Draft Is cool, but free agency is first.

[slanidrac16]

Before we get deep into the draft the first thing up is free agency. There are players on this team that won’t be here and some I couldn’t care less.

Time is running out on Kyler’s rookie contract and Kingsbury future. That’s why I think our off season free agents need to really be focused on offense. Of course some of the players that are potential free agents won’t make it to free agency. Building this offense to where it needs to be will cause deficiencies elsewhere. Here’s where I stand.

Qb. It’s Kyler. I assume McCoy will be back.

RB. Seems the consensus is we want Conner back and Edmonds will want to much money. But there is no gaurantee Conner will give us a discount to stay. Ward and Eno has 20 touches between them in 2 years. Are they ready to step up? I’m going to assume Conner stays and Eno gets bumped up. The way I see it we need to add a vet as a 3rd back that won’t cost much. Maybe a guy like Brandon Boldin or Phillip Lindsey.
TE. Ertz is a first down machine and it would be great having him back. I love Max but his injury makes me think he won’t be the old max for a while. Our two backups suck and would like to see a guy like Mo Alie-Cox but I doubt we could afford that luxury.

O-line. This is the biggest area to finally be fixed. We need to match up against the 49ers and Rams to compete. I feel we need two guards to beef up the middle. I’d like us to get a guy like Mike Glowinski. Not spectacular but better than we have. Would be nice if Murray was our backup. Nice depth. Another guy Harry mentioned was Ben Jones. Yes he is 32 but he is a very good center should Hudson go down but would also be a very good guard. Now we have beef and depth.

WR. Adams, Williams, Robinson? Not going to happen. IMHO, goodbye Kirk and Green. I like Cedric Wilson. He’s been playing behind Cooper and Lamb and the Cowboys have Gallup. I don’t think he would break the bank. He’s taller and fast and a perfect compliment to Hopkins. 45 catches, 600 yards and 6 td’s in a limited role. Would be lethal in crossing patterns if we ever decide to throw them. I wouldn’t mind taking a chance on a guy like DJ Chark. He is coming off an ankle injury but if healthy he had over a 1000 yards and might be open to a 1year prove it He’s big and he and Wilson would add speed and yac. If not Chark there are other vets that will be available. Sprinkle in Moore and Westley and I think the Wr room would be vastly improved.

I’d love to hear your ideas to build this offense to match up with the Rams and 49ers.

Call me me crazy. Tell me this isn’t feasible. I’ve got thick skin, lol.

Better than talking about things that aren’t going to happen like Keim and/or Kingsbury getting fired.

FIRE AWAY GIRLS AND BOYS!

 

[BurqueCardFan]

I agree with alot of what you say and our major areas of need.
I also think we need two legit Guards to upgrade the middle of our line. I think our tackles and center are good enough. If we could beef up the guard spots, it would go a long way to helping with Kyler's development.
Totally agree with AJ Green's departure. Just don't think he has the passion anymore. Need an upgrade at WR #2 but not sure who that may be. If they keep kirk for cheap, I wouldn't care.
Yes, keeping Conner would be good. Seems like serviceable RB's can be found. Look at what McKinnon has done with KC this year. He was a cast off for the most part.
On defense we need to beef up the DL to stop the run. Also need another serviceable CB

 

[BritCard]

Keims hands are tied. He tied them himself.

He already spent his rookie QB bonus and he can't now do a bunch of kick the can down the road back loaded contracts because he has to plan for paying Kyler in a year or two.

Going to be a tough off season. He needs to stick multiple draft picks.

 

[unseenaz]

Keims hands are tied. He tied them himself.

He already spent his rookie QB bonus and he can't now do a bunch of kick the can down the road back loaded contracts because he has to plan for paying Kyler in a year or two.

Going to be a tough off season. He needs to stick multiple draft picks.

sad but true

 

[oaken1]

okay... read my lips...

