Deebo wants $25m/year. Is the WR market broken?
 

I read this and was talking about this with a friend yesterday.

I entered this offseason finding a way to stomach $20m/year for Tyreek. When the rumblings started to suggest $25m/year, I could barely contain myself. The strain that will put on our cap -- or any team's cap -- to pay that much for a player who can't even make his own plays without a QB getting the ball to him. That is hard to fathom.

$30m/year, though? There's no team with a competent QB in the league that will be able to pay that.

With Deebo set to ask for 25/year, that does suggest that the league could be heading to a place where elite WRs and QBs simply cannot be on the same team anymore. That your best hope is for a WR or a QB who immediately becomes elite on their rookie contract, or in the case of the stupid Bengals, one of each.

Because with Derek Carr going $40m/year, that means you're looking at $60-80m a year being tied up in two players.

How do we see this playing out over the next five years? Is there a WR bubble that's about to burst?

Hill is only getting $23 million a year. /King

The cap is skyrocketing soon. This is what is happening with that. Shouldn't be a surprise.

I was right about Deebo, just wanted to say that.

Hill is getting $24.5M for 4 years, assuming the 4th year on his extension isn't picked up. Just to clarify.

No matter what the cap is the next few years, the WR market is definitely one I'd stay out of for a while. If I'm Veach I'd be trying to take one in each of the first two rounds, even if you're reaching. Let them grow with Mahomes under cheap rookie deals.

It's just too easy to take a game breaking WR out of a game, as we saw many times with Tyreek. Sure, they have to double and triple cover them, but if you have nobody else that can get open it's a plan that works. Much better to have four #2 caliber guys than a #1 and three scabs like we've been doing.

I'm sure the NFLPA would never allow it, but I'm curious how a positional salary cap might work, or at least a separate cap number for QBs.

Sorry, this is how the market should be. You pay for elite stars and go cheaper elsewhere.

Deebo at 25 is far better than Kirk at 18.

Trade his ass. One ingrate isn't bigger than the team.

The modern NFL is about drafting well, keeping rosters young and cheap. Pay a few vets big contracts. Perhaps the NFL needs to create a new rule that allows teams to have 1 offensive player and 1 defensive player who is not subject to the cap. The only catch is that they have to be fully guaranteed contracts or something.

We don't talk about Deebo

no no no

We don't talk about Deeboooooooooooooo

It has exploded and I can't say I'd be comfortable paying $25m+ for anyone other than a Tyreek Hill or Davante Adams, but I don't agree with any sort of cap on positional spending. Let the free market reign.

Based on the modern NFL, seems prudent to overpay for QB, WR and OL when necessary. Save your money on RBs and TEs.

No. It just got accelerated a year or two too early.

From a player's association standpoint, though, this is a bad thing long-term.

The league has brutal turnover as it is. The more high-end deals you see, the more stars/scrubs teams you'll see. In the process it will squeeze out the 2nd contract guys and the middle class FAs will see diminished returns as well.

If the rank/file players in the NFLPA were smart, they'd look to get a handle on some of this and perhaps see if there could be ways to create max deals for certain position groups and/or carveouts for QBs.

Otherwise this is only going to get worse for them.

But the good news for them is there are always dumb teams who overpay the middle class in FA.

Happens every year.

It’s not broken if somebody pays him lol.

He is the entire San Fran offense. An absolute beast.

Who knows how long his body will hold up, though.

I had a similar convo to this the other day with some buddies as well. I phrased it as “is WR becoming a tier-1 contract position like Edge, Lt, and QB?”. With the salary cap there simply just isn’t enough room to take on many “top market deals” at many positions and is it worth it to pay an elite WR like you would an elite pass rusher/protector?

The best way I think we put it was is Jamar Chase more valuable than TJ Watt? Because as it’s developing it looks like Chase will be getting about $30 mil a year by the time he gets his next contract. Now also factor in that Burrow is likely going to cost about $45 mil a year at least as well and it seems like we’re just going to be exposed to a different roster structure where Cincy is going to build around the passing game (assuming they re-sign Higgins as well, but who knows how much he’ll cost).

The closest I can recall to that situation was the Peyton Colts in their prime when both Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne had top of the market salaries (granted both of them were around $10 mil each). I think the WR market in general is breaking and the teams that pay up are going to run into roster issues in the near future. Just too difficult to field a full roster of quality players when a single WR has that big of a piece of the pie.

