The Official 2023 ES Free Agency Thread... available until Free Agency 2024 begins

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

54 minutes ago, Wyvern said:

I wasn't a fan of the Dantzler acquisition, so I can understand his release.

 

I didn't know Norwell needed to be PUP. Frankly,  I suspect it's more a matter of $$$ and doubts whether he'd fit Bieniemy's preference for zone blocking. 

 

Odd how the organization clings to the hope that Saahdiq Charles will come through in the final year of his contract.  The way Charles has performed over his tenure with Washington, he should give back some of the 1.2 million he's getting this year. And even if he performs adequately, Washington would have to pay a free patent market rate to retain his services.

 

My concern is how this organization feels it's getting stronger by subtraction, in the name of salary cap. -- especially on the O-line.  I get how the bar might be a little lower for competent ZBS O-linemen, but I still see a lot of question-marks being penciled in as O-line pass protection for Howell's evaluation period as a bona-fide NFL starting QB for Washington. ... And considering how the rest of the NFC-East beefed up their defenses, I'm wondering how fairly Washington will be able to evaluate the quality of their QB.

 

I echo most of your thoughts. I'm guessing it's less addition by subtraction (except for Trai Turner) and more addition by shifting OL schemes that also happens to be something Norwell (and Turner) simply could not do.

 

Btw, I've seen it said here a few times that Bieniemy is shifting to a more focused zone blocking scheme. Anyone got a link to share for that? Not doubting, just curious if other tidbits for Bieniemy's scheme come through.

[KillBill26]

4 hours ago, Always A Commander Never A Captain said:

Some of this fan base cited Dantzler as the reason the CB position was now "solved" and why we should not draft corners early in the 2023 draft. 

I was about to post the same thing.  Laughable then, even more so now.

[philibusters]

1 hour ago, Always A Commander Never A Captain said:

 

I echo most of your thoughts. I'm guessing it's less addition by subtraction (except for Trai Turner) and more addition by shifting OL schemes that also happens to be something Norwell (and Turner) simply could not do.

 

Btw, I've seen it said here a few times that Bieniemy is shifting to a more focused zone blocking scheme. Anyone got a link to share for that? Not doubting, just curious if other tidbits for Bieniemy's scheme come through.

 

 

Kansas City uses a lot of zone blocking in their running game, but its not dramatically different from what we did last year.   For example, last year Charles Leno, who is the O-Lineman for us who played the most snaps had 520 run snaps.  Of the 520, 56 were not designated as either zone or gap.  The other 464 were recorded as zone or gap.  269 of them or about 57.9% were zone blocking and 195 or 42.% were gap blocking plays.  So our split was somewhere around 58-42.   Andrew Wylie had 375 snaps recorded as either zone blocking run snaps or gap blocking run snaps.  254 were zone blocking runs (67.3%) vs. 121 gap blocking runs (32.7%).  So if Bienemy runs something similar to the Chiefs we may go from about 58% of run plays using zone blocking to maybe 68% of run plays using zone blocking which is a significant difference,  but at the same time its not like we are going from using 80% gap blocking on run plays to 80% zone blocking on run plays.

[philibusters]

8 minutes ago, KillBill26 said:

I was about to post the same thing.  Laughable then, even more so now.

 

I didn't post that, but it makes some sense to me.  You can use free agency (and waiver pickups) to fill holes on your roster.  That way you can draft the best player available rather than forcing picks for need.  Dantzler is a quality depth and a starter you can live with if he has to play.  Minnesota fans may not have liked Dantzler that much, but the fact he played almost 2000 snaps in 3 years means he got a decent amount of reps each year so he wasn't terrible.  His first year was his worst year both in terms of PFF grade (around 60 flat) and the raw data (things like targets vs. completions--where he gave up completions more than 70% of the time he was targeted).  His second and third year were okay years both in terms of PFF grades (high 60's) and raw data.   To me its clear, he was solid depth, what you are looking for in a third corner.  Having him on the roster made it so we didn't have bad depth at corner.  Therefore if we didn't need to draft corner.  Now if corner is where the best player is available, you can draft corner, but you are not forced into a pick.  Unfortunately by our pick 16, Paris Johnson Jr., Peter Skronowski, Darnell Wright, and Broderick Jones, the four O-Lineman we were interested in were off the board.  Realistically by our pick the best player on the board was corner, edge, or maybe tight end give the composition of the draft class.  So we took him as BPA, but we didn't need take corner in the first or second round if the board had worked out different (lets say Peter Skronowski was available at 16 and Brian Branch or Michael Mayer at 47)

[Thinking Skins]

2 hours ago, Always A Commander Never A Captain said:

 

I echo most of your thoughts. I'm guessing it's less addition by subtraction (except for Trai Turner) and more addition by shifting OL schemes that also happens to be something Norwell (and Turner) simply could not do.