RAID New Orleans... Payton retiring...75mil over the salary cap... I would go get Michael Thomas,...due to be paid 15mil next season...trade for him then work a new deal...I would also drop names like cam jordan and alvin kamara, Terron Armstead or Marshawn Lattimore
make a multi player multi pick deal.... their dead money situation is gonna kill them,...if they dont trade away a few of these contracts they are gonna have to cut nearly everybody to make up for it

 

[QuebecCard]

We need ONE starting guard, and that is on the right side.

PUGH: He dealt with a calf injury in the second half of the season which held him to 13 starts, but Pugh was one of the more reliable blockers when playing. The veteran was flagged only twice and finished fifth in the league in pass block win rate as a guard, per ESPN.

 

[kerouac9]

I think the temptation to Run It Back is going to be extremely strong. We may see one or two marquee free agent signings, but I'd be surprised to see too many. According to OvertheCap we only have $7.8MM in space going into this offseason (thanks again, Keim).

Gah! Get used to seeing Jordan Phillips and Devon Kennard on the 2022 roster, because there's little chance you can replace them for the money you'd get back cutting either of them.

You're better off trying to find a way to extend Humphries (LT) and Pugh (LG) and keeping the left side of your line together for the next three years. You could open up maybe $20 million in cap space by doing so.

You could also restructure Rodney Hudson's deal, but that would nudge his 2023 cap number to around $14 million and create around $10 million in dead money on his voidable 2024 year. That would free up another $8 million or so in cap space.

Priority free agents to retain:
Chandler Jones
Zach Ertz
Maxx Williams
Christian Kirk
Colt McCoy

Preferred free agents to retain:
Dennis Gardeck
Zeke Turner
James Conner
Max Garcia
Antonio Hamilton
Chase Edmonds
Antoine Wesley

How would you like to reunite WR Will Fuller and DeAndre Hopkins? Fuller can fly and has the size (6'0") to play on the outside. He's coming off a failure to prove much on a one-year prove it deal with the Dolphins, but could be the scratch-and-dent free agent for $3-5 million that can have a high impact.

How about rolling the dice on another Steelers interior OL in RG Trai Turner? Turner is just 29 and coming off a one-year deal with Pittsburgh where he played over 90% of their snaps.

Man, pickings are slim out there at RT (did you know Bobbie Massie is still playing in the NFL? He played over 70% of the snaps with the Broncos last year!) and CB.

 

[BurqueCardFan]

I'm tired about always hearing excuses about cap space. It seems teams like the Rams, TB, etc.. make constant additions of big name players without issue. If you want a player, get creative and go get him. If we don't know how, that's more of a reason to get rid of our GM.

 

[football karma]

Cards cap situation is interesting

while its kinda tight this year (as noted $7mm or so in space) -- the following year they have $139mm in space -- (and a big chunk of that will be K1 -- not in the 2023 figure)

so there is room to work with and some flexibility

i do think Phillips and Kennard are gone: it saves $10mm (and a $13mm dead money charge) in 2022 -- and that money + the flexibility in 2023 and beyond means that could be leveraged into 3 B+ players.

and to reiterate my theme of the offseason: it looks like both Keim and KK will be going into the final years of their contracts - so both will be highly motivated to make it happen next year.

 

[THESMEL]

Yea Arizona sports don’t even know Conner was the back up! stupidest staff ever - they say about 12.6 mill for Conner for 2 years - 12 million for Edmonds. Still pisses me off.

The 5: Arizona Cardinals' in-house free agent priorities this offseason

The Cardinals certainly have a lot of decisions to make this offseason. A look at Arizona's biggest in-house free agent priorities:

arizonasports.com

As a change of pace from Conner, Edmonds posted 592 yards (career high) and two touchdowns on 116 carries (5.1 yards per attempt). In the passing game, the running back caught 43 of his 53 targets for 311 yards.

 

[football karma]

Picking through the Saints soon to be announced garage sale:

Michael Thomas, WR. a reasonable $15.5mm salary in 2022, but goes up to $25mm or so in 2023 / 2024. Saints would only save $2mm in 2022 so a ? on if they would trade him. Is he healthy and back to 100%?

