Similar to Risdons but better-

The War Room Detroit Lions — The Den
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I think Jeff Risdon’s mock was mostly solid in theory- but some of the individual choices were odd….

To summarize- we’d be adding Bradberry, Tomlinson, Pratt, Elliott, and Cominsky to 3 plus year contracts from 12-13M (Bradberry) to 6.5M (Commish)…. All these guys are from 27-30 years old in 2023…

I would guess most would be 3 year deals and average about 8-9M each… 45M APY collectively-

  • sometimes the key to asset acquisition is figuring out what else you could buy with the same funds…. In this case?
  1. Jamel Dean (26)- 15M APY
  2. Cam Sutton (27)- 8M APY
  3. G Pratt (27)- 8M APY
  4. Ashawn Robinson (28)- 3.5M APY
  5. J Williams (28)- 4.5M APY
  6. C Rush- 3.5M APY
  7. I Buggs (26)- 2.75M APY
  • same 45M…. But I think we’d be better off?

2023 Draft- trade #6 for #8 and #44

  1. Brian Branch- this love truly completes our secondary. Could make it elite!!!

  2. Bijan- no other sure playmaker fell…. I didn’t like Torrence this early, or in our system- but I like him.

  3. Darnell Wright- improvement at RG whip will kick out to RT so Sewell can move to LT in 2-3 years

  4. Keion White- our rush DT….rotates with Wormley there

  5. Tuli Tuipulotu- replaces Commish with more pass rush chops. Battles paschal for Commish snaps.

  6. AT Perry- big, fast, chark replacement.

  7. DTR- QB

  8. Ivan pace- rush LB to rotate with Houston

  9. Jake Moody- fixes K

Hutch/Houston

McNeill/Ashawn

Keion White/Buggs/Levi O

Paschal/Tuipulotu

Rodrigo/Barnes

Pratt/I Pace Jr

Okudah/Jacobs
J Dean
Sutton
Branch/Walker
Joseph

Then we have options with Jacobs, Okudah, where to play Branch, and if Walker comes back.

We add a top 3 coverage graded LB in the NFL?

We lose Commish, Harris, and Romeo…. We add Tuli, Keion, and Ashawn…. We literally get younger, bigger, faster, and better at rushing QB

We add a get and rolled QB to the room…

We save Swaggy and add friggin Bijan

We lose Chark, but give more snaps to Jamo, and add 6’5” Perry

We add Wright at RG, but eventually RT

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Except Jeff’s mock has a taste of reality to it. You are still playing madden.

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Where are you getting these numbers from and how is this in any way realistic to what is going to happen? Just curious… you post these all the time… it’s all hypothetical based on what you think players will make or what they accept?

Just don’t follow man…

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It’s a Lion’s off-season manifesto. He’ll show up to the draft with a bomb strapped to his neck demanding to speak with Jodie Foster and Pete Roselle.

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I have no inside information, yet, I would be a little surprised if Comminsky isn’t back in Detroit. He is the one player I feel most certain will be resigned.

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Kenneth, what is the frequency?

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What part is playing madden?

  • I totally get Risdon is your boy or whatever… but why the attacks? Constantly challenging, questioning, belittling, and suggesting your are tied to inside sources to validate to criticisms…

Risdon-

  1. James Bradberry(30)- finishing a SB run… My gut says he isn’t a Lion on a 2-3 year deal next year, and at 12-13MM APY… I’m not sure I want him here as a #1 or #2 outside target.
  2. Dalvin Tomlinson(29)- would be a great run stuffer with some mild pass rush chops, and could fit perfectly in our DT rotation… That said- he’s projected to get paid 11.5MM APY… and I can’t find any source suggesting less than 8-9MM APY…
  3. Germaine Pratt (27)- I guess my suggesting Pratt is Madden, but it’s okay for Risdon? Again projected in the 8-9MM APY range on a 3-4 year deal…
  4. Cooper Rush- I would struggle to commit 3.75M to a guy with limited upside, and that I would hope never played, but I do see how he could steer the ship for 3-4 weeks if need be…
  5. Jeff Wilson- In not world do I avoid paying our team captain who just had a “historic season by Lions standards” to save 1.25MM APY and sign a RB of the same age who can’t stay healthy… Wilson projects at 2.75M (but he may get a touch more on a 1 year)

  • That is 37MM APY spend on outside free agents… Keeping in mind that 2 of them are on ONE YEAR DEALS… one is 29 and the other 30 years old… Thus I would imaging these guys would get 3 yrs, 3 yrs, 3 yrs, 1 yr, and 1 yr respectively… That makes moving the cap hits heavier in the later year tough, so we wither go crazy with voided year pay in 2025-2026… Or we have to restructure some contracts big time to make these projected year 1 and 2 numbers fit!!