 

Btw, I've seen it said here a few times that Bieniemy is shifting to a more focused zone blocking scheme. Anyone got a link to share for that? Not doubting, just curious if other tidbits for Bieniemy's scheme come through.

Not much to go on but I'm hoping that Howell has especially and just a quick delivery that make the line look better. That's what I saw against Dallas last year. The same line that abused Heinicke couldn't get to Howell too much. I call that a win. 

[kingdaddy]

We can probably all agree that signing De'Andre Hopkins would be a Howie Roseman move or maybe a Cowboys or Chiefs move....well why not have EB talk to him and recruit him to come here? We are due for a move to go hard for an offensive star and he'd be a great get plus we could probably free up the money to pay him pretty good coin. Imagine Hopkins, Terry and Dotson as our 3 WR's in EB's offense? If we're looking to bring back the fans and make a big splash with new ownership this would be a nice way to do it. I'd hate to see him go somewhere in the division without taking our shot.....I'll bet Roseman is working on this right now. 

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

42 minutes ago, kingdaddy said:

We can probably all agree that signing De'Andre Hopkins would be a Howie Roseman move or maybe a Cowboys or Chiefs move....well why not have EB talk to him and recruit him to come here? We are due for a move to go hard for an offensive star and he'd be a great get plus we could probably free up the money to pay him pretty good coin. Imagine Hopkins, Terry and Dotson as our 3 WR's in EB's offense? If we're looking to bring back the fans and make a big splash with new ownership this would be a nice way to do it. I'd hate to see him go somewhere in the division without taking our shot.....I'll bet Roseman is working on this right now. 

 

That would involve cutting Curtis Samuel. Who is worse than Hopkins, generally, but also fits EB's desire for speed. I say generally, because availability matters and Hopkins will be 31 next season. He only played 47% and 46% of his teams snaps in his age 29 and 30 seasons with Arizona. At a certain point we have to wonder if his high usage and physical play style as a WR have caught up to him. He's had great footwork combined with a 215 pound body at 6'1, but never been a burner.

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

53 minutes ago, Thinking Skins said:

Not much to go on but I'm hoping that Howell has especially and just a quick delivery that make the line look better. That's what I saw against Dallas last year. The same line that abused Heinicke couldn't get to Howell too much. I call that a win. 

 

Howell's pocket movement and scrambling also helped a fair amount. Scrambling lanes opened up as the pass rusher won, but vacated containment upon doing so. If Howell keeps scrambling, eventually other teams will start pass rushing with more discipline. I can't blame Dallas though, as it would have crushed Wentz, and did work in the past against Heinicke. Another hidden benefit of Howell's lack of height compared to Wentz. The latter of which needs an overly long base to throw off of, while the former can throw off platform and from odd angles.

 

I'm also pleased with Chris Paul from that game. He had clear flaws, but showed enough promise that left you thinking he could develop in one offseason into a solid player. Better anchor and initial punch and he's got something cooking. Feet are there. His one time they weren't (that I remember) he was a little late or just made the wrong call early on how to handle a blitz.

[HigSkin]

 

[Est.1974]

3 minutes ago, HigSkin said:

 

Technically correct overall, but pretty sure we get 8mil in space for 2023, offset by a 4mil hit in 2024. However the point of a June 1st is to differentiate that.

[Darth Tater]

22 hours ago, FootballZombie said:

We are allergic to TEs with NFL XP.

 

Not asking for a world beater, especially at this part of the offseason. Just a guy that has been thru the ups and downs of the NFL.

We somehow found a TE w/ less NFL recs than turner... and he only had 2.

 

They are asking for a repeat of last year at TE. Dummy Ball.

