Credit goes to Boomer for pointing this out this morning but he structured Sauce’s contract very well. They pushed the majority of the guaranteed money out to the later years of the deal so they didn’t pay him a bunch up front for work he’d never do for them. That’s very difficult to do. NFL players want their money up front and rightfully so. The structure isn’t by accident. They definitely wanted short term flexibility if they got an offer you can’t refuse.
As much as I might lament the path we’re going down, I can’t deny that Mougs Has done a really good job setting himself up to do this. From what @Jonathan_Vilma said in the post above about the structure of the contract to the stories that are coming out about how he got so much out of the Colts, it feels like we have someone who understands negotiation and maximizing value. That, plus a pretty strong showing from the draft class has me hopeful. Now we just need to teach this guy how to hand out contracts.
I was wondering about this yesterday. There was a time when players signing new contracts were deemed untradable because of all the bonus money hits.
Yes its clear Mougey and whomever the contracts guy is (he mentioned his name in the presser) did a very good job in creating flexibility. I also liked the way he talked about it…the Colts kept getting richer and richer until the deal was too good to pass up….I’m guessing they probably started with only 1 first rounder and maybe a lower pick, then upped it to 2 first rounders, then threw in a receiver. However it went, it does support his comments that they always talk about this, that they have set values for the players, and that they hold their water if those values aren’t met. Proof in the pudding with the fact that they didn’t trade Breece or JJ despite having offers for both. For those of us who can remember our good friend Terry Bradway, this is VERY refreshing. If nothing else, the last two GM’s have been much better trade negotiators than fuckups like Bradway, who got fleeced on every single trade he made (most notably trading a first round pick to the Raiders for a 2nd round pick and Doug fucking Jolley, and then using that 2nd rounder on a fucking kicker…god alive did I hate Bradway). But back to Mougey, yeah, not REALLY a fire sale maybe where you’re giving everything away for free, but I can’t take him seriously when he says he wouldn’t call it a tear down. Of course it’s a tear down. You’re not trading these two guys because they aren’t great players. So there are some promising signs from Mougey. But then, there were similar signs from JD as well. My problem is that when you draft, you HOPE to draft great players who will become pro bowlers and maybe even All Pro’s. That’s the gold standard. And it’s rare…even in the first round, the hit rate isn’t even close to 100%. So when you trade away great players for picks that you HOPE will turn out just as great, the odds are they won’t. So this way to build a team is almost like walking in mud or quicksand, or like treading water. It’s hard to get better because you clearly have a lot of needs (hence the trade for picks), but you’ve also just created MORE needs by getting rid of great players. And the justifications are the same lines of bullshit we’ve heard for years and years now…some classics: - Well, we weren’t winning WITH them, we can just as easily lose without them (bullshit…they weren’t the fucking problem) - Well, we are going to build this the RIGHT way now (uhm, ok, wait and see I guess because none of the guys before had a fucking clue how to build this “the right way - This is about building a sustainable winner (uhm, yah, ok, talk to me when we finally have a winning season because clearly no one here knows how to do that) - We’re trying to build a culture here (yah yah…the only culture you’re building is showing players that you don’t give a fuck…play well, don’t play well, we’ll ship your ass outta here regardless…though I guess from the player’s point of view that’s probably a blessing) We’ve all heard these time and time again and nothing changes but the faces as the losing continues But back to Mougey…I’m trying to see the positives, and so I can point to two things so far - first, I like that he got over on the trades so that’s a good sign, and second, I see a bit of the thinking in that he traded away defense and has brought back role players on offense so at least he sees that offense is our real problem…I’m going to assume he realizes that the biggest offensive problem is our QB, because now he has the picks to go get one in either of the next two drafts. I’m hoping he can identify talent better than JD did (and so far his first draft started with 3 of the first 4 picks on O, so that’s good), and most of all, I’m hoping that he sticks to his board and gut and takes the right QB if he’s there, or I’d be fine with even passing on QB althogether next draft if he’s feels none of these guys are worthy first round QBs…that would be refreshing instead of reaching for a Zach type who rises up the boards with no real justification. We’ll see…
This feels like NYJ fan math... "Mougey absolutely knocked it out of the park during the trade deadline!" ..by making the team worse than it was a day ago? Bro still needs to actually hit on some draft pics. I'm trying to recoup my faith in this shit hole of a franchise. It's not working out.
