Elway's a fool for signing some FA's he has...

[Connie Jo]

Yep, that's right. I think Elway's a fool for signing Ware and Talib in particular. I'm not alone, several pro analyst articles I've read have more or less said the same...the signings were "risky".

I don't know why some Chiefs fans are worried and think the donkey signings were so great. Below is a quote from one pro analyst:

"Ware was just released by the Dallas Cowboys Tuesday afternoon at the official start of the NFL free-agent period: the team didn't want to carry his $16 million salary cap figure for the 2014 season. Ware turns 32 before the start of the season, was hampered by quad injuries and finished with a career low six sacks in a career low 13 games."

I don't know why some think the signing of Talib was all that great, either. The quote below is from another NFL pro analyst giving thoughts on the donkey's latest signings:

"Talib is a risk, too. He's had hip injuries and also incurred some off field issues, which ran him out of Tampa Bay just a few years ago. Plus, last we saw of him he was being taken out in the playoff game by the Bronco' Wes Welker on a play Bill Belichick called one of the dirtiest he had ever seen. Clearly, Talib has forgotten, or was charmed by dollar signs, whatever."

The donkey's signed two injury prone aging players. One of which has had off field issues, too, and another coming off his worst career year ever, and they spent $87 million to sign those two "risky" players. I don't call that making "great" moves on Elway's part, rather, call it foolish.

Elway's ego has more to do with who he's signing than any other factor. He's trying to make a media splash because his ego LOVES the attention, but he's also trying to redeem himself & the franchise after their pathetic humiliating Super Bowl loss. He's really not that smart of a GM.

He's been signing aging injury prone players, including Manning, at the end of their careers chasing one Super Bowl win, that's it. He's trying to build a one year SB winning team. He's not preparing for the future, nor for a team that can compete consistently for consecutive seasons. Hey, maybe it's worth it to some, but I'd rather have a wise GM like Dorsey, who builds more through the draft, homegrown young and healthy players who can compete for years to come, and win consistently and for more than one season. I want a Dorsey & Reid dynasty, like Green Bay & the Pats built...not a one year contender.

[Bike]

My thoughts exactly. The Chiefs are still a work in progress & they need a couple of seasons to get all the pieces in place. Specifically a couple more drafts under this regime that bring in a stable of good football players. The Chiefs O-Line is still a work in progress & the Defensive Front 7 is good, but not elite just yet and they could use some help in both those areas. Also need a couple more bonafide playemakers at WR, Kelce to stay healthy and develop at TE, and another good CB and Safety.

I like the players that were selected in the 2013 draft, but the problem was they all got bit by the injury bug at some point or another during the 2013 season, except C Eric Kush, and if they can all have better luck physically and all step up their game, they could make a huge impact in 2014.

I think Cooper can be coached up. With a year behind him, I think he'll do nicely opposite Flowers. We might be more concerned about Flowers - who is getting up there in age and may have lost a step. With Abdullah being resigned, I have to wonder if he won't be used as a free safety opposite Berry - as I have heard that Berry won't be moved to FS. I believe TJ's replacement has just been signed - so I believe the draft will be primarily offense - as it should be - at least this year. WR is a pressing need, as is OL.

[brdempsey69]

Bottom line is I'm not going to go along with the other Chiefs fans who are up in arms over the Donkeys FA signings and start pushing panic buttons. Why you ask ? Because of of who the Donkeys have at QB. That's right, you read that correctly, because of Manning. Two years in a row Manning has piled up big numbers in the regular season and then in the post-season dropped a big pile in the back of his shorts.

Okay, so Manning is 2-2 in the post-season with the Donkeys and Alex Smith is 0-1 with the Chiefs. In which of Mannings 4 post-season games with the Donks did he surpass Alex's post-season performance with the Chiefs ( and let's not forget Alex's performance with the Niners in 2011 against NO )? Well...er...um....duh.....that's right, ZERO.

