Mosely, especially at his cap number and being a million years in between games, adds very little value so the McKinney/Mosely swap is probably a net negative for them giving the fact that they'd be adding money to their cap. I could see them leveraging Watson to unload some bad contracts like Cobb and friends assuming they don't incur more dead cap money.
On the more optimistic side of things.. Between Watson, Saleh, and Douglas the franchise would project an air of competence that the Jets haven’t had in a long time and it would be enough to make the Jets an appealing landing spot for quality free agents. No, they haven’t won anything yet, but all of these guys are respected around the league. I honestly think Saleh is a pretty big draw for players, Watson included. If the Jets trade for Watson, landing a top tier free agent WR isn’t just possible, its likely imo. We could be in play for one of the top free agent offensive lineman as well. Then, because of the draft capital accumulated, we still have picks to add more weapons like a TE or another WR in round 2 or 3. Suddenly the Jets can score points. Maybe enough to overcome a middle of the pack defense and actually stay in the hunt. ————- I’m in the “make it happen” camp, but I’m not holding my breath. Good things like this don’t happen to the Jets, so it’ll likely be Darnold or a rookie next season surrounded by some mid tier free agents and a boat load of rookies.
Tough choices and great discussion on both sides. I’m actually really torn over what I’d do. I am good with giving up two first round picks, I am not good with three first rounders IF one of them is our #2 overall, which I’m assuming will have to be. That’s really a bit too rich for me. I LOVE the player....but for as great as he is, they only won four games this year....I thought elite QBs elevate their teams, no? They were a disaster this year, bad coaching and all, but if we don’t use those excuses for Sam, we can’t use them for a franchise QB being paid megabucks, can we? I’m only half joking because I do think he’s an elite QB, but we’ve gone through hell this year with the only upside being that we have a war chest of picks and cap room to help us get out of this never ending sinkhole. By doing it the right way...great drafting and development. No get rich quick schemes like Mac tried to do. I’d hate to give up most of those premium picks (and I don’t want to hear how we still have our third or fourth or fifth rounders....we are talking giving up premium picks here), plus eat up cap room (especially if the deal includes the stupid move of taking on bad contracts to help Houston’s cap situation!), and then be in pretty much the same boat when we can’t field a good team around a great QB...few wins, poor team, and no cap space. Shit, isn’t this what Houston just did? I’m not in a rush to move off the rebuild plan for a quick fix. The only reason I’d even consider this is because of the uniqueness of the situation....young franchise QBs don’t typically become available. There are some red flags, whether we acknowledge them or dismiss them, but a QB balking on a huge deal he JUST signed is NOT a good look....no two ways about that. Miami as a competitive bidder is a legitimate concern, but I wouldn’t rush to do a deal merely to keep a player off another team. So I’m really torn on this one...QB is THE most critical position by far, he’s a great QB (albeit with a red flag), but the cost may end up being too high. I would try to swing a reasonable deal...as I’m sure JD will try....who knows, Houston may feel like they HAVE to do a deal...
Its amazing how few people understand this. If we mortgage our whole draft future for this QB who is already talking his way out of one situation he doesn't like, what happens next year if he gets disgruntled with us and wants out? What if he gets hurt? Is it possible we trade the house for him and the Jets manage to scrape together a team around him with sub-par talent that ends up being successful and winning immediately right out of the gate? Anything is possible but if you think this is likely you are either deluded or haven't been a Jets fan for very long. The much more likely scenario is that no matter what we end up trading for him, there are going to be stumbles along the way, and when there are the NY sports media and fan base is going to be all over him. How is he going to take that? Who knows - we already know he is demanding out of Texas. For the first time in literally decades we seem to have a GM and a coach with some sort of brains and football knowledge along with some decent prospects, a slew of high draft picks, and room under the cap. I think its a terrible move to gamble it all on one guy when we need way more than one guy to be a good team.
Fair enough about Mosely. I do think that they'd want some talent back because it's a pretty big problem on that team. Plus, they'd need to appease the fanbase somehow, you know?
