Would be a bold move, would love for the lions to be bold like that but confused about how they would build or retain around him with the capital needed to make the move.
His contract is untradeable by the Texans. It would be like a $50M cap hit according to overthecap.
Fair enough, will be interesting to watch where they go from here. From the outside they sure seem dysfunctional…
I am seeing the cap hit of 21.6 million in multiple spots:
That is tuff but doable. Then in 2022 they would have his contract totally off the books.
Watson’s new team would have only a 10.54 million cap charge for him. If a team like us, ATL or SF trades their higher paid QB for Watson it may be expensive for both teams year one but beneficial cap wise after that.
That’s because of guaranteed money that is due $45M. It’s a $51M hit if he’s cut, but only aa $6.5M cap hit if he’s traded or $11M of dead money . . . whatever figure you want to use. So yes from a contract aspect, he’s tradeable, but from a talent aspect, he’s not . . . you don’t trade a top 5 QB.
It looks like sending Stafford to the Texans would leave $14mill on the books for us which adding the $10mill from Watson is 9million short of what Stafford’s original cap hit was scheduled to be. If that is correct, having 9million extra in a year with what looks like a lot of good free agents and a lot of teams with little or no cap room is a nice bonus. But the piper gets paid the following years on Watson to the tune of $35mill, then 37, 32 and 32 finally.
Thanks for doing the math. I used to try and keep up on this stuff but your numbers have always been solid and I appreciate your work.
I would be shocked if he got traded at all.
Throwing every other factors away, from What you have seen from Stafford and Watson in big games , will you pick Stafford or Watson ?
Watson
For a game tomorrow, give me Stafford. For the future, you take Watson and build around him.
That reminds me of a Mitch Hedberg joke.
People like to pull out a picture and say “this is me when I was younger.” EVERY picture is of you when you were younger. And if its not, I’m gonna need to take a look at that camera!
Watson
Talk about softballs!
No chance it’s happening. Teams don’t trade talents like him.
My only though on this is what he is thinking and feeling.
If the organization is truly that ducked up, and you lost the desire to play, fuck them… take the money hit and retire…
But that me
Clearly I meant a more future, uh, future than tomorrow. I know how time works I swear!