Ryan Ramczyk, OT. in a trade, Saints save $8mm. Cards would have ~$20mm annual cap hits through 2026. This is actually a pretty decent contract that when combined with the player could net NO a late 1st or 2nd round pick. One of the best RTs in the game.

Alyin Kamara, RB. only 26. signed through 2024 at a reasonable (?) cap hit of $11mm per, then a $25mm salary in 2025. NO would save $5.5mm

 

[QuebecCard]

Cards cap situation is interesting

while its kinda tight this year (as noted $7mm or so in space) -- the following year they have $139mm in space -- (and a big chunk of that will be K1 -- not in the 2023 figure)

so there is room to work with and some flexibility

i do think Phillips and Kennard are gone: it saves $10mm (and a $13mm dead money charge) in 2022 -- and that money + the flexibility in 2023 and beyond means that could be leveraged into 3 B+ players.

and to reiterate my theme of the offseason: it looks like both Keim and KK will be going into the final years of their contracts - so both will be highly motivated to make it happen next year.

The combined DEAD $ hit for Phillips and Kennard is $13.4m. Your save salary in 2022 of $16.7. So, a net of about $3m.

Perhaps they move on from Kennard but I doubt Phillips is for the chop.

MY BAD! Football Karma has it right. (see below)

 

[NWMike]

Agree with a lot of the thoughts here. I don't think we'll see massive changes this year. We just don't have the money for more than 1 or 2 splash free agents. I'm assuming Chandler moves on as we won't be able to pay him what he wants and the value of a declining pass rusher who goes missing for parts of the season is not there either. His replacement will have to be one of the big targets so while I would love to spend all the money on offense I think we'll have to deal with the front 7 as well. A lot of the D changes also depends on what happens with Vance so until we know his status it's hard to project what we need.

QB's - bring back McCoy and we're good.

RB's - We definitely need Conner back but I think some of the issues we had late in the season was because we overplayed him once Chase got hurt. The guy wore down and eventually was too banged up to be effective. If Chase goes we have to find a change of pace back so we can limit Conner to 10-15 touches a game and keep him fresh.

WR's - Green should go. Call it chemistry, call it passion but it just didn't work here. I think Fuller is interesting but dude is always hurt. He has never played a full season and last year only played in 2 games before going down. That's a big risk to assume he'll be fine. What about someone like Cordelle Patterson? He has never missed a game due to injury, is only 30 and can return kicks to boot. If we can I'd bring back Kirk on a reasonable deal. He seems to have Kyler's trust and is from the area so maybe he likes it here. Moore will obviously need to step up a bit next year though and progress.

OL - This is where most of the focus should be particularly on the interior. As stated above you extend Humphries and lower his cap number, resign Pugh and also lower his cap number and then go get a new right guard. I don't know much about guard play but trust a lot of you who do. I also think you have to assume Pugh gets hurt at some point during the year so you need to have a capable #3 guard that can fill in at either position that is not named Josh Jones. Jones is a tackle and needs to play tackle so he can develop.

Looking forward to March when hope spring eternal for all Cardinal fans.

 

[football karma]

The combined DEAD $ hit for Phillips and Kennard is $13.4m. Your save salary in 2022 of $16.7. So, a net of about $3m.

Perhaps they move on from Kennard but I doubt Phillips is for the chop.

per OTC --

Phillips: Cut him and you save his $10mm in 2022 salary, but $6mm of accelerated bonus hits your cap -- net of $4mm in savings

Kennard: Cut him and you save his $6.75mm salary, but $2mm of accelerated bonus hits your cap, -- net of $4.75mm

total of $8.75mm in 2022 cap savings (and, i realize i included Isabella in my estimate in the previous post of $10mm. my bad)

 

[slanidrac16]

I think the temptation to Run It Back is going to be extremely strong. We may see one or two marquee free agent signings, but I'd be surprised to see too many. According to OvertheCap we only have $7.8MM in space going into this offseason (thanks again, Keim).

Gah! Get used to seeing Jordan Phillips and Devon Kennard on the 2022 roster, because there's little chance you can replace them for the money you'd get back cutting either of them.

