What could we get for Lawrence and Cooper?

[DUO_CORE]

Q: "What could we get for Lawrence and Cooper?"

The #1 pick in the 2020 draft lol

 

[GimmeTheBall!]

The mean girls are the moron girls. I consider it a useful public service to smoke them out with this thread.

You can trade anyone. Especially for us, still trying to put a contender together. It's not like we're taking Brady off of NE. When you're winning SBs, maybe you want to ride that train as long as you can. Sadly, we are not subject to that constraint on our trades. We just need to keep building value.

The premise of trade is getting back the value that you give. If the guys we're trading are so fantabulous, we should get fantabulous trade value out of them.

The fundamental issue for me here is that the top free agent level guys are often just overpriced on their eventual contracts, and especially overpriced for their trade value in a short term contract.

I see more value in trading for the picks plus the signings of actual free agents with all the leftover money. Which is like 90% of the contract after you've paid your draft picks.

Another consideration is that if we have more quality players coming up for free agency than we have the money to keep, it's important to extract value out of some as you let them go.

Guys I'm happy to pay: the cornerstone positions, for guys without red flags on performance, injury history, or age. The oline qualified on all counts (not Collins, but that was a weird deal).

If DLaw didn't have red flags on injury or performance, I'd be all in on him. The new crop of potential signings all have issues. And we seem to have more than we can sign. Given the kind of overpriced trade compensation people say they expect for them, churn em.

Lot to consider there. I see lots that is to be liked and respected.

 

[JoeKing]

The #1 pick in the 2020 draft lol

That is reason to laugh because it's so ridiculous. Though, trading 2 contributors for 1 is the kind of engineering I expect from you armchair GMs.

 

[Verdict]

They can control Cooper with the tag if they won't need it elsewhere. We've got a lot of balls in the air right now.

Trying to force Tank to play under the tag looks like an inevitable train wreck. How much can he screw us around with the shoulder injury, with no cost to himself? I'd think a lot.

Yes. It's a train wreck we should be trying to avoids. But I agree with you completely.

 

[Them]

We'd probably get a 7 and 9 season.!...

 

[OmerV]

Your consistency stats look like some cherry picking.
Throw out the best game without Cooper and the worst game with Cooper.
Also, the 27 threshold just happens to keep one 26 before Cooper out, and 2 27s with Coop in.

I grant Cooper is our best WR. And our offense is better with him than without. Of course.
Do you plan on paying the oline, Zeke, Dak, and Cooper?
How many big contracts will that leave for the defense?

My issue with Cooper isn't his play, but putting huge resources into a WR when we're already dumping tons into the offense and soon will be dumping tons more.

Okay, we will make the cutoff 26 - that makes it 2 games of 26 or more before Cooper and 5 games after Cooper. It’s still lopsided, and the better yardage numbers and QB ratings still apply after Cooper.

And the reality is, stats mean nothing if people don’t bother to know what goes into them and how they can be skewed, and therefore they allow one abnormally good or bad game to make things appear differently than what was normal in all the rest of the games. In fairness, if a team wins 8 of 9 games by fairly close margins, but one anomaly game causes the stats to show the team got outscored over the course of those 9 games, is it more accurate to say the team got outplayed over 9 games, or to say the team got badly beaten in one game but outplayed their opponent in the other 8?

 

[jnday]

Cooper isn't going anywhere but if Dallas makes a couple more moves along the defensive line, I would not be shocked to see Lawrence traded during the draft..

Lawrence has had constant nagging injury problems and he refuses to have surgery to correct his current problem. This only hurts the team. He also disappears for several games at a time. He only started trying when he thought that a big contract was coming. He also expects to be paid like the best defender in the league. Trading him eliminates this drama. I doubt he would bring a first round pick in a trade. Before breaking the bank for him, trade him and let another team overpay.

 

[Leedscowboy]

2 more first round picks and around 35mil extra to spend in free agency? Think of all the players we could sign with that 35mil.

4 nine mil free agents *and* two first round picks.
vs.
Lawrence and Cooper

We aren't going 1-15 with that.

One small problem with this theory, there is no gurantee the players that you a) draft will be good enough and b) the FA players you are throwing $$ will perform.

You think the Raiders are getting a replacement for Mack with the 24th pick ? as for all that free Cap space the Jets had the most cap space this season, and the Jets have signed Bell, Mosley, and Crowder, having a lot of $$ does not mean you get to sign the best players in FA, it just means you over pay for them.

 

[Typhus]

This thread should have been moved to some fantasy football sub thread,, can we please get back to the reality zone?

