2024 NFL Offseason, Free Agency, and Draft Talk

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

I'll add a Lions prediction:

The Saints trade Marshon Lattimore and a mid-round pick to the Lions for their first round pick this year.

Lions need a CB and, smartly, want to go all-in. Saints need to get younger and cheaper.

Brad Holmes doesn't appear to be a "go all-in" guy. He said as much during his post-season press conference and all of his moves to date, this free agency period included, have backed that. It's driving some people in Metro Detroit crazy, because they feel that the time is now to go all-in and want that big star to help the Lions, since it's S-BOB time "Super Bowl Or Bust." But Holmes seems content to use free agency to raise the floor of the team and rely on the draft to raise the ceiling. So, I think trading their first round pick for a veteran seems unlikely.

I would have loved to see the Lions add Greenard or Hunter on the edge opposite of Hutchinson, but they went with Davenport.

I would loved to see Snead being the lockdown corner that the Lions have never really had, but they want with Davis and Amik Roberston.

I would have loved to see Christian Wilkins as a game wrecker in the middle of that defensive line, but they went with D.J. Reader.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I would loved to see Snead being the lockdown corner that the Lions have never really had, but they want with Davis and Amik Roberston.

That move specifically felt like such a good fit.

[JPhillips]

Reader's great as a run stopper. I hated to see him go from Cincy.

[albionmoonlight]

Chase Young

(1) Signs $13 million fully guaranteed contract
(2) The next day announces neck surgery that will keep him out through training camp.

Making a big play for the "get that bag" all star team.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

The Lions have set themselves up to be pretty flexible in this draft. They still have needs at edge, corner and interior line, but they aren't as glaring as they were before free agency.

I agree, Cooper Beebe, does very much look like a Lion. If they could get him in the second round, that would be fantastic.

I will, also, add a need at WR. They have St. Brown, Jamo, DPJ and not much else. Not a ton of depth there.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Chase Young

(1) Signs $13 million fully guaranteed contract
(2) The next day announces neck surgery that will keep him out through training camp.

Making a big play for the "get that bag" all star team.

I see that and say "glad it is not my team." Then I saw it was the Saints, and thought "even better."

[Ksyrup]

I LOL'd. Unfortunately, you have to click to open the tweet to see the punchline.

HOLY SHIT. BODY BAG.

😳 pic.twitter.com/0iRaii3c2A

— MLFootball (@_MLFootball) March 21, 2024

[stevew]

Sneed for only a 2025 3rd is a deal even if you gotta pay him. He's good. (titans)

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by stevew

Sneed for only a 2025 3rd is a deal even if you gotta pay him. He's good. (titans)

Agreed. You have to think that, even with the salary he’ll demand, the Lions could have been better off spending a third on Sneed rather than spending it on Carlton Davis and two 6th round picks.

[B & B]

KC dealt b/c they couldnt pay him.

He wants the Brinks truck backed up.
I dont even know the number yet, but Titans kicked accounting tires around and found out.

It will still be excessive and ballooned.

Holmes isnt dealing a first for Lattimore. Hes older than Ramsey who also only commanded a 3rd. Also, Lattimore has missed like 17 games the past two years.

[Danny]

Originally Posted by B & B

KC dealt b/c they couldnt pay him.

He wants the Brinks truck backed up.
I dont even know the number yet, but Titans kicked accounting tires around and found out.

It will still be excessive and ballooned.

Holmes isnt dealing a first for Lattimore. Hes older than Ramsey who also only commanded a 3rd. Also, Lattimore has missed like 17 games the past two years.

Actually his contract seems pretty reasonable

[stevew]

KC could have paid 19 a year. With void years he could count maybe 7 this year and something like 12 next.

[tzach]

Originally Posted by Swaggs

No chance that the Steelers pick up the 5th year option, in my opinion.

indeed they wouldn't be wise to do so -- the difference between the fully-guaranteed 5th yr option now (25M) and the non-exclusive franchise tag next yr (around 35M) makes it a no-brainer to wait and see what he does in arthur smith's offense. if he takes off at some point and becomes the clear starter, they can just follow the ravens/lamar jackson blueprint then.

[CrimsonFox]

The new kickoff rule proposal is quite stupid

NFL proposed something really stupid

[weegeebored]

Go back to the original setup or just get rid of the kickoffs altogether and have teams start at the 20 as if it were a touchback. The days of KO return excitement are over. Kickoffs are just a way to add more time for commercials now.

