I can agree with your points. The 15 million a year will hit the cap at some point, no matter how you slice it.
I expect Mario to command a deal somewhere in the neighborhood of: Julius Peppers: 6/$91M ($40M in first 3 yrs, $42M guaranteed) Demarcus Ware: 7/$79M ($26M backloaded to final two years, $40M guaranteed) Charles Johnson 6/$76M ($30M guaranteed) Richard Seymour 2/$30M (extension) My guess is 6/$80M with a first year salary of $13M and $30-35M guaranteed is going to be the eventual "market value" The question is whether the Texans can fanagle a deal like Ware's or if Mario is going to be tempted away by a frontloaded deal like Peppers'...and the big question - does Mario like staying as a 3-4 WOLB, or is he interested in going back to 4-3 end?
Mario Williams is not, nor will he ever be as good as Demarcus Ware. Do we even need to pay him that much money? For all of those players you named, what do they have in common. They play for teams tha missed the playoffs and are fairly mediocre. Here is what the Giants DEs look like. Chris Canty at Defensive End 6 yr/$42,000,000 Osi Umenyiora at Defensive End 7 yr/$41,380,000 Justin Tuck at Defensive End 5 yr/$30,000,000 Jason Pierre-Paul at Defensive End 5 yr/$20,050,000 Mario needs to meet somewhere in the middle, or let him walk.
That's harsh. The Bears were a lock for the playoffs until the starting QB and RB got hurt and Caleb Hanie turned out to be perhaps the worst QB employed in the NFL. If the Cowboys could make a FG/hit an open Miles Austin, they make the playoffs and the Giants don't. Both Peppers and Ware are dominant.
fair or not, that's what he's going to get paid. And those guys you mentioned are dealing with older contracts, their first nfl contracts or contract that were extended before they hit the unrestricted FA market. If Osi signed his extension in the middle of his second season. . It's all about timing.
whatever happens there needs to be an "injury provision" in his contract. We can't have a bunch of $$$ tied up if he get's injured again.
The cap doesn't care if it's a provision, incentive, or anything else. The cap figure is determined by the max he could make in a given year (with signing bonus spread out). The only entity that wins in the injury provision scenario is the insurance company.
People forget that Foster is a RFA not an UFA so we could still keep him and just match what the market offers ala Morey. I think the Texans are doing the right thing, make it known that they have all intents and purposes to keep mario cap be damned and work on a long term deal that will be much more cap friendly. I am 100% confident Foster and Myers will be back and about 80% on Mario. I do think we may see some surprise cuts (Walters, Jones, maybe Ryans). The FO has to plan for Duane Brown's looming extension and some tough decisions may have to made (bye bye ninja?)
If we dont tag him, he's not going to be signing here...he will be one of the highest paid defensive players (if not the highest) in football this offseason. We wont be able to match the offers that other teams will give. And Im fine with that.
We won't be able to match the upfront money that other teams offer, true, but we will be able to offer just as much guaranteed money and possibly just as much, if not more on the backend of the contract. It's going to boil down to whether he wants his money now or whether he can stand to wait a year or two. If the Texans think he's going to bolt (or if they don't think they can make a competitive offer this year), I think they tag him. I think Mario knows this, so I'm guessing he will realize it is better to take the longterm deal and guaranteed money now than it is to get stuck with the franchise tag and risk going into next year without a long term deal. I can't imagine the Texans letting him walk. That would be very un-Texan. He's not Dunta.
It doesn't work the same way as in basketball though. Contracts don't get special structures in basketball, there are specific rules about how they are setup. This doesn't work in the NFL. If a team offers Arian an offer sheet and he signs it, the Texans have to match it exactly as written. (Unless this has changed with the new CBA) If they offer him a ton of guaranteed money up front and set the initial cap year to be a monster one, the Texans may seriously be unable to match it. Because of the way contracts work in the NFL, I think it would be a mistake to allow Arian to get upset with the team and go sign an offer sheet somewhere else. If you do that, you are going to lose him. That said, I don't believe the Texans are going to make this mistake. I think he will be resigned.
I don't think he plays under the franchise tag next year. If that happens, the Texans have failed miserably. The franchise tag is such a huge cap number all on one year, that doing that would almost certainly mean you have to let other players go and you are not signing any new FAs. Jacking up Mario's cap number into the 20 million range likely costs you Myers and Dreesen for sure and then you just have to hope you can rework deals and get Arian to sign a deal that spaces his cap number or you lose him too.
Paying $16MM for Mario isn't outrageous, and I'm guessing the Texans are very willing to do that for a year. It would not cost them anybody short of Myers. And then there's the whole "restructuring" fiasco a la Pancakes. More than one way to skin a cat.
Jacoby signed a $10.5 / 3 yr and we structured his contract to be heavy on the last 2 years. This past year, he accounted for$600k to the cap. That means he will count for $5 million AVG over the next two years...send him packing. K Walt is not worth the 3.5 million a year he is set to make over the next 3 years. I want to cut him, but I don't think the FO will. I doubt that the Texans want to cut DeMeco outright. However, we will pay him $8 million a year for the next 4 years if we don't restructure his contract to something more affordable. He is simply not worth that for somebody who is only on the field for 1/4 of he game. The new aggressive scheme does not seem to fit Ryans style either. I doubt Ninja gets resigned next year. We will pay D Brown FOR SURE, and probably Barwin too. Matt Schaub will also be due a new contract, and if next season goes like we want it to, he will cost more than the $8M/yr we pay him now.
Judging by discussion on 790 this morning, it seems really unlikely they'll pay him franchise tag money. They may put the franchise tag on him, but they'll either negotiate out a longer term deal or trade his rights away.
This is sort of complicated though in the new CBA. It says you can't use the franchise tag with the intent to trade, but it is very vague. Also, because of the price that gets put on him under the new tag rule, it is very possible that Mario would accept the franchise tag. I think the number is like 22 million or something like that. That is a ton of guaranteed money for one year.
120% of his 2011 salary (or even his cap number) is not 20+ million. I have no idea where people keep getting that number from.
