2019-2020 NFL Thread

[draynay]

He played at Boise State, so we know where he's heading.

Psych Ward? Prison?

[Northern Goblin]

Raiders signed Brandon Marshall and Isaiah Crowell to 1 year deals worth 4.1 mil and 2.5 mil respectively.

[xskarma]

Raiders signed Brandon Marshall and Isaiah Crowell to 1 year deals worth 4.1 mil and 2.5 mil respectively.

Up to those amounts, with incentives.

[Grapefruitsnz]

So there is a good chance that this is a load of crap or will never come to fruition, but there's a rumour going around today that the Lions may be in trade talks with Houston for Clowney.

https://twitter.com/C_Robbins_/statu...854925827?s=09

The initial tweet that apparently has kicked this all off (as the guys bio says, he write for a Lions podcast, which gives as much or little credibility as it does). He's stayed 'relatively' tight lipped on who this is involving but reading his replies to that tweet, the implication is it's about Clowney. Will be interesting to see how far this goes if it is true, as he mentions the talks will go up to the draft before being done and could still fizzle out between now and then.

Personally, as a Lions fan, assuming the deal is somewhat fair (he mentions that their 8th overall pick could be involved but they won't be getting a first back which makes me slightly scared), I think this could be a good pick up for the team. He has all the potential to be a dominant defensive player in this league but has yet to reach it. However, given Patricias track record with developing talent, plus our Dline coach (Bo Davis) is very good at also developing talent, this could be a very good situation for Clowney to finally elevate to that elite level.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Houston trading Clowney wouldn't be crazy. He's on the tag this year, and if Houston knows he'll walk they might listen to offers. I'd be surprised if Detroit made the move now, though. Feels like a move you'd make during or after the draft at this point. See if you can't land one of those rookies.

[draynay]

This reminds me Ziggy Ansah is still out there.

Jared Cook deal finalized, 2 years $15 mil, very reasonable, $6mil signing bonus and I'm pretty sure they'll do what they usually do and add a 3rd void year to spread the bonus out to something like 2019-$4mil/2020-$9mil/2021-$2mil dead money.


Sounds like they did the same thing with Teddy, spread his one year deal over three years.

[CastletonSnob]

I heard the majority owner say the AAF might fold soon.

Do you think the AAF will play for a second season next year, or is the league doomed?

[eschatological]

This reminds me Ziggy Ansah is still out there.

Jared Cook deal finalized, 2 years $15 mil, very reasonable, $6mil signing bonus and I'm pretty sure they'll do what they usually do and add a 3rd void year to spread the bonus out to something like 2019-$4mil/2020-$9mil/2021-$2mil dead money.


Sounds like they did the same thing with Teddy, spread his one year deal over three years.

Word on the street is everyone is waiting on a follow-up medical clearance sometime in April on Ansah's shoulder. No rush now that the signing frenzy is over.

[xskarma]

I heard the majority owner say the AAF might fold soon.

Do you think the AAF will play for a second season next year, or is the league doomed?

I think it depends on if the NFL is willing to make concessions on how to handle players that teams sign to their 90 man off season roster.

Those rosters are so big that they suck up any interesting players that have not seen much playtime in the league. The AFL can't make it work if they rely on players that washed out of the NFL for whatever reason, the 3 or 4 year veterans that didn't produce in limited time on rosters, and are unlikely to ever make it. The AFL needs players that can make a splash and move upwards, not the cast offs of the NFL. They need it to be a true developmental league where young talent comes to learn some basics about pro-football before getting their shot in the NFL.

In an ideal AAF world, they would get the talented but raw players that teams stash on their 90 man off-season rosters and they bring in for spring camps in April/May. They would get actual playing time and a taste of life as a pro player, preparing for games, playing in games, the travel and honing their craft, instead of just working out in non-contact drills 2 or 3 weeks all spring/summer until training camp starts.

The trouble is, it's still football. Players get hurt. And if they get hurt in April/May that means they will likely miss all of the meaningful time they would have spent in the NFL as well (training Camp and pre-season). I also think that the NFL might be hesitant to have their players learn bad habits (or at least not be in control of what they get taught).