I think it may turn out to be true that when you have Mahomes a superstar WR is a luxury but not a necessity. If we learn how to win with 3-4 very good WRs, that will be much tougher for teams to stop that one star and 3 average at best WRs like we had last year.

Whereas Carr and Tua need superstar WRs that can get open and rack up YAC.

I think this can absolutely be the case. And I think this year, with this division going absolutely insane, is a great year to stress test the theory.

Which is why I have very little interest in trading a 1st for McLaurin or going crazy to move up for a WR. I want to know if we can give Mahomes solid but unspectacular weapons, provide them in depth, and then get a similar level of production to the previous approach.

If so, man we are WAY ahead of the most of the rest of the league. With a QB who's suddenly become priced below market and no need to get into this absolutely insane WR market - we're set to run the show for a bit at that point.

It's an experiment worth trying. And if it doesn't work, next year the cap is cleaner and we can attack FA wideouts a little more.

I really think that's what they're trying to do with this offense. Let Mahomes spread it around to a bunch of different targets and see what that offense looks like.

You committed to not posting on CP any longer and were going to pay $1000 to Stevie if you did. Did you do that?

Wow!

So with this in mind, I wouldn’t be entirely opposed to passing on WR in the first and just secure 2 WRs later. Not necessarily “alpha” WR1 guys like a lot are hoping for in here but instead solid and dependable options like Alec Pierce and Romeo Doubs.

I think Veach is willing to bet on Mahomes being the best QB in the league and can elevate his options year after year so that there is just continually a rotation of solid receivers being churned out in KC that can leave in the market and get paid an over-inflated contract and from there secure yearly compensatory picks. Same way Juju is here for a short term to get his value back up for his next contract, he can go big up someone else’s salary cap and he would be replaced with another day 2 WR next year.

I’m here for it.

This is literally the stupidest thing I've ever read. Don't try for a great number 1 receiver, so that you can have a bunch of 3s with a number 2 WR.

Pay Stevie the 1k you liar

Samuel wants $25 million a year when he hasn't even played a full season since he's been in the league. I'm going to pass on that.

Read better. It’s more so betting that you can hit on WR in the mid rounds. Diggs, Kupp, Reek, Keenan Allen, Robert Woods, Tyler Lockett are just a handful of names off the top of my head that are proof that you don’t need to pay a premium for top flight production. I’m saying Pat is someone who can elevate the WRs around him and with that you can take the risk on finding options later in the draft instead of paying MULTIPLE assets just to secure one WR who you feel really good about in the mid-first. Would rather rebuild our Pass Defense with the premium picks and just plan on the best QB in the league to turn your Day 2 pick WRs into studs.

Not going to lie, I would have paid Tyreek. With that said I love the precedent Andy and Brett have set. We're building a team with a much smarter, methodical approach. We will also win under this standard. When the league witnesses this incarnation unfold they'll be green with envy, barring Bill Belichick and NE. They did it for years this way, along with cheating.

Chiefs Kingdom will be doing cart wheels. Remember we still have the best QB and a top 5 OL, really solid RB core, and lots of speed. We can win with that but in a different way. That's what we're doing.

I always thought that the folks that say Deebo should have had more running plays against the Chiefs in the Super Bowl have no idea how taxing those plays are on a player.

Especially, when Deebo is involved in some serious collisions the more he gets the ball.

Tyreek Hill has incredible stamina for a player with elite speed.

It would be interesting to see the data readouts on the trackers, but my guess is that Tyreek has a lot more time at 80% effort and above during a full game than Deebo Samuel does.

In 5 years Patrick is going be one of the lowest paid quarterbacks per year..

And by Raiders standards that Derek Carr is the third highest played quarterback that makes him the 3rd best quarterback.. So if Patrick is one of the lowest paid quarterbacks that must mean he sucks in 5 years.

I agree. But then again, we have one Travis Kelce to go along with PMII. The point being made is 3 or 4 pretty good guys are better than 1 stud and 3 schlubs. Yeah, 75 yard bombs are fun, but winning is everything.

Team has to be smart. As these guys demand so much money. The tier down guys will see less. You can load up on them or wait for some of the top tier guys to get cut and offer one year deals.

It will be interesting to see how trades work in a few years. Ohh your rookie wr wants paid. Cya. But you are only lower picks than normal as teams have to pay 150million.

If Patrick sticks to his full dea and plays welll..we should make out like bandits. The average QBs will be making 50m a year.

I’m more concerned about our TE strategy than WR at this point. Kelce won’t be around forever and that dude takes a lot of shots

Ingrate? Deebo was SF's entire offense last season.

