LA Times calls Rams “boring.” Because the Rams GM called them boring.
“This year is a money-making year, not too many wins, but I think our fans will still come to games for the non-game atmosphere.”
Yes, I’m paraphrasing again, but I’ve seen inside their minds.
What he really said:
This is not a rebuild for the Rams, or a reboot or remodel.
This is an offseason retreat — though Rams executives insist not a surrender.
“We’re the boring Rams this year,” general manager Les Snead quipped Monday at the NFL owners meetings.
Some executive:
But this week, after last season’s disastrous 5-12 finish, McVay’s second consecutive postseason flirtation with a sabbatical, the trade or release of several marquee players and the team’s non-pursuit of free agents, the Rams are somewhat of a buzzkill.
Team executives are not concerned.
Kevin Demoff, the Rams’ chief operating officer, said he “fully expects” the Rams to be a playoff team.
“This year is the model without a little bit of the sizzle that’s come outside of it,” Demoff said. “But I actually don’t feel that we’ve strayed too far from our core DNA under Sean and Les.”
And some other executive-sounding guy:
But Stafford, Kupp and Donald will not be flanked by stars.
“We knew when we did those deals, ‘Hey you’ve got three very highly compensated players you’re going to have to surround with more cost control around them,’ ” said Tony Pastoors, Rams vice president of football and business administration.
Pastoors estimated that the team could have $55 million to $65 million in cap space in 2024.
“So, please keep coming and rooting, but keep your expectations low. That’ll be $500/seat please.”
My guess is Lamar will play on the tag in 2023. If he gets back to what he looked like in 2019 or 2020, I think he can force the Ravens to give him the Desean Watson type contract. If he plays like he has the last couple years, I think they’ll just tag him again in 2024 and it won’t do him any good to sit out.
It’s an unlucky year for this type of standoff with the draft thought to be so deep with QBs. 4 possibly going in the top 10 picks?
I still think he would be a great fit on the Falcons or that whoever buys the Commanders for $6b wants to make an immediate splash.
“Clubs aren’t getting enough exposure.” (Paraphrased)
Wait: EVERY local team is on a local channel every week that they play.
Or is the issue that I am not seeing the NYJ or the MIA enough times?
if they want to fix things, they’d have both networks have Sunday Doubleheaders EVERY week. Maybe add a third network, or have two SNF games instead of one. I mean, I get about half the EPL matches (5) every week. I get a min 5 of a max 16 of NFL (admittedly, most I do not watch a second of, but I’m arguing for the fans who want more fuhbaw). At the last, they could have two MNF games back-to-back or overlapping a little. But instead allow/force teams to play two TNF games (note that already the two teams that play the first TNF will play another, and two of the Thanksgiving teams play TNF the following week) while some other teams don’t play ANY? That seems to me way unfair and unbalanced.
Again, we have 17 weeks of TNF (none on the last weekend), and two extra games on Thanksgiving. That’s 38 teams, so six of the 32 teams are already playing twice on Thursday. Heck, the Bills played THREE Thursdays last year, but they played the first week and played T-Day and the week after T-Day. But, according to The NFL Football League, that is only one short week (Thanksgiving week).
Dallas played two “short” weeks last year (Week 17 was after a Saturday game, so, doesn’t count?)
Need to start adding two Friday games near the end of the season, so that two of those teams play each other the next Thursday.
It’s bad enough that teams play short weeks, but fair that EVERY team plays at most one short week. Having a team not play on TNF would be grossly unfair. How about dropping TNF altogether, or change it to Tuesday NF?
Also, teams should have the same rest going into a TNF Football game. That means it is impossible to schedule one team with a back-to-back TNF Football with the other not getting seven days’ rest UNLESS both teams played the previous TNF Football.
So, need more two-game Thursdays!
They could also make it easier on the players/teams by having as many pairs of teams playing TNF Football immediately after their bye week.
The rumor that I read today, which I think has merit, is that the Owners/GM’s around the league won’t touch Lamar because doing so ratifies the concept of The Guaranteed Contract for QBs in the future. Cleveland doing this one time was an aberration, but a second such signing would signal a trend.
