NFL 2017 Super Bowl Thread

LeapingGnome wrote:

And last four years of conference championship game QBs and their cap hits:

2014 ($10m average, 8% of the cap)
Brady - $15m
Luck - $6m
Wilson - $1m
Rodgers - $18m

2015 ($13m, 9%)
Brady - $14m
Manning - $18m
Newton - $13m
Palmer - $7m

2016 ($20m, 13%)
Brady - $14m
Roethlisberger - $24m
Ryan - $24m
Rodgers - $19m

2017 ($8m, 5%)
Brady - $14m
Bortles - $7m
Foles / Wentz - $8m
Keenum - $2m

Few things here:

- Having guys on their rookie contract is great. You get about a 2 year window where they're actually good enough and still on their rookie deal. Nice when you can get it, but it doesn't last.

- Hall of Famers who take lower-end deals thanks to being the lowest earner in their own household... I mean, good luck finding another one.

- Roethlisberger, Ryan, Rodgers, etc are exactly Kirk Cousins deals. Their dollar values reflect the years they signed in.

- If you really want to build a team around the idea of scrap-heaping someone like Case Keenum and having it work out... I mean, again, good luck.

Right. I agree you need at least a decent QB. Milkman, like you said - because Wilson and Luck were on rookie deals, because Brady took less money - they had enough money to surround them with good players and make it deep in the playoffs.

Looking at the top ten QB salaries for the past four years - of those 40 QBs only FIVE made it to the conference championships in those years they were top 10. I think there is a big correlation between how much of the cap is dedicated to your QB and how well your team performs. Like you said - Ryan and Roethlisberger, great QBs. One conference championship appearance each since their big contracts a few years ago...

There are some guys worth being a top 5 contract (Rodgers, Brady). I just don't think Cousins is one of those.

I honestly think Cleveland would pay $50 mil/yr for a top 16 QB and they would be right to do so. Even if they never won a Super Bowl and merely made the playoffs that QB would replace Bernie Kozar as the local legend.

Quarterback is the absolute cheapest way to improve your team. Nowhere else will you get the same impact per dollar as a quarterback. No other position completely changes the standing of an entire team. Compare the 1-10 Hoyer/Beat Hard 49ers to the 5-0 Garoppolo 49ers. If you get good QB play, your last place team becomes a contender. (Whether or not Jimmy G maintains that level in the future, he was that guy in 2017.)

There's nothing else you can send 15% of your salary cap on to improve your team to the same degree. Nothing. I mean, the Jags spent nearly that on Calais Campbell + AJ Bouye (and way more if you add in some of the other defender acquisitions), and as out of their mind good as those acquisitions were, compared to a QB... well, we saw what happened when they went head to head with those Garoppolo 49ers.

If you can get that QB play for cheaper, sure, it's great, and a major advantage, but it's short lived.

I'm with Garion. I'm actually surprised at how some teams haven't pushed QBs to be even larger proportions of their salary cap. (I think it's in large part because the constant cap growth means it's relatively painless to beat last year's big contract - there were times in the past where this wasn't so true.)

LeapingGnome wrote:

Right. I agree you need at least a decent QB. Milkman, like you said - because Wilson and Luck were on rookie deals, because Brady took less money - they had enough money to surround them with good players and make it deep in the playoffs.

Looking at the top ten QB salaries for the past four years - of those 40 QBs only FIVE made it to the conference championships in those years they were top 10. I think there is a big correlation between how much of the cap is dedicated to your QB and how well your team performs. Like you said - Ryan and Roethlisberger, great QBs. One conference championship appearance each since their big contracts a few years ago...

There are some guys worth being a top 5 contract (Rodgers, Brady). I just don't think Cousins is one of those.

Why did you decide on the Conference Championships as a metric? To me that's a really myopic view since we're talking about a handful of teams each year, one of which is the Patriots Dynasty blocking other teams from getting there. And, yes, if every team emulated the Patriots by having the GOAT on a team friendly contract then they'd probably be in the Conference Championships more often.

The thing is that Peyton Manning never took a team friendly contract and they were still quite successful. But that was mostly during a tighter cap era with the old rookie contract structure.

The Browns tried to field a team with vet QBs on the relative cheap. They had Hoyer, they had McCown. Neither worked out particularly well for them. Jay Cutler had a not horribly big contract in Chicago and they had decidely average results, year-in year-out.

Would I rather commit more cap so I can get the top 10 performance of Cousins? Absolutely. Would I be okay committing less cap and get Tyrod Taylor? Absolutely also. But I would still try and get Cousins. He's a mostly proven commodity who is a top 10 QB. You pay him top 5 money now and by the end of the contract he's back to being middle of the pack contract-wise. Assuming, of course, you really didn't give him $50 mil/yr.

As an aside, Case Keenum was cheap for the Vikings this year but they still had something like $18 mil committed to Bradford. Combined it puts them more toward the top of cap spending. Having some key players on their rookie deals is the reason they could do that. As long as you have a mix of rookies on cheap deals, spending top money on a QB is reasonable. This is the exact scenario Cleveland currently has. They have a ton of young kids on cheap deals and no leadership. Cousins would be a massive upgrade there, assuming he gels well with Hue Jackson and who the hell knows what'll happen there...

-8F when I got up this morning. Right now, the NFL is so regretting that "Build a stadium, get a Super Bowl" thing they've started doing.

I'm just checking in here waiting for a post on when the Jags make a bad QB veteran decision. Come on Jags make me happy!

