2017 Cap Space

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(06-02-2017, 12:48 PM)Au165 Wrote: Eiffert...

(06-02-2017, 02:23 PM)Au165 Wrote: No, you structure a deal that if he stays healthy reflects his ability and if not you pay him as a slightly above average starting TE.  This allows him to be paid if he is healthy and if not he make decent money for the games he plays. The recent Gronk extension is the blue print for Eiffert.

An Eifert deal right now makes 0 financial sense. He can't stay healthy and is only making $4.8m in 2017. If he stays healthy for once and does what we know he can do, why would you give him $9-11m/yr (and risk him getting hurt again) when you can franchise tag him (it was $9.8m for this year) and then franchise tag him again.

So you could either... have him play year-by-year and essentially have him on a $4.8m/$~10m/$12m "three year deal" where you can bail out any year. Or you could extend him and pray you don't waste a ton of money when he gets hurt again.

One of those two makes a lot more sense. You can have him for his age 27, 28, and 29 years for essentially $26.8m, which is a lot cheaper than any contract he will be willing to sign right now, while also retaining the ability to not pay him in 2018 if he gets hurt again in 2017, or not pay in 2019 if he gets hurt in 2018. Then he'll turn 30 and hit FA.

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

Give Burfict an extension, bring in Kouandijo (spelling) for insurance in case Og continues to suck.

Wait on Eifert like TLL here says.

[*ochocincos*]

(06-02-2017, 02:45 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: An Eifert deal right now makes 0 financial sense. He can't stay healthy and is only making $4.8m in 2017. If he stays healthy for once and does what we know he can do, why would you give him $9-11m/yr (and risk him getting hurt again) when you can franchise tag him (it was $9.8m for this year) and then franchise tag him again.

So you could either... have him play year-by-year and essentially have him on a $4.8m/$~10m/$12m "three year deal" where you can bail out any year. Or you could extend him and pray you don't waste a ton of money when he gets hurt again.

One of those two makes a lot more sense. You can have him for his age 27, 28, and 29 years for essentially $26.8m, which is a lot cheaper than any contract he will be willing to sign right now, while also retaining the ability to not pay him in 2018 if he gets hurt again in 2017, or not pay in 2019 if he gets hurt in 2018. Then he'll turn 30 and hit FA.

Yes. The only player approaching FA at the end of 2017 who has proven reliable and a very good contributor has been Burfict. Eifert has been a glass cannon and the others have been serviceable at best in terms of performance. Let everyone besides Burfict play out their final year and look to extend them next offseason based on how they do this season.

[Au165]

(06-02-2017, 02:45 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: An Eifert deal right now makes 0 financial sense. He can't stay healthy and is only making $4.8m in 2017. If he stays healthy for once and does what we know he can do, why would you give him $9-11m/yr (and risk him getting hurt again) when you can franchise tag him (it was $9.8m for this year) and then franchise tag him again.

So you could either... have him play year-by-year and essentially have him on a $4.8m/$~10m/$12m "three year deal" where you can bail out any year. Or you could extend him and pray you don't waste a ton of money when he gets hurt again.

One of those two makes a lot more sense. You can have him for his age 27, 28, and 29 years for essentially $26.8m, which is a lot cheaper than any contract he will be willing to sign right now, while also retaining the ability to not pay him in 2018 if he gets hurt again in 2017, or not pay in 2019 if he gets hurt in 2018. Then he'll turn 30 and hit FA.

So couple issues, one your basing your tag number on this past year expect it to be about 10% higher next year. The other issue is that second year tag will make him far and away the highest TE in the league, what if thats the year he gets hurt again? The smart thing is to structure it incentive based with a decent base salary. Sign him to 4 years with a 6.5 million a year base (putting him around 15th in league), with games played incentives allowing him to be a top 3 TE. Base it that way for the first two years with a decent signing bonus and an out after year 3 in case he does end up hurt again. This gives him motivation to sign and gives us good value if he misses time or it means we have one of the top TE in the game and he is paid like it.

