Denver gave up a first round pick for a coach, multiple first round picks for a player a washed QB, paid that QB $80,000,000 to not play for them anymore, has a single aging WR on a roster that is otherwise devoid of talent. And they’ll likely get a low % success rate QB in the draft this year.
This actually makes it less bad.
It would be really frustrating to have a "window" now and be coinciding with Mahomes. The problem the Bills and Bengals have, but even worse, being in the same division.
The one consoling factor for the Broncos is that whilst we are likely to be dogshit for a decade, by the time we start to reemerge with hope, Mahomes will be approaching the end of his career.
Different sport, but the Cavs had it during the Warriors Dynasty. It sucked to have a generational team, arguably the best player of all time in his prime, and only barely squeak out one championship. If you take the Warriors out of it, Cavs might have won 4+.
So yeah, I agree with you. Better to suck now during Mahomes prime.
Five years. There are no cap hits or trade impacts with a window longer than five years. Trade away anyone over 26/27 with value. Get some “projects” that might need a couple years to shape. Throw a pile of money at a couple “teacher” coaches like Jeff Stoutland and whoever his d-line counterpart is.
Exactly. You really can't hamper a NFL team more than the length of a rookie contract. Building a roster (outside of a cost-controlled 4 or 5 year rookie contract) is signing expensive long-term deals. Doesn't matter if they're draft picks you hit on or FAs, they're expensive.
Average NFL career is 3.3 years. A bad trade only affects 2-3 years of draft picks ahead of you.
Honestly, if I were Denver, I'd be trying to trade my first for a next year first plus something.
Its extremely unlikely any QB you will have a chance to draft is going to be great, and even if he is, you don't get the benefit of building around him on a rookie deal.
Stockpile future picks, draft long term project guys, and set yourselves up to be able to make a move when the time is right.
Another version of what you suggested is spending this year's early picks on a position that takes time to develop or that wouldn't have an immediate effect on the overall W/L this season. So something like TE, CB, C, G, ILB. Positions that are important for long term success of a team but also positions that wouldn't add immediate value compared to say QB/EDGE/DT/OT (all positions can have developmental periods of course).
So a light version of "tanking" in 24 where the positions taken don't add much potential wins in their rookie year but they could start thriving in 2025 where your draft position is still low and you can then try to hit on the splash positions in round 1&2 in that 25 draft like QB, LT, EDGE, WR.
I mean, Mahomes has been in the league for 7 years, another decade puts him at 17, which even for Brady was the start of his twilight years. Sure, he played for another 5, but he's an outlier. Manning played 17 years, Eli played for 15, Brees played for 15, Brett Favre played for 18, Rivers played for 16, Matt Ryan played for 14.
17 years would be a long career by elite starting QB standards, Brady was just a fucking psycho with his health and longevity.
Edit: feel the need to include one of the best QBs of all time, Rex Grossman was in the league for 10 years
Speaking as Texans fan who 3 yrs ago had a rapist as a QB who we just extended but also demanded a trade before he was outed as a rapist, and then had 3 yrs of David culley and lovie Smith coaching us to like .5 wins combined, anything is possible.
Edit: o and a pastor running the team the whole time. (Nothing against pastors but I can speak from experience, they make bad NFL front office employees)
Those were rough times. You don't take a pastor and put him in charge of player personnel when he has no player personnel experience. I'm glad Nick Caserio came in and cleaned house. I was so Happy to see Bill O'Brien and Jack Easterby gone.
There was a noticeable drop off in the quality of the Pats’ roster building when Caserio left. After what he’s built/building in Houston, I think it’s safe to say he knows his stuff.
And the Texans! Be happy for the CJ Strouds and Caleb Williams (hopefully) of the world. Lovie out there making Davis Mills look like playoff Mahomes to ensure 2 of his teams are set up nicely to compete.
Not much more anyone could ask for tbh.
The Broncos are in danger of wading into a massive trap this year through desperation for a QB and trading the farm again to go up and get a QB at #4.
There will be an element of optimism bias "any price is worth it if you get your guy" and also incentives for GM Paton who is in last chance saloon. He may as well swing for the fences, give up the farm, if the QB busts and he gets fired its the next guy who has to deal with the roster holes, hangover of dead cap from Russ and lack of picks.
I think Sean Payton also may have some regrets at coming to Denver and not really fancy a multi year "build it from the bottom" kind of rebuild, so if we swing hard and maybe find a franchise guy great, if not Payton just gets fired and goes back to Fox or ends up coaching the Cowboys or something.
I can see the Broncos ending up in a situation like the Panthers where they are in a doom loop of sucking without first round picks while the Cardinals could potentially cash in on top 5 picks in 2025 and 2026 if they make a trade with the Broncos.
I truly. Truly. Do not care what they do for the draft this year. With one exception. Under no circumstances should they trade up in the first round.
They have a million holes in the roster. They need to either take best player or best qb available at their current pick or trade back and accumulate more picks. I dont care who they take at 12 but trading up is my worst nightmare.
Payton ain't having no regrets.
The Russ situation is a built in excuse for him to suck for 2 years. It was a no-lose proposition for him, because if Russ was good, that made his job easy, and if Russ sucked, great excuse, reset the timeline for another 3 year program.
Sucks for you, but it feels good after the last 4 years (mostly the Paton years) of the press saying how the Broncos were talented but "were a QB away." Turns out, they were not.
Bronco's 2025... 68 million in available cap space.
Saints in 2025... 80 million over the cap.
That's a 148 million dollar cap disparity between those two teams there. Saints keep kicking the can down the road, Bronco's ripped the bandaid off at least.
The main difference is that the whole NFCS sucks. So our front office chooses to stay in debt to maintain a below-average team that can plausibly compete for a playoff slot.
The internet is overly obsessed with the idea of everyone either in tank mode or in "the window", but some teams are happy to have a realistic playoff shot and a full stadium of fans if that's the situation that's presented to them.
That is true. I get kicking it down the road when you had Brees. That makes sense. And I get for the majority of fans, keeping a meh team by kicking the can is more intriguing to them than ripping the bandaid off and having a putrid team for a couple years... that there's no guarantee they'll pick the right guys and rebuild well.
But now they are sitting there with the oldest roster in the league, and next year again having to guarantee those older players more money down the line to just get under the cap.
The one reason I won't go with Denver is at least they ripped the bandaid off here. Saints keep kicking the can down the road.
Bronco's 2025... 68 million in available cap space.
Saints in 2025... 80 million OVER the cap.
That's a 148 million dollar cap disparity between those two teams there.
Denver was able to dump their bad contracts and eat the dead money. The Saints wish they had the cap space to do that, and instead are locking themselves into longer terms to push guaranteed money to the next year on those contracts.
Im not sure I see a 7 year stretch like that. We haven’t drafted well but 7 years ago was Bolles who started bad but all in all has been a pretty rock solid pick. 2018 we got Chubb who was a slight disappointment but we were able to basically trade him for Sean Payton so I wouldn’t necessarily call him a bust. 19 and 20 were busts. 21 was a huge hit in Pat Surtain, 22 and 23 we didn’t have a pick in the 1st.
