The franchise tag is around $22 million for a defensive end if I’m calculating it right based on the top five highest paid. That would absolutely cripple the Jets cap space for next year and tie us up all off-season while trying to move him. We have to add at minimum probably two starting offensive linemen. He’s saying the only way the Jets can get a pick is if they tag him since he’s an unrestricted free. Not sure where you’re getting draft position as a factor. The larger problem is they paid their defensive tackle a boat load of money, drafted JJ in the first round, took Clemons in the 4th (I don’t care what the Jets are trying to do with him he’s a defensive end), signed JFM. We can throw Lawson out I guess since he’s a UFA which everyone is using as a reason as to why we should’ve taken McDonald. We also insist on keeping more defensive lineman than any other position group every year. It’s just bad asset allocation.
My bad, I read “UDFA” and jumped to his draft stature not being worthy of a 1st via trade…. Tbh I’m glad I misread, my response to “how do you trade an UFA” wouldn’t have been a friendly one.
I predict that we won't hear much from McDonald until he has a 9 sack game and then disappears from the team completely, and also from his personal life, and is discovered a decade later working as a mountain guide in the Himalayas.
Maybe I misunderstood your previous post, were you implying that maybe the Jets could trade Huff for a first round pick? He’s an unrestricted FA after the season, how’s that gonna happen? Offering a fair contract seems like the right plan imo. He’s been very effective, Lawson is not coming back, and WMD is still an unknown on a rookie contract. We need Huff here. His motivation to signing now would be insurance against injury. Take a major injury this season and there won’t be any big contracts coming. Thats the gamble and the leverage any team has in re-signing players mid season (not that JD has taken advantage of that leverage ever).
Agree with most of your points. Huff is not getting 22m anywhere so I don’t see the tag happening. I do think we should re-sign him tho. I don’t see JFM as an essential hold at that price tag. Releasing him would free up some money and asset allocation. And as you mention releasing Lawson frees up a roster spot (although no money due to that puzzling restructure). I’ve got no issue with the asset allocation to date provided WMD actually develops into a good player. The draft is always more about the future. Huff has been an impact contributor. You can’t let someone like that go just because of draft picks used. He’s currently better than WMD, Clemons and JJ. And we will have a role for all 4. Could be a nice future at DL along with Q. I’d love to keep that core together as a team strength.
I don’t think they should let Huff go because of the assets used but I don’t think drafting WMD was a smart draft pick given the assets used.
I mean if it comes down to tagging Huff for 22 million or letting him walk it’s a no brainer IMO. You don’t let a pass rusher of his caliber walk out the door. Will tagging him suck and screw some cap numbers up? For sure, but we have that card in our pocket and there’s no way I’m not using it if i need too. We’ve been dying for someone of his caliber since the John Abraham trade. We can’t let this one walk out the door. Just get the deal done.
The franchise tag for DEs was $19 mil not $22 mil and Huff, love him for what he is, is a part time player. No team is gonna drop $20 mil per year long term on him. You wait it out and you re-sign him to Carl Lawson's exact contract. 3 years, $15 million per year. Lawson will be gone so the resource allocation is the same.
It’s projected to be $21.664 million. https://overthecap.com/franchise-transition-and-rfa-tenders But if you divide the top 5 contracts at defensive end including Bosa’s wild $34 million, it comes to $25 million or so. Not sure where it’ll land but I’d guess somewhere way close to $21-25 million than the aforementioned $16-21.
I could be mistaken, but I think the tag gets reworked after the season ends based on all the highest new deals so that $19.7 will get bumped up. Huff is playing right around 50% of the snaps still. That number needs to get up to 60% and Lawson just needs to stop getting on the field for 30% of the snaps. The guy sucks.