  • He also suggests signing Elliott and Commish who are projected to get about 8M and 7M APY respectively… Lets say they have 3-4 year deals each and first year hits total 10MM combined…

HOW ARE WE GOING TO FIT THESE NUMBERS BUT NOW MINE?

In Risdon’s mock offseason… he’s doing all of these (plus Hughes, W Harris, Buggs, Badgely, Woods etc) WITHOUT cutting Romeo BTW- so his 4 cuts (Brockers, C Harris, Big V, and Cabinda) only saves 22.5MM- if you add that to what we currently have you get around 38MM?? Try to fit the above contracts 45M, our 15M draft class, and the other 6-7 players he intends to re-sign (above)

I would think he would need to restructure contracts to free up 15MM plus to make this happen???

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Jeff Wilson is not the solution at RB-
D Elliot is not the solution at SS-
J Cominsky is not the solution at DE-

  • for 1M a year deals these guys have provided AMAZING value to NFL at times in their career… None has shown anything to prove they have top 12-15 at their position potential…

This 3 players could easily account for 18MM APY combined… Since his mock draft keeps Romeo on the Lions… That is another 14.5MM…

So -

Romeo/Commish- 21.5MM combined
Elliott- 8M plus
Jeff Wilson- 2.75MM
Cooper Rush- 3.75MM

That is 35.5MM collectively spent… PUKE!

by brining in some 4-5 year deals… we can backload the cap hits a bit, and take the edge off the 7M in dead cap for Romeo, 6M in Dead Cap for Big V, 4MM in dead cap for Brockers, and 4M in dead cap for Charles Harris…

Yes these 4 cuts give us access to an extra 28MM we can spend in 23’ on re-signing ours, and signing new players…

If we kept all 4, we’d barely have enough money to sign our draft class and bring some change into next year…

Factually we have to burn 20MM in cap space tin order to access the 28MM in freed up space by triggering their dead cap hits…

  • That is why I am less worried about signing some guys outside, because we get that 20MM of 23’ dead cap back in 24’ plus whatever the cap goes up!!!
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Maybe all the online sources projecting cap hits are WAYYY OFF- and that is entirely possible…

D Payne- 5 year 100MM feels about right
Dean- 5 years 78MM feels about right
J Hargrave- 3 year and 52MM seems about right
J Bates- 5 years and 72MM seems about right

James Bradberry- 3 years and 39MM seems right
DJ Chark- 3 years 36MM seems right
JuJu- 3 years and 36MM seems right
Chauncey Gardner-Johnson- 3 years 35MM
Lavonte David- 2 years 22MM seems right
Dalvin Tomlinson- 3 years 30MM give or take
Cam Sutton- 4 years and 36MM seems right
T Rapp- 4 years and 36MM seems right
Rock ya sin- 4 years and 34MM seems right
G Pratt- 4 years and 34MM seems right
Vonn Bell- 3 years 28MM

Byron Murphy- 3 years and 25MM
Evan Brown- 3 years 24MM
Julian Love- 3 years and 24MM seems right
D Elliott- 3 years and 24MM seems right
Marcus Peters- 2 years and 15M
J Cominsky- 2 years and 14M
S Rankins- 2 years and 14M
Bobby Okereke- 3 years 21MM
Jimmie Ward- 2 years 13.5MM
Davide Onyemata- 2 year 14MM

Patrick Peterson- 1 year 5MM
Troy Hill - 1 year 3.5MM
Swaggy- 2 years 9MM
Ashawn- 2 years 6MM
Chris Wormley- 2 years 6MM

  • Before you decide I’m wrong… inaccurate etc… Let’s start by suggesting which of these projections are FAR OFF and why?

Otherwise it’s kind of a matter of playing tetris with our our depth chart

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Sometimes the solution isn’t available and you have to make do. Essentially zero teams fill all of their needs in an offseason, the rules are designed to make it difficult. And even when they do think they’ve got them filled, injuries happen and you have to pivot. There are very few perfect solutions in the NFL.

Are Elliott, Cominsky or Wilson stars? No. Can they do the job? Yes. And that’s important when constructing a roster is made difficult by the rules.

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Same. He showed how valuable he was to our defense when he was out. He made plays while limited with that cast on most of the year. And he wants to come back on a discount.

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Yes all the time. Threads/posts created with 80% the exact same content as an earlier thread.

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If it makes a handful of guys feel better to talk shit, or dismiss altogether… that’s their prerogative, but it kind goes against the nature of “this time of year in a fan forum doesn’t it?”

  1. we are entering year 3 of a rebuild…
  2. we finished the season as one of the 2-3 hottest teams in the league…
  3. we beat and or competed with 5-6 playoff teams last year…
  4. we have a QB in his prime, 80% of the OL intact, a young defensive corps, great coaching…
  5. I would guess we have top 5-7 draft capital in the league…
  6. we have the 9th most cap space in 2023…
  7. this one is important… as of RIGHT now we could potentially have a TON of debt coming off the books in 2023… (Big V, Romeo, Brockers, C Harris) one way or the other…

Really consider this… As of right now we have $153,000.000 on the 2024 books… but that includes Okudah’s 11M 5th year option… Big V’s 12M hit, Romeo’s 3.5M voided year… and Tracy Walker at 10.3M with only 2M in dead cap if we move on?

