Chiefs signing Anthony Hitchens

Smitty

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It's kind of a soft cap now with these rollover dollars, isn't it?
Eh, I dunno. It eats into your cap space the next year though, which then effects your ability to sign your own guys the next year.

Someone smarter (or really, more invested and with more free time) than me needs to do an article explaining why the Cowboys never have any space. Is it that we give out contracts that the players do not live up to more than other teams? Is it that we really have more top-performing players than other teams?

I feel like it may be a "Cowboys effect" thing. We get so much coverage that we have to pay top dollar for any guy who shows a hint of success, cause they get hyped to oblivion, whereas other teams may be able to sneak guys under the radar a little more. Obviously teams like the Jags and Browns have tons of cap space cause they've been so bad for so long, they have no players on megadeals, but at the same time, it's not like we've been to super bowl after super bowl either.
 

Cowboysrock55

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It's kind of a soft cap now with these rollover dollars, isn't it?
I'm not a big fan of the rollover. It sort of promotes teams kind of sucking and saving cap space so that they can then in the future splurge. I don't know that it's good for an NFL that wants teams doing everything they can every season to win it all.
 

Cowboysrock55

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I feel like it may be a "Cowboys effect" thing. We get so much coverage that we have to pay top dollar for any guy who shows a hint of success, cause they get hyped to oblivion, whereas other teams may be able to sneak guys under the radar a little more. Obviously teams like the Jags and Browns have tons of cap space cause they've been so bad for so long, they have no players on megadeals, but at the same time, it's not like we've been to super bowl after super bowl either.
I wonder if to an extent it's sort of by design. Whenever they want cap room it's like they have contracts ready to go to make the room. But then if they don't want to go after anyone in free agency they are able to sort of point to the cap and say "well we just don't have the money." I think the Cowboys prefer to hug the cap with contracts designed to create room if they want it.

It's not really a dead money thing. We've got 14.8 mil in dead cap right now. But a massive part of of that is Romo's contract and the fact that we designated him as a June 1st cut last offseason. Which gave us all the money we have carried over. So it's not really a dead money issue. We have 3 guys making almost 17 mil this season (Dez, Tyron and Lawrence) which is probably high but we also don't have a QB eating up 30 mil either so you'd think it would balance out.

Anyway, that's my two cents.
 

Cujo

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I wonder what next year will look like? Anybody have any idea?
 

Cowboysrock55

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Shit, if we ended up with half that, I'd be happy.
Yeah of course remember that's because Lawrence's 17 mil comes off the books. We'd have to sign Martin out of it.

But yeah, the cap is looking better. Part of which is because Romo for example will be totally off the books. It's also funny because a number of contracts actually go down from 2018 to 2019 which is very unusual. Tyron Smith, Travis Frederick and Sean Lee's numbers all drop. It was designed that way so if we needed to restructure those deals to create cap room we could.
 

ravidubey

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Eh, I dunno. It eats into your cap space the next year though, which then effects your ability to sign your own guys the next year.

Someone smarter (or really, more invested and with more free time) than me needs to do an article explaining why the Cowboys never have any space.
Whether we draft and develop players or sign them as FAs we spend big money.

The only poorly thought out contract we have is Ty Crawford, and to counter-balance that overspending we have Tyron and TWill where we’ve apparently saved fortunes.

Smith, Bryant, Fred, Lee, Martin, Zeke, Lael, Scandrick, TWill, plus 17 mil stopgap for Lawrence. Lots of kids.

Pats have Brady, Gilmore, McCourty, Gronk, Hightower, Cooks, Dwayne Allen, Hogan.

Edelman, Shelton— they make chump change at the moment.

Didnt count Bailey and Gostkowski, but Dallas seems to have a lot more talented young players as well.

Overall, Dallas seems significantly more talented.
 

boozeman

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Shit, if we ended up with half that, I'd be happy.
Why? It isn't like they would do shit with it anyways.

We have a luxury right now of a cheap starting QB. They will squander that.
 

boozeman

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Whether we draft and develop players or sign them as FAs we spend big money.
Yes and that is no different than taking a risk on a free agent that bombs.

This is worse because we feel emotionally invested and keep making up reasons to justify the bad contract.

Look at Crawford.

Sorry, but the guy is a marginal NFL starter. He was not capable of being the key focal 3-T in this defense. So they have shoe horned him at DE where he is not effective either.

But hey, you keep hearing about how he is a leader on the defense and an overall swell guy to have around.

That kind of contract is an albatross due to the simple fact it was not negotiated in a way to get out of it if it does not work out. It was an investment on your own, which takes a different method and shows a higher degree of loyalty to the player. The same shit happened with Williams' contract.

It makes the player immune from being cut. The cost to get rid of them is prohibitive. It is almost like a guaranteed contract.
 

ravidubey

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Yes and that is no different than taking a risk on a free agent that bombs.