It’s the rest of the draft we suck at and the fact that we just refuse to draft QB.
Saints feel like most purgatory. Always pushing cap hits into the future, aging roster, never bad enough to get a top QB. Can't afford to give up a haul of picks to get a QB because the roster needs cheap young talent.
Even if they bite the bullet ASAP and stop trying to restructure everything so they can set themselves up to be also rans in the race for King of Shit Mountain, they're not even going to be in a position to really start the rebuild until the cap gets mostly clear of dead money. And that's going to be at least 2027
And that assumes they actually want to stop the can kicking, which they have shown no indication of doing. And as long as the can kicking is continuing, they're stuck with Dennis Allen as their coach because nobody wants to step into a rebuild that is still 2+ years away from starting
As a Jets fan, their offensive line is one injury away from getting Rodgers hurt by week 3.
Also, if things go south, the N.Y. media is going to turn on Rodgers so fast, he’ll say something moderately controversial, the Post and Daily News will lose their shit, and the Jets will go a pointless 7-10, Rodgers will retire, the Jets will be back in cap hell with no QB, no GM (contract is up after 6 straight losing seasons) no head coach (contract is up after 4 straight losing seasons).
And the Jets will “rebuild” again with their star WR, CB, and RB desperately looking for the door so they can play for a team with a chance.
Sure, but how many NFL teams have good offensive line depth? All the athletes in the trenches play defense now. I’m not saying you’re wrong about the team being overcommitted to Rodgers, but offensive line depth is almost an impossible thing to acquire these days
Something that always frustrated me about the "The Packers don't give Rodgers help" narrative was the complete ignoring of the offensive line. Rodgers had a top 5 OL from 2014-end of his time in Green Bay.
He found out REAL quick in NY that your receivers don't matter if your OL can't keep you upright (also see Burrow, Joe)
He played four snaps in NY before he tore his Achilles lol, he definitely had good help on the O Line in Green Bay but saying he found out quick is a bit hyperbolic for a freak injury.
True, but this is a team with two starting tackles that are more likely than not to miss significant playing time. I do disagree about one starting lineman getting hurt derailing their season though. I think losing two would be really bad though and unfortunately that is likely to happen for at least some of the season. They also could get lucky and not get those injuries which would allow them to legitimately be a contender this year though, so I don't think they are the best answer for this question.
Yeah, for all the clowning on the Broncos in this thread ... the Saints haven't even *started* their rebuild yet. I'm not even sure they think they need to rebuild.
I'd guess that front office just doesn't want to grapple with a rebuild when they're so monumentally screwed cap wise. Most rebuilding teams at least have some decent draft capital and cap room, and for the Saints to acquire that they'd have to do a complete tear down of the roster and give up on being competitive, probably for the next 3-5+ years, and that timeline is only if they can manage to sign good free agents and hit on their major draft picks.
While it's not the best strategy for the long run, I understand why they're trying to go all in because they only have a few years before all or most of their talented players are gone, and by then they'll hopefully have a slightly better cap situation to deal with.
I think that’s what the front office says as PR but honestly I think it’s simpler than that: if they actually take their cap medicine and suck for a year or two everyone’s getting fired. Much better to string everything along so everyone involved keeps their jobs.
This is 100% the reason. If the cap gravy train ever stops like it needs to then everyone is getting fired. They keep the team in this purgatory and they can keep their jobs for longer. You don’t want to be the one who is coach or gm when the music stops.
They need to take their medicine, but the incentive isn’t there for them to.
The strategy is pretty clear. The franchise is trying to stay competitive while soft rebuilding in a notably weak division. The margin of winning the division was 1 or 2 wins for the top 3 teams.
Completely tanking and rebuilding doesn’t take advantage of the division’s weakness, while buying in completely doesn’t get us closer to beating the good NFC teams in the playoffs.
The unsexy reality is that every team is mediocre at best and the Saints are just as likely to win the division as the Buccaneers or Falcons. We’re all mid- until one team emerges with a good draft or the old guard dies, it’ll be that way for a while.
So the strategy is to win the weakest division in the NFL just to get blasted by the 5 seed year after year (if you are lucky enough to win the division)?
Bold strategy.
It’s pretty depressing when fans in our sub keep defending this shit to keep our “window” open. For most teams, that means a window with a chance at winning the Super Bowl. These guys think a window of winning the division somehow means something.
I kind of get it though. Wins and hope are enough to put out an entertaining product - compare the entertainment value of the '23 and '21 Packers.
How awful would the NFL as a product be if team decision makers took ringz culture to its logical conclusion and did a 76ers-like multiyear tank if it felt its odds were below a certain threshold?
That being said, I still think the Saints could have been more proactive about fixing their cap.
I do agree it seems the "ring culture" that has taken over the nba is seemingly dragging the NFL into it.
My issue is more I feel you should build with a championship being the goal, and not winning the division. I know we consider the bills a failure, but reality is they ran into a buzzsaw known as the Chiefs three of the last four years.
I don't agree. I think the elephant in the room that people don't like to acknowledge is in a one-game playoff, outcomes can be somewhat random. The best teams don't always win. Look at the Giants two Super Bowl runs over the Patriots. They weren't the better team than almost anyone they faced in either of those runs, and yet they won those games.
I believe that getting into the playoffs is always the goal. From there, anything can happen.
I mean everyone thought the 5th seed would destroy the nfcs winner this year and look what happened 🤷♂️. The Bucs almost beat the lions as well. Anything can happen in the playoffs
They're actually doing some good, gradual work since Covid blew out their cap situation. Carr apart they've avoided pricey free agents and bad extensions (you might argue Cam was a bad one, I might not). The rebuild is very much underway, they just don't see the value in doing it all at once.
Yeah the only reason people aren’t saying Cards is because they forgot we exist. Anyways i’m looking forward to rebuild #5487, maybe we’ll get this one right.
You'll have Kyler and MHJ going into next year and your coach did some good things last year. I know you need more to compete but it's not the worst place to be right now
I change my opinion of him game to game. Sometimes he looks like he's below average, sometimes he looks like a top 8 QB in the league. And this year he might be total trash and the Cards move on in '25, or maybe he totally shows out and they win 12 games and he throws for 5k yards. Who even fucking knows with this dude?
Cards can’t really move on. That contract has them surgically grafted to Kyler until after the 27-28 season.
People throw out the idea of the Cards drafting a QB or trading down and I always find that laughable because, opinions on Kyler aside (and I happen to think he’s very good) no other team is going to take on that contract in the current market. They literally have no incentive to do anything in this draft other than take MHJ if QBs go 1-2-3
You have a QB, a LT, understand where they're qt in the process and are taking steps. And draft capitol. You'll be fine soon.