If we go the tag route all your doing is rolling the dice every year while paying him as the top TE in the game. Also understand going for the multi year deal, we can stretch the cap number making it a lot lower as we go where as each year we tag him we eat the full cap number which hurt the rest of our roster.

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

(06-02-2017, 03:31 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Yes. The only player approaching FA at the end of 2017 who has proven reliable and a very good contributor has been Burfict. Eifert has been a glass cannon and the others have been serviceable at best in terms of performance. Let everyone besides Burfict play out their final year and look to extend them next offseason based on how they do this season.

I would say it is pretty safe to say Eifert will miss atleast a couple games early this season and maybe more.

He might end up being reasonably cheap for the talent. When the guy is healthy he is a gamechanger for us.

To even get a game here and there of him is pretty damn good, that is how good he is when healthy.

Might be a blessing in disguise that he is hurt in his contract year.

I said before that if he stayed healthy for an entire season he could probably rack up 16 or so TD's.

If this happened this year he probably would be gone.

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

(06-02-2017, 03:39 PM)Au165 Wrote: So couple issues, one your basing your tag number on this past year expect it to be about 10% higher next year. The other issue is that second year tag will make him far and away the highest TE in the league, what if thats the year he gets hurt again? The smart thing is to structure it incentive based with a decent base salary. Sign him to 4 years with a 6.5 million a year base (putting him around 15th in league), with games played incentives allowing him to be a top 3 TE. Base it that way for the first two years with a decent signing bonus and an out after year 3 in case he does end up hurt again. This gives him motivation to sign and gives us good value if he misses time or it means we have one of the top TE in the game and he is paid like it.

If we go the tag route all your doing is rolling the dice every year while paying him as the top TE in the game. Also understand going for the multi year deal, we can stretch the cap number making it a lot lower as we go where as each year we tag him we eat the full cap number which hurt the rest of our roster.

You know your stuff man, major reps.

Do what he said lol

[Au165]

(06-02-2017, 03:44 PM)Nate (formerly eliminate08) Wrote: You know your stuff man, major reps.

Do what he said lol

I think the patriots literally laid out the road map for often injured highly talented TE's recently with what they did for Gronk. Eiffert's agent is going to know that and I think it is a fair approach for all those involved. Even if we get Eiffert for 10 games a year he is worth 6.5 million, it is when we get 15/16 out of him he is worth that 9/10 Million that top TE's get.

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

(06-02-2017, 03:46 PM)Au165 Wrote: I think the patriots literally laid out the road map for often injured highly talented TE's recently with what they did for Gronk. Eiffert's agent is going to know that and I think it is a fair approach for all those involved. Even if we get Eiffert for 10 games a year he is worth 6.5 million, it is when we get 15/16 out of him he is worth that 9/10 Million that top TE's get.

I agree, dude is a great talent but his injury history has to be taken into account.

When healthy i truly believe he is the best route running TE in the NFL...

Eifert runs routes like a WR.

[*ochocincos*]

(06-02-2017, 03:39 PM)Au165 Wrote: So couple issues, one your basing your tag number on this past year expect it to be about 10% higher next year. The other issue is that second year tag will make him far and away the highest TE in the league, what if thats the year he gets hurt again? The smart thing is to structure it incentive based with a decent base salary. Sign him to 4 years with a 6.5 million a year base (putting him around 15th in league), with games played incentives allowing him to be a top 3 TE. Base it that way for the first two years with a decent signing bonus and an out after year 3 in case he does end up hurt again. This gives him motivation to sign and gives us good value if he misses time or it means we have one of the top TE in the game and he is paid like it.

If we go the tag route all your doing is rolling the dice every year while paying him as the top TE in the game. Also understand going for the multi year deal, we can stretch the cap number making it a lot lower as we go where as each year we tag him we eat the full cap number which hurt the rest of our roster.

This makes a lot of sense if Eifert would agree to it. Performance-based incentives are the best from a team perspective. Eifert may want to chase the guaranteed money though.

[Bengal Dude]

Gotta remember to take out $5 million since we're always told that's what the Bengals set aside for injuries/mid-season signings.