Given how the draft fell, there were no TEs available that I'd have taken over what we had and there was now way to know that a roster space for a TE camp body would even be a need There are not now nor in the near future any TEs with NFL XP that are better than either Thomas or Bates at their given roles and such a person would probably be a waste of roster space at best (any guy we bring in should mostly a camp body with potential) . If we bring in a TE now (other than the current camp body we just brought in), he should be what Armani Rogers was supposed to be, another shot at finding a burner at TE.  The only talent part of this offense that is noticeably worse (and is the fault of Rivera) than 2018 is the decline of our offensive line.

 

[tmandoug1]

Weird how we needed Oline, LB, TE, and CB and we got two of one and none of the other. Silly how the draft works isn't it?

[wit33]

39 minutes ago, tmandoug1 said:

Weird how we needed Oline, LB, TE, and CB and we got two of one and none of the other. Silly how the draft works isn't it?

Look at the list of safeties and boom, the LB depth is solved. Most likely they like Davis, free agent signing and Hudson more than most here. This is how you build from within, trust the development and pay the elite talent elsewhere. 
 

Football has become more position less in and around the box. Washington drafted a CB and joker. 

[757SeanTaylor21]

Wouldn't be surprised to see Hopkins go to Cleveland to get back with deshaun

[philibusters]

4 hours ago, 757SeanTaylor21 said:

Wouldn't be surprised to see Hopkins go to Cleveland to get back with deshaun

Would make sense and would give them one of the better WR's corps in the NFL with Cooper and Hopikins, but they would have to free up some salary cap to make it happen as I think Hopkins is going to want something in the vicinity of the deal the Ravens gave OBJ.  Listening to some podcasts part of the reason the Cardinals could not move him was his salary cap hit of 19 million.  In order to make a trade for a player, the team has to have the salary cap available for the player for the trade to get approved by the league and only 6 teams currently had 19 million available.  Now that he is a free agent he doesn't have that 19 million dollar hit assigned to him, but it probably won't be that much lower if he wants a one year 15 million dollar deal like OBJ got.  You could use a couple void years to spread the signing bonus and get that hit down to say 9 million.  Right now according to Overthecap the Browns have 5 million available so even if they use some void years they would likely have to make a move or two to clear some room.  Do-able and probably worthwhile  because as much as people don't like Deshaun Watson if he plays well this year they are a legit contender as the Browns are one of the top 5 or 6 rosters in the league even without Hopkins.

[FootballZombie]

22 minutes ago, philibusters said:

Right now according to Overthecap the Browns have 5 million available so even if they use some void years they would likely have to make a move or two to clear some room.

 

Bunch of teams are about to get J-1 money.

 

That opens some doors.

[philibusters]

1 hour ago, FootballZombie said:

 

Bunch of teams are about to get J-1 money.

 

That opens some doors.

 

Yeah, google says they are releasing Clowney and John Johnson Jr.  According to the article from Yahoo they should free up 9.75 million in cap space with those two cuts.

 

Edit:  I see the article I was reading was two months old so I am not sure if that was already counted into the cap or not.

 

Double Edit:  I think it will free up money because on overthecap they were both still listed against the cap so even though they made those moves a couple months ago, they were not counted yet because they had post June 1 designations.

Edited June 1, 2023 by philibusters

[philibusters]

If I were the Browns this is the year I would go all in on.  Next year Watson's cap hit goes from 19 to 63 million.  They only had a 1 million cap hit year one and 19 million year two.  Next year they start paying the bill in earnst.  Doubt year 1 worked out like they hoped, but this is the last year they can really build their roster.  Starting next year they will have to shed decent players

[FootballZombie]

12 minutes ago, philibusters said:

If I were the Browns this is the year I would go all in on.  Next year Watson's cap hit goes from 19 to 63 million.  They only had a 1 million cap hit year one and 19 million year two.  Next year they start paying the bill in earnst.  Doubt year 1 worked out like they hoped, but this is the last year they can really build their roster.  Starting next year they will have to shed decent players

 

Barring an absolute horrendous collapse as a player where they become unplayable or an Alex Smith lvl injury, none of these guys that are scheduled for wild payments are gonna be at those numbers next year. 

 

They will get another year added onto their deal or some kinda rework to lower their cap hits.

 

Watson wont hit his team at 63 in 2024

Dak wont hit at 59

A-Rod dang sure wont hit at 107

 

[JamesMadisonSkins]

This is a rough calculation based on what I expect to be the Final 53. 

