Josh Sweat Trade Candidate

[Hugepatsfan]

It's worth exploring for sure. Yes, there is a cap, but one of the "silver linings" of being so terrible for a few years and having such garbage rosters is that practically no one was making any money. Now in the last couple of years we've signed some talent and have a few of the draft picks that have panned out coming up for deals, but cap hits on those deals have been and will be backloaded per normal course of business in the NFL.

If we did acquire Sweat, it's fair to say that we'd have more cap allocated to the DL than is ideal between him, Milton Williams, Barmore, DJones and Landry. But that's not permanent and in the short term we're way under allocated at some other positions.

Obviously there are SOME limits, but within reason I don't think cap is really an issue for us acquiring pretty much any player for the rest of this offseason and probably next year or maybe two. Acquiring Sweat and the assumed AJ Brown deal would fall "within reason".

 

[Hugepatsfan]

Sometimes it’s simply a matter of cap economics. The Jamie Collins situation was a great example of that. The Patriots traded him away at the last second of the trade deadline to Cleveland, even though some coping Patriot’s fans said it was due to performance… it wasn’t.

Cleveland made him the highest paid ILB in the NFL and a few years later Belichick reacquired a player fans said he traded away due to performance. The cap exists.

It was definitely performance to some degree. They went out that next offseason and signed Gilmore for $15M/year which was what Collins got from CLE (though I'd have to review structure to know how exactly comparable they were). But if they wanted to pay Collins they could have. To some degree it was a decision of "he's not worth paying vs. investing that elsewhere".

But a key point of distinction is that this team isn't loaded with talent and guys being paid correspondingly like that team was. So while the cap needs to be managed, we're not in the same place as far as needing to make tough calls yet on guys or having limited ability to add.

 

[Wozzy]

It was definitely performance to some degree. They went out that next offseason and signed Gilmore for $15M/year which was what Collins got from CLE (though I'd have to review structure to know how exactly comparable they were). But if they wanted to pay Collins they could have. To some degree it was a decision of "he's not worth paying vs. investing that elsewhere".

But a key point of distinction is that this team isn't loaded with talent and guys being paid correspondingly like that team was. So while the cap needs to be managed, we're not in the same place as far as needing to make tough calls yet on guys or having limited ability to add.

No, they had Malcolm Butler, Chandler Jones and Collins all up for new contracts in roughly the same period. They knew Jones would break the bank, that they could find an afforable replacement for Collins though they waited until the last second, and they knew Malcolm Butler wasn’t worth 1A cornerback money.

They paid one player, Gilmore, because a shutdown corner was the one player they couldn’t replace or replicate. Collins was one of their best defenders, he was an All Pro. The money was the issue, it became an impossible problem when Collins started acting out and free lancing on the field because he wanted a new contract. If cap constraints weren’t a problem then his acting out never would have happened… same with Butler acting out later.

 

[RxJock1120]

He’d cost $24M against the cap, for 2 years. He’s 29 now, birthday is in March so he turns 31 right when he’ll be negotiating his next contract. Seems a safe assumption that he will be going for top dollar then, so not a safe assumption we resign it. Ergo assume it’s a two year rental.

Is he worth $24 million a year for the next two years?

That's a reasonable price for 2 years, but no chance we would be able to resign him. Gonzalez and Drake would need top of the market deals, and we already paid Milton and Barmore. 3rd Round pick is the MOST I would give up. But then again their is a strong indication that he wants more money right away, in which case no way would I trade for him.