NFL 2023: The preseason / predraft thread

Yeah, the conditioning coach must have had pictures of Bisciotti doing inappropriate things with a goat to have kept his job somehow, but it still represents another risk, and risk management is part of this. Does Lamar's health improve enough with a real conditioning coach that he stops missing games? He's never played every game of a season, and, sure, things are likely improve without Saunders around, but how much are you willing to rely on that?

You can't say "our conditioning coach sucked and now everything is perfect." Yes, he sucked, and the Ravens had awful injury luck, but that does not magically remove the risk of giving a huge contract plus multiple first round picks for a guy who's never made it through a full season.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Yeah, the conditioning coach must have had pictures of Bisciotti doing inappropriate things with a goat to have kept his job somehow, but it still represents another risk, and risk management is part of this. Does Lamar's health improve enough with a real conditioning coach that he stops missing games? He's never played every game of a season, and, sure, things are likely improve without Saunders around, but how much are you willing to rely on that?

You can't say "our conditioning coach sucked and now everything is perfect." Yes, he sucked, and the Ravens had awful injury luck, but that does not magically remove the risk of giving a huge contract plus multiple first round picks for a guy who's never made it through a full season.

I was just curious what the injury history for different QB's looked at so I picked four highly regarded ones at random and Lamar Jackson. This is what the betting sites think for chances of injury in 2023:

Patrick Mahomes 16%

Deshaun Watson 17%

Josh Allen 26%

Dak Prescott 11%

Lamar Jackson 9%

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

You don't pay for past performance, you pay for what you think you're going to get

Say it again, and louder for the people in the back.

I was yelling this at my TV yesterday when someone on The Rich Eisen Show was moaning about the contracts given to guys that have only achieved this or that in their career.

You're not paying for the football they've already played, they got paid for that already.

Geno got an average of $35 million. Sure, some of it's fake funny money, but have no doubt the same applies to Danny *blech* Dimes. Still the worst nickname out there, right?

The more details trickle out about Geno's deal, the more I like it. It appears to be very front-loaded and incentive-laden.

If the Seahawks strike gold in the draft this year and Geno doesn't regress, they should be able to use FA to patch the remaining holes and contend in 2024, similar to when they signed Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril to get them to the SB in 2013. If Geno regresses, they can move on without too much of a hit.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

And, yeah, I have no doubt the owners have talked about pushing back on guaranteed contracts, and it's undoubtedly collusion on some level, but this is not the hill to die on for that argument; I wouldn't want the Bucs to pursue him even if they had the cap space because I doubt his ability to stay on the field at this point.

It's important to note that the other sports leagues that do guaranteed contracts all have other mechanisms that the NFL does not. There's no contract buyout rules in the NFL. There's no two-way or buried contracts, where you can send an underperforming player to your minor league affiliate and get some cap relief (the expected starting goalie of the LA Kings is languishing in the AHL right now for this very reason, and the Kings have utilized that cap space to help acquire another goalie). Teams don't get cap relief when a player goes on injured reserve, like the NHL's LTIR, or the NBA's Disabled Player Exceptions. There's no soft cap.

Sports with guaranteed contracts have all sorts of rules to manage the reality of being a sport with guaranteed contracts. The NFL is not set up to have players sitting on fully guaranteed deals.

Minase wrote:

The more details trickle out about Geno's deal, the more I like it. It appears to be very front-loaded and incentive-laden.

The Seahawks committing to Geno pleases me as a Niner fan because I have rather little fear of Geno, but the financial commitment isn't anything crippling that I can really take pleasure in.

Given the state of the other two NFC West teams, Seattle with a non-regressing Geno should have little trouble reaching #2 in the division and competing for a wildcard. Not sure about being able to pass the Niners for the division lead, provided SF can get someone healthy enough to play QB for them, but as long as you can get into the dance, your team can get hot and anything can happen.

Seattle did obnoxiously well in the draft last year, between the two tackles and the two corners and Walker. That really jump-started their rebuild. What would terrify me is if they swung for the fences and went after a high-upside QB in the draft that could really upend things. Geno's deal says they're not going to do that this year, but it leaves the door open for them to still opt for that in the near future.

I just got a Rita Oak print for my birthday from my sister after long delays and now I'm wondering if I go over to PFT I'll see a story about Jimmy G getting traded.

Not unless some team signs him and THEN trades him.

Rita should have been more careful with her wording when coming up with her little project...

I also just realized the last thing I got shipped to the States from Portugal was ancestors.

Rat Boy wrote:

I also just realized the last thing I got shipped to the States from Portugal was ancestors.

Hey, me too. Some Pachecos came to America and now here I am.

In other news, Robb(y|ie) Anderson is now a free agent. His 10-game stint in Arizona produced 7 catches for 76 yards. That's on 17 targets, for a catch rate of 41.2%.

Arizona decided production like that didn't quite merit $12m this upcoming season.

*Legion* wrote:

You're not paying for the football they've already played, they got paid for that already.

Unless they did it under a rookie contract.

Pink Stripes wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

You're not paying for the football they've already played, they got paid for that already.

Unless they did it under a rookie contract.

They got paid for those games. Nobody plays for free.