[*ochocincos*]

(06-02-2017, 03:42 PM)Nate (formerly eliminate08) Wrote: I would say it is pretty safe to say Eifert will miss atleast a couple games early this season and maybe more.

He might end up being reasonably cheap for the talent. When the guy is healthy he is a gamechanger for us.

To even get a game here and there of him is pretty damn good, that is how good he is when healthy.

Might be a blessing in disguise that he is hurt in his contract year.

I said before that if he stayed healthy for an entire season he could probably rack up 16 or so TD's.

If this happened this year he probably would be gone.

Disagree on bolded honestly. The Bengals desperately needed him in the red zone last year. If he's out, their chances of scoring go way down.
But his health risk is why I was so adamant about going after OJ Howard in the draft. I was very happy with Ross, don't get me wrong, but the Bengals now are more dependent on Eifert staying healthy or the other TEs improving from last year.

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

(06-02-2017, 04:04 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Disagree on bolded honestly. The Bengals desperately needed him in the red zone last year. If he's out, their chances of scoring go way down.
But his health risk is why I was so adamant about going after OJ Howard in the draft. I was very happy with Ross, don't get me wrong, but the Bengals now are more dependent on Eifert staying healthy or the other TEs improving from last year.

Well Ross was like the best Redzone threat in college so there is that.

Malone and Core could also do this for us at WR since they are bigger wideouts.

Uzi is even bigger than Eifert, surprised he wasn't a good Redzone threat for us last season.

Just saying for the long term Eifert being injured this year a bit would make it more likely he is a Bengal for an extended period of time.

[sandwedge]

I'd feel a whole lot better if Uzi can catch the ball a lot better this year. Sometimes I swear I was watching a young Gresham last year.

[*ochocincos*]

(06-02-2017, 04:08 PM)Nate (formerly eliminate08) Wrote: Well Ross was like the best Redzone threat in college so there is that.

Malone and Core could also do this for us at WR since they are bigger wideouts.

Uzi is even bigger than Eifert, surprised he wasn't a good Redzone threat for us last season.

Just saying for the long term Eifert being injured this year a bit would make it more likely he is a Bengal for an extended period of time.

If Eifert can meet or exceed 500 yards and 8 TDs, it's fine for him to miss some games.
The 394 and 5 line last year was too little.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(06-02-2017, 03:39 PM)Au165 Wrote: So couple issues, one your basing your tag number on this past year expect it to be about 10% higher next year. The other issue is that second year tag will make him far and away the highest TE in the league, what if thats the year he gets hurt again? The smart thing is to structure it incentive based with a decent base salary. Sign him to 4 years with a 6.5 million a year base (putting him around 15th in league), with games played incentives allowing him to be a top 3 TE. Base it that way for the first two years with a decent signing bonus and an out after year 3 in case he does end up hurt again. This gives him motivation to sign and gives us good value if he misses time or it means we have one of the top TE in the game and he is paid like it.

If we go the tag route all your doing is rolling the dice every year while paying him as the top TE in the game. Also understand going for the multi year deal, we can stretch the cap number making it a lot lower as we go where as each year we tag him we eat the full cap number which hurt the rest of our roster.

(06-02-2017, 03:46 PM)Au165 Wrote: I think the patriots literally laid out the road map for often injured highly talented TE's recently with what they did for Gronk. Eiffert's agent is going to know that and I think it is a fair approach for all those involved. Even if we get Eiffert for 10 games a year he is worth 6.5 million, it is when we get 15/16 out of him he is worth that 9/10 Million that top TE's get.

The first issue is answered by the tilde (~) I put in the $10m bit. Be it $10m or $10.8m.. it'll be around there.

The second issue is answered by the fact that if Eifert is healthy for all of 2017 and 2018 (which is what he'd need to be in order to reach that $12m) then there's absolutely no problem paying Eifert like one of the highest paid TE, because that is what he'd be if he could just be constantly healthy.

