..... The following things.
1. The Patriots are about to give Gonzo a roughly $35MM/yr contract, and NEXT year give Drake a roughly (we hope) $65MM/year deal. So, say next year's cap jumps to $330MM per team, am I the only one worried we are giving one third of our cap money to just TWO players? As salaries explode for star individuals, I wonder at what point the bottom 2/3rds of the roster revolt as their earning potential shrinks, while their a few of their teammates get ever higher percentages of the cap. It will be harder and harder to justify the ever-increasing number of players to risk their future health for less and less of the pie. Kind of mirrors our current economy, right.
This isn't reality, Ken. Just because their AAV will be 35M and 65M respectively doesn't mean that it happens all at once. In fact, it's typically gradually tapered. Witherspoon's 1st year cap hit is $15.37, followed by 14.1M Followed by $27M The THIRD year (so 2028) is when Witherspoon's contract starts seeing new money above and beyond the 5th year option.
You can expect the same sort of gradual uptick in Cap hit for Maye as well.
It would not surprise me if Gonzalez get's his deal this year and it mimics that of Witherspoons. Meaning it won't be until 2028 that the hit goes over $27M. I would expect it to mimic Witherspoon's and Witherspoon's contract does go over the $30M mark until 2030. That's 4 years from now.
If Maye get's an extension before the start of year 4, his year 4 cap hit would be adjusted to include any signing bonus money. But his year 5 cap hit would be whatever his 5th year option money is plus the signing bonus proration. Now, I'll be the first to say, that Maye's 2028 Money will be around $45M due to the 5th year option. But don't expect gigantic jumps until the 2030 or 2031 season Even then, the two of them are looking at combining for 100M at that time.. Which is only 20% of the Cap. Not 33%. And that still leaves $383M for 67 players. Or about 5.7M per player.
2. Is anyone else worried about the fact that ALL of our starters and the key backups, when they line up against the Seahawks, will not have play a SINGLE live down this entire preseason. When Seattle runs the ball, it will be the first time Spillane will have tackle a guy to the ground since back in February. That's a pretty scary thought, imho. The joint practices are great, but all the contact there is "controlled", good work, of course, but NOT the same as game speed.
Where did you see that all none of the starters or primary back-ups will have taken a single live down in the pre-season? Jacas and Ponder have seen a ton of time already. So have many of the key back-ups at Cornerback and Safety. The O-line, especially, has seen the back-ups take a ton of snaps.
Pretty sure that they were tackling each other in the padded joint practices. Maybe I'm wrong in that.
Now I know, I'm an old school guy. I played in an era where you scrimmaged at full go during parts of practice, 2 times a day, 3 or 4 days in a row. You developed those so called callouses and got ready for that 12-game season. Now granted, I personally never made to the actual game part schedule, but I would have been ready for it. .
I understand the thinking behind not playing those guys, but we all have to agree that it seriously affects the quality of play. Fans should get 20% discounts on their tickets for having to watch subpar execution. And none of us should be pissed when we see missed tackles from guys who are doing it live for the first time since last season.
Now those are the things I am worried about this August, what are yours?
Unfortunately, gone are the days of 2-a-days. They've tailored the game to focus on the WRs, RBs and Star QBs instead of making it a TEAM game. Part of that is because of all the concussion issues that have come up. Especially most recently where it was found that 1 in 4 players will develop CTE. I have a feeling that the number will end up being higher unless there are significant changes to the helmets far beyond the "Guardian".
The owners spent far too much time getting rich and treating the players like machines instead of ensuring for their care. Which is why the players were able to get so many concessions from the owners in 2010.
Unfortunately, we've not seen the downturn in injuries that the league wanted us to believe would occur with the lessening of the physicalness in practices and in TC. Just like I don't believe we've actually seen a downturn in the injuries on kick-offs with the changes implemented.