You're better off trying to find a way to extend Humphries (LT) and Pugh (LG) and keeping the left side of your line together for the next three years. You could open up maybe $20 million in cap space by doing so.

You could also restructure Rodney Hudson's deal, but that would nudge his 2023 cap number to around $14 million and create around $10 million in dead money on his voidable 2024 year. That would free up another $8 million or so in cap space.

Priority free agents to retain:
Chandler Jones
Zach Ertz
Maxx Williams
Christian Kirk
Colt McCoy

Preferred free agents to retain:
Dennis Gardeck
Zeke Turner
James Conner
Max Garcia
Antonio Hamilton
Chase Edmonds
Antoine Wesley

How would you like to reunite WR Will Fuller and DeAndre Hopkins? Fuller can fly and has the size (6'0") to play on the outside. He's coming off a failure to prove much on a one-year prove it deal with the Dolphins, but could be the scratch-and-dent free agent for $3-5 million that can have a high impact.

How about rolling the dice on another Steelers interior OL in RG Trai Turner? Turner is just 29 and coming off a one-year deal with Pittsburgh where he played over 90% of their snaps.

Man, pickings are slim out there at RT (did you know Bobbie Massie is still playing in the NFL? He played over 70% of the snaps with the Broncos last year!) and CB.

Awesome input. I thought about Fuller. He CAN’T be asking a lot and might dig being reunited with Hopkins.
It sure would be nice to sign a guy like a guy like Turner who’s young enough to stick around for a while.

 

[slanidrac16]

okay... read my lips...

RAID New Orleans... Payton retiring...75mil over the salary cap... I would go get Michael Thomas,...due to be paid 15mil next season...trade for him then work a new deal...I would also drop names like cam jordan and alvin kamara, Terron Armstead or Marshawn Lattimore
make a multi player multi pick deal.... their dead money situation is gonna kill them,...if they dont trade away a few of these contracts they are gonna have to cut nearly everybody to make up for it

Nice idea but might we not be better off waiting to see who they half to cut first?
The names I mention are upgrades that I think we can get for a reasonable cost.
Great input. Thanks!

 

[slanidrac16]

Agree with a lot of the thoughts here. I don't think we'll see massive changes this year. We just don't have the money for more than 1 or 2 splash free agents. I'm assuming Chandler moves on as we won't be able to pay him what he wants and the value of a declining pass rusher who goes missing for parts of the season is not there either. His replacement will have to be one of the big targets so while I would love to spend all the money on offense I think we'll have to deal with the front 7 as well. A lot of the D changes also depends on what happens with Vance so until we know his status it's hard to project what we need.

QB's - bring back McCoy and we're good.

RB's - We definitely need Conner back but I think some of the issues we had late in the season was because we overplayed him once Chase got hurt. The guy wore down and eventually was too banged up to be effective. If Chase goes we have to find a change of pace back so we can limit Conner to 10-15 touches a game and keep him fresh.

WR's - Green should go. Call it chemistry, call it passion but it just didn't work here. I think Fuller is interesting but dude is always hurt. He has never played a full season and last year only played in 2 games before going down. That's a big risk to assume he'll be fine. What about someone like Cordelle Patterson? He has never missed a game due to injury, is only 30 and can return kicks to boot. If we can I'd bring back Kirk on a reasonable deal. He seems to have Kyler's trust and is from the area so maybe he likes it here. Moore will obviously need to step up a bit next year though and progress.

OL - This is where most of the focus should be particularly on the interior. As stated above you extend Humphries and lower his cap number, resign Pugh and also lower his cap number and then go get a new right guard. I don't know much about guard play but trust a lot of you who do. I also think you have to assume Pugh gets hurt at some point during the year so you need to have a capable #3 guard that can fill in at either position that is not named Josh Jones. Jones is a tackle and needs to play tackle so he can develop.

Looking forward to March when hope spring eternal for all Cardinal fans.

Thanks for your input!