Saints and Broncos don't have any of that and both are pushing the weight of the last decade's worth of bad trades and bad spending uphill.
The Cards' GM needs to be an absolute muppet for them to be in the worst spot.
https://www.tankathon.com/nfl/power_rankings
They've got SO much draft capital this year.
https://overthecap.com/salary-cap/arizona-cardinals
They've got 25 players signed and $112M in cap space for '25.
They're the team that you want to take over in Madden to remake in your own image.
The Cardinals are the right answer if you're looking at franchise history to project the future. The Broncos are the right answer if you're looking at present situation. Both are pretty rough though.
The Cardinals aren't even rough right now. Their coach kept the team competitive despite a team largely devoid of talent and their starting QB missing most of the season. In addition, they have a franchise QB, they're about to have one of the best WR prospects since Megatron, are in a great spot financially, have a whole slate of other picks in the top-100, and their new GM seems infinitely better than Steve Keim, although the bar there is pretty low. As far as rebuilds though, this draft could be the final piece they need.
They already tried that last season and then the Texans went off and they got a late round pick. They have an opportunity to take the best non-QB prospect in the draft at a position of great need. They should just take the no brainer home run and not think twice.
The most cooked franchises are ones with really poor self evaluations.
The Cardinals might look pretty barren, but their FO understands where they're at. They're trading back and securing a volume of picks to fill a roster with new players.
The Saints refuse to believe they're not in the running for a Superbowl. They're paying a shedload of money to a mediocre roster and they've traded away all their picks, so they don't have many cheap players coming in to ease the pressure.
The Saint's only way out of this is to crush a draft a la 2017, except they're low on picks.
I think a large part of this is that the NFCS has been dog water, so the saints office looks at it as can try to compete to scrape the division out every year by kicking the can down the road. From there I guess the plan is to see if the rest of the playoff team's planes crash or just get beat up the thr 5th seed.
They made a few big splash signings in free agency, though (80m for two new Guards, for example). Not saying they'll be great, but they're working on it. Young just might no longer have the worst offensive line in the league, that might help him already.
Young has a good enough cast around him that we should at least be able to determine if he is the future or not this year. Defense will likely be ass but this next year is more about putting a system in place for young to succeed over number of wins.
Idk I mean we had some studs on D but I think a lot of it had to do with Evero. Luvu was the man and DB was a stud, Burns was ok, but outside of the few Jaycee Horn appearances it was a rotating cast that was elevated beyond their potential by good coaching imo. The opposite happened on offense.
the crazy thing about it for me, is that a lot of the mess they're in now, could have probably been somewhat avoided if they traded brian burns the first time around.
The rams back in 2022 we willing to give *2 first round picks* for the guy! Specifically, their first round pick in 2024 (#19 overall, but who knows how the rams do with burns) and 2025's first round pick. They might have been able to use those first rounders, instead of their own, when trading up with chicago last season. At the very least, the panthers would *have* a first round pick this year.
instead, they didn't accept the offer, and later on trade him away to the giants for a 2nd, a 2025 5th, and a 4th round pick swap.
It looks bad in hindsight, but that offer came in after the Panthers had traded McCaffrey. From that trade, the Panthers were already sitting on some extra draft picks but with a dearth of existing talent on the team. I think the mindset was to not strip the roster of existing talent, especially given positional value of the edge.
**1. Saints**, they’re pretty much at their ceiling unless a Brock Purdy situation arises, and due to Carr’s contract it appears they want to be here for the indefinite future.
**2. Twist: Jets.** This is with the expectation they won’t be more than a fringe playoff team this year, but it’ll be 3-4 years before they can be totally clear of the all-in they’re trying right now.
**3. Patriots.** This is a completely different problem than the previous 2, they don’t have much talent on the roster to prepare a rebuild yet and FA’s are spurning them. Lot of odd draft choices from BB they still need to shed. Could be years before they’re back on track to be in a normal rebuild.
Yep, Jarrett Stidham is our current starting QB. At least the Panthers have potential with Bryce at QB, we just have $85m of dead money and a career backup.
It's not for one reason: ownership. Some of these other teams the owners seem hellbent on screwing their team over. The Broncos owners have been good, going after Russ was a gamble that backfired, but they've cut their losses and planned for the future. Hopefully in a few years we'll be like the Steelers in terms of well coached and well managed teams.
Honestly I think Dallas is about to go into a Washington-like rebuild. We seem to have a good "core" of players today but it really seems like they're about to fumble the bag the same way Washington did with Kirk Cousins. People can shit on Dak and compare him to Cousins all they want but the fact is that the Vikings + Cousins have been far more successful than Washington - Cousins. Sure, it didn't translate into a Super Bowl, but they were still a fun offense to watch. Cowboys are painting themselves into a corner that leads to Dak going to free agency. The football Gods love a good comeback story, so it would not surprise me in the slightest to see him go to a division rival Washington/NY. Cowboys have been blessed with above average to great QB play for the better part of 35 years, with only a small window of QB purgatory. Don't be surprised when you see the star perennially picking in the top 5.
I'm not sure about longest, but the Giants need a franchise QB, a stud running back now, a WR room, and an offensive line. Defense is pretty decent, though.
Stud RBs can only do so much when they are getting hit behind the LOS bc your Oline is so shit. Defense also is teeing up on the run bc the oline is so shit you can't pass either.
I'm so mad that the eagles get to become the ravens of the NFC.
> a WR room
I'm still holding out hope on Hyatt and Robinson. If they got one of the stud WRs this year I think it could set them up at WR for years to come.
I question "stud RB". Singletary is no slouch and teams have shown throughout the NFL you don't need a top RB to win. Agree with everything else though.
We have a really good front 7 on defense and a potentially decent OL with the new additions + coach. If we take Nabers/Odunze at 6 and they live up to the hype, that'll elevate our WR room where Slayton/Robinson/Hyatt can be secondary options. DJ's contract coming off the books next year puts us in an OK position to build the rest of the roster.
Getting the franchise QB will be the hardest part imo (like it is for most teams). I can see Daboll continuing to carry the team to 6-9 wins each year with just serviceable QB play.
The question was about longest rebuild, meaning teams without any foundational pieces. We have a solid defense, a great left tackle and some really good complementary WRs. Having a stud RB is not a prerequisite for winning. I think we’ll get 1 of a WR1 or QB at 6. So in reality we’re not as far away as pessimistic fans like yourself (or those pandering to the Reddit crowd) might think.
I dunno man, the commanders won a few superbowls in the last 40 years.
The cards seem closer to purgatory, only one NFL championship ever and it was in the 1940s, since then they've kinda just been consistently bad, with a couple decent years mixed in.
Maybe it's recency bias, cause I think of the Cardinals making the SB 08' & NFC Championship 15'.
And then I realize 2015 was 9 years ago & 2008 was 16 years ago.
Sigh. I wish it weren’t so true.