The NFL has something to gain from a development league working and producing players that the NFL can use, but so far they have not been willing to do literally anything to help accomplish that. That's not a knock on the NFL tbh, cause the AAF should have a business model that sustains it even without hand outs from the NFL. But the AAF does have a point that without the NFL's young but raw players that they won't be able to make a league that enough people will want to attend or watch on TV.

[draynay]

The developmental aspect can be built later, no sense risking players to injury if the league is unsustainable on its own. I think it should definitely be something the NFL considers in the future, but for now, the AAF needs to prove it can make it work. Completing a season without folding, and having some of the guys make NFL rosters this fall would go a long way toward furthering that goal.

[eschatological]

The problem with the idea of the AAF being a developmental league is that it's in the offseason. Other leagues like MLB, EPL, and the NHL have developmental leagues where they own the rights to a player who is just basically on loan to a lower-level league. If they need them (or even just want them) during the season, they get the call up.

EPL and other top futbol leagues loans out individual players wherever they want, without expectation of call-ups midseason.

MLB and NHL field full minor league teams on their own, who play a concurrent (but smaller) schedule. I think the AHL has something like 60 games, to the NHL's 82. There are some players who will never be on an NHL team (and some whose NHL career is over but they can still play at a minor-league level), but the point is those half dozen guys who are on-the-edge NHL players.

The problem with the 90 man roster and the AAF being offseason could simply be solved by moving the league to after roster cuts, but making it so they can "assign" instead of "cut" to another team. That would require a major expansion of AAF to 32 teams, which might not be feasible as football rosters are insanely big compared to MLB/NHL rosters. There'd also be the problem of the schedule. Football is already so grueling that the schedule is a scant 16 games played on a weekly basis. If AAF plays on Saturday, they clash with CFB, which they won't want to do. If they play on Friday, no one will be able to be called up for that Sunday's game - the turnaround is too short. They obviously can't play on Sunday, they'd never be seen ever - though maybe if these teams are all in non-NFL markets they can suck up some market share which would probably be directed to their parent team. Our AHL affiliate is 60 miles down the road, generally your minor league affiliate is somewhere within the market for the parent team. Our Buffalo AAA baseball team is the minor league affiliate for the Indians, for example, and in the past has been the affiliate for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

All in all, it's an interesting organizational problem that can really only be solved by the NFL owning it outright.

[eschatological]

The point of a developmental league isn't to compete for ratings. It's to develop players for the parent league.

That's where the AAF has to hash out what its role is. It will never compete with the NFL during the NFL season, but it can't be a developmental league in the offseason. If they want to make money by being an off-season replacement for the NFL, good luck for them, but then don't expect the NFL to give them players to potentially hurt for that project.


The horror stories of soccer players during tournament years when they play in the summer with little-to-no-offseason are already bad enough, football is (imo) an even more grueling game, and to play 8 games in the spring is too much if they then make the 16 game NFL schedule, considering that OTAs will start in a few months.

[draynay]

The point of a developmental league isn't to compete for ratings. It's to develop players for the parent league.

They're not a true developmental league until NFL money is keeping them afloat. Until that happens, competition is the biggest concern. The NFL hasn't shown much interest in propping up any minor leagues since NFL Europe folded. Like I said before, I figure the league has to become viable and then the NFL could cooperate with them to a greater extent. If the AAF can keep it together the NFL can have a semi-developmental league without having to invest any money and that is something worth pursuing.

[eschatological]

I just don't see how that happens that they're successful enough to "become" a development league. Either they're successful and are a true competitor to the NFL like the old AFL, or they start out with the goal to be the NFL's developmental league, or they try and compete, and fail, like the USFL, the Arena Football League, the XFL, etc. NFL Europe could have been a developmental league, except football didn't have the necessary foothold in Europe at the time, and the NFL didn't want it to be a developmental league, just a European NFL-Lite, like MLS is to real soccer in Europe.

The AFL in the 50s was true, actual competition to the NFL. So much so that they split the first four Super Bowls with the NFL, 2-2, and led to the merger.

