Actually, I was agreeing with your statement, "it has nothing to do with rabid hatred of David Carr." It's the whole "rabid hatred/vitriol/tar-and-feather/run-him-out-of-town rhetoric to which I was referring. Precious few folks on here, if any, are discussing things from such a viewpoint much less have said as much.
this is a gross misrepresentation of, at the very least, my position. this decision does not exist in a vaccum. moving carr will impact your salary cap and could impact your personnel, and that could very well hamper your ability to upgrade positions some of us consider far more pressing than QB. if i have to pay jake plummer $5+M on top of carr's $2-4M or give up a draft choice for plummer and swallow carr's $2-4M, i'd just assume keep carr because if plummer's an upgrade, its neglible, imo.
Don't worry; it's not personal! I get this position; I understand where you're coming from. Concerning Plummer, I don't disagree.
A few weeks ago, weren't you arguing that you'd rather have Carr than $8MM in cap room because the team didn't have control over free agency? Now, you'd rather have $1.5MM in cap room (about what you'd lose if you paid Plummer $5MM instead of keeping Carr) instead of Plummer because not having that $1.5 MM might hamper our ability to improve?
Actually, I take this back. Signing Plummer to a theoretical 2 yr / $10MM deal would cost about $1.5 MM in this year's cap, but save about $3.5MM in next year's cap if I understand correctly. So you lose a tiny bit of flexibility this year, and gain twice as much flexibility next year.
my bad! your response to my post was confusing....I'm like a cave-man sometimes and can't understand big complex words and sentences!
no, major; that was specifically in reference to why the texans might have made the decision they did with carr's extension. i was merely contending that it's not terribly difficult to see - at the time - how locking carr up so you could use (read: control) the #1 pick to address another need might have been more attractive to them than drafting vince young and having $8M to spend, but no control over how it was spent (ie you can't "draft" free agents). again, that's assuming (as the texans obviously did at the time they extended him) that carr was a viable nfl QB. i'm not going to argue with you over a fictional $ you threw out to validate your point. you have no idea how much jake plummer will cost, salary-wise, and you completely ignored the potential personnel implications. are you willing to eat carr's salary AND give up a draft choice for jake plummer? are you willing to swallow carr's salary, pay jake plummer AND use a draft pick on a QB instead of [take your pick]: a RB, WR, OL, DE, OLB, CB, or S? (all positions the texans still need to upgrade.)
Not combative, a genuine question: are parts of this question no longer valid if the Texans land a draft pick for Carr as the wild-assed speculation on Internet news sites has been claiming?
The argument was simple. Which is more valuable: Carr + #1 Pick or $8MM + #1 pick? You argued the former because the $8MM might not be able to be spent ideally. Now, you're saying you value $1.5MM in this year's draft. Umm, I used YOUR $5MM figure. You wouldn't be eating Carr's salary. You'd be eating his signing bonus, which is a sunk cost either way. Unless you pay Plummer $6MM or more, you're going to save money between this year and next. And, depending on the draft choice, I would consider it. Especially if it's a 2nd day pick, which are crapshoots anyway. And even more so if Carr could be traded for a pick of his own, as has been indicated as a possibility. I've already said I wouldn't draft a QB this year because I think this year's QB class sucks across the board. Maybe take a flier on a late-round pick, but that goes with the crapshoot part of it. Picking between Carr and Plummer has no influence on whether they draft a QB. They are both stopgap QB's anyway, in my opinion. Or are you now arguing that you believe Carr to be the long-term solution here?
By the way, I was referring to Plummer being cut and us having to sign him. If he's traded to us, Denver takes the mass majority of his cap hit ($8MM) and we'd get him dirt cheap, I believe. http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/nfl/article/0,2777,DRMN_23918_5303726,00.html And that is the issue. Because of Plummer's original contract with the Broncos and subsequent renegotiations - three years remain on the deal - if the team cut the veteran before June 1, it would take a salary-cap hit of $8,556,000 for the 2007 season. If the Broncos cut Plummer after June 1, the cap hit would be over two years - $2,852,000 in 2007 and $5,704,000 in 2008. Because Plummer's salary-cap figure for 2007 is $8,605,000, to cut him after June 1 would give the Broncos $5,704,000 in cap room this year that currently isn't on the books. ... If Plummer tells the Broncos he does not want to be their backup, they would prefer to trade him than release him. The Broncos would take the full salary-cap hit of $8,556,000 if they trade Plummer, but anything they receive in return - most likely a draft pick - has to be worth more to the team than the cap savings it would get this year with a June 1 release.
This is what I believe as well. Carr was destined to start every game last year unless he was injured but not because he was the best at that position but because of all of the money the Texans had invested in him. And that's what rubs so many folks the wrong way especially when he blew chunks on the field because they feel he did not deserve to keep starting. Just think: If things are this heated in February because of Carr, just imagine what it will be like when they bring him back in the fall because of the money. I can just see those weekly VY comparisons now...
i value money (and draft picks) over investing in a ultimately meaningless QB change that has a very low ceiling and a potentially harmful fall-out, yes. do you mean my $5+M figure? i have no idea what jake plummer will want, nor get, if he's put on the open market. he's set to make $8.2M this year (including his pro-rated bonus of 2.9M. the base is $5.3M.) i think anyone expecting plummer to have a total cap hit of around $5M is being extremely optimistic. so you're essentially dealing carr straight up for plummer + salary? i'm sorry; imo, that represents no upgrade. no; i'm stating plummer IS a stop-gap QB. we know that. he's 32-33; he'll be on his third team in five years... carr may be as well; or, if he puts it together in year 6 at the age of 27-28... but, yeah, no QB ever puts it together in year 6. especially one with gary kubiak coaching him... i guess i'd rather gamble on carr being jake plummer all over again than gamble on the actual jake plummer, who i think is a mediocre QB.
Are you asking why did he sit Carr at times last season? Maybe to send a message to him and to see how he would respond to that type of challenge maybe to evaluate Sage in a game Or why did he stick with him? Maybe to evaluate him and see if he is QB for the team Either way I think towards the end of the year the organization started realizing that losing was becoming very detrimental and players/fans were getting worked up over it. This evaluation period had to end and winning had to start happening. Unfortunately for Kubiak I don't think he's inheriting the long honeymoon that his predecessors had. I think the wins at the end of the season were big to carry over into the offseason. The cleveland loss in the past was brutal. I fell another good draft and offseason moves like last year, a change at QB and people can start feeling good and hopeful again.
Here's the part where we are probably talking past each other... To me, if Carr puts it together in year 6 (and that's a big IF), then he's... Jake Plummer (who, as you've pointed out, did put it together in year 6). If he doesn't, he's worse than Jake Plummer. So the risk to Carr is only on the downside. At best, he's Plummer. At worst, he's worse. But I guess the difference for us is simply that I don't believe Carr can or will put it together here. I think he might able to be decent somewhere else with a fresh start, but not here.
I guess I should have prefaced this with the fact that I don't think there's any way in hell that he gets anything like $6MM+ at this point in his career. He's ultimately a stop-gap short-term QB for whoever gets him. He's not worth that much. If he were to command that kind of money, I'd be uninterested and prefer Sage.
Kubiak is giving up on Carr, it is time for Ric to face the music too. Say it with me Ric....Carr....SUCKS !! DD