[CrimsonFox]

There's a tweet in the middle of that article that actually SHOWS the setup on a field and I loled. It seriously looks like they just want to have them start fights boxing style between the 35 and 40

[GrantDawg]

I like the idea. More returns without the increased chance of injury.

[bhlloy]

Yeah, it’s not more stupid than lining the two sets of special teams up and having them pretend it’s going to be returned when 98% of the time it’s not. I’m fine with it.

[Sweed]

Ok, nobody moves until a returner touches the ball or the ball hits the ground. Eliminates the running starts and reduces high speed collisions. Should give the returner some space to start the return.

I'll be interested to see how the coaches set up blocking and coverage. Is player selection for special teams going to be changing in any significant way? What are the penalties for players that move early?

I went to the linked article thinking "oh god, what are they doing now." to being in the "encouraging returns" camp, while "reducing the chance of injuries".

Of course if it passes and I see it in action I may hate it.

[Ksyrup]

Just watched the video for the banned "hip-drop tackle" and it basically looks like every tackle where a guy chases someone down and uses their leverage to tackle them. I have zero confidence this is going to get called correctly, and I'm not exactly sure what you replace this tackle with in these types of open field situations that doesn't compromise the tackler's ability to immediately stop the runner.

Can't tackle too high, can't tackle too low, can't grab someone in the middle and pull them down just so. Got it!

[albionmoonlight]

“4th and 12. 45 seconds left. No timeouts for Kansas City. Out of field goal range. The 7th-seeded Titans are one more stop away from pulling off a huge upset over the heavily favored Chiefs.

“There’s the snap. Immediate pressure on Mahomes! He gets out of it and dumps it off short of the sticks. And he’s not going to make it! Brought down 2 yards short! And the Titans are going to the AFC championship!

“Wait. There’s a flag on the play!”

“And I think that’s going to be a hip drop Jim! That’ll put them in field goal range!”

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Can't tackle too high, can't tackle too low, can't grab someone in the middle and pull them down just so. Got it!

Inching closer to just sticking flags on everybody.

[flere-imsaho]

Going flag football would actually be better for the league. One, fewer guys bulking themselves up to massive and unhealthy proportions. Two, fewer hits. Three, players faces are no longer obscured by helmets, making them considerably more marketable. Four, this paragraph just triggered the fuck out of Jon.

There are no downsides.

[miami_fan]

I know you were joking flere but I do think the league would be better. I think we have moved past the point that football is America's favorite sport because of the violence of the sport.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Going flag football would actually be better for the league. One, fewer guys bulking themselves up to massive and unhealthy proportions. Two, fewer hits. Three, players faces are no longer obscured by helmets, making them considerably more marketable. Four, this paragraph just triggered the fuck out of Jon. There are no downsides.

I already wish the NFL would go away.

It's hard for me to wish it more dead than I already do ... but this would at least take a stab at it.

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

“4th and 12. 45 seconds left. No timeouts for Kansas City. Out of field goal range. The 7th-seeded Titans are one more stop away from pulling off a huge upset over the heavily favored Chiefs.

“There’s the snap. Immediate pressure on Mahomes! He gets out of it and dumps it off short of the sticks. And he’s not going to make it! Brought down 2 yards short! And the Titans are going to the AFC championship!

“Wait. There’s a flag on the play!”

“And I think that’s going to be a hip drop Jim! That’ll put them in field goal range!”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YES THAT WILL HAPPEN EVERY GAME!!!!!!!

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Inching closer to just sticking flags on everybody.

yeah ffs just how about cancel american football. it's done. it's over. replace it with european football
done

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

I know you were joking flere but I do think the league would be better. I think we have moved past the point that football is America's favorite sport because of the violence of the sport.

you shut your mouth! baseball and basketball are terrible to me. baseball is boring and basketball...I think there's more thugs in basketball than football

[cuervo72]

It's funny, because I didn't remember this always being a thing...but that's I guess because it wasn't: NFL hip-drop tackle in the NFL: Dangerous or necessary?Â* - Dawgs By Nature (see about halfway down)

It does seem dangerous. Of course, it's seemingly become popular because...players can't tackle in other ways which were deemed too dangerous.

edit: I guess it's been banned in at least one rugby league too: https://www.totalrl.com/watch-unders...-rugby-league/

[albionmoonlight]

The difference to my untrained eye is that whether I agreed or disagreed with the various bans in the past, I understood what they were. Targeting, or a horse collar, or hitting the QB's head, or hitting the QB below the knee are all things that make sense to me sitting on the couch.

But I've read the description of a hip drop, and I've watched some of the videos to try and understand it, and I cannot tell the difference between a hip drop and a non hip drop tackle.