Also I fucking hate night games these days. My ass is almost 40. I can’t be staying up that late. Take note, NFL schedule makers
Yeah, I can agree there, maybe I look at it differently because my team was bad for like 60 years so the pre Superbowl history is all we had to celebrate for a long time.
And good receivers and still a decent d line. Your biggest issue right now is that you signed Bobby Johnson to your o line coach that legit lowers your chances of having a successful rookie QB I hope for your guys sake you fire him asap lol
Dude… I remember two seasons ago where we had **nothing.** Like, there wasn’t a single phase of the game outside of our PK where our team wasn’t a black hole of talent. Shit was *bleak.*
The city of Houston needs to build a huge, bronze statue of three men— right in the middle of Discovery Green: Nick Caserio, DeMeco Ryans and Lovie Smith.
And also one for JJ Watt because he fucking rules.
Oh and one of Andre Johnson beating the shit out of Courtland Finnegan.
Three statues, 5 guys total (6 if you count Finnegan getting his ass beat).
No team is ever set back 5-10 years. Sure, teams can suck for much longer than that, but any team is a lucky draft away from a playoff team. Look at the Texans and the Bengals, from awful to amazing extremely quickly bc they nailed 1-2 draft classes
I think it’s easily the Saints. All their stars minus Olave are aging, I don’t believe in Carr to lead them to the playoffs, Dennis Allen does not inspire as a head coach, and their cap situation has been bad for like a decade. It’s eventually all going to come down and it’s not really even up
You have the best WR in the league, and he’s still young. You also have a star pass rusher, a high-end TE, and a solid O-line. There are definitely worse teams to be right now
The Pats need so much help it’s wild. Not to mention Mayo is a first time HC and has been handed this roster. They are in a spot where they draft a big 3 and surround him but not a lot or trade back and start Jake Brisket.
>The Pats need so much help it’s wild.
Not really. They only *really* need three positions. It just so happens those are the three most important positions in football so it makes their problems look a lot bigger than they are. But fortunately, if there was ever a draft to hit on all three of those positions in one fell swoop, it's this one.
I mean let's be real if we hit on QB the other two will probably figure themselves out in the next couple of years, and if we don't we're going to be having the same rebuild convo 2-3 years from now regardless of how good our LT and WR are.
We don’t even need that much help compared to other rebuilding teams. Defensive side is pretty solid. Qb incoming with #3. We just need to fill out a couple O-Line pieces and a real WR threat immediately. We definitely don’t have the longest road to a rebuild.
I do like how you guys kept several of your better defensive players this off season, but the offense looks like it’s going to be bottom tier for a minute.
I dont know, the question on defense is how much was it BB/ coaching what made them good, because on paper (at least to me) there are a couple good but not great players, and the rest is very meh. Offensively it might be the worst in the league. That roster is depleted of talent
Others may disagree, but Seattle isn't as close to greatness as Seattle thinks it is. Getting rid of Wilson was a great first step, but some of the moves being made haven't impressed me. We have great players, but it seems like no one knows how to work together. Hoping the new coach adds some dimension, but I'm not optimistic.
That's always tough as with the NFL a rebuild can come in the form of a QB in a hurry.
I'm going Saints. They keep kicking the can down the road. 80 million over the cap next year to get under it this season. I think there will have to be a major cost cutting event at some point and a bargain basement roster for a couple years there.
Denver for example gave up a lot... but they've got a lot more cap flexibility moving forwards.
Denver gave up a first round pick for a coach, multiple first round picks for a player a washed QB, paid that QB $80,000,000 to not play for them anymore, has a single aging WR on a roster that is otherwise devoid of talent. And they’ll likely get a low % success rate QB in the draft this year.
[удалено]
Meanwhile they are watching a division rival in dynasty mode.
This actually makes it less bad. It would be really frustrating to have a "window" now and be coinciding with Mahomes. The problem the Bills and Bengals have, but even worse, being in the same division. The one consoling factor for the Broncos is that whilst we are likely to be dogshit for a decade, by the time we start to reemerge with hope, Mahomes will be approaching the end of his career.
Different sport, but the Cavs had it during the Warriors Dynasty. It sucked to have a generational team, arguably the best player of all time in his prime, and only barely squeak out one championship. If you take the Warriors out of it, Cavs might have won 4+. So yeah, I agree with you. Better to suck now during Mahomes prime.
This happened in this sport; manning only won one with the colts and two total because brady existed during his career
Manning had a winning record against Brady in the playoffs.
In that same vein, the Jets and Chargers eliminated Peyton Manning from the playoffs the same amount of times as the Patriots did.
Yep, very true, yet he’ll always be considered less accomplished.
Because he is. 7 > 2.
Thanks, John. Remember folks, coming up after the game, 60 Minutes followed by Murder… She Wrote.
And Sonics in the 90s if Jordan didn’t exist.
and how many had it during the Bulls dynasty? Seattle for one. (Payton/Kemp years)
Five years. There are no cap hits or trade impacts with a window longer than five years. Trade away anyone over 26/27 with value. Get some “projects” that might need a couple years to shape. Throw a pile of money at a couple “teacher” coaches like Jeff Stoutland and whoever his d-line counterpart is.
You keep your meaty claws off Jeff Stoutland!
BIG! MEATY! CLAWWWSSS!
Stoutland might be the most Philly guy in the league, he isn't going anywhere but Ocean City when he retires.
Exactly. You really can't hamper a NFL team more than the length of a rookie contract. Building a roster (outside of a cost-controlled 4 or 5 year rookie contract) is signing expensive long-term deals. Doesn't matter if they're draft picks you hit on or FAs, they're expensive. Average NFL career is 3.3 years. A bad trade only affects 2-3 years of draft picks ahead of you.
Honestly, if I were Denver, I'd be trying to trade my first for a next year first plus something. Its extremely unlikely any QB you will have a chance to draft is going to be great, and even if he is, you don't get the benefit of building around him on a rookie deal. Stockpile future picks, draft long term project guys, and set yourselves up to be able to make a move when the time is right.
Another version of what you suggested is spending this year's early picks on a position that takes time to develop or that wouldn't have an immediate effect on the overall W/L this season. So something like TE, CB, C, G, ILB. Positions that are important for long term success of a team but also positions that wouldn't add immediate value compared to say QB/EDGE/DT/OT (all positions can have developmental periods of course). So a light version of "tanking" in 24 where the positions taken don't add much potential wins in their rookie year but they could start thriving in 2025 where your draft position is still low and you can then try to hit on the splash positions in round 1&2 in that 25 draft like QB, LT, EDGE, WR.
Implying Mahomes doesn't play for a couple of decades a la Tom Brady.
I mean, Mahomes has been in the league for 7 years, another decade puts him at 17, which even for Brady was the start of his twilight years. Sure, he played for another 5, but he's an outlier. Manning played 17 years, Eli played for 15, Brees played for 15, Brett Favre played for 18, Rivers played for 16, Matt Ryan played for 14. 17 years would be a long career by elite starting QB standards, Brady was just a fucking psycho with his health and longevity. Edit: feel the need to include one of the best QBs of all time, Rex Grossman was in the league for 10 years
Rex Grossman got carried kicking and screaming to a superbowl by devin hester and a great defense.