 

[slanidrac16]

I’m convinced 90% of the members here would do a better job than Keim…

 

[QuebecCard]

I’m convinced 90% of the members here would do a better job than Keim…

Count me in the 10%, I know my limitations.

 

[cardpa]

I think the temptation to Run It Back is going to be extremely strong. We may see one or two marquee free agent signings, but I'd be surprised to see too many. According to OvertheCap we only have $7.8MM in space going into this offseason (thanks again, Keim).

Gah! Get used to seeing Jordan Phillips and Devon Kennard on the 2022 roster, because there's little chance you can replace them for the money you'd get back cutting either of them.

You're better off trying to find a way to extend Humphries (LT) and Pugh (LG) and keeping the left side of your line together for the next three years. You could open up maybe $20 million in cap space by doing so.

You could also restructure Rodney Hudson's deal, but that would nudge his 2023 cap number to around $14 million and create around $10 million in dead money on his voidable 2024 year. That would free up another $8 million or so in cap space.

Priority free agents to retain:
Chandler Jones
Zach Ertz
Maxx Williams
Christian Kirk
Colt McCoy

Preferred free agents to retain:
Dennis Gardeck
Zeke Turner
James Conner
Max Garcia
Antonio Hamilton
Chase Edmonds
Antoine Wesley

How would you like to reunite WR Will Fuller and DeAndre Hopkins? Fuller can fly and has the size (6'0") to play on the outside. He's coming off a failure to prove much on a one-year prove it deal with the Dolphins, but could be the scratch-and-dent free agent for $3-5 million that can have a high impact.

How about rolling the dice on another Steelers interior OL in RG Trai Turner? Turner is just 29 and coming off a one-year deal with Pittsburgh where he played over 90% of their snaps.

Man, pickings are slim out there at RT (did you know Bobbie Massie is still playing in the NFL? He played over 70% of the snaps with the Broncos last year!) and CB.

Wesley is a ERFA according to Spotrac so they control him. Spotrac is showing Conner with a market value of 2 yr. $12 million. Green as 4 yr. $28 million, Ertz 3 yr. $21 million, Edmonds 3 yr. $16 million Kirk 4 yr. $45 million and Jones 3 yr. $42 million. These are calculated values by Spotrac.

Also according to Spotrac these are the top ten salaries for the team. In order from number one to number ten they are Hopkins, Humphries Watt Baker Phillips Hudson K. Murray Pugh Kennard and Hicks. Cap hit for them is $131, 956,000 or 67% of the cap. Of these, two (Phillips and Watt) missed 8 and 9 game respectively and their salaries for 2022 will be $29,201,000 or 13.89% of the cap. I pulled the cap hit salaries from their Cap Hit column and the percentage from their Cap% column.

If the team resigns all of its UFAs mentioned in the first paragraph, at market value they would total $50,330,000 running the cap use up to $182.286,000 for 16 players which is certainly not doable since Spotrac is projecting the 2022 cap to be $210,200,000.

The team is either going to have to let some guys walk or select some for cuts and rework some contracts in order to stay under the cap with a workable space to sign FAs and the draft. Spotrac also shows a cap space of $7.8 million like Over the cap does.

By the way I believe it gets worse in 2023 when 12 present starters hit Free agency if the team doesn't rework Humphries and Pugh and/or Hudson. I think K9 is correct about Phillips and Kennard. I also think he's correct about the number of marquee FAs the team could possibly sign.

 

[Metcalf Rules]

I like the idea of going after Cordarelle Patterson.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

I think the temptation to Run It Back is going to be extremely strong. We may see one or two marquee free agent signings, but I'd be surprised to see too many. According to OvertheCap we only have $7.8MM in space going into this offseason (thanks again, Keim).

Gah! Get used to seeing Jordan Phillips and Devon Kennard on the 2022 roster, because there's little chance you can replace them for the money you'd get back cutting either of them.

You're better off trying to find a way to extend Humphries (LT) and Pugh (LG) and keeping the left side of your line together for the next three years. You could open up maybe $20 million in cap space by doing so.