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

-8F when I got up this morning. Right now, the NFL is so regretting that "Build a stadium, get a Super Bowl" thing they've started doing.

Can you send a tiny bit of that out here? It's been in the 80s here all week.

karmajay wrote:

I'm just checking in here waiting for a post on when the Jags make a bad QB veteran decision. Come on Jags make me happy!

*sigh*

If they are unable to land Cousins, the odds are that they will have Bortles play out his option year.

karmajay wrote:

I'm just checking in here waiting for a post on when the Jags make a bad QB veteran decision. Come on Jags make me happy!

My prediction--the Jaguars don't have the space to make a serious run at Cousins, just because they're on the hook for $18m for the Borkster, and he's facing some wrist surgery which means they just can't cut him. They still want to improve, so, after the Cousins bidding war ends, they get another quality veteran option in Sam Bradford, keeping Blake Bortles as a backup. Sam Bradford, being, you know, Sam Bradford, gets injured, meaning Bortles, yet again, is the starting QB of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

You have to admit, it's a very plausible scenario.

I don't see Coughlin being interested in a perennially injured QB.

I'm not sure what is driving that thought, but I'm sticking to it.

I don't expect Bortles' wrist to prevent him from passing a physical in March. Hey, if Derek Carr can be cleared from a broken back in two weeks...

Granted, missing out on Cousins because Bortles couldn't get cleared until April would be very Jaguars.

*Legion* wrote:

I don't expect Bortles' wrist to prevent him from passing a physical in March. Hey, if Derek Carr can be cleared from a broken back in two weeks...

Granted, missing out on Cousins because Bortles couldn't get cleared until April would be very Jaguars.

Wouldn't it? All I'm saying is there's a clear path here for another year of the Bortles comedy train, and I just cannot wait to climb onboard.

I was wondering if there is any way Coughlin brings in Eli...

I do want to comment concerning people saying you DON'T really need a top tier QB. Every team in the last great while that has had success at a high level and has NOT had a GREAT QB has had something else going for them. Either a lights out defense or a 2000yd running back, etc. If you don't have that other thing a middle rung QB is not going to get you there.

So, IMO, your team better pay that money if a good QB drops on the market or you will forever be stuck in the middle ranks.

LeapingGnome wrote:

I was wondering if there is any way Coughlin brings in Eli...

If he were available, I bet he absolutely would.

I don't think the Giants are going to move Eli in 2018 though. I think they keep him to play ahead of a rookie that they take at #2.

IMAGE(http://u.cubeupload.com/MilkmanDanimal/OLpic.jpg)

Interesting pic pulled off Twitter; both offensive lines are excellent in the run game, but, in the passing game, the Patriots' tackles are rated as a bit subpar, but the left side of the Eagles' line sucks. Always curious to know how Belichick will look at this stuff and approach a defensive plan.

Vaitai is gonna get killed.

God damn Vaitai...

More Eagles news; Agholor gets an IV due to feeling sick. This wouldn't seem like a big deal, except for the fact there have been a number of Eagles players reporting flu issues this week, and this year's flu is a bastard. While it's certainly possible the Patriots are dealing with the same issue and just not reporting it, this has to be very worrying for the Eagles.

Cue "Bill Belichick flung a dead rat covered in flu germs onto the Eagles plane before takeoff" conspiracy theories.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Cue "Bill Belichick flung a dead rat covered in flu germs onto the Eagles plane before takeoff" conspiracy theories.

I was assuming that some of the people catering Eagles team meals were originally from Boston...

Beat Hard HOF.

Sean McVay, coach of the year. Tom Brady, MVP.

It's Super Bowl Sunday.

Let's get this sh*t over with.

IMAGE(http://u.cubeupload.com/MilkmanDanimal/Cold.jpg)

Imma gonna suggest the Super Bowl isn't coming back to Minneapolis anytime soon.

The New York Times ran an OpEd by the wife of former football player Rob Kelly about her struggles with her husband’s CTE issues. It’s a sad story like, like all the rest, but this passage gave me an immense sense of pause.

It wasn’t until I joined a private Facebook group of more than 2,400 women, all connected in some way to current or former N.F.L. players, that I realized I wasn’t alone.

Twenty-four hundred.

We are all going to watch the big game today, many of us with folks that only watch football on Super Bowl Sunday. Let’s have honest conversations about this sport we love. Change is coming. Let’s embrace it and hope the sport makes the right choices.

But who these men have become is not who they are, and I write that with conviction. The symptoms they display are beyond their control and occur through no fault of their own. These men chose football, but they didn’t choose brain damage.

I used to read all the articles about C.T.E., all the stories about football players committing suicide. I’d skim the comments to see remarks like: “They know what they signed up for” and “Of course football is bad for the brain, everyone knows that.”

But when all those big hits happened and the fans cheered, did they cheer despite knowing a man just greatly increased his risk for dementia? Was anyone worried about an A.L.S. diagnosis or a C.T.E.-related suicide at 40 after their favorite player suffered repeated blows to the head on the field? No, they cheered and they celebrated because they didn’t know. And neither did we.

We all know now. It’s important to admit it, and to demand better for those players we invest so much of our time caring about.

Not to be a downer on this big day, but the article really struck me.

I predict this will be the quietest Super Bowl thread in GWJ history.

Rat Boy wrote:

I predict this will be the quietest Super Bowl thread in GWJ history.

Wonder how that will correlate with ratings?