 

[dallasdave]

This man is a heavy-hitter.
Y'all better recognize.

Wise words from the Wise Corso

 

[DallasDW00ds0n]

Free up cap space for whom? No FAs left and we would be dropping 2 of our top 5 playmakers.

Horrible idea

 

[Verdict]

Problem: Lawrence is injured and wants a huge contract, Gregory probably isn't back this year, and now Crawford has issues. DE is looking bad for us, with a great dline draft.

Solution?: Flip Cooper. Trade Lawrence. Use picks for the dline. Free up 40mil per year.

Question: Could we get a 1st out of each? Maybe a 1st plus?

We gave up a first for Cooper. And I think he's exceeded expectations. Shouldn't he be worth more now?

If you thought that giving up a 1st for Cooper was a good deal for us last year, shouldn't it be an even better deal now for the team we trade Cooper to?

And for Lawrence, wasn't he considered in the top few free agents in the league? I'd expect that to net more than Cooper.

*If* you think the Cooper deal was good for us, shouldn't we get two 1sts plus out of trading Cooper and Lawrence?

I'd be happy with that with a dline heavy draft to build with.

To directly answer your post at least a 1st for each player, unless their contract demands are so outrageous it drives the compensation down.

They are probably worth a little bit more. Maybe as much as a 1st and a 3rd for Cooper.

Maybe as much as a 1st and a 2nd for Tank.

 

[Whyjerry]

Problem: Lawrence is injured and wants a huge contract, Gregory probably isn't back this year, and now Crawford has issues. DE is looking bad for us, with a great dline draft.

Solution?: Flip Cooper. Trade Lawrence. Use picks for the dline. Free up 40mil per year.

Question: Could we get a 1st out of each? Maybe a 1st plus?

We gave up a first for Cooper. And I think he's exceeded expectations. Shouldn't he be worth more now?

If you thought that giving up a 1st for Cooper was a good deal for us last year, shouldn't it be an even better deal now for the team we trade Cooper to?

And for Lawrence, wasn't he considered in the top few free agents in the league? I'd expect that to net more than Cooper.

*If* you think the Cooper deal was good for us, shouldn't we get two 1sts plus out of trading Cooper and Lawrence?

I'd be happy with that with a dline heavy draft to build with.

We can get a few more of those 8 win seasons with those trades.

 

[Whyjerry]

Or here's a crazier idea. Keep Cooper and Lawrence.

Trade a late round pick for Quinn. And since this is a historically deep draft at DL, draft a starting caliber DE or DT in the 2nd or 3rd round.

Post of the day candidate right here. It is like you are reading my mind.

 

[TwentyOne]

Problem: Lawrence is injured and wants a huge contract, Gregory probably isn't back this year, and now Crawford has issues. DE is looking bad for us, with a great dline draft.

Solution?: Flip Cooper. Trade Lawrence. Use picks for the dline. Free up 40mil per year.

Question: Could we get a 1st out of each? Maybe a 1st plus?

We gave up a first for Cooper. And I think he's exceeded expectations. Shouldn't he be worth more now?

If you thought that giving up a 1st for Cooper was a good deal for us last year, shouldn't it be an even better deal now for the team we trade Cooper to?

And for Lawrence, wasn't he considered in the top few free agents in the league? I'd expect that to net more than Cooper.

*If* you think the Cooper deal was good for us, shouldn't we get two 1sts plus out of trading Cooper and Lawrence?

I'd be happy with that with a dline heavy draft to build with.

Bad suggestion but anyways.

I think you could get a low 1st or high 2nd rounder for DLaw. A mid to low 2nd rounder for Cooper.

 

[mattjames2010]

One is a premiere pass rusher, one is a WR who had 2 and half big games for us.

I go with the premier pass rusher and I don't even need to think about it.

 

[the_h0wey]

Problem: Lawrence is injured and wants a huge contract, Gregory probably isn't back this year, and now Crawford has issues. DE is looking bad for us, with a great dline draft.

Solution?: Flip Cooper. Trade Lawrence. Use picks for the dline. Free up 40mil per year.

Question: Could we get a 1st out of each? Maybe a 1st plus?

We gave up a first for Cooper. And I think he's exceeded expectations. Shouldn't he be worth more now?

If you thought that giving up a 1st for Cooper was a good deal for us last year, shouldn't it be an even better deal now for the team we trade Cooper to?

And for Lawrence, wasn't he considered in the top few free agents in the league? I'd expect that to net more than Cooper.

