Free Agent Preview & Predictions + Silent Andy

reactions to that? Do you think that's actually going to happen? Yeah, I think it could. At the very least, they're threatening other teams to not look at it. You know, the Chargers don't really have the one player on the roster. It's like, man, they have to use this franchise tag on them. And since the Chargers are, let's just say, not in the upper echelon of well-run teams, I think that it's, I mean, that's just true. Every Charger fan knows that. There's still a wide margin, though.

I'm trying to be kind. I'm trying to be nice. But they don't have a long history of just really being able to lock down their players. I mean, look at Melvin Gordon and how that went. So Hunter Henry is a talented tight end who will have a market. The franchise tag makes sense for his capabilities and the current payment to tight ends. I think it would be a wise move for the Chargers to do that.

Ian Rappaport says that James Winston had off-season surgery for a torn meniscus, so fixed shoulder, new eyes. James Winston, by the start of the season, will be a cyborg. I think the only thing that is left is the brain transplant.

enhancement like you've got three things up to the neural net exactly you need to matrix some Peyton Manning into him because you needed the eyes as a quarterback you need the shoulder right and you got to have the brain and so it's the last thing like they have to come out and do something like like he's taking the vitamins that help you know he's not what like ginsenging is that is that one of the ginkled baloba yeah there it is he's he he needs a sponsorship with a ginko

And then, you know, the world's oyster. I love Baloba. All right. So what are the biggest? Are we to combine takeaways? Well, the one, there's a couple more things I wanted to mention before we do that. There are trade rumors abound from Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler. They're saying the Jags, in fact, want to trade Nick Foles because they have Minshu Mania. They want to move forward with Gardner as the quarterback.

Good luck. Yeah, I mean. Good luck trading Nick Falls on the contract. You didn't have to give him that contract. Remember when they signed him? Yes. And people were like, why did you give him a contract that nobody else was bidding on him? And they're like, well, we wanted him to come in feeling like a star quarterback. He's like, that's just so stupid. And look, the Jets want to trade levy on Bell. Ain't going to happen.

They want to trade Nick Foles. Ain't going to happen. When you have a bad contract, everybody wants to trade the bad decisions they've made. Like no one else in the league. I too would like to get rid of my bad decisions. Can see what happened. And just to follow up, because I feel like we were talking about Brandon Cooks a lot recently and saying how like, well, he's locked and loaded because his contract situation is going to be there. The athletics, Rich Hammett is saying the Rams may ask him to restructure.

His contract, maybe, and that could just be as simple as moving some money around. He still makes the same, but it at least has to raise the question of do the Rams still value Brandon Cooks at the contract he was on a couple years ago? No, I mean, no, of course not. They don't. I mean, when you have a guy paid as your best wide receiver and he's on the field,

60% of the time and fewer for half the season. Those two things don't match. So, yeah, a restructure. I'm sure they would hope for a pay cut, but I doubt Brandon Cooks agrees. On to the combine. Just quickly, Jay, do we have a few takeaways here that, I mean, besides obviously the punter?

Tearing it up. I mean, that's the main one for sure. That's what I took. No, I mean, you know, I've said it before. I always love watching the running back, receiving drills. It's really nice. It was nice to see Jonathan. Any standouts? Cam Acres to me was the guy that really caught my eye as someone that.

I don't think has been talked about in the upper echelon. I mean, you know, he's got a good name, good history, but, you know, you've kind of got a big three. And Jonathan Taylor, one of those big names certainly just looked so outstanding. It was nice to see him in the past catching drills as well. He ran a 4-3-9. And the dude is a tank.

Well, when he ran a 4-4-1, he was the fastest running back in the class. That was the unofficial time. Then the official time came in at 4-3-9 even faster. Yeah, he's up over 220 pounds. He's got the most college production. And while he, you know, has not been a prolific pass catcher because that's just not the role of that college. He had 20-plus receptions that last year. Yeah, and you watched in the combine drills.

He looked good at that. I mean, the only pass I can remember him not being there for was when he ran out of his shoe. He literally goes to cut and that shoe was like, but I can't handle this. And then, you know, that's going to make it more difficult. The big stories at the wide receiver position, Henry Ruggs was very, very fast. He was not the fastest man ever to be at the combine, but he will be improving his draft stock. I mean, we already knew he was fast, but now you have the actual measurement.