[QuikSand]

At the top of yesterday's PFF NFL pod, they discussed Jayden Daniels as a prospect (discussing him possibly at 1.2) and went on an interesting tangent about sack rate.

Takeaways:
-rising wisdom in analytics circles is that sacks are highly QB dependent
-stats from college years seem to be "sticky" rather than fleeting
-best stat seems to be sacks as share of pressures (makes sense)
-young QB taking way too many sacks constitute a huge bundle of NFL flops
-Daniels' numbers in college put him deeply into that danger zone

I know the importance of the "Sense Rush" rating in FOF has been a punchline for a while, but maybe real life is catching up with art in this case.

And... looking at Mr. Sam Howell from last year's actual NFL, there's an interesting case for why that guy, who seems to have a bona fide NFL arm, is a total miss as a starting QB... he just takes way too many sacks, and that kills your offense. (I don't claim to understand how much system fits into this... it seems like "presence of an outlet in the play design" would be another major variable to control for)

Anyway... for those being titillated by Daniels as a prospect, here's an official bright red flag to point back to, perhaps.

[albionmoonlight]

Hmmm. That makes some sense.

I'd like to see the rate of "success" (maybe defined as getting another set of downs) after a sack in college vs the NFL.

In college, an offense with an NFL-draftable QB is, almost by definition, going to be really really good relative to its competition. So maybe it can convert 2nd-and-17 and 3rd-and-12 at a surprisingly good clip. Yeah the guy takes sacks, but he make a hero throw on the next play, and it's first and ten again.

But in the NFL, sacks kill drives. Defenses are too good. Getting into second and third and long leads to punts way more often than not.

I'm not sure if the numbers back that up, but it feels right. And it would explain Q's observation above.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

At the top of yesterday's PFF NFL pod, they discussed Jayden Daniels as a prospect (discussing him possibly at 1.2) and went on an interesting tangent about sack rate.

Takeaways:
-rising wisdom in analytics circles is that sacks are highly QB dependent
-stats from college years seem to be "sticky" rather than fleeting
-best stat seems to be sacks as share of pressures (makes sense)
-young QB taking way too many sacks constitute a huge bundle of NFL flops
-Daniels' numbers in college put him deeply into that danger zone

I know the importance of the "Sense Rush" rating in FOF has been a punchline for a while, but maybe real life is catching up with art in this case.

And... looking at Mr. Sam Howell from last year's actual NFL, there's an interesting case for why that guy, who seems to have a bona fide NFL arm, is a total miss as a starting QB... he just takes way too many sacks, and that kills your offense. (I don't claim to understand how much system fits into this... it seems like "presence of an outlet in the play design" would be another major variable to control for)

Anyway... for those being titillated by Daniels as a prospect, here's an official bright red flag to point back to, perhaps.

Did they go through history and show how well that has been a predictor? It seems like you should be able to go pretty far back and compare every first round qb's and compare their stats. It sounds right, but I wonder if it is solidly provable or if there has been outliers.

[QuikSand]

From what I gather, PFF has only been collecting college data for a limited time, so they don't have data back to Y.A. Tittle on this, etc. But as a company/brand, they are (in my view) suitably diligent about small sample sizes (something that comes up really often in that line of work), so... I reckon that the body of data they are working with at least passes a smell test on being legit, if they have a green light to talk about it that forcefully.

[Ksyrup]

Wasn't it widely believed David Carr's career was doomed from the start playing for an expansion team and how many sacks he took? I guess the suggestion is that on some level, he was more responsible for the sacks than believed?

Funny enough, I just googled him and see that he set the NFL record for sacks in one season - 76 - and Sam Howell was on pace to break that record at one point last year.

[QuikSand]

I don't know how deep this rabbit hole goes, to be honest. The David Carr story does come to mind, but at the time I think the conventional wisdom was "they put him behind a terrible line and of course he took 5 sacks a game." It's certainly possible that, with a sharper pencil afforded by a more deeply analytic view, we might say "the line was definitely bad, but Carr didn't have the skill needed to get out of that hole and contributed a lot to the problem."

Back to Howell... I watched a bit of him playing, and that arm is indeed tantalizing to want to think "I could fix him." I also feel (without data to back this up) like the WAS offense last year sorta hung him out to dry a lot, by not putting out any safety/outlet routes on a sizable share of called pass plays. Asking a young QB to have the presence of mind to whip the ball toward an empty part of the line of scrimmage, or safely out of bounds, seems like a lot, to me. Just running a TE in a block-and-release 2y pattern, or having a RB do something similar, might have staved off a slice of those sacks. But yeah he got smothered a ton last year, it was a very real angle for 2023 daily fantasy to just play the "vs. WAS" defense no matter how bad they were.