One more thought....it’s been phrased like: would you trade Jamal Adams for Watson straight up? and clearly, the answer to that is a resounding YES where the fuck do I sign RIGHT NOW. no argument however, that isn’t the trade in front of disconnect there is that I think we came out on top in that trade....I think two first rounders plus the player is BETTER than Jamal Adams, only because I don’t think a safety...even an All Pro safety...decides the outcomes of games covers much. So I think we are in a more valuable position now after that trade. So that’s not the straight up trade on the table, especially when we’d need to add in our #2 overall pick.... man it’s tough....gotta trust JD to make the right call
You can still build, because a guy like Watson changes the nature of the organization. Suddenly you get more out of mid range free agents on offense, who will be excited to play with Watson and boost their value. You can invest in high quality offensive linemen in free agency, instantly boosting your OL. If there’s anything Shanahan’s system has shown, it’s that it can get production out of basically any RB, so you don’t need a large investment there. Think about it this way: teams with elite QB’s often go through a cyclical nature of being Super Bowl contenders and playoff contenders. So let’s say a franchise build has 3 stages. A: Rebuilding B: Playoff Contender C: Super Bowl Contender Teams with elite QB’s fluctuate every few years between B and C. You see this happen with teams like New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Green Bay, Seattle etc. it will surely happen to Kansas City as well. The QB raises the level of play such that you never really fall all the way to true rebuilding. These teams don’t need more than an average slate of picks in any given year to maintain their roster, and can trade back to accumulate if necessary. Acquiring Watson bumps the Jets from rebuilding into 2021 playoff contenders. Will they be SB contenders? No probably not until 2022 but a well managed franchise with Deshaun Watson at the helm should never fall into true rebuilding for the next 10 years. This is exactly why the Texans being that bad last year is so outrageous.
The situation is likely to drag on deep into the summer and odds are Watson just winds up playing for Houston next year. He doesn't have leverage at this point because his deal is a killer in the new cap reality. It was signed with the expectation that the cap would be at least $30M more in 2021 than it is going to be. Other teams would clearly take on that cap hit for 2021 because 2021 is the only year in the deal where it is manageable, being a very cool $10.5M out of $175M. In 2022 the cap is fairly likely to go down again, although the amount it will drop is not clear yet. The owners subsidized the 2020 revenue drop by only asking the players to take an 11.6% hit while revenues declined close to 30% overall. They won't do that again. Expect the 2022 cap to be about $170M *after* revenue improves by 10-15%. The $170M figure would represent about a 50/50 split of the revenues that the cap is based on, more than the 48/52 split the CBA dictates. So in 2022 when Watson is due $35M in salary his hit is likely to be 20%+ of the overall cap figure - this is definitely not doable for most teams and certainly not for any team that wants to be good in 2022. In 2023 the cap may recover some if the virus is under control but Watson's cap figure for an acquiring team that year goes up to $37M before settling in at $32M in years 4 and 5 of his deal. The Texans are just royally screwed no matter what happens. They have huge cap hits showing up from 2022 to 2025 if they keep Watson. They have a lot of dead money on the cap, $54M over the next 4 seasons if they trade him before June 1st. They have a lesser amount of dead money if they trade him post-June 1st as reported by OTC that I do not fully understand. However if this is true it will likely make them want to hold Watson until June 1st before they trade him assuming they decide to go that route. The cap hit for the acquiring team may go up in a post-June 1st deal however it is unclear how this would work. It is unlikely that the new CBA had funny money loopholes in it involving trades so you'd think the approximately $30M difference in the dead money would wind up on the acquiring teams cap somehow. My takeaways from looking kind of hard at the situation are: 1. Deshaun Watson has no leverage to speak of. He just signed the huge deal and he has no way to walk away from it. The Texans just toll over his contract if he sits out and get the reasonable cap year in 2022 instead of 2021 - a season in which they are likely to be more competitive and need the cap space more. 2. The Texans have no leverage to demand a big price for Watson. They're stuck with a terrible deal in the new cap reality and they have a very unhappy QB on their hands. I'd be really surprised if they get more than a 1st round pick and a face-saving player back in the deal if they choose to trade him. Nobody is going to hand them a huge package for that contract no matter how attractive the player is and right now Watson is not all that attractive because of the noise he is generating trying to get out. 3. The team that waits this out the best has a real opportunity to get Watson on the cheap. The Texans have no recourse other than to bring Watson back as an unhappy team leader in the new regime. Watson has no choice but to pray that somebody decides to take on his contract. He does have huge guarantees moving forward but I would be really surprised if the team that acquires him actually holds onto him after the guarantees go away in 2023. We've seen several teams punt on large salaries recently when the deal didn't produce the immediate returns they expected. Watson's deal is exactly the kind of deal you'd expect that reality to extend too. 4. With the cap dropping by $23M this year a lot of teams will be looking to cut salary and in some cases a surprising amount of value attached to a salary that is suddenly too large based on the new cap reality. It is going to be a shocking season for some teams and players. Note that the Texans do not have to move Watson this year because his deal is still cap friendly. They may well just decide to duck and avoid creating further cap problems for the year by trading Watson. 5. The best move for the Jets would be to sit tight and watch the situation closely. That's the scenario where they maybe acquire Watson at a very low price compared to what is being bandied about right now. Note that OTC expects teams to have $186M in cap space this year because the agreement at $175M is not yet officially announced. There is a huge cap squeeze coming due this season and most of the teams in the NFL are going to be doing strange things based on that over the next couple of months. I expect the draft in general to be even more valuable than it normally is because the 1st round salaries are going to be fixed to the real cap - not based on last year's numbers like many contracts signed in 2019 and 2020 were. There is huge value at the top of the draft this year.