The big story, though, it seemed like people could not stop talking about Chase Claypool. The story was he's so big. Is he going to have to move over to be a tight end? And then he comes out and he has what people are calling Calvin Johnson levels of athleticism. We're not calling him Calvin Johnson, so don't hear what we're not saying. But athletically, a very, very gifted player.

who seems like really improved his draft stock. We'll be moving forward as a wide receiver. And do you have any other wide receiver takeaways, Jay, or is that seem about right? When I look at combine metrics for wide receivers, I just don't, I don't always buy in. I don't want to, you know, there's so much data out there. So much work is done on which metrics are sticky. It's nice to see a guy is fast or.

slow, but, you know, I don't look too deep into the wide receiver combine metrics. I will say that C.D. Lamb just looked like a beast. Right. Yes, he did. Obviously, since college, he has been working out. Have you seen these, like the protein shake things that are going around? Because I can't remember the player, but they were, like, he had to put on a bunch of weight. And so there's these weird weight gain shakes that they're talking about.

I haven't seen them, but it sounds disgusting. Like Yahoo made one where it was like seven eggs, a whole bunch of peanut butter, some Gatorade. This is what people are drinking. That's just not fair. Just head down to Mickey D's. You want to put some weight. I mean, I can, you probably have some real good tips. I have some tips. Any wide receivers out there that want to put on some weight. You can contact me at Jason FFL on Twitter, slide into my DMs.

promise I can get you some LBs quick, efficiently. If that's going to help your draft stock, I'm here for you. Oh. And vice versa. If anybody has pro tips, maybe some shakes on losing LBs, I could use your help. All right. Before we get into the free agency preview, want to thank today's sponsor, Manscaped. Man, you know we've been talking about Manscape for quite some time now.

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and free shipping with the code footballers at manscape.com. That's 20% off with free shipping at manscape.com. You use the code footballers. Your downstairs are going to thank you. Free agent frenzy. So before we get into the free agents, we wanted to take just a couple quick seconds, kind of educate people on some of these terms. We kind of take them for granted when we're talking about contracts. We're talking about money, and we know not everyone.

gets to just sit around and think about football all day. And we've had some people reaching out say, you know, explain what's going on. And they want things like dead money, uh, cap hit. So, so those types of things. So Jay, I'm going to cede the floor to you because I feel like you'll do all of it. You're going to explain it the best of all of us. I'm going to explain it so eloquently. I'll blow your minds. You're going to be like.

Now I have, I thought I knew what it was, and now I have no idea what it is. So, look, the cap hit. Wait, wait, that's backwards. That's right. That's right. Well, you put it to me, so this is who I am. Look, a cap hit, if you're talking about a player's cap hit, that is not necessarily how much that player is making this year. That's all, that's how much they cost against cap. It's the easiest way to look at it. And the salary cap, so I will help you, though. The salary cap, every single team has.

a maximum amount of money they are allowed to spend. And other leagues, you can go over, like the NBA, you just pay a tax. And I think you start paying like double. For every dollar you go over the luxury tax. You have to pay double. And I believe the Yankees, the more they pay, the more they get paid. Yes. It's just something like that. But the NFL doesn't work like that. The NFL has to approve all contracts. And so, I mean, you have to be under the cap. This is just how the NFL works. Yes.

Dead money is money that has been guaranteed to a player who is basically not on the team anymore. If you cut them or trade them, they're not there anymore. That's considered dead money. That goes against the cap. A lot of good examples here. I mean, the Arizona Cardinals last year had a major cap hit. Who was the, they were still paying for? What, like Bradford? I think it was Sam Bradford was still owed money last year. That usually shows up because you give a player a very large signing bonus.

And then they're not on the team. And we talk about like David Johnson, good friend of the show, but the Cardinals, they can't really do anything with him because he will cost the team so much towards their salary cap for a player that won't be on the team. So they have to be very creative with what they're going to do. An unrestricted free agent means that player is free to sign wherever they want to. They have fulfilled the...

The yearly quota that they have to hit. They're single and ready to mingle. Exactly. I mean, they're completely open. There's no, there's, there's no one, you know, you're not going to find out later like, oh, what? Yeah. Who's, who's this? Who's this girl? No, they're completely on the market available. Restricted free agent means the player can sign an offer sheet with any team, but.

The original team is allowed to match it. They can also put on tenders. So an example for that will be like Austin Echler. I expect the Los Angeles Chargers to go after him. He's restricted, which means they can put like a second round tender on this player, which means that Echler will earn a certain amount of money. Or another team can come and get him. But that means that the team that's going to come and try to pay him a bigger salary, if they...

take him they also have to give a second round pick to that team most of the time when someone is tendered at a high level they stay with that team correct and then the exclusive rights free agent not a free agent which is this is man this is the this is a bad

Bad beat. Yeah, that last CBA that you did, you did them wrong for the exclusive rights free agents. So this is, this usually applies to guys who were cheap and undrafted. Like undrafted free agents. Exactly. But basically what this means is that if the team wants them, they say, uh, you're still on our team. Yeah. And then they're still on the team. If the team doesn't want them, they say, hey, good news. You're a free agent. That's what it means. So they're not a free agent at all. All right. Let's talk about the quarterbacks.