You could also restructure Rodney Hudson's deal, but that would nudge his 2023 cap number to around $14 million and create around $10 million in dead money on his voidable 2024 year. That would free up another $8 million or so in cap space.

Priority free agents to retain:
Chandler Jones
Zach Ertz
Maxx Williams
Christian Kirk
Colt McCoy

Preferred free agents to retain:
Dennis Gardeck
Zeke Turner
James Conner
Max Garcia
Antonio Hamilton
Chase Edmonds
Antoine Wesley

How would you like to reunite WR Will Fuller and DeAndre Hopkins? Fuller can fly and has the size (6'0") to play on the outside. He's coming off a failure to prove much on a one-year prove it deal with the Dolphins, but could be the scratch-and-dent free agent for $3-5 million that can have a high impact.

How about rolling the dice on another Steelers interior OL in RG Trai Turner? Turner is just 29 and coming off a one-year deal with Pittsburgh where he played over 90% of their snaps.

Man, pickings are slim out there at RT (did you know Bobbie Massie is still playing in the NFL? He played over 70% of the snaps with the Broncos last year!) and CB.

Fuller has Missed 42/97 games in his career. Seems like the biggest gambles of gamble moves. And didn’t we spend the entire season talking about the Steelers having worst line in the league? There’s just not a lot of great options available.

 

[RON_IN_OC]

okay... read my lips...

RAID New Orleans... Payton retiring...75mil over the salary cap... I would go get Michael Thomas,...due to be paid 15mil next season...trade for him then work a new deal...I would also drop names like cam jordan and alvin kamara, Terron Armstead or Marshawn Lattimore
make a multi player multi pick deal.... their dead money situation is gonna kill them,...if they dont trade away a few of these contracts they are gonna have to cut nearly everybody to make up for it

Resign Steveler So you can trade him for Hill. Hahaha

 

[Jetstream Green]

I think the temptation to Run It Back is going to be extremely strong. We may see one or two marquee free agent signings, but I'd be surprised to see too many. According to OvertheCap we only have $7.8MM in space going into this offseason (thanks again, Keim).

Gah! Get used to seeing Jordan Phillips and Devon Kennard on the 2022 roster, because there's little chance you can replace them for the money you'd get back cutting either of them.

You're better off trying to find a way to extend Humphries (LT) and Pugh (LG) and keeping the left side of your line together for the next three years. You could open up maybe $20 million in cap space by doing so.

You could also restructure Rodney Hudson's deal, but that would nudge his 2023 cap number to around $14 million and create around $10 million in dead money on his voidable 2024 year. That would free up another $8 million or so in cap space.

Priority free agents to retain:
Chandler Jones
Zach Ertz
Maxx Williams
Christian Kirk
Colt McCoy

Preferred free agents to retain:
Dennis Gardeck
Zeke Turner
James Conner
Max Garcia
Antonio Hamilton
Chase Edmonds
Antoine Wesley

How would you like to reunite WR Will Fuller and DeAndre Hopkins? Fuller can fly and has the size (6'0") to play on the outside. He's coming off a failure to prove much on a one-year prove it deal with the Dolphins, but could be the scratch-and-dent free agent for $3-5 million that can have a high impact.

How about rolling the dice on another Steelers interior OL in RG Trai Turner? Turner is just 29 and coming off a one-year deal with Pittsburgh where he played over 90% of their snaps.

Man, pickings are slim out there at RT (did you know Bobbie Massie is still playing in the NFL? He played over 70% of the snaps with the Broncos last year!) and CB.

Great to see someone value both TEs, I feel the same way. The only switch for me would be to flip Kirk with Conner... I don't know but Conner is like Larry Centers 2.0 and I just dig his intense physical play and ability to catch

 

[oaken1]

Nice idea but might we not be better off waiting to see who they half to cut first?
The names I mention are upgrades that I think we can get for a reasonable cost.
Great input. Thanks!

if we wait for cuts we have to compete with other teams for the players. Just like Rodney Hudson was planning on going to KC,...but he now plays for Arizona....trade.