Mayfield.....

And I think that will be hilarious.
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Which parts?

Do you believe Mahomes won't be the highest paid player in football? Presently the highest paid player accounts for roughly 18% of his team's hit. Do you believe Hill will not be the highest paid WR? The highest paid WR presently counts for 11% of his. And I'm not even gonna use the lunacy of the Mack hit, which will be around 14% when it's fully in place - I dialed that down to 12% for the sake of easy math and to concede that Lawrence/Clowney probably can't demand Mack numbers, even with the insane amount of cash in the system right now.

I dialed Jones down to a tick below Fletcher Cox (which may be optimistic) who's at 13% and presumed Mahomes could probably end up near 20% on his own.

20+11+12+12 = 55% For 4 players. Take Jones 12% out and you're at a hair north of 40%.

And no, all those won't be at 'peak figure' immediately, but they will be at some point because those are all the kinds of guys that can demand guarantees so high that you're locked in for 4+ years. You WILL have all of those guys at/near peak number at some point in the near future.

So you have to plan for that eventuality. And the only real way to plan for "55% of my cap is going to be tied into 4 guys" is to...not do that. Especially if you hope to have any protection for said highest paid player in football and your starting tackles are going to come up for FA in the near future as well.

I don't see the room for Lawrence or Clowney on the cap, not if you also want to keep Mahomes, Hill and Jones at levels that approximate their value. If any of those guys want to take a hair-cut to make it happen, I suppose that makes it viable. But you'd better get 'em signed first.
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Even if they give Mahomes an extension next year, extensions get tacked onto existing deals. He would still be cheap for a couple years.

Same goes for Hill and Jones.
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Can we stop talking about flipping picks for guys like Clowney and Ramsey? It ain’t happening.
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But then you're just making yourself pay more down the road. Lock them down long term ASAP before even more inflation happens.
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So give Lawrence a 4 year deal that you can get out of after year 3. Problem solved.
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I don’t think it’ll be either of those guys, but we’re making a big move.
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Even someone like Watson can hold out for more because odds are, if he were to hit the market, a team would offer him more to be their guy out of desperation. Like Cousins.
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I don't think Mahomes extension will be a huge number for another 3 years or so. You can walk away from Watkins, Xavier Williams, and Henne that's around 25 mil right there.
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Maybe you can convince him to take 3 years fully guaranteed at, say, $60 million?

I'm not sure that would do it, but it very easily could. But now your cap charge is savage in all 3 of those seasons. And by year 3 you're going to have Jones, Hill and Mahomes all making substantial money. Jones and Hill will be nearing their peak base salaries and Mahomes, even if he's not at peak yet, is still a QB so your figures are huge. AND you have to figure out how to replace Schwartz. Shit, Ward would be a FA by then and since you've almost certainly had to let Fuller walk, he's either a viable starting CB or you'd better have found someone that is.

I mean you've given yourself NO rope here, especially not if you also moved a 1st rounder to do so.

Veach would have to bat 1.000 on virtually every remaining pick and value FA signing he makes from this point through 2021 if you wanted to make that all work.

Seems damn unlikely to me.
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Agreed.
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Mack comparable to Bell. :-)
Mack had 900 rushing yards and 100 receiving yards all season.
In 2017 season Bell had almost 1300 yards rushing and over 650 yards receiving.
They might be comparable but not in a positive way for Mack.
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True, but I think Watson’s value is going to plummet by then.
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Sure, but again - it's all about percentages.

I agree - it's probably 2021 that all these chickens come home to roost, but they WILL. That's exactly my point. You will have built a team that will be facing one of the worst cap situations in NFL history by 2021 because you're not going to be able to simply push cap anymore at those figures. Not with guys that have the negotiating leverage to demand significant guaranteed dollars.
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The #Redskins are re-signing RB Adrian Peterson to a 2-year deal worth $8M, sources tell me and @MikeGarafolo. His career resurgence continues in Washington.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 13, 2019

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