Mayfield: Philip G. Pavely/USA TODAY Sports; Watson: Phil Masturzo/USA TODAY NETWORK; Brown: Denny Medley/USA TODAY Sports;
I went back! Let’s see what I missed…
• We’ll start with Baker Mayfield – and where the Panthers are now with their quarterback investments in general. And with the knowledge that they’ve entered 2020, Matt Rhule’s first year, with the plan to be a bridge year in office. We can start this at 21, which is when the changes to get a guy from the franchise began with offers made to try to lift Matthew Stafford from Detroit and Deshaun Watson from Houston.
Add up the trades of Sam Darnold (sixth round of 2021 and second and fourth rounds of 22), Matt Corral (fourth and third rounds of 22) and Mayfield (fifth conditional round of 23) and using the scratch value chart you can put a number on all these deals. If we put the future picks in the middle of the rounds and Mayfield plays 70% of the team’s offensive snaps (making the 23 pick a fourth round), the sum of the picks comes to 869 points. If Mayfield plays less than that, that’s 844 points.
The 19th choice on the chart is worth 875 points. The 20th pick is worth 850 points.
So the Panthers spent more or less that to fix their quarterback position, with finances taken out of the equation. The other side of it? Not spending a first round with a quarterback allowed Carolina to use top 10 picks on Derrick Brown, Jaycee Horn, and Ikem Ekwonu.
There is also what Carolina went through. At 20, they picked seventh place, with the quarterbacks on the board being Jordan Love, Jalen Hurts, and Jacob Eason, among others. This spring, they had every quarterback on the board in 6th place, and really only passed Kenny Pickett (they could have gotten the others by trading like they did for Corral). Last year was the most interesting. My understanding is that Justin Fields was highly regarded (and they also rejected Mac Jones).
All this should illustrate how complicated this argument can get. Stafford and Watson more or less opted not to go to Carolina. Which actually leaves us, realistically, with a series of questions that we will need answers to. One is how good Fields will be. Another will be how good Brown, Horn and Ekwonu become. A third, and most immediate, is how much Carolina can get from the troika she will have fighting for playtime this summer.
Also, remember, the dart-throwing approach in Seattle a decade ago ended up bringing Russell Wilson to the Seahawks. GM Scott Fitterer was there for that, and a lot of wins with the 2012 third-round pick at the center.
• One more thing about Mayfield – for the part now – I think the Panthers’ logic was good. On a baseline, he can give them an average quarterback game. And if that sounds like a shot at Mayfield, it certainly isn’t. The floor in Carolina was clearly a lot lower in 2022. If that floor is now, say, with a quarterback that is in the top 20, and the roster has improved as much as the guys over there think, the team could be pretty good. .
For context, playing has hurt last year and with all of the Browns’ receiver injuries, plus Odell Beckam Jr.’s problems, Mayfield completed more than 60% of his shooting for 3,010 yards, 17 touchdowns, 13 picks and an 83 rating. .1 at quarterback. As a team last year, the Panthers completed 58.1% of their passes for 3,573 yards, 14 touchdowns, and 21 picks.
Couple that with the fact that Mayfield has, like Darnold and Corral, a lot of natural ability and untapped potential. Plus, they only had to fork out a Day 3 pick and a base salary of $5 million. So the change, for me, was more common sense than most people realize.
• How much would you pay Jimmy Garoppolo? It’s an important question not only for teams that might be interested in the 49ers’ quarterback, but also for Garoppolo himself.
The 30-year-old, if you double in $800,000 in per-game roster bonuses, should get $25 million this fall. But there’s a key difference in his situation from Mayfield’s – that number isn’t guaranteed, so the Niners can cut him anytime between now and Week 1 without any financial penalty. This is one of the reasons why San Francisco showed a willingness to allow Garoppolo’s team to discuss finances with other teams to facilitate a negotiation.
The challenge for Garoppolo is not to take too little, but not to price in an opportunity to start this year and establish a long-term deal and start the opportunity after this year. The offseason juncture we’re in isn’t irrelevant either. As of now, the Browns are the only team that could absorb Garoppolo’s contract without any sort of adjustment. The fact is that most teams, both cap and money, have burned most of their 2022 budget at this point.
• While we’re at the Browns, the Deshaun Watson situation is obviously related to all of this. One thing that could hasten the closing, perhaps the only thing, would be a deal. I just wouldn’t expect one. The most recent settlement negotiations, held before Watson’s hearing in late June, fell through over the league’s insistence on a minimum full-season suspension.
The NFL, of course, is aware that the public will judge the viability of Watson’s punishment by the number of games he misses. Because of this, I don’t see the league pulling back on its quarterback position by missing the entire 2022 season. Similarly, based on precedent and Watson’s own direction, I also don’t see the NFLPA or Watson’s field pulling back. Which would mean Sue L. Robinson will have to rule, and then the league will have to make a decision on whether or not to change their penalty.