What I'm failing to understand is why people think that just because the Donkeys were big spenders in FA that it automatically makes them AFC champs all over again in 2014 like all the other teams in the AFC are just going to roll over on their backs and die. Not going to happen. NE and Indy are still very much real threats to keep the Donkeys from getting back to the SB. Add to that, the Donkeys won't have as easy a schedule as what they had in 2012 or 2013 and although they are favored to win the AFC West , they may not get home-field advantage like they had in 2012 and 2014.

So looking at the bigger overall picture, with all these FA signings by the Donkeys, they've put themselves in a position where anything short of a SB victory in 2014 ( and we all know the Donkeys have never won a SB outright in their history ) makes all these signings a major failure. Add to that, they won't get any compensatory picks in the 2015, whereas the Chiefs might wind up getting 4 compensatory picks in the 2015 draft ( 4 is the max any team can get ). In 2015, the Donkeys will not be getting better as a result of these FA signings, whereas the Chiefs may have as many as 10 or 11 draft picks and really have tremendous opportunity to bolster the Chiefs roster.

There's an old saying -- "appearances can be deceiving". The majority of people are being deceived by the amount of dollars that Turd Elway threw at these FA's and think that makes them SB favorites for 2014. What they aren't looking at is the fact that none of these FA's that they signed would have been difference makers for them in the SB against Seattle. Ware is just an expensive marginal upgrade over Shaun Phillips, Talib is just an expensive replacement for DRC, not an upgrade. Sanders is a replacement for Eric Decker, but not an upgrade. The only upgrade that I can see is TJ Ward at Safety and he's had his struggles in pass coverage & he wasn't that big of a difference make in the Browns game against the Chiefs last season.

The main point is & the obvious questions are, where are the major upgrades at from all this money that the Donkeys spent in FA to help them cope with teams like Seattle and other NFC West teams they are going to have to play in 2014, plus road games in NE and Cincy & how do all these signing guarantee that the Donks will finish with the best record in the AFC and make it back to the SB? THEY DON'T !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[doobs_05]

If anyone is really wondering how Denver has all this money to spend, a guy at www.reddit.com/r/NFL has a nice write up

I've been seeing a lot of threads and comments asking about how the Broncos have so much cap as well as a lot of comments accusing us of selling out our future to win now. So I put together a FAQ to clear up these questions. If I've got anything wrong or you have another question reply below or PM me and I'll check it out.

How do the Broncos have so much cap space?
The Broncos had roughly $17 Million in cap space heading out of last season which was due to a large number of players they let walk this offseason, big cap hits being Woodyard ($3.25m), DRC ($2.9m), Ayers ($2.2m), Moreno ($3.3m), Lenon and Decker (Both $1.5m) and a few others at around the $1m mark.*

Then on top of this cutting Champ Bailey and Chris Kuper retiring freeing up $15 million between them.
This left the Broncos with $32 Million in cap space for this free agency.
* Note the above numbers are the players 2013 cap hits so there might still be dead money for some this year, the $17 Million is what the team had available after taking dead money and such like into account.

So the Broncos are nearly done this free agency right?
The Broncos currently have two back up TE’s, Dreessen and Tamme, who are currently eating up $5.5m total of cap space with only $1.1m of potential dead money. Expect these guys to be cut if the team decides to grab someone else this free agency.

Surely the Broncos are selling out the future to win now? There’s no way they can re-sign any of their big names up next year.
The Broncos next year have a lot of big names needing re-signed. At a quick glance that is Demaryius Thomas, Von Miller, Terrance Knighton, Julius Thomas, Rahim Moore, Wes Welker, Orlando Franklin, and Kevin Vickerson. Now not all of these are must signs and not necessarily everyone will be re-signed.
Out of them expect only D. Thomas and Knighton to be getting big contracts. Julius Thomas broke out this year and will be expected to do well in 2014 and this will most likely help him get a good but probably not a huge contract. Moore, Franklin and Vickerson will also most likely get good contracts but don’t have quite the impact to demand a huge contract, they are also the players the Broncos probably let walk if they think they can get bigger contracts from others. Wes Welker with his age and history of concussions is generally expected to retire but might stay around on a cheaper 'I love football' contract. Von Miller has a 5th year option meaning he will be costing roughly between $8-9 million which is only a small pay rise over his current contract.

