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Ekern55
Maybe your confusing my position with someone else's. By Donald earning a fraction I am referring to him now under his rookie contract, not any future contract.
If you want an answer from me on salary, it's simple. I want Donald to be happy and I want the Rams to have cap space. The Rams have some unsigned quality players that need long term deals. I want them all to feel like they're getting their worth at the same time wishing the Rams stay out of salary cap hell.
Several things.
First, your take on this sees the agents acting in a particular way in the name of their own interests. I already said that take doesn't ring true to me. My take is that the Rams offer is genuinely low. I notice that a lot of people don't like hearing that, but they also don't offer an argument against it, or try to demonstrate why there's good reason to think the Rams offer isn't low. I think it makes a huge difference talking about this whole issue if the Rams offer is taken into account. (BTW that doesn't mean 25 M, Donald's asking price, is going to work--but I also don't see him sticking to it).
When you come to address my view on this, you don't actually debate it. Your tack is to say I won't discuss that (things like positional slotting and annual increases for 2nd contracts). That's not an argument but then you're interested in your own take and nothing obligates you to debate things that way. We are just left offering alternative theories and coming at this from completely different positions. Nothing wrong with that.
So as long as we're just offering different accounts of things, here's mine.
Second, I see the Rams as having the cap space to sign Donald and Goff and others. I don't see cap problems though I do see some tough choices but then all good teams go through that --no one can keep everybody. If it's true as has been shown that good teams spend 60% of their cap on a core group of players, I see the Rams as set up to do well. If the combination of Goff, Donald, Cooks, Gurley, and Peters amounts to 100 M when they are all signed, and if as predicted the cap is 220 M in 2021 (the year Goff's 2nd contract probably goes on the books), then since 60% of 220 M is 132 M, that would leave 32 M for the rest of the 60%. That's enough to take care of 3-4 players, depending on the amounts and who it is. That is doable. (Especially if they're picking low in the 1st round, which would mean their 1st round picks, who they can have for 5 years, won't be part of the 60%). The rest are draft picks and UDFAs and bargain signings and cast-offs who can play (like Barksdale was). Since I believe the Rams are good at drafting and trading for players, I am optimistic about that.
I have seen people say that since 2011 most playoff level teams do not spend the kind of cap percentage Donald will represent (10.9% in 2021) on one defensive player, no matter how good. They say that competitive teams just do not invest that much in one defender. That argument is easy to counter. It's simple. Since 2011 there are at best a tiny handful of defenders in the league in Donald's class or with his competitive value (probably Watt, Von Miller, and Mack are the others). So it's just not common to pay players like that since, in fact, they don't come along that often. That's like saying stats prove that living in a city helps you avoid being attacked by an eagle, when actually there aren't that many eagles in the first place and they tend not to attack people anyway.
So what I want is the Rams to keep and invest in their elite talent and keep building around that. I want that because I see it as a winning strategy. So my view is that they have a better chance of being great with Donald as opposed to without him. I also see one Donald as being worth any two other defenders. And I think that because I think there are very good reasons to think it.
I combine that with the fact that I view this just as a tough negotiation---no shenanigans, no machinations, no agendas or ulterior motives (I already said that argument doesn't ring true to me.) Within all that, it does matter (in my view) that the Rams offer is low. If as I expect they sign AD for 23-34 M, that 2-3 M over their current reported offer is just not going to break them. Not if they're any good at adding talent (and by 2021 that will be 3 more draft classes).
So yeah it does matter whether or not we see the Rams reported offer as being on the low side, and it does matter if we see this as a tough negotiation with 2 extremes in the amounts at this point (21 M/25 M) and not as this complicated and insincere maneuver by the agents. If it's just a tough negotiation then it has every chance of being resolved, or at least that's not ruled out.
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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2018 07:39AM by zn.