With the cap restrictions coming, quality FAs are going to be falling out the trees everywhere. We wont need any extra help getting quality FAs. Were one of the few teams that can afford to offer good packages.
But that’s the price, it’s a double edged sword now. We praised joe d for fleecing Seattle with the Jamal trade but now we think a legit star qb is going to be less?
I do but I wouldn't be surprised if Mosely ends up retired after next year or whenever he's cut. It's going to be awfully hard for that guy to return to form. I think they'd shoot hire like a Quinnen Williams (nope). We don't have a lot of guys to give up that would be sought after unfortunately.
The situation will be resolved by the draft. The Texans aren't going to trade Watson in June or July and miss out on the picks (2nd or 3rd overall) in this years draft, that would be ridiculous. The Watson deal is only terrible because they have no draft picks, whiffed on every offensive linemen they have except Tunsil, and invested money into low impact positions (not OL, WR, Edge, or CB). With anticipated cuts, the Texans would have around 60M to play with in 2022 if they keep Watson. Problem is, they don't have the draft capital to make up for the cuts they need to make (Cooks, Cobb, Mercilus, Roby, etc.) Essentially, the Texans did everything wrong and they really screwed themselves, almost forcing them to nuke their roster and start from scratch. I said it multiple times in this thread but if I were them, I'd trade for the Jets #2 overall pick and then trade down. Agree with your 4th point; free agency is going to be very interesting this year. 13 teams have deficits in cap space. To name some, the Saints are -96M, but assuming Brees retires they will be at -60M, Eagles are -52M, and Pittsburgh and Atlanta are -32M. Lots of solid players are going hit FA and I think the teams with more cap can get some really solid players without overpaying. The best move is for the Jets IMO is to to kick the tires and continue to look at it, don't outbid yourselves. I don't think Douglas is the type of GM who will outbid himself, he appears to be a very competent GM. What the Jets should do is make plans for the draft in the event you do or do not get Watson.
Man who the hell knows with Mosley anymore. We saw how Bell was after missing a full season so how about 2 full years and an injury for Mosley. The only thing I know is we're stuck with him for the next two seasons. We can only hope he returns to form towards the 2nd half of 2021; that dude is force to be reckoned with.
The Texans have 8 picks this draft. Just none in the first 2 rounds. They are also likely to trade JJ Watt.
They have: 3rd round 4th round 5th round 3 6th rounders 7th rounder It's great and all that they have 8 picks, but 4 of those picks come in the 6th or 7th round, it's not looking so good for them. Also, the pick they'd get for Watt is going to be a day 3 pick. He's coming off two poor seasons, one plagued with injury and another in which he only produced 5 sacks. I find it hard to believe a team will trade for a player that is on the decline and is owed 17.5M in a year where the cap is going down. He's more likely to be a cap casualty than he is to get traded.
Yeah I agree, I'd be surprised if he gets traded for anything less than three 1's. The tricky thing for us is that our #2 pick this year is worth a hell of a lot more than the average first round pick. We could turn it into multiple 1's just by trading down.
With Rivers retiring today, Carolina wanting to upgrade, Dallas with Zak, the 49ers, the Pats. Rams and possibly Fins a lot of teams are looking for new qbs. Especially since Watsons cap number is so low next yr almost anybody can fit him under their cap. Everyone of those teams have a better situation for Watson than the Jets can offer. He controls the no trade. He does not care what Houston is getting in return for him. What JJ Watt said to Watson about wasting another yr, it is a collar around his neck Like Sams ghosts. Think he wants to come to New York to spend most of his career in a re build? Yes he is flirting with every team like a school boy ,but when things become serious , we do not have what it takes to stack up. Traded to a playoff team which any on the list would be with Watson or be part of a rebuild on a team cursed at the qb position
I'm not gonna pretend like I've watched all his games, but if Watson is as good as advertised, I don't see how you can pass up this opportunity even for three 1st round picks. With the all the 24-25yo young guns in the AFC.... Mahomes, Allen, Jackson... and, oh, Watson (even worse if he ends up in Miami or NE), do you really want to jerk around for years with Darnold or some rookie praying they will develop into something even close to those 4? I could understand the hesitation if we only had our own first rounders, but JD turned a damn safety into two more in our pocket this year. We have the trade capital, we have to cap space to bring in some good FAs, we have extra picks to draft quality players, and we will even have Sam Darnold who still has decent trade value. The position is just too important to gamble on and i think is worth the extra picks to solidify the QB spot for the next decade.
