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Lazuli  1mo ago (text post)   Edited 1mo ago   484 thread views

Weekly NFL Thread: Week 7

Let's chat about the National Football League. This week's schedule (all times Eastern):

Thu 2024-10-17 8:15PM Denver Broncos @ New Orleans Saints
Sun 2024-10-20 9:30AM New England Patriots @ Jacksonville Jaguars
Sun 2024-10-20 1:00PM Cincinnati Bengals @ Cleveland Browns
Sun 2024-10-20 1:00PM Detroit Lions @ Minnesota Vikings
Sun 2024-10-20 1:00PM Houston Texans @ Green Bay Packers
Sun 2024-10-20 1:00PM Miami Dolphins @ Indianapolis Colts
Sun 2024-10-20 1:00PM Tennessee Titans @ Buffalo Bills
Sun 2024-10-20 1:00PM Philadelphia Eagles @ New York Giants
Sun 2024-10-20 1:00PM Seattle Seahawks @ Atlanta Falcons
Sun 2024-10-20 4:05PM Carolina Panthers @ Washington Commanders
Sun 2024-10-20 4:05PM Las Vegas Raiders @ Los Angeles Rams
Sun 2024-10-20 4:25PM Kansas City Chiefs @ San Francisco 49ers
Sun 2024-10-20 8:20PM New York Jets @ Pittsburgh Steelers
Mon 2024-10-21 8:15PM Baltimore Ravens @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Mon 2024-10-21 9:00PM Los Angeles Chargers @ Arizona Cardinals

Week 8 thread: https://www.themotte.org/post/1216/weekly-nfl-thread-week-8

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How far is this Deshaun Watson situation going to go? All of the analysis I've seen suggests that because of the unique total guarantees in his contract, they are almost completely unable to cut him. Benching him would make the entire coaching and front office team look so bad that they would probably need to be fired - they seem so tied to him that the usual strategy of starting the backup to limp to 7-8 wins to avoid being fired seems impossible.

Solutions?

  • In the NBA we sometimes see awful players with huge contracts just floating around on the team for a few years
  • New regime manufactures a reason to cut him and not pay his salary for rape or other reasons
  • Same coaching staff comes back for 2 years and gets fired the same time they can be rid of the Watson contract
  • Retain 20 or 30% of his contract while shoveling lots of picks for another bad team to take the contract
  • Trade all of their good players for picks and admit they won't be good until 2027

The NFL's typical lack of guaranteed contracts makes this look like a solution doesn't really fit.

Solutions:

Suffer.

The Browns sold their soul to trade in a perfectly nice kid who had just lead them to their best season in decades, for a whoremonger who had already sat out a full season over contract disputes. There's no easy way out.

I'm not against being shrewd with suspensions: the Yankees might win a pennant thanks to a leadoff hitter they acquired by being willing to take on Aroldis Chapman's litigation risk after he got angry and fired a gun into the ceiling of his garage.

But the Yankees were shrewd: they picked him up at a bargain rate then sold him after the suspension for a premium. They got multiple prospects out of holding that litigation risk. They didn't pay a premium price for him then sign him up to a giant extension (they would later resign him as a free agent).

The best thing the Browns can do is blow up the current version of the team. These players are visibly degenerating from lack of motivation, and it's only going to get worse.

Their only other alternative is some kind of cloak and dagger shenanigans where they bring out a fresh accusation of whoremongering that allows them to jettison Watson. But do we really trust the Browns to pull that off?

Hard to believe this the same Browns team that had one of the best defenses in the league last season.

I'd have to imagine that you lose a lot of team spirit when you realize the cavalry isn't coming, your great QB isn't coming back, and you're basically fucked as a team.

The Jets are almost a perfect parallel here, without the whoremonger's moral opprobrium, where you had a great defense hamstrung by an MIA but theoretically great QB, and this year their QB has returned but scuffled, leaving the team in the same position but without the hope they had before.

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