*Legion* wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

I also just realized the last thing I got shipped to the States from Portugal was ancestors.

Hey, me too. Some Pachecos came to America and now here I am.

In other news, Robb(y|ie) Anderson is now a free agent. His 10-game stint in Arizona produced 7 catches for 76 yards. That's on 17 targets, for a catch rate of 41.2%.

Arizona decided production like that didn't quite merit $12m this upcoming season.

*ahem*

That's Chosen Robbie Anderson after the name change.

Rat Boy wrote:

I just got a Rita Oak print for my birthday from my sister after long delays and now I'm wondering if I go over to PFT I'll see a story about Jimmy G getting traded.

So the story my sister texted me was that she made the order with Rita the day after Rita and her husband left Portugal to attend a Niners home playoff game in January (the Cowboys?), Rita didn't get back to Portugal for two weeks and had a backlog of orders to fulfill, and then my print ended up getting stuck in US Customs for two weeks. Seeing how I'm driving down to visit her and her now fiancee in Ventura tomorrow, this came in really at the wire.

Compensatory picks are in, and the 49ers made out even better than expected, with 7 (!) compensatory picks in this year's draft.

That brings them to 11 total picks, despite having traded away 5 picks for Trey Lance, CMC, and Charles Omenihu.

And with Jimmy Garoppolo and Mike McGlinchey both likely leaving in free agency to contracts that meet the top compensatory pick threshold, the Niners may well be looking at 3 3rd round compensatory picks again next year. Omenihu, Ebukam, Moseley, and Gould also likely to factor into the plus column in the Niners comp formula.

That's a LOT of opportunity to replenish a roster before attrition catches up to it.

I love Mina Kimes so much.

Lamar stats:

Since 2019:
3rd in QBR vs man
4th in QBR vs zone
2nd in QBR when defenses have 7 or fewer players in the box

Stele wrote:

I love Mina Kimes so much.

Lamar stats:

Since 2019:
3rd in QBR vs man
4th in QBR vs zone
2nd in QBR when defenses have 7 or fewer players in the box

Lamar haters don't want stats. They have a narrative.

IMAGE(https://media0.giphy.com/media/iFhQlBfXM04NpzcgCI/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b95241578a58c8e22e47a2fcc0d8b4c50df2569d1eb9&rid=giphy.gif&ct=s)

Paleocon wrote:
Stele wrote:

I love Mina Kimes so much.

Lamar stats:

Since 2019:
3rd in QBR vs man
4th in QBR vs zone
2nd in QBR when defenses have 7 or fewer players in the box

Lamar haters don't want stats. They have a narrative.

IMAGE(https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/sports.png)

Reports are the Panthers are trading a whole lot to move up to #1. Who's Enix's new QB next year?

According to Schefter the trade is the 9th, 61st, 2024 1st, 2025 2nd, and DJ Moore.

Cannot wait to see Levis in Carolina blue next year, he's totally the pick.

Wow nice haul for the Bears!

I saw that movie when it was the Browns. They won’t take the QB because his teammates didn’t go to his birthday party. #draftday

Plot twist, they're moving up to take Will Anderson to be their new Julius Peppers. Then they can still sign Jimmy G.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Reports are the Panthers are trading a whole lot to move up to #1.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Cannot wait to see Levis in Carolina blue next year, he's totally the pick.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

It's gotta be Young or Stroud, right? You don't trade multiple firsts and one of only 5 rostered guys with talent to pick Levis or Richardson.

*Legion* wrote:

Plot twist, they're moving up to take Will Anderson to be their new Julius Peppers. Then they can still sign Jimmy G.

Edit: The offseason just got a looooooot more interesting for me. Woo!
Not a bad option except for the fact that Jimmy G is going to want some receivers to throw to and the Panthers just traded the one guy who could catch.

Listen, Carolina is without question the one NFC South team I do not actively root against in almost all cases (for the Saints, actually all cases), but if they take Richardson at #1 it's been nice knowing you all because I will laugh so goddamn hard I will have an actual aneurysm and collapse off my couch.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Listen, Carolina is without question the one NFC South team I do not actively root against in almost all cases (for the Saints, actually all cases), but if they take Richardson at #1 it's been nice knowing you all because I will laugh so goddamn hard I will have an actual aneurysm and collapse off my couch.

I'll also have an aneurysm if Carolina takes Richardson or Levis or anyone who's not Bryce Young or CJ Stroud.

My money's on Stroud. Reich likes big, traditional pro-style guys, and I think Stroud is That Guy. Of course, he's going to need some pass-catchers too.

In a stat I could not find more hilarious, I decided to look up DJ Moore's career stats, and compare them to the all-time receiving leaders for the Chicago Bears, a franchise that has been around since 1920. Moore's 5,201 yards would put him . . . #1 in franchise history, had they all been in Chicago. Even with the pass-crazy era we have moved to, Johnny Moore has the most receiving yards in Bears history at 5,059, and he played from 1958-1967. Walter Payton is #4.

Good news for Moore is it doesn't take much to really set your legacy in Chicago.

Supposed Hall of Fame candidate Devin Hester is 21st with 2807.

Bernard Berrian FRESNO STATE is 30th with 2197.