With a cap that is expected 256MM… The Lions SHOULD be in AMAZING shape next year- without Big V…we are looking at about 112MM in cap space for 2024… We already have 24 guys under contract for 2024… Add 8 more from this draft class… then add 7-8 from 2024 draft… That’s 40 guys… Assume we sign 6 guys to multi year deals this year and 6 more next offseason?

2023 Draft- we already know that 2023 draft will eat about 15M into the 115M we’d have for next year… Let’s assume next years class with lower and less picks costs about 12MM?

  • so we’d have about 80MM left…

Now factor the collective cap hits of the guys we sign in FA this year on multi year deals… Let’s say we sign guys that count about 35MM toward the 2023 cap… and elevates to 46MM to the 2024 cap?

  • that still gives us nearly nearly 45MM in cap space next offseason… We would have about 40 solid players under contract… 7 more coming from the draft… so we would need to sign 5-6 guys with 45MM
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My question is if not US…WHO? If not NOW… WHEN?

We are becoming a point of interest… our HC is a stud… our OC and DC are getting lots of HC interest… Our players are earning bigger contracts after playing here…

— The negative feedback that has come from logic is almost comical…

So we keep Romeo for 14.5MM… sign Dalvin Tomlinson for 10-11M per? Sign Pratt for 7-9M per year? Sign Commish for 6-7MM per year… Sign Elliot for 7-9MM per year? and the 1.25 we decide to save if getting rid of Swaggy for Wilson?

Jeff Risdon posts this and thus it makes sense?

I can appreciate Swaggy, Elliott, Commish and Buggs wanting to be back…

4.5M APY
5M APY
6M APY
3M APY

That is the max I’d pay those guys, and I believe the first and last names are most likely to say yes…

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I loved watching Commish, his heart and violence with a cast on… I hope he’s back…

He’s not a double digit sack guy, and won’t be… He’s not overly effective at 3T, and he struggled in Atlanta as a 5T in a 3-4 despite being the ideal size/athletic profile…

If you ask me I would rather pay Jessie Bates and a 1 year flyer at DE…

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So here is the thing. You should expect push back. If you post a thread saying ITS BETTER. Then your mock better really really good. And that has nothing to do w Jeff. Also if you want to disagree w Jeff go right a head. If you notice I push back only when people critique him as a football guy, call him a hack or question his football acumen. Disagree all you want he isn’t infallible.

You are very quick to “I disagree” and post a novel in defense of why you are right. So settle down with the “why you attacking me” angle.

You make up numbers that aren’t accurate. You post Novel hypotheticals that are not realistic and never to the point. You have 0 awareness as to why you would get push back from people.

Knock “low level scouts” and media guys all you want……but you might learn a thing or two from them.

Black Man Shrug GIF by Demic

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Or when someone calls him a “rumor monger” :slight_smile:

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Okay…

You don’t think 15-16M APY for 5 years gets Dean?? 5 years and 75-80M….

You don’t think Sutton gets 8-9M APY?

You don’t think Pratt gets 8M APY?

You think 4-5M for Swaggy is far off?

  • please at least point out which or why?

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On the flip….

Do you think Bradberry takes less than 12-13M APY?

Do you expect Tomlinson to take less than 10M APY?

Do you expect Pratt to take less than 8M apy?

Do you expect Elliot to take less than 7M apy?

Do you expect Comish to get less than 6.5M apy?

  • do you expect 44M in APY free agents (plus others) and also somehow keep Romeo on the books?

  • the reason I am defensive is that you accuse me of “playing madden” for suggesting a FA haul that multiple websites would say are FAR MORE ECONOMICAL THAN WHAT RISDON PROPOSED?

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Also- you don’t think merely getting a 2nd to drop from #6 to #8-9 is reasonable…

The problem with trades… the Falcons, Texans, Raiders, Titans, and Panthers all need s QB, but Houston likely shoots their shot at #2…. Indy likely shoots theirs at #1 or #4…. So who falls to 6, and which team behind us loves which QB

Unless one of those teams is willing to take ANY of the 4 QBs… I’d say they’d likely wait til draft day….

That means Detroit, or any team drafting as high as our spot has over a month to narrow their round 1 options. Usually teams fall in LOVE with 1-2 of those guys, and the draft day offers aren’t enough to move teams off “their guy…”

I have zero proof obviously, but I would bet the Panthers would trade #9, #61, and a later pick in 2024 right now for #6…. If Detroit falls in love with T Wilson or C Gonzalez by draft day, then a modest offer might now move then off their guy, and nobody will offer us a blockbuster offer before the draft as they won’t know who is there

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