I think just about every such move comes down to simple contractual/cap considerations, when you extend those to include necessary developmental projections (i.e., for Kyle Williams.)
I have some thoughts on the "buried on the depth chart" argument. Like it or not, in a 17-game (or 18-game) season, guys are coming off the field. Hollins and Boutte were both out late last year, if I recall correctly, at the same time. If we're to believe the media (and this board,) A.J. Brown is an absolute lock to come here, although he's not without his injury concerns. It's the rare winter that we're not biting our nails about who we have to throw to.
Boutte is getting 6th-round rookie money, and he signed that contract. If he wants to play in 2026 in the NFL, that's what he plays for... unlessssss...
Hence the trade idea. It's not that he's bad, it's not that he costs a lot for his role -- he's cheap for his role. It's that he's going to get his big payday next year, and he'd like to get it this year, thank you very much... if the trade talk is anything other than whatever Breer made up this morning.
I mean, you guys follow this closer than me, so tell me if I'm missing something. He wants to be paid more than he promised he would play for -- at least, that's what we're guessing based on random pronouncements about a trade. And sure, it's human nature too. And I'm sure there are teams who'll pay him at much more than his present rate/type of production. He's young and potentially has years of production ahead of him. But I don't think anybody's claiming he won't honor his contract if we wait to solve him next off-season.
If we're trading him, it's because we get good draft capital for him. He's dirt-cheap this year. So yeah, what's the offer? He's not a superstar, he's not nothin'. We get maybe a 5th, maybe because someone is really hurting for a receiver a 4th. Who knows. That sh*t is beyond me. It seems one team gets a first-round pick for a meh guy, one team gets a fifth-round pick for a rising star. It gets balanced against the cash you have to cough up in the deal to close out the existing contract, & a million other things probably, in addition to his actual value as a player.
So yeah, that's where I hope our bean-counters and lawyers know what they're doing.
But he's worth a few TDs and a few hundred yards every year. If you pick up an AJ Brown and Boutte doesn't start, it does not mean he rides the bench. It means you use him when you use him, for whatever reason you need 6 or 7 guys in the WR room in the first place.
The "who's better than who" debate comes into play because we hit two home runs with late round choices in the same year (cracks me up that one of us believes we rarely hit in the late rounds -- the whole Boutte/Pop Douglas debate traces back to this embarrassment of riches.
And OMG, if we improve this O-Line and Drake gets better at the reacting part of read-react. Yikes. Sorry, giddy with off-season caffeine.
But home runs are just relative home runs.
We stand to gain from Boutte's overperformance by selling the bargaining rights which we bought low in the '23 draft (at 6th round.) We then got his cheap rookie contract production for 3 years (virtually free in terms of WR money.) In 1 more year he'll cost real WR money, but not this year.
He's the 90% outside-the-numbers guy. Douglas is a slot guy, you might say the slot guy, and that 14.x yards per catch looks even better when you consider he's fighting for the right to those balls. Mack Hollins is the "that's MY contested catch and I WILL bury you in my back yard after this game if you try to get it" guy. I mean, look at his eyes. Yeah, lower YPC but a vice grip when the ball goes his way.
So when Brown comes here and Doubs is here, the argument is it's a great time to sell high while the team gets anything out of selling, and that the logical candidate to unload is Boutte.
Note that you move a guy in this circumstance because he's way better than what you're paying him to be. He's on rookie money and rookie money for a super-low pick, at that. I think he costs like $3.7 m this year or something. Sorry but this is the NFL, and receivers get $3.7 million a game. Well not literally, I think more like $2.5m/game, but you get the idea.
So you say "listen, he wants money faster, you want an upgrade, we have too many productive outside the numbers guys, so you go ahead and pay him middle-tier money, send us a 5th rounder, and everybody's happy."
And we have what, another 5th round pick?
On the flip side, keep him and have him available for outside-the-numbers work. He backs up Brown
Diggs was a half-inside, half-outside guy. He's gone nowhere yet, but we've judged his remaining years to be too few to "high point" his pay now. We liked him for 3 years, $69M, starting at 29 Y.O in a league with no 30 YO receivers.
We also have Doubs, the younger version of Diggs, who it looks like we could go with as his replacement with or without Brown. Doubs without Brown is treading water vs. 2025, actually hoping to be treading water, because we'd be betting on Doubs' upside. Doubs with Brown gives us a credible deep threat at X and Z. I should say more credible... it would be a big upgrade.
In the scenario where we keep Boutte, if anybody goes down, we still have 2025-level horses. So yeah, it would be nice of the team to trade him, if that's what he wants. The incentives line up, in a way.
There are lots of facts not in evidence (who says we're the lock for a landing spot for Brown? Show me the signed contract, or at least more than "everybody says...")
No Brown, no Boutte story, unless we get another replacement somewhere.
And the moment I type that... No Brown, instant Kyle Williams sink-or-swim moment.
My thing is I'm a pig. I love the idea that you have to go through Brown, Boutte, and Kyle Williams before you're out of targets outside. Guys get hurt. Guys have slumps. For an extra 5th rounder we have to give up that security, which costs virtually nothing to keep?
And if Diggs is cashing in, God love him for 3 great years here... but if (pipe dream here) he's coming back at a cap-friendly price, it's a beautiful thing to keep him in the stable too.
Usually you run into "You can't have everything, where would you put it?" issues in a WR room. But with two solid contributors (Boutte and Douglas) both still on their rookie deals, you can build a truly special WR group. Yes, you have, if not porsches, at least nice Volkswagens in the garage not getting a lot of driving time. But thinking team-first, do you or don't you want that top-to-bottom depth come December?
I don't get the rush to trade Boutte or the idea of trading Douglas "instead." Maybe I'm short-sighted; after all, we got both of them at a lower draft position than we'd get if we got 5ths for one of both of them. But we'd only be pushing some UDFAs out to make it happen, roster-wise. Maybe we see something intriguing in the bargain bin, but if not... well, why not keep what's working? And 6 TDs/550 yards, whatever denigrating way we want to look at it, ain't nothing. That's working.
I know it's a long post, but last point:
The beautiful thing about the whole WR situation is that we're discussing these great numbers with a QB who got sacked in multiple games 6 times.
Think about the upside if his targets truly do improve, and way more to the point, if his own habits and protection improves.
Maybe I'm stupid and too high on the upside with Maye, but barring injury, what kind of monster are we building?
Sorry. Way too much for an "Albert Breer sez" type of post. Honestly, I don't think Diggs is magically coming back to compete with Doubs for second fiddle, but he's especially in play-ish if the Brown thing doesn't happen.
The way more likely happening is Kyle Williams' development.
Also before signing off I want to go on record as saying, this is Chad Jackson's year