Teams traditionally use a “sign and trade” or “tag and trade” when trading for/from a desirable UFA. It’s a very common practice known very well to both GMs and casual football fans. Re-signing Huff at a fair price is the absolute most ideal situation possible; I see 0 chance Huff signs early and doesn’t “bet on himself”. This was his 1 year “prove it” contract and he “proved it”
At the very least JD has to use a transition tag of 16 mil if he cannot reach the extension by deadline. We would then be able to match any offer he gets from other teams, which gives some leverage. Typically teams prefer non-exclusive franchise tag option to transition tag, which is almost as good as exclusive because if another team signs a player, they have to surrender 1st round picks. The reasoning is that the other teams cannot drive up the price with the franchise like they can with transition. But Huff might just be in that rare spot where 16 a year is just right and other teams might not offer much more anyway. We will have to see - if he keeps getting sacks like he started doing last few games, he might earn himself even more money. The bottom line to me is that JD should try to get an extension between now and before next year's tag deadline. It will not be cheap, there is no reason for Huff to give a large discount to the Jets when he is up for a huge payday if he can talk to other teams. But he might give a small discount as injury protection if we extend midseason. Imagine if he tears his ACL towards the end of the season or in play-offs, that could be a disaster for him financially. So there is some value for him to get this done midseason, then the Jets effectively assume injury risk. And if we cannot agree, then tag him at deadline either transition or franchise depending on how things look at the time and continue to negotiate. One thing is for sure: JD struck big with him because he is rare elite pass rusher who is also solid in run D, and we cannot lose him after this year just because he drafted McD.
We will just need to disagree, because I don't think JD is as infallible as you seem to think. The evidence points otherwise, specifically in the OLine building, though I agree overall he is a good GM. But I have to call spade a spade. When 3 days are left before deadline, and you still agree to pick swap, that likely means he feels in that range there are a lot of similarly valued players and he did not value Jones specifically. He then confirmed that theory on One Jets Drive when they had McD and Mayer (who went 2nd round) ahead of him. At the end of the day, after he didn't get Orlando, he appeared content with Duane at LT, which proved to be a huge mistake. I don't think this is a controversial statement, but we can agree to disagree. As far as Connor's board, all info is there, every position and ratings, here is a direct link from the tweet in case you want to take a look. There are two tabs. Again, I am not saying Connor or Cole or anyone else should be a GM. The point was that I have observed these consensus boards are just as good as average GM picks. Part of it probably as you said a draft is a crap shoot. It's just interesting to take a look if you have time. The bigger point is that just because JD went against consensus and picked McD, which was considered a consensus reach and also had Mayer rated higher than consensus, doesn't at all mean he was right.
LOL this is really funny, not sure how I missed this. His job is literally to study college prospects for PFF and all of their predraft stuff. He also has a very successful podcast with Trevor Sikkema called NFL Stock Exchange which is NFL Draft Stuff. He is also a die hard Jets fan, works for SNY and does pregame/postgame for the JETS, and has a very successful Jets podcast called Badlands which he cohosts with Joe Caporoso. So yeah, I think he knows what he's talking about when he talks Jets, Jets draft, and NFL prospects. Amazing post from you. You never disappoint, truly.
I don’t see any way as to why Huff would negotiate now. And honestly, Huff’s been great but I want to see it continue. He’s had a really good couple games but the talks of $22-25 million per year seem a bit crazy before he extrapolates his production throughout at least one season.
Financial security is why he signs now. He's on an UDFA contract. If he gets injured, his value plummets. He needs the foundation.
I’m talking solely about the franchise tag. Teams don’t really use the transition tag because it allows the player to go negotiate with other teams which would traditionally drive the price up even more for the team applying it. They have the option to match it, but again it relinquishes rights to the player they have and thus some leverage. Looks like it’s only been used 10 times in the past 22 years. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cba/transition-tag/
Ahh. I was talking about both since imo Huff will want to test the market and the transition gives the Jets the option to keep Huff if they want to pay the price.
