All good arguments and I did think of them all when posting. Rather than trying to rebut them all right away I figured I'd wait for someone to bring them up.
1. Its a matter of semantics I guess. People saying their money will come off the books. It won't come off because it was never on. They are out of the question entirely. The space is there because their money was never on the books in the first place. The Packers have more money under the cap because they have fewer players under contract. It all depends on how you look at it I suppose. The bottom line is we have x amount of money because of the guys we do have under contract.
2. You've listed possible replacements but with the exception of Mack replacing Matthews I'm not sure any of them would be of the same caliber. I'm not sure they aren't but again with the exception of Mack I think you are looking at a decrease in quality. I think it is desirable when replacing free agents to at least attempt to replace them with equal or better players. Besides its not always best to just keep moving your guys up on the depth chart and getting lesser players behind them. Sometimes its a good idea to try to replace them with better players.
3. No its not certain but my argument was predicated on it being the case. If they back down off that demand it changes things.
4. I was just throwing names out there who the Packers might want to resign. I knew the were FA but the list I looked at either didn't have them listed as restricted or if the did I missed it. If you want to pick two others who are URFA the same principle applies. If we want to sign any of our own URFA we are likely going to have to pay them more money than they made this year and that will take some of the existing cap space we had. if we don't want to resign them their replacements are going to take some of the existing cap space we had and like I said above if we are going to replace them it would be nice to replace them with someone better and that just might take more money. To replace them with the same is just spinning your wheels.
5. That's the meat of the argument and its where we disagree. You would rather get 1 great egg and put it in 1 basket and hope it works out. I would rather take the safer route (IMO) and get 4 lesser eggs and put them in 4 separate baskets with the belief that a couple of them at least work out and who knows maybe 1 or more would turn out to be better than your egg. As far as keeping our own key players that is not even a given. The cap keeps going up but so do salaries. Guys like Clark and Daniels and Bahktheri and Linsley just to name a few off the top of my head might all cost significantly more next time around.
For me it comes down to 1 thing. If we sign Mack we won't have as much money to sign other players who might be better than the ones we have. I'd rather have several players spread out over the entire roster who might be improvements than 1 player in one position who is a big improvement. IMO the risk is just too great. You did post some good arguments though and I appreciate it.
1. Agreed. Regardless, we have the space that we have.
2. We don't know if any of the young receivers will be of Cobb's caliber, but we do know that he's nearing his 30's and he's not the player he once was. At a certain point, you have to be able to replace aging veterans with draft picks. If this FO can't do that effectively (not perfectly, but effectively), then none of this is going to work in the long term. It's hard to deal with the subject regarding Clinton-Dix and Wilkerson as we don't actually know what we're replacing yet.
3. As I've explained to other posters, I'm not of the opinion that the Packers should go get Mack regardless of the price tag. The Raiders ask will need to come down (which it will, no doubt-- the question is by how much) and they will have to have a reasonable idea beforehand of what he's going to cost (20M could work; 25M probably won't).
4. Yes, 2nd contracts are always more expensive than rookie deals. That's why the Packers have typically reserved 2nd contracts for their key players while allowing most others to walk. They've been able to keep nearly all of their important pieces on 2nd deals throughout this last phase of Rodgers and Matthews accounting for about 26% of the cap (that is, the cap when they were initially both signed).
5. I would rather take advantage of an opportunity to land an elite talent, the likes of which generally never gets to the FA market, as opposed to collecting a few more pieces of the quality that normal do get free. Elite, young, clean off-field, durable, versatile players almost never get to market. Usually, free agents fail in one or more of those categories and that's why their original team is allowing them to go.
Clark will absolutely cost a lot more and they will be able to afford him. Linsley and Daniels probably won't see third contracts with the Packers. When Linsley's deal is up, he will be 30 and centers aren't that difficult to find. Between now and then, they will most likely draft a player to replace him. Same with Daniels-- he will be 31 when he's a FA. It would be foolish to invest big money in him at that point. Essentially his big contract on the DL will be replaced by Clark's while Adams or some other player yet to be drafted will replace him at 3T.
Bakhtiari is probably the rare Packer who would warrant a 3rd contract, given his age, position, and quality, and I see no reason why he couldn't get it. By the time he would need an extension in 2021, the Packers would be getting into the 4th year of the Rodgers/Mack deals and the cap will most likely be around 210M.
So I guess what I'm saying is that the Packers will probably need to pass on most 3rd contracts if they sign Mack, as they have been doing for years, and I think it's worth it.
) as a signing bonus. I expect the deal is structured a lot like Rodgers'. A significant portion of the guarantee comes from roster bonuses and such early on so if things don't work out after three years you are not looking at nearly as much prorated money coming due if for some reason it doesn't work out. You have to figure no matter what they are going to give him 3 years so why not guarantee most of the money in those three years and get it off the books. Signing bonuses push money out but guaranteed bonuses early on help keep the back end more manageable. If you have the cap space it makes sense to use up the guarantees early on.
