(03-06-2024, 09:21 AM)Caldrac Wrote:

(03-06-2024, 09:09 AM)Mikey Wrote: This is what good teams do. They move on from guys before they overpay.

What can we do with 15-20M if we move on? We saw what happened when we had him and no help up front.

Nobody is saying he isn't good, or that we'll miss his production. But if we have to gut the roster even more just to keep him around, is it really worth it?

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I saw rust maybe a few weeks into the season. The rest of the way, it was just we were incapable of running a realistic offense because our line was abhorrent.

We're not a good team. Not implying you're saying we're a good team, but, this team has a lot of work to do in a short amount of time this off season to get itself out of the middle of the road teams. Good teams don't start off 8 - 3 and then proceed to collapse and finish 9 - 8. 

I think people are concerned about having cap space for a front office that has shown for the past three years that they're hit or miss with finding adequate talent, upgrades and we're now entering year three of complaining about the same three issues again.

1. No interior presence on defense. 
2. No interior presence or push on offense. 
3. No "Alpha" or "X" type receiver on the outside for this offense. 

Also, need to put definitions or parameters around the term "gutting" when it comes to this roster. They're hovering around $50M in cap space, they could maybe make the next most logical choice, and that's outright cut Cam Robinson to come up with the $17.5M to maybe fork over towards Ridley, but, due to said incompetence above? We don't have a reliable or confident answer for Cam Robinson.

Because, if it was Walker Little? Cam's sorry, overpaid [BLEEP] is already off the roster by now, so, there's that. I think what bothers most of us, like Hurricane is stating, is that, we essentially pissed away a 3rd RD pick on a team that we're currently seeing a little bit of "gutting" to make room for massive contract's that are due more than likely at the end of this year, going into 2025, etc. 

The needle isn't moving enough in the right direction, we're right there in the middle, and with this many holes and concerns, again, THE SAME HOLES AND CONCERNS we've been griping about for now three years in a row? This team feels like it's just a really good, smelly, strong Mayport gust of wind from falling down to being a 6 - 11 team or worse. 

I know, I know, "But..but..but..Caldrac...C'mon man.... it's not NEARLY as bad as it was X amount of years ago". Yes, you're right. I agree. But, it's damn near close to being a brief fart in the wind with blundered opportunities. We're not capitalizing enough. Otherwise we're not having this conversation or debate now. 

Cheers though!

Yeah, wasn't necessarily projecting "good" onto us, but maybe "wise" would have been a better word choice. Don't fall in love with a player, whether it's FA, darft or renewals. Know when the juice isn't worth the squeeze, and be prepared to walk away. We may not fully be prepared, but we're also seeing the end result of spending like madmen a few years back - we got good production out of a few, but now we have to wave goodbye to starters to keep the cap healthy. I certainly hope our current leadership is paying attention to what wise teams do to model their own decision making.

So now we are facing the reality of multiple holes to fill, and limited resources to address the matter - we only have so much cap room and so many picks. Do we throw 40% of our open cap at Rid? We know Allen is going to cost 40-50% as well. Do we make any effort to bring in vets at either LG or C, or do we solely rely on rookies to address those gaps? What about Foley, Jenkins, Williams, and other potential starters that are gone? I don't envy our GM for having to navigate these waters, but that chunky salary sure makes the headaches a lot easier to bear, I'm sure.

You're right that a savvy team would be more prepared at this point. Young guys would be ready to take over for the guys you walk away from. No idea if that happens this year in the form of returning youth (Johnson, Buster, Lacy?) or darft, but next year the cycle will repeat with a new cast - we'll be making cap decisions and potentially walking away from good players (Campbell, Cisco, Zay, Kirk, Etienne). If we spend like crazy again this year just to maintain status quo, I don't see how we expect results to improve.

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