Evidently, the NFLPA is whispering the word “collusion.” However, the whole concept of TGC is so bad for teams’ salary caps that I don’t think 31 team owners have to have a discussion about how much they hate it. It is just obvious to those 31 teams that it’s a bad idea for themselves that they have no motivation to talk to Jackson, especially since he has no representation.
The answer to the article title is: He wants $X guaranteed and no owner wants to pay him $X, cuz possible injuries, shortened career, etc. And, yes, they don’t want to make “guarantees” a thing. Even though a signing bonus and some of the contract is guaranteed.
I think owners would be OK with a three-year guaranteed contract. They just don’t to spring for seven years at $50M/season.
I’ll trot out my proposed contract format once again:
Some number of years guaranteed.
Option at the end of every season to add a year to the end of the contract alternates between team and player until expiration.
So, assume four years. At the end of each one of those years, an additional year can be tacked on at some contracted amount, or is not, depending on the choice of the option-holder. Or, they negotiate to add the year – maybe the team has the option and Jackson agrees to less money (hah) for the additional year, or maybe Jackson has the option and the team agrees to pay more for the additional year.
Also, I think there is a difference between each owner/GM thinking to themself: “I’m not signing any long guaranteed contracts, but if someone else wants to do it, their funeral,” and the NFL owners getting together to agree not to sign any long guaranteed contracts.
I don’t see any way he even falls to the Bears. I fully expect him to go to either Seahawks or Lions, and if he somehow slips past both of them, then Falcons. (Assuming no one trades up for him)
Carter may have been driving fast, but the video from police cams does not seem to indicate he was drunk like the .197 driver was. Speculating about that aspect is something people can do, but is ridiculous without supporting it. I would bet quite a bit that most of us got the car up near 100 at least once. He didn’t cross a line and kill a family of innocents. It is really unfortunate about the outcome of this event and it certainly could have ended worse for a lot of reasons. That line of lucky can many times make a big difference in life. I had never heard anything else about his character that’s bad. He picked up all meals for the non-scholarship lineman when he found out they couldn’t eat with the team. He got hurt in season and came back when other talents did not. Sounds like a good teammate. I’m OK if Seahawks take him at 5.
To be clear, not excusing that Carter was incredibly dumb that night. He clearly did not make the best choices. I am hopeful that he recognizes how lucky he personally was and is able to develop.
That’s kind of what the opinion was on talk radio here. Until he showed up out of shape and couldn’t perform at the pro day. So it’s not just one bad character indicator. Seriously, knowing that millions of dollars might be on the line, he really only had one thing to do in life and that was to stay in shape and prepare for the pro day.
And, really, your line is whether or not he killed a family of innocents?
Another possible read: he went through some serious emotional trauma being on the scene where close friends died. He might feel some responsibility that his actions may have been a contributing factor. That’s a lot for anyone to handle and this 22yo seems to not have handled it well in terms of maintaining fitness for a few weeks.
It will boil down to how teams evaluate this circumstance: lazy/undisciplined in general, or struggling with grief and capable of getting past it. I have no idea which is the case.
OK, but with the other alternative, you could say he was showing poor judgement in even showing up for pro day, then. A statement to the effect of what you said would have been far better than what happened.
He left the combine due to arrest warrants being issued, and he didn’t do the workout or drills there. Teams considering a top 5 or 10 pick would probably want to see more at either the combine or pro day. In hindsight he probably shouldn’t have had a pro day and just let his tape speak.
He left a celebration party in the wee hours of the morning with drunk people. Yes, it is speculation that he was also drunk, but he was also drunk, that’s why he fled the scene, and he didn’t turn up until he was sober. (He took advice from the ghost of Ted Kennedy.) He did not render aid to his teammates, he fled. That’s circumstantial evidence to be sure, but it IS evidence, so it is support for the speculation.
You think we’re ridiculous for speculating. Then in the very next sentence you speculate about MY driving habits? Hello Mr. Kettle, my name is Mr Pott. You’re black.