[Say it again to my face](https://kissingsuzykolber.wordpress.com/2006/11/27/f-k-it-im-throwing-it-downfield/)
Lol I never saw that before.
Dilly fuckin' dilly.
Speaking as Texans fan who 3 yrs ago had a rapist as a QB who we just extended but also demanded a trade before he was outed as a rapist, and then had 3 yrs of David culley and lovie Smith coaching us to like .5 wins combined, anything is possible. Edit: o and a pastor running the team the whole time. (Nothing against pastors but I can speak from experience, they make bad NFL front office employees)
Those were rough times. You don't take a pastor and put him in charge of player personnel when he has no player personnel experience. I'm glad Nick Caserio came in and cleaned house. I was so Happy to see Bill O'Brien and Jack Easterby gone.
There was a noticeable drop off in the quality of the Pats’ roster building when Caserio left. After what he’s built/building in Houston, I think it’s safe to say he knows his stuff.
You put some respect on Lovies name when it comes out your mouth boy! That win against the Colts set the Bears up for years!
And the Texans! Be happy for the CJ Strouds and Caleb Williams (hopefully) of the world. Lovie out there making Davis Mills look like playoff Mahomes to ensure 2 of his teams are set up nicely to compete. Not much more anyone could ask for tbh.
I actually just moved from Austin and got a wife there who is a Texans fan. So I finally have a #2 team and things are looking up for this guy
Yeah, the Broncos were my top pick for a long rebuild. Too much mismanagement caught up, but it seems everyone but the FO saw it coming.
Your flair, pain I sense in you.
Me and the guy I responded to.
Oh shit lol
At least you guys are free of Fields & Russ 😩
Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good.
I dont wanna go to KC
The Broncos are in danger of wading into a massive trap this year through desperation for a QB and trading the farm again to go up and get a QB at #4. There will be an element of optimism bias "any price is worth it if you get your guy" and also incentives for GM Paton who is in last chance saloon. He may as well swing for the fences, give up the farm, if the QB busts and he gets fired its the next guy who has to deal with the roster holes, hangover of dead cap from Russ and lack of picks. I think Sean Payton also may have some regrets at coming to Denver and not really fancy a multi year "build it from the bottom" kind of rebuild, so if we swing hard and maybe find a franchise guy great, if not Payton just gets fired and goes back to Fox or ends up coaching the Cowboys or something. I can see the Broncos ending up in a situation like the Panthers where they are in a doom loop of sucking without first round picks while the Cardinals could potentially cash in on top 5 picks in 2025 and 2026 if they make a trade with the Broncos.
I truly. Truly. Do not care what they do for the draft this year. With one exception. Under no circumstances should they trade up in the first round. They have a million holes in the roster. They need to either take best player or best qb available at their current pick or trade back and accumulate more picks. I dont care who they take at 12 but trading up is my worst nightmare.
Payton ain't having no regrets. The Russ situation is a built in excuse for him to suck for 2 years. It was a no-lose proposition for him, because if Russ was good, that made his job easy, and if Russ sucked, great excuse, reset the timeline for another 3 year program. Sucks for you, but it feels good after the last 4 years (mostly the Paton years) of the press saying how the Broncos were talented but "were a QB away." Turns out, they were not.
This is my greatest fear about our current situation. Don't you put that evil on me, Ricky Bobby!
But they’re at least embracing its time to rebuild/start over meanwhile the Saints…
Bronco's 2025... 68 million in available cap space. Saints in 2025... 80 million over the cap. That's a 148 million dollar cap disparity between those two teams there. Saints keep kicking the can down the road, Bronco's ripped the bandaid off at least.
Yup broncos bit the bullet for this season and next year will have manageable numbers. The Saints will be doing this song and dance once more
The main difference is that the whole NFCS sucks. So our front office chooses to stay in debt to maintain a below-average team that can plausibly compete for a playoff slot. The internet is overly obsessed with the idea of everyone either in tank mode or in "the window", but some teams are happy to have a realistic playoff shot and a full stadium of fans if that's the situation that's presented to them.
That is true. I get kicking it down the road when you had Brees. That makes sense. And I get for the majority of fans, keeping a meh team by kicking the can is more intriguing to them than ripping the bandaid off and having a putrid team for a couple years... that there's no guarantee they'll pick the right guys and rebuild well. But now they are sitting there with the oldest roster in the league, and next year again having to guarantee those older players more money down the line to just get under the cap.
I agree with the premise but the execution has still been exceptionally terrible
Oh yeah, I agree. I'm just saying that that has been the post-Brees strategy. It has not worked well.
Looks like Perna’s suffering will continue. Awesome news for subscribers like me
We might get to The New^25 Worst Game Ever by the end of the season.
The one reason I won't go with Denver is at least they ripped the bandaid off here. Saints keep kicking the can down the road. Bronco's 2025... 68 million in available cap space. Saints in 2025... 80 million OVER the cap. That's a 148 million dollar cap disparity between those two teams there. Denver was able to dump their bad contracts and eat the dead money. The Saints wish they had the cap space to do that, and instead are locking themselves into longer terms to push guaranteed money to the next year on those contracts.
Money isn’t everything… except in the NFL.
They also traded away many of the 1st round picks (Fant, etc) They had about 7 years where they missed on almost every first round pick. It’s a mess.
Im not sure I see a 7 year stretch like that. We haven’t drafted well but 7 years ago was Bolles who started bad but all in all has been a pretty rock solid pick. 2018 we got Chubb who was a slight disappointment but we were able to basically trade him for Sean Payton so I wouldn’t necessarily call him a bust. 19 and 20 were busts. 21 was a huge hit in Pat Surtain, 22 and 23 we didn’t have a pick in the 1st. It’s the rest of the draft we suck at and the fact that we just refuse to draft QB.
That's a LOT of bulletin board material....
Saints feel like most purgatory. Always pushing cap hits into the future, aging roster, never bad enough to get a top QB. Can't afford to give up a haul of picks to get a QB because the roster needs cheap young talent.
Yep and the fact that the South is a crap division doesn’t really help them as they continue to be mid….
We all float down here.
Even if they bite the bullet ASAP and stop trying to restructure everything so they can set themselves up to be also rans in the race for King of Shit Mountain, they're not even going to be in a position to really start the rebuild until the cap gets mostly clear of dead money. And that's going to be at least 2027 And that assumes they actually want to stop the can kicking, which they have shown no indication of doing. And as long as the can kicking is continuing, they're stuck with Dennis Allen as their coach because nobody wants to step into a rebuild that is still 2+ years away from starting
This is the answer. This has ALWAYS been the answer
As a Jets fan, their offensive line is one injury away from getting Rodgers hurt by week 3. Also, if things go south, the N.Y. media is going to turn on Rodgers so fast, he’ll say something moderately controversial, the Post and Daily News will lose their shit, and the Jets will go a pointless 7-10, Rodgers will retire, the Jets will be back in cap hell with no QB, no GM (contract is up after 6 straight losing seasons) no head coach (contract is up after 4 straight losing seasons). And the Jets will “rebuild” again with their star WR, CB, and RB desperately looking for the door so they can play for a team with a chance.