*If* you think the Cooper deal was good for us, shouldn't we get two 1sts plus out of trading Cooper and Lawrence?

I'd be happy with that with a dline heavy draft to build with.

Pretty dumb idea

 

[TwentyOne]

One is a premiere pass rusher, one is a WR who had 2 and half big games for us.

I go with the premier pass rusher and I don't even need to think about it.

Premier pass rusher...

Mhm...

 

[buybuydandavis]

One small problem with this theory, there is no gurantee the players that you a) draft will be good enough and b) the FA players you are throwing $$ will perform.

We wouldn't get guarantees with our own players either.

The offense was unstoppable in 2016, and then a dud in 2017. No guarantee there. The consensus is that teams got tape and found a way to stop us.

Cooper has only been good for us for a fraction of a year. We don't know that will continue. It was very up and down. Maybe teams get the tape and find a way to stop what we were doing.

Lawrence has 5 sacks in the last 14 games. How do we know that level of performance *won't* continue? That's actually what we should predict. There's certainly no guarantee that performance will *double to triple*, which is where we'd need him for his 20+mil ask to make sense.

We would be *guaranteeing* tons money on a player who has *already* needed back surgery *twice*, and we wouldn't be getting a guarantee in return that his back issues and back surgeries won't continue and get worse. That's what should be the expectation.

You're right that 1st rounders are unknowns. Some hit, some don't. But we've been hitting well. Many of our first rounders I'd take *straight up* over Cooper or Lawrence's next contract, ignoring the ocean of money we'd be saving.

The final tipping point for me. When I realized this, I realized what a loser the Cooper trade was.

We paid a 1st to get Cooper for a year and a half with a *chance* to sign him to his first contract past his rookie contract. Guess what? That chance to sign is baked into every draft pick. It *inevitably* comes in a few years. It's even better, because for our own draft picks that chance to sign will be based on the knowledge gained from having that player for years over his rookie contract.

Giving up the pick is sunk cost with Cooper now. It shouldn't weigh on whether we sign him now. But it shows a value of a draft pick that I think few appreciate. I didn't until I analyzed the Cooper trade.

The problem I see with how people are thinking about this, and therefore *the opportunity*, is that people are simply blanking out the future value that comes from the draft picks. First the extra money to spend on other players, then the chance to sign that draft pick to his post rookie contract.

You'd expect from GMs who need to produce *now* to keep their jobs would discount that future value to sign a draft pick as well. They'd mortgage future value at a big discount to keep their paychecks coming. Cashing in on that discounted future value is the arbitrage opportunity that *we* have because Jerry doesn't have to worry about being fired. He can take the long view and rake in all that heavily discounted future value.

You're right that the players we get are unknowns relative to the guys we have. Everyone prefers certainty. It's important when you're filling in the final pieces.

But we're still in the building value stage. We're not winning SBs. The smart play to get there is to make statistical choices to build value, cashing in on the bias for certainty and a chance to win now that other teams have.

You'd expect fans, not being professionals, to be even worse about these biases. Win now! Screw the future! I want the known value today over the unknown value tomorrow!

And we've seen that in this thread. Most of the objection were simply unserious. "Hurr hurr hurr, trade some of our best players, you're such a dummy! ", ignoring the value we get in *trade* in return.

You've got a valid point. It's true that the players we get are relatively unknown, and therefore a risk of worse play.

My point in return is that Lawrence and Cooper come with their own risks of poor play (Lawrence much more so than Cooper).

The players we pick have been good overall lately, and a good pick converts to years of service *plus* a similar point we're at now, with the opportunity to trade or sign at the end of the rookie contract. Maybe those guys are more like Tyron, Frederick, and Martin, at prime positions, unlike Cooper, or healthy with consistent performance, unlike Lawrence.

In the mean time, we can take the money to pay *other* players of our own, of which we have too many to sign right now, or we can take the cash saved to get other players on the open market with 90% of the money we're contemplating for the players we're thinking to sign of our own.

You have to judge *all* the value we're likely to get in trade, now and down the line, what we can do with the money we save, and what are the risks associate with the guys we're contemplating.

 

[TwistedL0g1k]

I LOVE my house, but for the right price- I'll move out tomorrow!

The best GM's have this philosophy about their players. Virtually nobody on the roster is trade-proof. It's all about the right price. Everyone should be available for the right compensation. Is there anyone on the roster you wouldn't trade for 3 first round picks?

I would trade either Cooper or D-Law for the right price. The problem is, I doubt the team could get the "right price". Teams will be hesitant about Cooper given his contract status, and will be hesitant about D-Law given his health history.