If we got a 1st and a 3rd for Pickens

[CT Dal Fan]

Depends. Do we draft Guyton (our last 1st round OT) and Tolbert (our last 3rd round WR) with those picks?

Draft is always a crap shoot. If you guarantee me that we hit on both picks and then also use Pickens money elsewhere I'd say sure it makes our Offense better. But, we don't have to make our Offense better, we need to keep the Offense the same and make our Defense better if we want to be an actual contender. So don't break the Offense and just go out and fix the defense by drafting the two best defenders at 12 and 20 and sign/trade for another starter there as well.

You're right, but with three first round picks the Cowboys would have enough ammunition to move up for anyone they want, or move down and accumulate multiple 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round picks. Of course this is all contingent on finding willing trade partners. But having multiple choices OR a real shot to move into the top 5 (while still retaining pick 20, for example) would be a tremendous way to rebuild the defense.

Losing Pickens would hurt but the Cowboys would still have weapons in the passing game (Lamb, Flournoy, Turpin, Ferguson, Spann-Ford) and they could get another receiver in the draft and have him for multiple years at a fraction of Pickens' cost.

 

[kramskoi]

You're right, but with three first round picks the Cowboys would have enough ammunition to move up for anyone they want, or move down and accumulate multiple 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round picks. Of course this is all contingent on finding willing trade partners. But having multiple choices OR a real shot to move into the top 5 (while still retaining pick 20, for example) would be a tremendous way to rebuild the defense.

Losing Pickens would hurt but the Cowboys would still have weapons in the passing game (Lamb, Flournoy, Turpin, Ferguson, Spann-Ford) and they could get another receiver in the draft and have him for multiple years at a fraction of Pickens' cost.

Trading Pickens before the draft is HIGHLY unlikely. He has to sign that tag before he can be traded. We have heard NOTHING about any potential trade negotiations with any other team. We have heard barely more than nothing about negotiations between the player and the organization. And the draft is less than four weeks away.

A trade after the draft is more likely...but then your compensation doesn't arrive until 27'.

"Losing Pickens would hurt but...". No comment on that one.

 

[Blitzen]

Doesn't matter, it was still something like $9-10m.

I'm sorry what cap space does Dallas not have that they can't pay 2 WRs? They don't pay anybody.

Cowboys fans want cap space just for the sake of having it. It's really stupid.

You are just being silly. No successful team operates in the way that the fans on this board seem to think. Yes, money can be pushed forward. But there are limitations. If a player leaves the team all dead cap money must be accounted for no later than the year following the year the player left. This does allow a little flexibility, but also comes with hidden costs. For instance, Zack Martin counts $15.2M against the cap this season after they called him a post June release last season when he retired. Osa counts $16M after the trade and so forth.

Almost all of Philly’s SB defense stars were on rookie contracts for the SB season. A handful of players got the lion share of the cap. Slay and Sweat got a fraction of the cap. The biggest dead cap hit was for Reddick and Kelce. The offensive lineman all got paid. Hurts got a big contract. Hurts has a big year coming up. I doubt they do much with his contract before 2027. Saquon’s deal that year was tiny compared to Zeke’s that happened in 2019-despite the ever “rising” cap. Great (emphasis on great) lineman is where most of Philly’s cap goes.

Teams will start to figure out the way you build a real contender (when you do not have one of the 2-3 elite QB’s) is build great lines of scrimmage and figure out something with a competent inexpensive (relatively) QB. Guarantee you Hurts better have a great year this season or Howie will catapult him soon. Jersey sales and marketing don’t guarantee Howie’s job-they expect him to produce in the postseason or strip down and rebuild. Dallas’s current model of trying to win with a really good offense and mediocre defense results in at best the McCarthy 12-5 and division round boot. Gotta have way better balance on both sides of the ball. Pickens is a luxury, not a necessity.

 

[LouBrown]

You are just being silly. No successful team operates in the way that the fans on this board seem to think. Yes, money can be pushed forward. But there are limitations. If a player leaves the team all dead cap money must be accounted for no later than the year following the year the player left. This does allow a little flexibility, but also comes with hidden costs. For instance, Zack Martin counts $15.2M against the cap this season after they called him a post June release last season when he retired. Osa counts $16M after the trade and so forth.

Almost all of Philly’s SB defense stars were on rookie contracts for the SB season. A handful of players got the lion share of the cap. Slay and Sweat got a fraction of the cap. The biggest dead cap hit was for Reddick and Kelce. The offensive lineman all got paid. Hurts got a big contract. Hurts has a big year coming up. I doubt they do much with his contract before 2027. Saquon’s deal that year was tiny compared to Zeke’s that happened in 2019-despite the ever “rising” cap. Great (emphasis on great) lineman is where most of Philly’s cap goes.

Teams will start to figure out the way you build a real contender (when you do not have one of the 2-3 elite QB’s) is build great lines of scrimmage and figure out something with a competent inexpensive (relatively) QB. Guarantee you Hurts better have a great year this season or Howie will catapult him soon. Jersey sales and marketing don’t guarantee Howie’s job-they expect him to produce in the postseason or strip down and rebuild. Dallas’s current model of trying to win with a really good offense and mediocre defense results in at best the McCarthy 12-5 and division round boot. Gotta have way better balance on both sides of the ball. Pickens is a luxury, not a necessity.

This is almost entirely wrong - Philly is the poster child for pushing money forward. Look at what they're project to pay in void years in 2029, it is well over $200m.

You just push all the dead money to a rebuilding year and it hits at the same time, like Miami this season.

 

[Blitzen]

This is almost entirely wrong - Philly is the poster child for pushing money forward. Look at what they're project to pay in void years in 2029, it is well over $200m.

You just push all the dead money to a rebuilding year and it hits at the same time, like Miami this season.

Yes, all teams push money into the future to help with cap management for a particular season. But managing the cap also means deciding what to do with players they want to move away from.

Take AJ Brown’s situation with Philly right now. If they move him, they must account for the remaining signing bonus money (either agreeing with the new team or restructuring prior to a deal). Cutting him post June 1 means accounting for $76M by the end of 2027. There are ways to open up cap space by restructuring veteran’s money into the future, but teams don’t go out and push all the money way into the future without escape plans and cap space to account for it. The idea that many teams just open up limitless money into the future is silly. It has everything to do with how successful the team is and a given player’s perceived ability to affect the success of the team in future seasons.

This team is not successful on the field in real terms. Barely winning 7 games a season is not successful. Pickens was not the difference between zero wins and 7 last year (no individual player ever is). He may have been the difference between 5 wins and 7, but that was during a year where the squad faced a historically weak schedule. He helps open the offense, but successful teams must figure out a better balance of resources. Try to trade him for a defensive player looking to get paid straight up or for picks and move on. The team has receiving threats (many teams do not even have a 1a receiver let alone a 1a and 1b). Pickens is a massive unnecessary luxury-unless all the team wants to do is put up big points against the dregs of the league and keep fans tuned in. If it’s just for jersey sales, some highlight reels, and some advertising deals then yeah Pickens makes sense for this Dallas squad.

And Miami was never hoping or planning for a rebuild. The organization failed the past two seasons just like Dallas-but unlike Dallas fired their GM, HC and QB and now is trading for future picks. The cap hits pushed down the road are just fallout from Miami waving the white flag.