This is worse because we feel emotionally invested and keep making up reasons to justify the bad contract.

Look at Crawford.

Sorry, but the guy is a marginal NFL starter. He was not capable of being the key focal 3-T in this defense. So they have shoe horned him at DE where he is not effective either.

But hey, you keep hearing about how he is a leader on the defense and an overall swell guy to have around.

That kind of contract is an albatross due to the simple fact it was not negotiated in a way to get out of it if it does not work out. It was an investment on your own, which takes a different method and shows a higher degree of loyalty to the player. The same shit happened with Williams' contract.

It makes the player immune from being cut. The cost to get rid of them is prohibitive. It is almost like a guaranteed contract.
As much as I agree in general, in practice Crawford is the only bad contract we inked. The others were all justified and a couple saved us a lot of money, especially with what's being chucked around for unproven WRs.
 

boozeman

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As much as I agree in general, in practice Crawford is the only bad contract we inked. The others were all justified and a couple saved us a lot of money, especially with what's being chucked around for unproven WRs.
The Williams contract seems okay on the surface until you see the details. We couldn't cut him this year if we wanted to without a substantial cap hit. And you cannot convince me that having James Hanna as one of our top 15 paid players was not a bad contract. Pair those with the other shitty ones like Thornton and Carroll, it is pretty easy to figure out why we suck.
 

boozeman

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Chiefs tried to trade for Sammy Watkins and Anthony Hitchens last year

By Joel Thorman@ArrowheadPride Mar 15, 2018, 9:40am CDT

The Kansas City Chiefs signed WR Sammy Watkins and LB Anthony Hitchens in free agency this week but they wanted to trade for both of them last year and tried to do so. Chiefs general manager Brett Veach spoke to the media on Wednesday and had a very cool answer, as in it’s cool that a GM is telling the fans more details about the trade process.

Veach was asked if they would have traded for Sammy Watkins if Alex Smith was still their quarterback. He said they probably couldn’t have afforded him. The reporter then asked if money weren’t an issue.

“It is interesting,” Veach said. “And we will talk about this tomorrow, but when I took over in July (after John Dorsey was fired), I got with (Chiefs director of player personnel) Mike Borgonzi and the first call I made was to Dallas about Anthony Hitchens.

“We went into last camp and there is only so much you can do once you get to July. It is here. What can you do? There is not a lot of space and rosters are set. I knew that Derrick (Johnson) was coming off another injury and just knew that we would have some potential depth issues and some issues up there.

“We went through all the teams that had linebackers with one year left on their deal. Those are teams that if they haven’t reached a deal with their player, they are on their last year so maybe they will move them. You have to resign them and it is always dangerous in free agency.

“So we identified the Christian Kirkseys, the Preston Browns, the Anthony Hitchens. But the first call we made as a new staff was to Dallas, Will McClay, and we wanted Anthony Hitchens, but they said they weren’t going to move him.

“Then we went on and a month later when it was made aware that Sammy was going to be dealt from Buffalo, I talked to (Bills GM) Brandon Beane about doing a trade. I remember being at St. Joe calling Brandon trying to get him there.

“Problem is, he wanted a (second round pick), and being a first year GM, then going into the draft without a (first round pick) or a (second round pick) I would have put myself in a bind. We offered a (third round pick) and it didn’t get it done. The Rams offered a (second round pick), but here we are full circle and the guys we signed were the guys, Anthony Hitchens who we called about first week on the job and then one of the first trade calls I made was to Brandon about Sammy.

“So, yeah, long winded answer, yeah. We would have liked to have had Sammy last year.”

So ... that answer is kinda awesome. That’s a lot of detail that I find really interesting in how the Chiefs approached this. I hope this level of detail and transparency will be part of the Veach regime.
 

boozeman

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Yep would have been nice to have a pick instead of having him for a failure of a year that ended with nothing.
No big deal. I doubt they were offering more than the comp pick we are likely to get for him.

That is probably a big reason why they haven't signed anyone, they don't want to endanger the 4th rounder or whatever they get for him in 2019.
 

Cowboysrock55

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No big deal. I doubt they were offering more than the comp pick we are likely to get for him.

That is probably a big reason why they haven't signed anyone, they don't want to endanger the 4th rounder or whatever they get for him in 2019.
That's the problem with counting on comp picks. It means you can't do shit in free agency then.
 

Genghis Khan

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No big deal. I doubt they were offering more than the comp pick we are likely to get for him.

That is probably a big reason why they haven't signed anyone, they don't want to endanger the 4th rounder or whatever they get for him in 2019.
But that's the leverage. A fourth rounder in a trade is better than a 4th round comp pick since the comp pick is at the end of the round.
 

Cowboysrock55

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But that's the leverage. A fourth rounder in a trade is better than a 4th round comp pick since the comp pick is at the end of the round.
Well and the comp pick isn't until 2018 as opposed to presumably a 2017 draft pick.
 
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