Now all those contracts above are going to combine to be a hefty chunk of change so how do the Broncos afford these especially after the big name signings this Free Agency.
Firstly before any signings this FA the total money the Broncos had locked up next offseason was $61 Million leaving them with $72 Million free cap space. The new signings this FA hit the cap as so Talib - $7m, Ward - $7.75m and Ware $8.6m. Leaving the Broncos with $48.65 million in cap space to re-sign all the players they need to. This is also before any increase to the cap space that might happen.
On top of this Manning is going to retire soon he has 1 maybe 2 seasons left to play and when he retires he instantly clears up $20 million in cap space and will be, as it currently stands, replaced by Brock Osweiler who will be either still on his rookie contract or signing a fairly low contract as he will be yet to prove himself.

This means that if Manning retires after the 2014 season the Broncos are currently going into the next offseason with $68 Million cap space, more than double what they entered with this year and after Talib, Ware and Ward are accounted for. And if Manning doesn’t retire this year he will retire the year after meaning the team can load contracts quite heavily towards that year.

How is it possible that the Broncos keep having so much cap space?Very simply it’s a combination of rookie contracts, 1 year contracts we can drop with no dead money and most importantly while a lot of teams backload contracts or split the dead money across the whole contract via signing bonuses the Broncos frontload their contracts when they have cap space and stay away from signing bonuses, instead preferring roster bonuses which are only guaranteed provided the player starts the season on the roster. This is roughly the difference between saving your money before spending vs buying things now on credit and trying to play catch up with the payments.

Sources:
Fitzgerald,J; Korte,N. (2014). Denver Broncos 2014 Salary Cap. Available: http://overthecap.com/teamcap.php?Te...ncos&Year=2014. Last accessed 17/3/2014. Fitzgerald,J; Korte,N. (2014). Denver Broncos 2015 Salary Cap. Available: http://overthecap.com/teamcap.php?Te...ncos&Year=2015. Last accessed 17/3/2014. Fitzgerald,J; Korte,N. (2014). Denver Broncos Free Agents. Available: http://overthecap.com/futurefreeagents.php?Team=Broncos. Last accessed 17/3/2014. Lee,D. (2014). A crude guesstimate on Denver’s current cap space.Available: http://www.itsalloverfatman.com/bron...rent-cap-space. Last accessed 17/3/2014.
edit: Had Champ Bailey as retiring when he was cut.
Quick further note on sources the www.itsalloverfatman.com article is a great summary of this and next seasons situations but it's estimates on how the Ward, Talib and Ware contracts breakdown are exactly that estimates and are solely a product of that article being written before the information was released. Note the article is titled A crude guesstimate on Denver’s current cap space for a reason.
All cap numbers came from Over the Cap which does it's best to be as accurate as possible. Jason Fitzgerald talks about the accuracy of the data a bit here http://overthecap.com/sample-page/.

http://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments...oncos_cap_faq/

[brdempsey69]

If anyone is really wondering how Denver has all this money to spend, a guy at www.reddit.com/r/NFL has a nice write up



http://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments...oncos_cap_faq/

Well, we are all real over-f***ing-whelmed by those details regarding the Donkeys cap space management. So what?

My analysis in my previous post in this thread still stands & points out that all that money thrown out by Donkeys in FA doesn't mean SQUAT.

[doobs_05]

Eydugstr,

If that guaranteed money is all being paid in 2014 as that article suggests & the Donkeys were 30 mill under the cap headed into FA as has been said, then let's do some simple math. Here's the guaranteed payments to the following players:

Ward 14 mill guaranteed
Ware 20 mill guaranteed
Talib 26 mill guaranteed

Doesn't quite add up, now does it?

No it doesn't. 20 mil over right there, not including Peyton's cut.