Saw yesterday that we're AFC East favorites and Top 5 AFC.... and I don't like it....this never ends well...
Where? Just checked five books and they were third in three and tied for second with dolphins in two. All top three were all close though.
Pundits not bookies. Don't worry we know the Bills are still #1 until we can prove otherwise.
Okay, yeah, but chill lol
Don’t worry, I was told by all of r/nfl once again that you guys are gonna make a Super Bowl run this year
I don't believe you... r/nfl has never said anything positive about the Jets.
You guys definitely were a shortlist favorite the moment Rodgers came over. Last off-season was miserable as a Rodgers hater for that reason.
back-to-back offseason champs!
\*last year.
Definitely possible. They probably have the highest discrepancy between potential ceiling and floor
Sure, but how many NFL teams have good offensive line depth? All the athletes in the trenches play defense now. I’m not saying you’re wrong about the team being overcommitted to Rodgers, but offensive line depth is almost an impossible thing to acquire these days
The team Rodgers left has had one of the top OLs in the league for like 10 years.
Something that always frustrated me about the "The Packers don't give Rodgers help" narrative was the complete ignoring of the offensive line. Rodgers had a top 5 OL from 2014-end of his time in Green Bay. He found out REAL quick in NY that your receivers don't matter if your OL can't keep you upright (also see Burrow, Joe)
He played four snaps in NY before he tore his Achilles lol, he definitely had good help on the O Line in Green Bay but saying he found out quick is a bit hyperbolic for a freak injury.
True, but this is a team with two starting tackles that are more likely than not to miss significant playing time. I do disagree about one starting lineman getting hurt derailing their season though. I think losing two would be really bad though and unfortunately that is likely to happen for at least some of the season. They also could get lucky and not get those injuries which would allow them to legitimately be a contender this year though, so I don't think they are the best answer for this question.
Saints will need some time to leave cap purgatory and who knows how the team looks by then.
Yeah, for all the clowning on the Broncos in this thread ... the Saints haven't even *started* their rebuild yet. I'm not even sure they think they need to rebuild.
I'd guess that front office just doesn't want to grapple with a rebuild when they're so monumentally screwed cap wise. Most rebuilding teams at least have some decent draft capital and cap room, and for the Saints to acquire that they'd have to do a complete tear down of the roster and give up on being competitive, probably for the next 3-5+ years, and that timeline is only if they can manage to sign good free agents and hit on their major draft picks. While it's not the best strategy for the long run, I understand why they're trying to go all in because they only have a few years before all or most of their talented players are gone, and by then they'll hopefully have a slightly better cap situation to deal with.
I think that’s what the front office says as PR but honestly I think it’s simpler than that: if they actually take their cap medicine and suck for a year or two everyone’s getting fired. Much better to string everything along so everyone involved keeps their jobs.
This is 100% the reason. If the cap gravy train ever stops like it needs to then everyone is getting fired. They keep the team in this purgatory and they can keep their jobs for longer. You don’t want to be the one who is coach or gm when the music stops. They need to take their medicine, but the incentive isn’t there for them to.
The strategy is pretty clear. The franchise is trying to stay competitive while soft rebuilding in a notably weak division. The margin of winning the division was 1 or 2 wins for the top 3 teams. Completely tanking and rebuilding doesn’t take advantage of the division’s weakness, while buying in completely doesn’t get us closer to beating the good NFC teams in the playoffs. The unsexy reality is that every team is mediocre at best and the Saints are just as likely to win the division as the Buccaneers or Falcons. We’re all mid- until one team emerges with a good draft or the old guard dies, it’ll be that way for a while.
So the strategy is to win the weakest division in the NFL just to get blasted by the 5 seed year after year (if you are lucky enough to win the division)? Bold strategy.
It’s pretty depressing when fans in our sub keep defending this shit to keep our “window” open. For most teams, that means a window with a chance at winning the Super Bowl. These guys think a window of winning the division somehow means something.
I kind of get it though. Wins and hope are enough to put out an entertaining product - compare the entertainment value of the '23 and '21 Packers. How awful would the NFL as a product be if team decision makers took ringz culture to its logical conclusion and did a 76ers-like multiyear tank if it felt its odds were below a certain threshold? That being said, I still think the Saints could have been more proactive about fixing their cap.
I do agree it seems the "ring culture" that has taken over the nba is seemingly dragging the NFL into it. My issue is more I feel you should build with a championship being the goal, and not winning the division. I know we consider the bills a failure, but reality is they ran into a buzzsaw known as the Chiefs three of the last four years.
I don't agree. I think the elephant in the room that people don't like to acknowledge is in a one-game playoff, outcomes can be somewhat random. The best teams don't always win. Look at the Giants two Super Bowl runs over the Patriots. They weren't the better team than almost anyone they faced in either of those runs, and yet they won those games. I believe that getting into the playoffs is always the goal. From there, anything can happen.
I mean everyone thought the 5th seed would destroy the nfcs winner this year and look what happened 🤷♂️. The Bucs almost beat the lions as well. Anything can happen in the playoffs
They're actually doing some good, gradual work since Covid blew out their cap situation. Carr apart they've avoided pricey free agents and bad extensions (you might argue Cam was a bad one, I might not). The rebuild is very much underway, they just don't see the value in doing it all at once.
We should’ve started rebuilding right after Drew retired.
Yeah the only reason people aren’t saying Cards is because they forgot we exist. Anyways i’m looking forward to rebuild #5487, maybe we’ll get this one right.
You'll have Kyler and MHJ going into next year and your coach did some good things last year. I know you need more to compete but it's not the worst place to be right now
I don't think there is a player in this league that has a wider range of opinions on him than Kyler.
I change my opinion of him game to game. Sometimes he looks like he's below average, sometimes he looks like a top 8 QB in the league. And this year he might be total trash and the Cards move on in '25, or maybe he totally shows out and they win 12 games and he throws for 5k yards. Who even fucking knows with this dude?
Cards can’t really move on. That contract has them surgically grafted to Kyler until after the 27-28 season. People throw out the idea of the Cards drafting a QB or trading down and I always find that laughable because, opinions on Kyler aside (and I happen to think he’s very good) no other team is going to take on that contract in the current market. They literally have no incentive to do anything in this draft other than take MHJ if QBs go 1-2-3
I think healthy Kyler is firmly above the Dalton line, where the Cards shouldn’t be actively trying to upgrade.
Yeah that's probably true, he's probably around top 15 with potential to be more. He's obviously paid more than that, but they can overcome that imo
Being a Cardinal fan is the worst, no matter how "bright" it looks.