I've actually thought this way for a while. If/when Tyreek suddenly isn't available, that's $25 million sitting on the sideline you have to replace. If you have several competent/capable guys, one going down doesn't hurt as much.

Honestly, it's why RBs should never get paid. It sucks, but it's reality.

What is he worth in trade value?

Get the Jets on the phone asap.

We don't have 3 to 4 very good wr's.

Maybe one good WR (If Juju returns to form) and another guy that is a bit better than a JAG in MVS.

He takes some major shots when he lines up at RB.

It has to be a concern.

I fear the NFL will become a league of 20% super paid and the other 80% subsidizing them.

I know the 80-20 rule but these are all professionals.

With rising salaries, draft picks (position AND volume) are going to be worth that much more. It's yet another reason I don't want the Chiefs spending capital to trade up.

Putin ****ing EVERYTHING up!

I don't think that's the question.

The question is, let's assume you're building a 3 WR crew and you have 2 options that cost roughly the same:

A 1 and two 3s or;
Three #2s

Which would you prefer? For me I'm taking the latter every time. And I wonder if that's not what the Chiefs are looking for as well.

Because ultimately you can scheme a single WR out of the game, no matter how good he is. But VERY few teams have the personnel to handle 3 guys who can give you #2 type play because you can't overload them.

When you're looking at the former scenario, you go man 2 man vs the #3 caliber guys and more often than not, your guys win their matchup. Then you double the #1 and you're in pretty good shape.

But if you have three #2 options out there, more often than not THEY'LL win their matchup in a 1v1 scenario and you can't do anything to double all of them.

If you have the right quarterback, someone who can process quickly and attack anywhere on the field (we do), the latter scenario is a far more dangerous setup.

And I think that may just be what Veach and company are pursuing.

Right.

Again, for demonstration purposes lets go Hill, Pringle and Jakeem Grant is option A and it costs, what, $30 million for the 3 of those guys? $24 million, $4 million and 3 million (give or take some change here and there).

I mean, that's essentially what we had last year and it...wasn't great.

The alternative of MVS, JJSS and say Chark - also right at $30 million.

Now ultimately if someone says the former, I wouldn't just ignore them. There's an argument for it. But I'm pretty sure I prefer the latter. It's just harder to deal with.

Team will be going WRBC the same way they did with RB when those guys started asking too much , a bunch of specialists and be creative.

He can tell himself that when he's on a terrible team. Money makes everything better.

Very possibly.

The market will respond. Every position can't go breaking the bank. Somebody is gonna get pinched here and if it's WRs making that kind of money, the defensive equivalent at DB may well respond accordingly. And then teams will go cheap on DL so the counter will be cheaper OL and suddenly the cycle will reverse.

It's just a pendulum. This too shall pass.

It's our hobby.

It's their job,

Why wouldn't money be their primary motivation? It should be. This job beats the **** out of them and in 5 years they'll be done with it and won't have much long-term earning potential afterward.

Fine - go play on a terrible team for 4 years, make $100 million and then live the rest of your life in comfort. Because LOOOOOONG after you've moved onto the next draft class and how they can help the Chiefs, Deebo Samuel will be living with the decisions he makes here.

And he's already got a ring....so it's not like he's still searching for that championship.

He'll go down as one of the best deep threats in the history of the NFL no matter what he does in Miami.

I don't fault Hill for what he did. Just like I don't fault Veach for what he did.

Did I miss something??

Unless Hill rips us to shit and knocks us out of the playoffs, I have nothing against the guy, and I'm glad his trade didn't result in any bad blood between him and KC.

Andy was in the flipping QBs business for a bit there. Maybe the start of something... not so bad

Kyler Murray wants $$ as well. Stars want to be paid.

Everyone rushing to the bank vault to get paid. Can you blame them?

Bad idea.

The whole point of the salary cap is to balance the league and keep top tier teams from keeping top talent locked up.

Let the team decided where to spend the money. A positional cap either doesn't really change things, or it tends to create a loop hole that favors wealthy owners.

And then you add needless complications with the position. What position does Deebo play?

How about that wanna be QB in New Orleans?

Not posting in DC any longer. And I haven't. Lol at just now noticing I've been posting in the Lounge.

Agreed. We need more. But we may not need a superstar.

Well, I hope they enjoy living with the decision to go play for seller dwellers. If winning means nothing then go be a paid loser somewhere. They can go to their private beach sipping margaritas and listening to Jimmy Buffet. Then the thought would occur to them how much their current team sux and how they need another drink just to get it off their mind.