That article was written by a complete moron who happens to be an elway and Mike Sullivan fan. Show me a team that pays all it's players their guaranteed money in the first year of the contract and I SWEAR I won't *** in your mouth. The author of that is as stupid as they get.

brdempsey.....I've never completely bought into the idea that the donks are complete crooks but this really is starting to smell like '97 & '98

Well, we are all real over-f***ing-whelmed by those details regarding the Donkeys cap space management. So what?

My analysis in my previous post in this thread still stands & points out that all that money thrown out by Donkeys in FA doesn't mean SQUAT.

Some people were wondering (including myself).....sorry

[brdempsey69]

Some people were wondering (including myself).....sorry

We are also wondering BUT, we can't take that report you posted for fact. The Donkeys have already been guilty of salary cap violations before, that they got fined for and lost draft picks, so therefore, many of us know better than to trust anything coming their camp or take it for fact. The same two culprits that were involved back in '96 through '98 are the same two involved today -- Elway and Bowlen.

Look carefully at the 1st sentence of that article:

I've been seeing a lot of threads and comments asking about how the Broncos have so much cap as well as a lot of comments accusing us of selling out our future to win now

The word 'us' in that sentence refers to the Donkeys camp. This is the same camp that is quite well known for urinating on their own heads and telling themselves it's raining and thinking they can do the same thing to everybody else outside of their camp. A classic example is they're continued self-delusional statements about Elway being "the greatest QB that ever played" & when confronted about what happened when Elway went head to head against Montana in SB 24, you should see the copouts and lame excuses that they come up with, all due to their lack of integrity and stubborn refusal to admit that not only was Montana the better QB that day, but career-wise as well all the way around the horn. By contrast, looking at the very 1st SB, Bart Starr was the better QB that day than Len Dawson ( although Lenny played pretty well for the most part, but the INT he threw was very costly ).

In light of that, you tell me, how are any of us Chiefs fans here supposed to trust anything posted by members of the Donkeys camp?

And whether or not they are adhering to the cap is probably going to prove irrelevant as I outlined in post #62 of this thread.

[doobs_05]

We are also wondering BUT, we can't take that report you posted for fact. The Donkeys have already been guilty of salary cap violations before, that they got fined for and lost draft picks, so therefore, many of us know better than to trust anything coming their camp or take it for fact. The same two culprits that were involved back in '96 through '98 are the same two involved today -- Elway and Bowlen.

Look carefully at the 1st sentence of that article:



The word 'us' in that sentence refers to the Donkeys camp. This is the same camp that is quite well known for urinating on their own heads and telling themselves it's raining and thinking they can do the same thing to everybody else outside of their camp. A classic example is they're continued self-delusional statements about Elway being "the greatest QB that ever played" & when confronted about what happened when Elway went head to head against Montana in SB 24, you should see the copouts and lame excuses that they come up with, all due to their lack of integrity and stubborn refusal to admit that not only was Montana the better QB that day, but career-wise as well all the way around the horn. By contrast, looking at the very 1st SB, Bart Starr was the better QB that day than Len Dawson ( although Lenny played pretty well for the most part, but the INT he threw was very costly ).

Because every bronco fan you've met and chatted with is every bronco fan in the world

[brdempsey69]

Because every bronco fan you've met and chatted with is every bronco fan in the world

HA! HA! Nice try, but you fail. I've met in person & debated against on the web, scores of them over many years & they all sing the same song and every one of them has came with the same "urinate on our own heads and tell ourselves it's raining" type of mentality -- even as you are seemingly doing right now.

[doobs_05]

HA! HA! Nice try, but you fail. I've met in person & conversed against on the web scores of them over many years & they all sing the same song and every one of them comes with same "urinate on our own heads and tell ourselves it's raining" type of mentality -- even as you are seeming doing right now.

So you met every bronco fan alive. COLOR ME IMPRESSED!

I wonder if everyone thinks chiefs fans will boo an injury?

[doobs_05]

damn you edit post thing

"cheer an injury"