 

2023 Cap Space heading into the season: $22 million

2024 Cap Space heading into the season: $99 million

 

Good chance we roll a good chunk of that $22m over to 2024. Obv. an extension would be great for one of the DEs or Cam Kurl but that likely won't impact the 2023 numbers, as this year's cap hits will be rolled into any extension.

 

Usually we spend anywhere from $4-8 million in-season on injury replacements. So I would expect we roll $14-18 million into next year, where we'll have about $110+ million in cap space to make some big extensions or signings. 

 

Of course, that doesn't preclude some sort of signing of a cap casualty from another team ala Charles Leno from a couple of years ago. But we have the cap space to do a couple of these moves if we wanted to.

 

 

Edited June 1, 2023 by JamesMadisonSkins

[Koolblue13]

24 minutes ago, JamesMadisonSkins said:

This is a rough calculation based on what I expect to be the Final 53. 

 

2023 Cap Space heading into the season: $22 million

2024 Cap Space heading into the season: $99 million

 

Good chance we roll a good chunk of that $22m over to 2024. Obv. an extension would be great for one of the DEs or Cam Kurl but that likely won't impact the 2023 numbers, as this year's cap hits will be rolled into any extension.

 

Usually we spend anywhere from $4-8 million in-season on injury replacements. So I would expect we roll $14-18 million into next year, where we'll have about $110+ million in cap space to make some big extensions or signings. 

 

Of course, that doesn't preclude some sort of signing of a cap casualty from another team ala Charles Leno from a couple of years ago. But we have the cap space to do a couple of these moves if we wanted to.

 

 

You good sir are a gem of a poster. Thanks for being the numbers guy.

[JamesMadisonSkins]

41 minutes ago, Koolblue13 said:

You good sir are a gem of a poster. Thanks for being the numbers guy.

 

Spotrac is giving me slightly different numbers. None of them are likely 100% accurate, but I do my best! Hopefully once OTC clears out Roullier I can get more accurate numbers.

[JamesMadisonSkins]

Roullier has hit on OTC and the Norwell pending release has us at:

 

2023: $15.9m cap space 

 

This number does not include the full salaries for Martin or Forbes. They have placeholders in the calculation, so the real number is probably closer to 13.9m.

 

There are some cut-down contracts that will free up more cap space. My projected 53 man roster gets us to about $20-21 million 

[FootballZombie]

It feels a lot nicer not being mushed against the cap. Breathing space,

[KillBill26]

On 5/30/2023 at 8:54 PM, philibusters said:

 

I didn't post that, but it makes some sense to me.  You can use free agency (and waiver pickups) to fill holes on your roster.  That way you can draft the best player available rather than forcing picks for need.  Dantzler is a quality depth and a starter you can live with if he has to play.  Minnesota fans may not have liked Dantzler that much, but the fact he played almost 2000 snaps in 3 years means he got a decent amount of reps each year so he wasn't terrible.  His first year was his worst year both in terms of PFF grade (around 60 flat) and the raw data (things like targets vs. completions--where he gave up completions more than 70% of the time he was targeted).  His second and third year were okay years both in terms of PFF grades (high 60's) and raw data.   To me its clear, he was solid depth, what you are looking for in a third corner.  Having him on the roster made it so we didn't have bad depth at corner.  Therefore if we didn't need to draft corner.  Now if corner is where the best player is available, you can draft corner, but you are not forced into a pick.  Unfortunately by our pick 16, Paris Johnson Jr., Peter Skronowski, Darnell Wright, and Broderick Jones, the four O-Lineman we were interested in were off the board.  Realistically by our pick the best player on the board was corner, edge, or maybe tight end give the composition of the draft class.  So we took him as BPA, but we didn't need take corner in the first or second round if the board had worked out different (lets say Peter Skronowski was available at 16 and Brian Branch or Michael Mayer at 47)

You make valid points as to why dantzler was worth taking a flyer on via waiver claims, and also why we shouldn't have reached for OL at 16, but his addition should not have altered our draft strategy at all.  He has struggled and his previous team just dumped him when rosters can be as large as 90.  Not to mention players who have had a lot more success in the league than dantzler aren't guaranteed to be successful here (WJ3).  CB is a premium position, and to decide against the position for a JAG like cam dantzler would've been foolish.

 

If your point was more or less saying a little additional depth may have prevented Washington from panicking and reaching on a cb, my argument is they shouldn't panic and reach for need and short-sightedness ever, so my point that dantzler shouldn't have affected their plans remains.