Quote
Rams43
On the one hand I want to retain AD as a Ram all the way to his retirement. Always have, tbh. He’s such a joy to watch.
On the other hand my overriding goal is to do what’s best long term for the team. Team always trumps any single player. Even an AD.
With most players it’s pretty easy to make the call, but AD is not most players, is he?
I’ve heard the argument that the cap always goes up and therefore AD’s salary will become less of a drag over time. But here’s the thing. Other players are also getting inflated cap salaries as a result of that same rising cap. That’s the way inflation works. So yeah, the pie keeps getting bigger but so do all 53 of the slices. A rising tide sort of thing. IOW, the impact of AD’s coming contract will still pose problems that might limit the Rams in making desired personnel moves down the road, so let’s don’t kid ourselves about that.
I will always prioritize the team needs over any single player.
But, having said that, I can see both sides of this debate and I’m trying to keep an open mind about it.
Rams FO must make the call on the ceiling amount. At what point does AD’s salary start to have a net negative impact on the overall team results? I just dunno anymore.
And I think that keeping AD via 5th year option plus 2-3 tags is a legit option. It would permit more cap room to retain more desired players for 3-4 more seasons than would extending AD right now. That COULD mean keeping a Ram SB window open for another year or two longer.
Let me think about this some more...
YOu have the formula wrong. No one argues that Donald is affordable because the cap goes up. I
f you think that's the key argument on the other side, then you do not know the key argument on the other side. I realize some guys take that "that's not the argument" thing as taunting or bluffing or as a flame of some kind. And. No. If that's what you think the argument is, you do not know the argument you think you're countering.
Yes the cap goes up and so does the constant---study shows that winning teams devote 60% of their cap to 10 plays. That's a norm for winning teams. And that's regardless of how low or high the cap gets. It's always around 60%.
I estimate that with Donald, you make that 9 players instead of 10. So the question becomes, are you better off with Donald or with 2 other non-generational players? And to me, clearly, the answer is yes. You are better off with that rarest of all animals in the NFL (and I mean rare across league history)---the elite DT.
That's because an elite DT provides THAT MUCH to your offense. He has THAT MUCH of an effect on the overall defense.
So yes he's worth being one of the players who takes up 60% of the cap.
Can they afford that? Of course they can. Remember the study I cited is of winning teams. The highest contracts take up 60% of the cap. That's always. That's all the time. That's in every instance.
So...yeah, no number of non-generational players make up for losing a guy like that.
....
...
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2018 08:55AM by zn.