[Ksyrup]

Maybe Denver should have traded for Howell. Last year's offense was Sutton/Jeudy down field and 3 outlets for Wilson. That might have settled the debate.

[albionmoonlight]

Dennis Allen pretty much admitted yesterday that Ryan Ramcyzk's knee (which has a degenerative issue) is not looking good at all.

That leaves the Saints needing two OTs this offseason.

At least the draft is full of them.

[albionmoonlight]

Here’s what the new NFL kickoff will look like this season: pic.twitter.com/vtR5bqGZLK

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 26, 2024

That's . . . not bad.

Better than watching 85% touchbacks or whatever it is.

[Ksyrup]

Agreed.

I pity the first dude who muffs that kickoff though.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

That's . . . not bad.

Better than watching 85% touchbacks or whatever it is.

somehow I hate it less watching an example than I did with a batch of bullet points or hand-drawn Xs and Os

[Ksyrup]

I know that since the NFL is an 800 lb gorilla for ratings, the NFL can do what it wants.

This past year, they played 3 games on Christmas which was a Monday so it wasn't that much of a stretch. Christmas has traditionally been the NBA's day, though. Well, I just saw a report that the NFL is going to play on Christmas again this year - on a Wednesday.

[albionmoonlight]

Interesting thoughts here:

I’m privileged to have been part of XFL team, led by @schwartzsteins, that created, tested, and developed the now New NFL Kickoff.

We tested it for 2+ years before we put it into a live game.

There’s some major scouting/roster-building dynamics that many may not realize yet�� pic.twitter.com/tsEzbUkAvS

— Eric Galko (@EricGalko) March 26, 2024

Belichick needs to get back in the league so he can be 5 steps ahead of every other team on exploiting the possibilities here.

[QuikSand]

Thanks, that is good stuff.

[Ksyrup]

Would be kinda funny if the new kickoff format helps bring RB compensation back up.

[rjolley]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

At the top of yesterday's PFF NFL pod, they discussed Jayden Daniels as a prospect (discussing him possibly at 1.2) and went on an interesting tangent about sack rate.

Takeaways:
-rising wisdom in analytics circles is that sacks are highly QB dependent
-stats from college years seem to be "sticky" rather than fleeting
-best stat seems to be sacks as share of pressures (makes sense)
-young QB taking way too many sacks constitute a huge bundle of NFL flops
-Daniels' numbers in college put him deeply into that danger zone

I know the importance of the "Sense Rush" rating in FOF has been a punchline for a while, but maybe real life is catching up with art in this case.

And... looking at Mr. Sam Howell from last year's actual NFL, there's an interesting case for why that guy, who seems to have a bona fide NFL arm, is a total miss as a starting QB... he just takes way too many sacks, and that kills your offense. (I don't claim to understand how much system fits into this... it seems like "presence of an outlet in the play design" would be another major variable to control for)

Anyway... for those being titillated by Daniels as a prospect, here's an official bright red flag to point back to, perhaps.

So, what's the take on Williams with respect to this? He took a lot of sacks as well.

[stevew]

Cordarrelle Patterson to the Steelers could be potentially a great kickoff signing.

[Ksyrup]

What about the onsides kick now? I know they were talking about doing the 4th and 20 from the 20 and I don't know where that is, but with this new KO, how the hell would you do an onsides kick? They almost have to change that now, right?

[SirFozzie]

I'm not surprised a Jets player made an anti-semitic comment about "Jews running the world" on a livestream interview.

I AM surprised it's not their QB.

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

What about the onsides kick now? I know they were talking about doing the 4th and 20 from the 20 and I don't know where that is, but with this new KO, how the hell would you do an onsides kick?

You have to tell the referee you're going for an onside kick, and then they let you line up normally. (you can't surprise onside kick under this)

edit: https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/...what-it-means/

"While this rule likely means the death of the onside kick, there is a rule allowing onside kicks to be attempted in the fourth quarter. A team trailing in the fourth quarter is allowed to attempt one, though they have to announce their intentions before the play. The current onside kick rules apply from that point forward."

Actually, that gives me another pause. it will be even more impossible to recover an onside kick if the other team is allowed to put all even players within 10-15 yards of the kicking line. Does that mean you can "SAY" you're going for an onside kick and then kick it deep?