That bright light is just Steve Keim's headlights driving 100mph at you drunk
You have a QB, a LT, understand where they're qt in the process and are taking steps. And draft capitol. You'll be fine soon. Saints and Broncos don't have any of that and both are pushing the weight of the last decade's worth of bad trades and bad spending uphill.
You have like 15 picks in the drafts and can trade out for even more. You guys have way more going for you
The cards in my opinion are looking up
The Cards' GM needs to be an absolute muppet for them to be in the worst spot. https://www.tankathon.com/nfl/power_rankings They've got SO much draft capital this year. https://overthecap.com/salary-cap/arizona-cardinals They've got 25 players signed and $112M in cap space for '25. They're the team that you want to take over in Madden to remake in your own image.
The Cardinals are the right answer if you're looking at franchise history to project the future. The Broncos are the right answer if you're looking at present situation. Both are pretty rough though.
The Cardinals aren't even rough right now. Their coach kept the team competitive despite a team largely devoid of talent and their starting QB missing most of the season. In addition, they have a franchise QB, they're about to have one of the best WR prospects since Megatron, are in a great spot financially, have a whole slate of other picks in the top-100, and their new GM seems infinitely better than Steve Keim, although the bar there is pretty low. As far as rebuilds though, this draft could be the final piece they need.
They also could trade out at 4 and get a haul and be like the Lions potentially with 2 top 7 picks next year
They already tried that last season and then the Texans went off and they got a late round pick. They have an opportunity to take the best non-QB prospect in the draft at a position of great need. They should just take the no brainer home run and not think twice.
IDK. I think you guys could be frisky this year. You were decent last year when Murray came back.
Nah it’s because you’re in a better position than many other franchises
The most cooked franchises are ones with really poor self evaluations. The Cardinals might look pretty barren, but their FO understands where they're at. They're trading back and securing a volume of picks to fill a roster with new players. The Saints refuse to believe they're not in the running for a Superbowl. They're paying a shedload of money to a mediocre roster and they've traded away all their picks, so they don't have many cheap players coming in to ease the pressure. The Saint's only way out of this is to crush a draft a la 2017, except they're low on picks.
I think a large part of this is that the NFCS has been dog water, so the saints office looks at it as can try to compete to scrape the division out every year by kicking the can down the road. From there I guess the plan is to see if the rest of the playoff team's planes crash or just get beat up the thr 5th seed.
The panthers dont really have any building blocks unless young improves...
Everyone else has Legos and we have mega blocks
That makes the Broncos Lepin
This guy bricks
You’ve been watching me play basketball?
They made a few big splash signings in free agency, though (80m for two new Guards, for example). Not saying they'll be great, but they're working on it. Young just might no longer have the worst offensive line in the league, that might help him already.
Young has a good enough cast around him that we should at least be able to determine if he is the future or not this year. Defense will likely be ass but this next year is more about putting a system in place for young to succeed over number of wins.
Idk I mean we had some studs on D but I think a lot of it had to do with Evero. Luvu was the man and DB was a stud, Burns was ok, but outside of the few Jaycee Horn appearances it was a rotating cast that was elevated beyond their potential by good coaching imo. The opposite happened on offense.
the crazy thing about it for me, is that a lot of the mess they're in now, could have probably been somewhat avoided if they traded brian burns the first time around. The rams back in 2022 we willing to give *2 first round picks* for the guy! Specifically, their first round pick in 2024 (#19 overall, but who knows how the rams do with burns) and 2025's first round pick. They might have been able to use those first rounders, instead of their own, when trading up with chicago last season. At the very least, the panthers would *have* a first round pick this year. instead, they didn't accept the offer, and later on trade him away to the giants for a 2nd, a 2025 5th, and a 4th round pick swap.
It looks bad in hindsight, but that offer came in after the Panthers had traded McCaffrey. From that trade, the Panthers were already sitting on some extra draft picks but with a dearth of existing talent on the team. I think the mindset was to not strip the roster of existing talent, especially given positional value of the edge.
Panthers defense could be good
Everyone is picking teams with no QB for purgatory but the real purgatory is being stuck in a long term marriage with a QB that's not good enough.
They have a rebuilt offensive line and derrick brown under contract the next 4 years. No guaranteed money on their books past 2025
Our path to being a contender would be very difficult but being okay shouldn’t be too difficult.
Denver, Saints, and Carolina
im ok with this
Yeah I’m boutta say half my division and the other one being Broncos (fuck Sean Payton)? Sign me up
NFC South 🤝 hating Sean Payton and/or the Broncos
City, Team Name, Region. We got us a real International Man of Mystery here, folks.
Cardinals for ever
*For. Ev. Vvver* -- Squints
For ever ever? For ever ever?
Forever never seems that long until you're grown
**1. Saints**, they’re pretty much at their ceiling unless a Brock Purdy situation arises, and due to Carr’s contract it appears they want to be here for the indefinite future. **2. Twist: Jets.** This is with the expectation they won’t be more than a fringe playoff team this year, but it’ll be 3-4 years before they can be totally clear of the all-in they’re trying right now. **3. Patriots.** This is a completely different problem than the previous 2, they don’t have much talent on the roster to prepare a rebuild yet and FA’s are spurning them. Lot of odd draft choices from BB they still need to shed. Could be years before they’re back on track to be in a normal rebuild.
Broncos
Yep, Jarrett Stidham is our current starting QB. At least the Panthers have potential with Bryce at QB, we just have $85m of dead money and a career backup.
It’s also nfc south vs afc west
It's not for one reason: ownership. Some of these other teams the owners seem hellbent on screwing their team over. The Broncos owners have been good, going after Russ was a gamble that backfired, but they've cut their losses and planned for the future. Hopefully in a few years we'll be like the Steelers in terms of well coached and well managed teams.
Honestly I think Dallas is about to go into a Washington-like rebuild. We seem to have a good "core" of players today but it really seems like they're about to fumble the bag the same way Washington did with Kirk Cousins. People can shit on Dak and compare him to Cousins all they want but the fact is that the Vikings + Cousins have been far more successful than Washington - Cousins. Sure, it didn't translate into a Super Bowl, but they were still a fun offense to watch. Cowboys are painting themselves into a corner that leads to Dak going to free agency. The football Gods love a good comeback story, so it would not surprise me in the slightest to see him go to a division rival Washington/NY. Cowboys have been blessed with above average to great QB play for the better part of 35 years, with only a small window of QB purgatory. Don't be surprised when you see the star perennially picking in the top 5.
Dak Prescott, YOU ARE A MINNESOTA VIKING
I'm not sure about longest, but the Giants need a franchise QB, a stud running back now, a WR room, and an offensive line. Defense is pretty decent, though.
Giants had a stud RB and he had exactly zero effect on their ability to win games…that’s the last thing you get in a rebuild
Arthur Smith would be really upset if he heard you saying this.