- - - - - - - - - -

As for your contract suggestion, just because it makes sense for a team financially doesn't mean that it makes sense for a player. There's almost no way that Eifert signs for $6.5m/yr base. Much like the Guard market, the TE market has been absolutely destroyed as far as reasonableness goes.

-Charles Clay just got $7.6m/yr and has a yardage high of 605 yards in the last three years, while catching no more than 4 TD in any of the last three years.
-Kyle Rudolph reached 500+ yards for the first time in his 6 year career and got $7.3m/yr.
-35-year-old Jason Witten just signed a $7.4m/yr deal.
-Dwayne Allen hasn't had more than 406 yards in the last 4 years and got $7.35m/yr.
-Jermaine Gresham got $7m/yr!!!

Eifert isn't going to accept a $6.5m/yr deal, even if there's incentives to raise it, because the market has dictated that mediocre TE now get $7m/yr+ in FA without incentives. If Eifert hits FA, even with his injury history, he will make a lot more, and he knows it.

Comparing his situation to Gronkowski is different because Gronkowski has openly admitted he doesn't care about maximizing his contract in favor of staying with the Patriots in order to win Super Bowls. He has never won less than 12 games in the NFL, he has never missed the playoffs, he has played in 6 AFC Championship games, played in 3 Super Bowls, and won 2 of them... and he get passes thrown to him by Tom Brady. The Bengals can offer none of that to Eifert. Plus Gronkowski was still under contract for multiple years, compare to Eifert's contract year. They're just different situations.

[Hoofhearted]

(06-02-2017, 04:33 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: The first issue is answered by the tilde (~) I put in the $10m bit. Be it $10m or $10.8m.. it'll be around there.

The second issue is answered by the fact that if Eifert is healthy for all of 2017 and 2018 (which is what he'd need to be in order to reach that $12m) then there's absolutely no problem paying Eifert like one of the highest paid TE, because that is what he'd be if he could just be constantly healthy.

- - - - - - - - - -

As for your contract suggestion, just because it makes sense for a team financially doesn't mean that it makes sense for a player. There's almost no way that Eifert signs for $6.5m/yr base. Much like the Guard market, the TE market has been absolutely destroyed as far as reasonableness goes.

-Charles Clay just got $7.6m/yr and has a yardage high of 605 yards in the last three years, while catching no more than 4 TD in any of the last three years.
-Kyle Rudolph reached 500+ yards for the first time in his 6 year career and got $7.3m/yr.
-35-year-old Jason Witten just signed a $7.4m/yr deal.
-Dwayne Allen hasn't had more than 406 yards in the last 4 years and got $7.35m/yr.
-Jermaine Gresham got $7m/yr!!!

Eifert isn't going to accept a $6.5m/yr deal, even if there's incentives to raise it, because the market has dictated that mediocre TE now get $7m/yr+ in FA without incentives. If Eifert hits FA, even with his injury history, he will make a lot more, and he knows it.

Comparing his situation to Gronkowski is different because Gronkowski has openly admitted he doesn't care about maximizing his contract in favor of staying with the Patriots in order to win Super Bowls. He has never won less than 12 games in the NFL, he has never missed the playoffs, he has played in 6 AFC Championship games, played in 3 Super Bowls, and won 2 of them... and he get passes thrown to him by Tom Brady. The Bengals can offer none of that to Eifert. Plus Gronkowski was still under contract for multiple years, compare to Eifert's contract year. They're just different situations.

Yep. It drastically increases his value off the football field. The dude is in just everything; energy drinks, TV shows, fitness, etc. he uses what you stated above to do that and it's actually brilliant. Tyler will have to pretty much rely solely on football money for his career. So, yeah, Eifert will want the most guaranteed money. There's just nothing else they can offer him.

[Shake n Blake]

(06-02-2017, 03:39 PM)Au165 Wrote: So couple issues, one your basing your tag number on this past year expect it to be about 10% higher next year. The other issue is that second year tag will make him far and away the highest TE in the league, what if thats the year he gets hurt again? The smart thing is to structure it incentive based with a decent base salary. Sign him to 4 years with a 6.5 million a year base (putting him around 15th in league), with games played incentives allowing him to be a top 3 TE. Base it that way for the first two years with a decent signing bonus and an out after year 3 in case he does end up hurt again. This gives him motivation to sign and gives us good value if he misses time or it means we have one of the top TE in the game and he is paid like it.

