + a lower-cost vet than Cox. Not necessarily better than Cox 22, but it's pretty obvious that Cox is declining so 23 is unlikely to be as good.
Matching their deals elsewhere would be a slight overpay but worth it for continuity.
White, Edwards, and Epps were all well below their projected salaries based on performance. Matching their deals wouldn't have been an overpay. That's where the market is.
It's just a whole heck of a lot of change in an offseason.
#24 by Oncorhynchus // Mar 20, 2023 - 5:20pm
Top 5 teams in 2022 by Pass DVOA - $M AAV spent on active roster safeties (# players) [league rank in AAV spending]:
- 1. PHI $3.3M (4) [31st]
- 2. NE $19M (6) [8th]
- 3. DAL $8.5M (5) [20th]
- 4. NYJ $12.1M (6) [18th]
- 5. SF $15.5M (5) [11th]
Top 5 teams in 2022 by AAV spent on active roster safeties (# players) [pass DVOA rank]:
- 1. BAL - $25M (5) [11th]
- 2. TEN - $25M (4) [28th]
- 3. PIT - $24M (4) [19th]
- 4. CIN - $23M (4) [12th]
- 5. LAC - $22M (4) [10th]
Safeties don't matter.
#26 by Pat // Mar 20, 2023 - 7:58pm
Top 5 teams in 2022 by AAV spent on active roster safeties
AAV positional spending is completely pointless with the existence of rookie contracts.
edit: plus the entire idea of "safety" as a unique position is totally silly anyway.
#39 by theslothook // Mar 21, 2023 - 6:27pm
Pass Defense is one of the most fluid, highly variable units that I don't think its informative to look at single year snapshots as a way to determine how important safety play is.
I would also add - team's don't just passively call plays whether their defense has an all pro safety or a jag safety. They will try to hide their weak links. Maybe that all gets captured in one big aggregate metric like pass defense, but I don't think so. Quite frankly, you can run regressions using PFFs grades against FO DVOA and you won't get a nice clean picture.
If you don't agree with the above comments, how about this one. Run sack % or pressure % or RAP(My statistic) against pass dvoa and you get a pretty weak correlation. That could influence you to conclude that pass rush is pretty uncorrelated with pass defense and so why bother paying pass rushers?
#44 by Pat // Mar 22, 2023 - 11:40am
A huge problem with looking at linebacker and safety salaries/performance is that there's no such thing as a "filler" edge rusher or primary corner. You can hide linebackers or safeties, but if you're struggling to generate any pass rush or cover anyone, you're just a bad defense.
Yes, safeties are luxury positions, but saying they don't matter is just ridiculous. You know what else is a luxury position? Center. The one Philly just spent a league-leading amount on.
#45 by theslothook // Mar 22, 2023 - 1:02pm
But even calling it a luxury position is too coarse a statement. A defense will alter how it calls its plays based on the strength of its safety. Ed Reed and Earl Thomas and Troy Polamalu were all safeties where the scheme altered behind their presence. Put Jags in their places and the defense is not going to pretend like they have still have Ed Reed out there still and call defense as if nothing has changed. In fact, they will react accordingly to now hide ersatz Ed Reed which will have trickle down effects across the defense as you noted; they just won't show up concentrated at the safety position.
I would go further. Perhaps because we can't measure safety play with box score numbers, it causes us to infer that its a luxury position. Pass Rushers and wide receivers have visible production we can measure. QBs too. The rest we don't so its easier in our minds to say they are relatively unimportant.
#46 by Pat // Mar 22, 2023 - 1:09pm
I think you're misunderstanding what I mean by luxury. There are very clearly safeties that offer huge advantages out there, and they're absolutely worth it (just like Kelce really is worth that $14M).
What I mean by luxury is that not every team has to have one. You basically have to have a quarterback, you have to have pass rushers, you have to have a pass catcher, and you (basically) have to have primary corners. Obviously if you have an elite safety, you pay them, but you don't overpay for a mediocre one because you don't have an elite one - which you do for most of the other positions.
#51 by Pat // Mar 22, 2023 - 3:20pm
Eh, I've heard people say that and I don't really agree. Ward's a really freaking good corner, and it's not like they just went out and got Random Dude. They went and got a guy who had started all games he was healthy, and signed him for a well above average contract for a corner.
Yes, I'm only talking about one, but that's why I said "primary" above.
#49 by Oncorhynchus // Mar 22, 2023 - 2:16pm
And this Pat is why we're banned from the Bleeding Green Nation comments section.
When I said safeties don't matter I was more trolling than serious.
My only Eagles jerseys are Malcolm Jenkins and Brian Dawkins.
Might have to get a Kelce one though. For the days when I'm feeling luxurious.
#25 by LondonMonarch // Mar 20, 2023 - 5:35pm
Last line is where I really agree - It's just a whole heck of a lot of change in an offseason - which is why I would have focused on keeping CJGJ at that price. Continuity, youth and versatility.
The concern is that to the extent they have sought to maintain continuity it has been by paying 5 old guys (Kelce, Cox, Graham, 2 CBs)
#30 by Pat // Mar 21, 2023 - 10:31am
The counterpoint is that with a new DC, replacing the linebackers and deeper DBs with someone the DC's more familiar with is another way to get continuity as well. The interior of the pass defense is way more system dependent than the outside.
The counter-counterpoint is that they haven't done any of that either.