I don't think that JD is infallible. I have said on multiple occasions that NO GM is perfect. That includes JD. With regards to the 3 days left before the deadline bit, he could have had a lot of players similarly valued or just a few, but that doesn't necessarily mean that. It could simply be a matter of Woody ordering him to go ahead and make the deal or it could be a matter that JD thought it more important to get AR here in time for the installation of offense at mini-camp and OTAs. It could also be that based on the attitude and tenor of Gutekunst's voice in their trade discussions that JD knew that Gutekunst had his heels dug in and wasn't going to cave on the pick swap. IMO we don't have enough information to make a judgement one way or another. I'm willing to give JD the benefit of the doubt until we have more information. I'm glad that you said "appeared content" with Duane at LT, because again, there is no proof either way. He could have been very concerned with the OT position, but thought he'd be able to get an OT they liked and thought was a good scheme fit in the draft. It's also possible that he tried to find a trade down partner, but no team was willing to move up or give fair value for the pick. It's also possible that he thought they'd be OK with Brown, Becton, Mitchell and Turner since Rodgers gets the ball out so quickly. If so, then that was obviously a mistake on his part. As I've said, if he turned down a trade down opportunity because he didn't think he was getting enough value, while I can understand that on the basis of thinking about future trades and not getting taken advantage of, I think it was a mistake not to take the trade down and take Harrison. IMO there were really no other options in FA. Here is a list of 2023 NFL OT FAs: https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/2023/all/tackle/all/ Please tell me who you think JD should have signed. If you can't tell me a FA OT whom JD should have signed, then what was he supposed to do if he did try to trade down to get Harrison and couldn't find a trade partner? Thanks for the direct link to Connor's big board. We won't know for at least 2-3 years how things turn out with the rookies. In the end there could be no right or wrong about it if both McDonald and Harrison turn out to be topnotch players, but it could be considered a mistake if JD did turn down a trade down opportunity to take Harrison when we needed another OT. It's possible that Connor could be better than some NFL GMs, as we know all too well from experience that there are incompetent GMs in the NFL. IMO JD isn't incompetent, however, and he's not just average, either. IMO he's well above average, so until I have solid proof to the contrary, I will continue to trust him. Remember that I do fault him totally for hiring Saleh and MLF, allowing them to install the WCO rather than an offense tailored to Zach, not having a quality veteran QB here to start, and almost ruining Zach as a result. That proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was not infallible. The thing is, that he acknowledged that mistake, learned from it, and took bold steps to correct it. So far, it looks like the steps he took to correct the situation are paying big dividends and are working. I never said that just because JD went against consensus and picked McD and had Mayer rated higher than consensus that he was right. He could be proven right, however within 2-3 years or he could be proven wrong, or it could be a wash. There's one other factor that we haven't mentioned, and that is Harrison's character. I don't remember if I ever read or heard anything regarding Harrison's character one way or another, but it is possible that even though JD knew we needed another OT, he didn't feel that Harrison's character was what he wanted on the Jets. It's possible that there were questions about Harrison's work ethic, his love for the game, or had off-field issues. There may not have been any issues with his character. I honestly don't know, but that could be another reason why JD didn't trade down and take Harrison. I think it more likely, however, that he did try to trade down, and no one wanted to move up. What player would a team wanted to trade up to acquire? Maybe some team coveted Jaxon Smith-Njigba at WR or a LB-needy team may have wanted Jack Campbell, but aside from them, I see no reason why any team would want to trade up at that point. I'm enjoying the discussion and will look forward to your response. We may have to wind up agreeing to disagree, but there's nothing wrong with that. It could be that it's just a matter of your perspective being more negative and critical than mine since you're willing to criticize him rather than give him the benefit of the doubt, and that's OK and understandable. I hope you know that I respect your opinion, and I enjoy our discussions/debates. I think it's healthy to have my perspective challenged and to look at things from another perspective, and I always learn from our discussions. I appreciate your taking time to give thoughtful responses.