That decision, by the way, will be thornier for the NFL than most realize if Robinson chooses not to suspend Watson for the entire season — mainly because it would undermine a lawsuit the league negotiated with players and owners wanted, during CBA speech. at the beginning of 2020.
• The franchise tag deadline came and went without deals, and my first thought on this is that, at least to some extent, logic has taken over.
For years and years, teams and players have waited until mid-July to make these deals. It wasn’t good for the players, they’d better get the money in their pockets sooner. And it wasn’t good for the teams either, hurting their ability to plan and tying an amount of money – if the player signed their bid – into the cap space. (Winners, for what it’s worth, may have been owners, in their ability to keep their money invested for a few more months, but that’s a different argument for a different day.)
This year? For one reason or another things have changed. Cleveland’s David Njoku and Tampa’s Chris Godwin obtained extensions in the spring, and Green Bay traded Davante Adams to Vegas, after which he quickly signed a new deal. This allowed the four teams involved to work with more cost certainty as they approached the 2022 season.
This, as you will see in a minute, will not always happen. Sometimes a deadline is needed to break an impasse. But at least now, it sure seems like everyone is trusting it less.
• The Chiefs’ deal with left tackle Orlando Brown will be interesting in eight months. As was widely reported last week, Kansas City’s final offer was a six-year, $139 million deal that had a balloon payment in its final year. But it still would have given Brown an average of about $19 million over the first five years.
Two relevant numbers, illustrating Brown’s assurances, were left out at least from what I’ve seen reported around. The 26-year-old’s offer included $38 million in fully guaranteed and $52.25 million in injury guarantees. The first number is important because it basically reflects Brown’s leverage. This year’s mark for Brown is $16.66 million, and next year’s is $19.99 million, putting the two-year total at just under $37 million, and just under was in the first two years of the Chiefs’ offer.
By comparison, Trent Williams (who was a free agent) landed a six-year, $138 million deal in San Francisco, with $105 million in the first five years of last year. That deal was worth $40.5 million in its first two years. Brown’s offer was also in the vicinity of what Ronnie Stanley achieved, and Stanley signed his contract as he neared the end of his rookie contract.
So on the Chiefs side, they offered something that was right where the best tackles are getting paid, even if Brown isn’t elite in the position. On Brown’s side, in other positions (as receiver), the market has changed rapidly this offseason, which means asking for more was justified. And that leaves everyone waiting to see what this all looks like in March, much of which will depend on how Brown actually plays.
• The Bengals’ deal with Jessie Bates was a little more straightforward than Brown’s, as far as I knew. Safety, as opposed to tackle, was one of the positions where the market shifted, with Steelers star Minkah Fitzpatrick becoming the first to earn $18 million a season. My understanding is that Cincinnati was willing to go for about $14 million per. And the truth is, it’s often hard to make deals with marked players without offering a deal that at least compares to the best players in a guy’s position.
I also think it’s important to plan for what’s to come. Tee Higgins will be on a deal next offseason. Ja’Marr Chase will also need to be extended (he will be eligible for a new contract in 2024). The decision will come on the payment of left tackle Jonah Williams. And then, of course, there’s the big one, and that’s Joe Burrow’s deal, with the team having to plan ahead for a contract that Burrow will be eligible for after the 2022 season ends.
All of this makes it a little more difficult to count on paying a bouncer that the Bengals love and a bouncer is a vital part of the team’s core (Bates is).
• As for the other two tight ends Dalton Schultz and Mike Gesicki, I think these tags are related to the number being accessible in that position ($10.817 million), a dynamic that always makes finding a long-term contract difficult (because in these cases, it often does more sense for a guy to just play the tag).
Furthermore, in both cases, there are mitigating factors. Schultz had a pretty good 2021, but it makes sense that Dallas would wait a year to see if he takes another step. And while Gesicki is a legit weapon, the new Dolphins team has already challenged him to become a much better blocker. Mike McDaniel’s Niners-centric team has Gesicki watching many tapes of George Kittle from his rookie year until now to show Gesicki how to improve in this area.
• Here’s what Vikings WR Justin Jefferson told Complex: “I will say after this year I will be the best wide receiver in the NFL. I definitely have to give that to Davante Adams from now on, him being so crazy and dynamic on the pitch. His race route is crazy so I definitely have to give it to him now, but I’m sure after this year it will be me.”
I kind of agree with Jefferson. It’s not unreasonable to think Jefferson could be the best wide receiver in the NFL by the end of the season, especially when you consider the record two-year start he had.
• While we’re there, I also think it’s possible that Jefferson’s former teammate Chase could become the best in the NFL in his position by the end of this year as well. So I’m with Chase on his Madden rating (the 18th best receiver in football) being absurd.