I don't think the AAF can reach the same level of competition as the AFL did, mainly due to the modern-day game which is a multi-billion dollar enterprise. So it's a question of whether they can accept the NFL's decisions (and money) and possibly keep the future of their league in the hands of the NFL (after all, minor league affiliates have separate owners in other sports), or they fold.


And of course you're right, the NFL has to make that decision, but I also feel like the AAF people formed the league as some sort of rebellion against the NFL and their "stifling rules" and unpatriotic players, and may be unwilling to cede to the NFL.

[Brubear]

I just don't see how that happens that they're successful enough to "become" a development league. Either they're successful and are a true competitor to the NFL like the old AFL, or they start out with the goal to be the NFL's developmental league, or they try and compete, and fail, like the USFL, the Arena Football League, the XFL, etc. NFL Europe could have been a developmental league, except football didn't have the necessary foothold in Europe at the time, and the NFL didn't want it to be a developmental league, just a European NFL-Lite, like MLS is to real soccer in Europe.

The AFL in the 50s was true, actual competition to the NFL. So much so that they split the first four Super Bowls with the NFL, 2-2, and led to the merger.

I don't think the AAF can reach the same level of competition as the AFL did, mainly due to the modern-day game which is a multi-billion dollar enterprise. So it's a question of whether they can accept the NFL's decisions (and money) and possibly keep the future of their league in the hands of the NFL (after all, minor league affiliates have separate owners in other sports), or they fold.


And of course you're right, the NFL has to make that decision, but I also feel like the AAF people formed the league as some sort of rebellion against the NFL and their "stifling rules" and unpatriotic players, and may be unwilling to cede to the NFL.

If the NFL and NCAA were smart, they'd throw their support behind the AFL and turn it into an actual development league similar to the MLB farm system. It would take a lot of the pressure off of the NCAA to start allowing the student-athletes to profit more off of their image while playing college ball and allow the NFL to create a sort of D-squad where they could sign players to rosters who aren't ready for anything beyond the practice squad, but also easier to slot in to a roster spot beyond just trying to find whatever you need if you get hit with the injury bug.

I really don't understand it. The NFL could use the AAF to help with a lot of the issues teams face (roster spots, cap room, etc) and build up long-term depth with both their roster and their coaching staff (found someone who might be an awesome coach someday but needs more experience? Want to test out a potential candidate? Hire them for your AAF team). The NCAA now has an avenue for student-athletes that aren't good enough to be signed by an NFL team to an active roster or practice squad to still make football a viable career, as well as allow them to make a case for them to be student-athletes instead of the pseudo-farm system they are currently. It would also allow the NFL to try out potential rules-changes to see what sort of impact they might have before implementing them at the NFL level.

With the AAF struggling financially this is literally the perfect opportunity for them to do this as well since the AAF is likely to make the concessions the NFL would need for them to become a subservient development league that plays by the NFL's rules. If the NFL and NCAA just let it fold because they don't want any sort of competition at all, I will really doubt just how dedicated they are to the long-term prospects of the sport given the myriad issues they are facing currently.

Plus, with the timing of the league, it also becomes another source of revenue for both organizations during the off-season. As long as they schedule it well they now have a major off-season draw instead of the few major events (combine, draft, start of OTAs/training camps). Though the scheduling would be tricky, as you'd likely want the AAF seasons to be after the draft but be done before the NFL season starts. Or you want it to start after the Super Bowl but be over before the draft happens.

[xskarma]

[draynay]

That was brief.

[CastletonSnob]

Did the league launch too early, or was it always doomed to fail?

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Did the league launch too early, or was it always doomed to fail?

I'd love to see their accounting on where their money went. Player Contracts, Stadium Leases, and TV Deals is the most likely culprit. Honestly the fact near the end they were alledging they needed to be a NFL D-League probably says this thing was doomed from Day 1 unless they got a cash infusion from the big boy.

- - - Updated - - -

Story nobody outside of twitter probably cares about: This officially marks the end of Johnny Manziel's Return to Football.

[CastletonSnob]

Is the AAF a bigger failure than the XFL? At least the XFL played its full season.