These guys have FIFTY YEARS to live after they’re done being your whipping boy.

By the time they’re 40 how many shits do you think they’ll give about the league that was done with them a decade ago?

It has nothing to do with their ‘current’ team - it’s the literal decades of impact that follow.

But keep telling those jesters how to dance for your amusement. I’m sure your disapproval bothers the hell out of them.

just like the latest baseball deal. The everyday players allowed the players with the $100 million contracts to dictate terms friendly to them. They need to do something about the spiraling salaries or the players on the low end are going to see their low end and opportunities shrink even more.

I don't know enough about Deemo Samuel to know if he is worth it but Hill is 100% with his deal.

He's a ridiculous talent. He gets double teamed every play and still is productive as hell.

He turned Alex Smith into a deep passer. He is the kind of player who completely transforms an offense.

It just so happens for us that we didn't need Hill. Our offense will be fine with our O-line, Mahomes and Kelce. But players who are ridiculously ****ing talented as Hill is should make a **** ton of money. If Deebo is a Hill-like player, then 25 mil isn't that crazy.

Only way I'd tie up that much percent of cap space in WR is if they are a generational unicorn. A Moss, TO or Megatron early in their prime type unicorn who are uncoverable regardless of who is throwing them the ball. Hill is in that realm and maybe has a couple years left of prime game changer in him but I think his best days may be behind him.

It would be exploited though. Best QB in the league gets a contract like 100M the first year then league min the next 9 years. Best WR gets 100M year 2 and league min each other 9 years. Best TE gets 100M year 3 and league min the other nine. You’d have the 10 best players on OFF and DEF for a decade straight.

I'm all for guys making money, but there has to be some sanity in salaries. You can argue that the cap will keep going up, but it's not a bottomless well.

Wasn't there some idea floated a year or 2 ago about either having the QB salary not go against the cap or it could only amount to a certain percent?

Deebo just wiped all of his social media clean of San Fran stuff.

Fans are sending him death threats.

Shits getting real.

That would make the difference between teams with great QBs and teams without great QBs basically impossible to overcome.

Unless they allowed tougher defensive play.

As it stands now, the cap cost for the great QBs allows for some parity.

That's ****ed up

Welp, we just lost our standing as the “Most Toxic Fan Base in the NFL”

:sulk:

Yep. It's broken.

Draft your guys, develop them, and then let someone else pay them, take the comp picks. Rinse and repeat.

We can dig down and take what is rightfully ours.

Burrow will be around $50M and Chase will be around $35M. Hopefully it undermines the rest of the team.

I dunno if its been mentioned because of how much we hate the Patriots, but didn't they constantly trade offensive stars about a year or two before they needed to be paid? They never signed that expensive vet contract or the BIG extension that would bog the team down, so they would have multiple 2-3 year windows hunting for championships, while most teams only have a single 4-5 year window.

If thats the case, then the Chiefs are stealing that strategy from the Pats and putting all their faith in Mahomes.

Devo Samuels had 400 more yards and 5 more TDs than Tyreek Hill did last year, and he's 2 years younger. Just one year, but also the first year he was fully utilized

I don't know enough about Debo Samuel other than he runs Jet Sweeps a lot. How is he at the other things? Isn't he just a better and original version of Mecole Hardman of the end of last year?

Brandin Cooks and Deon Branch are two examples of Patriots receivers being traded since Belichick didn't want to have them on expensive contracts long term.

Even Rob Gronkowski was dealt to Detroit for picks but the trade stopped because Gronkowski said he would retire. The Patriots did sign Gronkowski to one extension after his rookie deal and it was a fairly high priced extension but still sane since the tight end market wasn't crazy high.

Also in part for financial/cap reasons, the Patriots got rid of star players on defense as well such as Richard Seymour and Chandler Jones.

The other strategy the Patriots deployed on several ocassions is trading away draft picks for future picks. Like a 2nd rounder this year for a first the following year.

As much as I think of Tyreek Hill as an underrated player nationally, Chiefs made a smart move trading him. It gives them lots of picks and cap space. It also frees up targets/catches so Mahomes can recruit veteran receivers to play for KC at a discount.

Chiefs had a top 5ish offensive line last year, a consensus elite tight end who is returning and now they have several good but not great receivers. Kelce may slow down but the other players may be good for longer.

Where the faith is being put is in the Chiefs GM not screwing up. If he just drafts average this year, Chiefs will stay contenders with just average injury luck.