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Right, but now they've traded away an All-Pro talent during the twilight years of Matt Ryan. It makes no sense other than they're saving money and accumulating picks. In which case they should be shopping Ryan too, and likely should have drafted Fields. But, I agree that they must not have liked JF to pass him up.
No they won't. It's a whole new crew in Atlanta. They have many mistakes to make ahead of them before they're fired.
All the more reason to trade him. You think Washington wouldn't give up a 1st+ for Matt Ryan's last 3-4 seasons? If Atlanta is going to trade Julio you might as well deal Ryan too.
The Julio trade isn't on the new group; that's on the old one. They gave these guys a horrible cap situation to manage, which I think is likely the primary reason for the trade. In a better financial situation they could have stared him down and dared him not to report to camp, but that isn't their reality so they needed to act now.
And start...AJ McCarron?
They aren't the Texans, but they're pretty bad. Nothing of consequence behind Ridley and Pitts at skill positions on offense. Their OL is probably fine, but there is an Alex Mack sized hole to fill. And the defense is horrendous - they're asking A LOT of Dean Pees given the personnel he has to work with.
The Falcons would have taken on $65 million in dead salary cap money if they traded Ryan before June 1 (basically ADDING $38 million to their 2021 cap total). Obviously that was not an option and they could not have done that and kept under the salary cap.
Atlanta re-did Ryan's contract, converting $21m of his $23m salary into a bonus. This move saved $14m in cap space this year, but kicked that funding evenly into 2022 and 2023. It'd have been painful to deal with the Ryan contract (cut or trade) before that, but embracing a rebuild they could have proceeded accordingly. One scenario would have been trade Julio post June 1 (save $15+m), cut/trade Ryan ($51m dead instead of current cap # of $27m), not RFA Gono ($3+m), not sign M Davis ($2+m), then use the G Jarrett contract to fill the remaining gap. If my math is right about $3-4m, so reduce his base from $13.5m to $6.5m and apply about $3.5m against 2022.
https://twitter.com/jwyattsports/status/1403061012526403586?s=21Jim Wyatt @jwyattsports
seconds of @juliojones_11 first practice with the @Titans.
WATCH
What are you not understanding? The Falcons did not even have enough money to sign the people they drafted. And as was said before, Ryan still has a number of years left so they drafted Pitts who many say is a generational talent instead of drafting a QB. And even if they drafted Fields instead of Pitts, then traded Ryan as you suggest, then would STILL have to trade Julio and his large contract because the Falcons did not even have enough money to sign the people they drafted. And then you'd have ended up with a rookie QB, no Julio, and no Pitts.
I’m not understand why if you’re going to commit to losing why not just go all in? Who cares if they owe Matt Ryan all this dead money? Trade him and do your best dance for the #1 overall pick. Just like the Jags did.
Do you understand the structure of a salary cap? I already explained they would have to eat like $65M to trade him. And teams CANNOT go over the salary cap. So in order to trade him before the draft, they have had to cut over $38M worth of salary to cover the cap hit for Ryan.
So keep him and go 7-10. What’s the point? Yes, I understand the salary cap. No reason to be condescending.
Jones goes from being a WR1 on a passing team to a WR2 on a running team while Ridley becomes the unquestioned WR1 now. Ridley becomes Top 5. Jones will likely be just north or south of WR20. (IMO, Jones will put up numbers similar to what Davis did last year in TEN). Jones played his whole career with Ryan . . . it might take some time to click with Tannehill.
Flesh this out for me as I am not sure what you are trying to say.
That's a lot of if/then/else in play there.
You didn’t answer what I asked. At Davis’ rate of production for 17 games would yield 1200/6. What are you suggesting Jones gets this year?
More.
I didn’t mean the third option in the passing game. I meant the third most productive player on the offense.More.
I don't know why you need specific numbers.
He could also easily outproduce Brown. He only caught two fewer passes than Brown last year and he was hurt most of it.
Henry caught 19 passes last year. Jones won't be the third option in the passing game.
It's more like when the off-season doesn't go as planned, you give up a second round pick to cover your errors.
How is anyone badmouthing him? He's a 32 year old receiver coming off of an injury-shortened season going to what has predominantly been a run-first team.You guys are bad mouthing him like he broke up with you via text message.
Atlanta gave up TWO more yards than the Titans last season.
Yeah, I was more remembering the Titans defense from 2019 when they were a lot better. I am sure the COVID situation didn't help any.
While his on field production should be nice, it's only part of the reason Julio will make the Titans better than last year. I actually don't expect him to produce much more per game then Davis, but his leadership and professionalism will pay off big time.
This pretty much nails it.
you're looking at this too narrowly.
No, I'm being quoted narrowly. I've said more than just Jones > Davis.
2018 they were a good defense. Last two years they have not been as good Vrabel's first. But yeah, last year was a big step back.
All this falls pretty much in line with what I was projecting for Jones . . . that his output this year would be similar to what Corey Davis per game production from last year. Davis projected over 17 games was on a 1200/6 pace in 2020. I also suggested Jones would be around WR20 plus or minus a couple spots (there are always several receivers packed pretty close at that bandwidth). That also fits the narrative that Jones in TEN would be less productive than he was in ATL given that the Titans have a propensity to run a lot more than the Falcons do and the Falcons typically have had 10 more passing attempts per game compared to TEN. So in my mind, TEN swapped out Davis for Jones and IMO there won't be much of a difference in the Titans offensive production or impact on their record (there were some prognosticators that suggested the Titans are AFC contenders with Jones).BobbyLayne said:
Stats, I agree.
I guess they won't need to play that 17th game. IMO, Jones and Davis AT THIS STAGE are similar but they don't have much WR depth and also lost Smith at TE. Not sure that makes the offense collectively better . . . in fact the numbers may not be better (especially if Jones misses time). The defense has been the issue. I haven't really followed their offseason moves defensively, so I can't speak to how the defense looks.
I'm skeptical of the defense - PFF has them ranked 23rd in the league FWIW. We'll see if they hit a home run (or even a double) with Farley and Molden - that would help. I think the big story with the offense is what they look like under Downing in his first year as an OC. I firmly believe that Smith was an excellent OC and a great play caller who put his players in positions to succeed and knew how to get the most out of them.
I think it will be more important if Autry (moving from DT to DE) and Bud Dupree (coming off an ACL injury) can actually put pressure on the QB. They have made quite a few additions to the defense but it will be interesting to see if they can mesh
Based on point differential, TEN should have been expected to have been 9-7 last year. Lots of close games. Those tend to even put. I would guess they go 10-7 this year.
Seems reasonable. I wouldn't put some weird 2-5 start past them either. A young secondary, Dupree out some, camp Vrabel is too easy on players, figuring out who and how to replace Jonnu in run game etc
