There is a mystery being talked about in NFL circles now. I myself have been questioned by some staff executives. I don’t have the answer.
It’s like that: Who the hell were the Cardinals vying for JJ Watt? Who else was paying him $ 14 million a year?
Good question indeed.
Good for Watt. He did better on the open market than most suspected, but the idea that there were several teams playing bids over $ 15 million was simply silly. This market never existed, nor should it have existed, due to the age and history of injuries in the future first Hall of Fame of the vote. This was simply not a reality. Agent talks about steroids.
There were certainly interested teams, but few felt the need to spend the same money that the Cardinals did, raising many eyebrows in other offices. Some teams I talked to were thinking more about $ 10 million a year. Others said they would consider $ 12 million more in incentives. This is a player who has lost a lot of time with a series of significant injuries, after all, and playing in the trenches is not as conducive to a rebirth in the final stage as, say, operating in a clean pocket with a kill or rules in place to protect your position.
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Watt won the right to go wherever he wanted, and hitting the market in a pandemic with the wage cap still up for debate and the massive bloodshed of other talents soon to come was not exactly ideal. Not at this stage in your career. Still, the Texans did more than a solid by letting it go so early – well before the start of the league year in mid-March – and it was still clear that there was no growing frenzy. The best teams had other mouths to feed and limit situations to navigate, and Watt would not come close to the $ 17.5 million he was expected to earn in Houston anywhere else, not even as the only defensive striker on the market.
Therefore, investing in essence US $ 28 million for two years is, in fact, being praised throughout the sector. Was anyone else really pushing the Cardinals into this stratosphere?
“We were shocked by the guaranteed money,” said an NFL game guru. “He basically got two real years with a lot more money than we thought someone was paying him. The second year guarantees? Wow.”
Another NFL executive said, “Good for JJ, but I’m not sure what Arizona was thinking. In fact, this market would take a few weeks to weaken.”
A team executive who had at least a slight interest in Watt said, “Too much out of our league.”
Some believe that the best Watt value could come from playing mainly within this point, and wonder if another 1,000 snap campaign makes more sense, given the two-year commitment. Will he put the Cardinals on top? Does he have two more elite seasons in him? It must be an intriguing theater, no matter what.
A QB prospect stands out as a Steelers target
With Steelers finalizing their new financial deal with Ben Roethlisberger, attention will now turn to what they do or fail to do as a defender this spring. Mike Tomlin was the main reason Dwayne Haskins signed a future contract, while there are some on the front lines who believe that Mason Rudolph may still have a future in the organization after 2021.
And there is a sense among some other general managers that the Steelers could very well invest a very high draft choice in a draw frame. The name I hear most in Scouting circles is Kyle Trask, from Florida. It seems appropriate for the people I talk to and whose profile would be attractive to general manager Kevin Colbert.
“I have known Kevin for a long time and the more I see this boy, the more I see him in a Steelers uniform,” a GM told me. “It looks like paper.”
Trask has a sturdy 6-5, he was not a great recruit and Florida was the only major program to really chase him. He didn’t see much of the field until an injury to the starting quarterback created an opportunity in 2019, and Trask took advantage of it. He continued his ascent in 2020, including more than 400 yards and throwing three touchdowns in a wild loss to Alabama in the SEC Championship.
It is difficult to identify draft slots so early in the process, and some feel that Trask has an outside chance of entering the first round. The second round may be a safer bet and I predict that the Steelers will do a lot of research on it.
Cap victim? Don’t believe it
Get ready to hear “cap casualty” and nauseum in the coming weeks, with the league year approaching. And, well, I advise you to disregard that. Because in the overwhelming majority of cases, this is simply not true.
The lid is always fungible. Just look at the case of Roethlisberger and the Steelers and all the various cap gymnastics they’ve done over more than a decade to lower the cap numbers and postpone the payment due date by a few more years. Then it became real when the team no longer thought that the player was worth his salary, and he accepted less to stay. Of course, if it weren’t for the number of the huge dead limit, they might as well have changed completely – so the limit certainly played a role – but if Big Ben refused that price point, he probably would have left anyway. manner.
It’s about the limit … until it’s not. And the reason so many players will be dismissed is because their current team does not want to use the fund currently dedicated to that player for 2021. They don’t think he is worth the salary and / or bonus payment attached to his name. Otherwise, they would make it worthwhile to convert some wages into bonuses and decrease their number and make it a win / win.
And in many cases, the reason the player is cut is because he doesn’t want to spend less to stay when the matter is addressed, and he and his agent believe they can get a better opportunity elsewhere, or prefer to take a test. . it is a team that they believe will put them in better financial opportunities on the market again in 2020, when the ceiling should start to rise.
The reason for this is that the front office and the owner do not want to pay what the contract says is due. PR is better to talk about the limit – it sounds better, right? – but half of the NFL teams spent more than the limit last year. It is almost always about money.