100%. Payne is your classic contract year blowup player who gets paid and underperforms.
He has been a solid player most of his career, but that’s it. This year he is going for broke to rack up stats to improve his value. I would sign him to a meeting year 40mil deal as that is solid starter money. He’s going to push for DOUBLE that, which is elite DT money. This would be another Trey Flowere situation, IMO.
For those that care, PFF has never graded Payne above a 68 and he currently has a 57.4 rating this year with a 43 run defense grade.
If we want an elite pass rushing DT try to get Javon Hargrave. He is turning 30, but realistically has another 2-3 very good years left in him and the Eagles have a ton of free agents with little cap room and a Jalen Hurts extension looming.
I’d throw a 3 year 36mil deal at Hargrave with an out in the 3rd year in case his play declines.
This is simply isn’t true , Payne is in his rookie deal and in his 4 year he has improved every year. It simply doesn’t apply with him. He is not a one year wonder , he is a young player that has improved each year. He is exactly the kinda a player you spend on.
They currently have around 15mil in cap room. There are no cut candidates to save any significant cap room unless they designate Slay or Lane Johnson as post June 1st cuts. They could save 17.5mil for Slay and 14.4mil for Johnson, but I highly doubt either of those happen as they are elite starters on that team. They can restructure Lane Johnson, Slay, and Jake Elliot to bring their total cap to about 40mil. There isn’t a single other player on their roster with a base salary more than 1.5mil so at that point they are left with no other options to save significant cap space. There rookie pool is expected to be around 12mil and for the practice squad and in season moves they would need at least 8mil. That leaves them with about 20 mil to spend IF they do those restructures.
That would leave them with 206mil committed to the 2024 cap and that is without Jalen Hurts as he is a UFA in 2024. He is going to get a massive extension. The Eagles are pushing themselves into Saints territory in regards to their cap, IMO.
With all that said, below are all their FA’s this year. Fletcher Cox, Robert Quinn, Javon Hargrave, James Bradberry, Isaac Seumalo, Kyzir White, TJ Edwards, Miles Sanders, Chauncey Gardner Johnson, Marcus Epps, and Gardner Minsher are some of the bigger names. They will be losing a majority of those guys, IMO.
So you would be comfortable paying Payne 18mil AAV, which is in the Jonathan Allen/Vita Vea pay range. Honestly, I’m not even sure 18mil AAV would be enough. I seriously hope the Lions don’t show any interest in him as I’d be willing to bet that in 2 years whoever signs Payne is going to seriously regret that decision.
Give me David Onyematta and James Bradberry instead, who we could sign for what we can get Payne for. Onyematta has been a very good starting DT for most of his career and Campbell/Glenn know him well. Bradberry has proven across three teams he is a high end starting CB. 3 years, 24mil for Onyematta and 3 years 30mil for Bradberry.