If we go the tag route all your doing is rolling the dice every year while paying him as the top TE in the game. Also understand going for the multi year deal, we can stretch the cap number making it a lot lower as we go where as each year we tag him we eat the full cap number which hurt the rest of our roster.

The tag number isn't going to raise by much in 1 year. You also have to consider that the salary cap will likely also go up. IMO, rolling the dice would be giving a long term deal to a player with Eifert's injury history. As LL pointed out, TE contracts have gone up...so 6.5 per probably isn't happening.

I'm as big of an Eifert guy as there is on this board, but I realize that Eifert is the perfect tag candidate due to his history. We need to see if he can stay healthy. If he does, bam. Tag him and negotiate. If he leaves after the tag is up, oh well, we still got most of his career. He'd be coming up on 30 soon after that.

[Au165]

(06-02-2017, 04:33 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Eifert isn't going to accept a $6.5m/yr deal, even if there's incentives to raise it, because the market has dictated that mediocre TE now get $7m/yr+ in FA without incentives. If Eifert hits FA, even with his injury history, he will make a lot more, and he knows it.

Comparing his situation to Gronkowski is different because Gronkowski has openly admitted he doesn't care about maximizing his contract in favor of staying with the Patriots in order to win Super Bowls. He has never won less than 12 games in the NFL, he has never missed the playoffs, he has played in 6 AFC Championship games, played in 3 Super Bowls, and won 2 of them... and he get passes thrown to him by Tom Brady. The Bengals can offer none of that to Eifert. Plus Gronkowski was still under contract for multiple years, compare to Eifert's contract year. They're just different situations.

If Eiffert hits FA he will probably get around 8 Million, a similar deal Dwayne Allen got with a similar injury history. Gronk's new contract is a $5.25 base salary then he has incentive tiers...

1st tier, which gets him to $10.75M either 90 percent play time or 80 catches or 1200 receiving yards or All Pro -- and he's made all pro four times.‬


‪2nd tier to $8.75M: he has to get 80 percent play time or 70 catches or 1000 receiving yards or 12 Tds.‬

‪3rd tier takes him to $6.75M is 70 percent playtime, 60 receptions, 800 receiving yards or 10 TDs.‬

So basically the same thing I am proposing with a HIGHER base than what Gronk is getting. Different situations, but what it does is it ensures the team is insulated on injuries and Eiffert can bet on himself and earn a top/the top TE deal in the game if he plays like we know he can. As I said before repeated tagging is bad for the roster management side and a gamble as an injury can occur post tag and the entire contract is a cap hit for the season.

[Au165]

(06-02-2017, 05:15 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: The tag number isn't going to raise by much in 1 year. You also have to consider that the salary cap will likely also go up. IMO, rolling the dice would be giving a long term deal to a player with Eifert's injury history. As LL pointed out, TE contracts have gone up...so 6.5 per probably isn't happening.

The tag number will go up a decent amount because Gronks contract was not updated when the last tag was set, plus most contracts signed last year have higher year two numbers. $6.5 is a base what he listed were complete values of contracts Eiffert would have potential to earn, top contract or close to it, in the league.

[Shake n Blake]

(06-02-2017, 05:35 PM)Au165 Wrote: The tag number will go up a decent amount because Gronks contract was not updated when the last tag was set, plus most contracts signed last year have higher year two numbers. $6.5 is a base what he listed were complete values of contracts Eiffert would have potential to earn, top contract or close to it, in the league.

Still, it's the average of the top 5 salaries so I just don't see it shooting through the roof or anything. It won't be terribly far from the salary he'd probably get in a new deal...considering he's a top 8 TE when healthy. Plus again, the salary cap will also go up. 

Considering Eifert is 27 this year, don't you think it's risky to commit to a long term deal? Especially after he's missed so many games?