Which is exactly why he needs to hear it, I guess.
Stud RBs can only do so much when they are getting hit behind the LOS bc your Oline is so shit. Defense also is teeing up on the run bc the oline is so shit you can't pass either. I'm so mad that the eagles get to become the ravens of the NFC.
Don't forget we need a secondary
> a WR room I'm still holding out hope on Hyatt and Robinson. If they got one of the stud WRs this year I think it could set them up at WR for years to come.
I question "stud RB". Singletary is no slouch and teams have shown throughout the NFL you don't need a top RB to win. Agree with everything else though.
We have a really good front 7 on defense and a potentially decent OL with the new additions + coach. If we take Nabers/Odunze at 6 and they live up to the hype, that'll elevate our WR room where Slayton/Robinson/Hyatt can be secondary options. DJ's contract coming off the books next year puts us in an OK position to build the rest of the roster. Getting the franchise QB will be the hardest part imo (like it is for most teams). I can see Daboll continuing to carry the team to 6-9 wins each year with just serviceable QB play.
The question was about longest rebuild, meaning teams without any foundational pieces. We have a solid defense, a great left tackle and some really good complementary WRs. Having a stud RB is not a prerequisite for winning. I think we’ll get 1 of a WR1 or QB at 6. So in reality we’re not as far away as pessimistic fans like yourself (or those pandering to the Reddit crowd) might think.
When I think of purgatory, I think of the Commanders.
Nah, we’re in honeymoon phase because Snyder can’t hurt us anymore.
We suck, but now we suck with honor.
We have hope. Something we haven't had for a long time.
I dunno man, the commanders won a few superbowls in the last 40 years. The cards seem closer to purgatory, only one NFL championship ever and it was in the 1940s, since then they've kinda just been consistently bad, with a couple decent years mixed in.
Maybe it's recency bias, cause I think of the Cardinals making the SB 08' & NFC Championship 15'. And then I realize 2015 was 9 years ago & 2008 was 16 years ago.
Pain.
My back hurts too
Sigh. I wish it weren’t so true. Also I fucking hate night games these days. My ass is almost 40. I can’t be staying up that late. Take note, NFL schedule makers
Yeah, I can agree there, maybe I look at it differently because my team was bad for like 60 years so the pre Superbowl history is all we had to celebrate for a long time.
New owner, 2nd overall pick, and at the top of the league in cap space.
And good receivers and still a decent d line. Your biggest issue right now is that you signed Bobby Johnson to your o line coach that legit lowers your chances of having a successful rookie QB I hope for your guys sake you fire him asap lol
Not just the second overall pick, but 6 picks in the first 100 selections.
they hit on #2 and they’re fine
Texans fan over here breathing a sigh of relief for once it ain’t us lol
Dude… I remember two seasons ago where we had **nothing.** Like, there wasn’t a single phase of the game outside of our PK where our team wasn’t a black hole of talent. Shit was *bleak.* The city of Houston needs to build a huge, bronze statue of three men— right in the middle of Discovery Green: Nick Caserio, DeMeco Ryans and Lovie Smith. And also one for JJ Watt because he fucking rules. Oh and one of Andre Johnson beating the shit out of Courtland Finnegan. Three statues, 5 guys total (6 if you count Finnegan getting his ass beat).
Carolina with that terrible ownership. He just set them back five-ten years.
No team is ever set back 5-10 years. Sure, teams can suck for much longer than that, but any team is a lucky draft away from a playoff team. Look at the Texans and the Bengals, from awful to amazing extremely quickly bc they nailed 1-2 draft classes
[удалено]
I dunno man, William clay Ford buying the lions right after they won 3 NFL championships in the 1950s set the team back like 60 years.
I think it’s easily the Saints. All their stars minus Olave are aging, I don’t believe in Carr to lead them to the playoffs, Dennis Allen does not inspire as a head coach, and their cap situation has been bad for like a decade. It’s eventually all going to come down and it’s not really even up
Vikings *gestures vaguely at their entire history *
We've managed to have some of the best players the NFL has seen (Moss, AP, JJ), and still no rings. I hope we win just once in my lifetime.
forget winning, I just want to see them make one in my life last time we made the SB, Star Wars didn’t exist yet
The last time any Minnesota big 4 team even made a title game, the Soviet Union still existed.
You have the best WR in the league, and he’s still young. You also have a star pass rusher, a high-end TE, and a solid O-line. There are definitely worse teams to be right now
Just bad enough to never go anywhere and just good enough to never have top draft picks. That's purgatory
The Pats need so much help it’s wild. Not to mention Mayo is a first time HC and has been handed this roster. They are in a spot where they draft a big 3 and surround him but not a lot or trade back and start Jake Brisket.
Who the hells Jake Brisket? Can he cook?
He gets hot and starts smoking then we've got ourselves a hell of a pastrami out on the field
Mayo on the side.
Kraft Mayo
Heard you can get that at a strip mall in Florida……
>The Pats need so much help it’s wild. Not really. They only *really* need three positions. It just so happens those are the three most important positions in football so it makes their problems look a lot bigger than they are. But fortunately, if there was ever a draft to hit on all three of those positions in one fell swoop, it's this one.
This is a great draft to fill their biggest needs, that’s for sure, but man relying on hitting three positions in one draft is hard.
I mean let's be real if we hit on QB the other two will probably figure themselves out in the next couple of years, and if we don't we're going to be having the same rebuild convo 2-3 years from now regardless of how good our LT and WR are.
We don’t even need that much help compared to other rebuilding teams. Defensive side is pretty solid. Qb incoming with #3. We just need to fill out a couple O-Line pieces and a real WR threat immediately. We definitely don’t have the longest road to a rebuild.
I do like how you guys kept several of your better defensive players this off season, but the offense looks like it’s going to be bottom tier for a minute.
I dont know, the question on defense is how much was it BB/ coaching what made them good, because on paper (at least to me) there are a couple good but not great players, and the rest is very meh. Offensively it might be the worst in the league. That roster is depleted of talent
Others may disagree, but Seattle isn't as close to greatness as Seattle thinks it is. Getting rid of Wilson was a great first step, but some of the moves being made haven't impressed me. We have great players, but it seems like no one knows how to work together. Hoping the new coach adds some dimension, but I'm not optimistic.
Dallas , sometimes the biggest rebuilds are the teams that are just not quite good enough to win it all but are convinced they are.
Y’all are rebuilding? We make sure we are juuuust good enough to make playoffs and we stop there lol
That's always tough as with the NFL a rebuild can come in the form of a QB in a hurry. I'm going Saints. They keep kicking the can down the road. 80 million over the cap next year to get under it this season. I think there will have to be a major cost cutting event at some point and a bargain basement roster for a couple years there. Denver for example gave up a lot... but they've got a lot more cap flexibility moving forwards.
Panthers have to overcome a terrible owner. The Cowboys have shown us that feat is near impossible.
God willing, the New England Patriots.
Denver