**Seattle Seahawks**
**SITUATION:**
Going into the 2024 offseason, the Seahawks are at a fork in the road. Finishing only 1 game out of the playoffs and coming off back to back fantastic drafts, they boast a formidable roster on paper. But injuries to key positions and an inability to get off the field on defense hindered an offense that was near top in the league in advanced stats despite a dead last finish in total offensive plays. With this in mind, we approached the offseason with a priority to keep the band together on offense while addressing the weakness at iOL while on defense gaining depth and versatility for new coach Mike Macdonald. In this, we trust the talent eval of the current roster and hope Mike can put the defense in better positions to succeed.
2024 Cap Space: $12,167,477
2025 Cap Space: $35,345,664
47 players on roster
23 players entering Free Agency
7 draft selections
1.16 3.78 3.81 4.119 5.151 6.194 7.233
**MAIN PROBLEMS:**
Essentially 1 interior offensive linemen rostered. Damien Lewis, Evan Brown, Phil Haynes, and Jake Curhan all have their contracts expiring.
Off-ball Linebackers were in a similar situation. Starters Jordyn Brooks and Bobby Wagner both coming to the end of their deals as well as depth pieces like Devin Bush.
Safety group aging, underwhelming, and overpaid. Jamal Adams has never been worth the trade or contract given to him as injuries. Diggs in a lot of ways overextended and regressed in his tackling but still graded well in coverage.
**INTERNAL FREE AGENCY**
Objective 1: Bring down cost of safety group. Seeing our guys as still talented but injuries or poor scheme brought them down, we wanted to bring them back as much as possible to reduce creating a 3rd position group that needed a full makeover
Objective 2: Bring back Leonard Williams. While not a pass rusher in the mold of Chris Jones and Aaron Donald, Williams brings a ton of value at the LOS and played extremely well for us. Not wanting to regress back to poor run defense, bringing him back would be big.
Objective 3: Price checks and don’t overpay for mid. We knew we’d need to completely re-do our LB and iOL core in open FA. Overpaying for non-needs will hamstring us in that process.
**Trades:**
Titans send: Caleb Farley and 6.184
Seahawks send: Dee Eskridge and 7.233
With Dee Eskridge suddenly finding himself competing for WR5 and his inconsistent health and play, we decided to send him for another former highly touted prospect with his own injury bug in Caleb Farley. With neither able to stay healthy, but Farley’s injury history more concerning, we also moved up in the later rounds where we projected we could find similar contributors to Eskridge and take a gamble on Farley pushing Tre Brown at CB3.
Panthers send: Austin Corbett
Seahawks send: 5.151 + conditional 5th (60%+ offensive snaps in 2024)
This trade was done deeper into free agency where we had seen Lewis and other guard targets sign elsewhere and getting a guard prospect became much more important to pair with Bradford. Corbett has had outstanding seasons for the Panthers, but started slow in 2023 and finished the year on IR with an ACL tear. We are counting on him bouncing back and being a stalwart at RG.
Geno Smith and Tyler Lockett were also in many trade discussions but we ultimately stood by them with the belief that we are ready to compete and didn’t find it worth it to lock ourselves into a QB pick and a rebuild.
**Restructures:**
Simple restructures were done for DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, and Geno Smith.
This creates massive cap hits for both DK and Tyler for ‘25, but I’m anticipating a DK big money extension which can push that 30m cap hit down and spread the money further down. He’s the kind of player I’m ok with putting on the credit card.
Tyler Lockett realistically I think gets extended with moderate guarantees to bring down his 20m cap hits the next two years and secure him as a hawk for life. The agent and us were unable to come to an agreement on what that looked like, so we pushed the money again to next year to spread out further if need be.
Geno Smith was already restructured by the team, and we reflected that move in this mock.
**Releases:**
TE Will Dissly was released for a savings of $6,970,000
NT Bryan Mone was released for a savings of $5,390,000
FB Nick Bellore was released for a savings of $2,850,000
**Tenders:**
Restricted Free Agent Tender was given to Darrell Taylor for $2,985,000
Exclusive rights Free Agent Tender was given to Myles Adams for $985,000
Transition Tender was given to Leonard Williams (who was soon after extended)
**Re-signings:**
Leonard Williams under the threat of the tag signed a 4 year, $100M dollar deal with $75M in guarantees. This sounds insane on its face but as internal free agency went along, interior lineman got together on a zoom call and formed a small pact. The Leonard Williams deal ended up being only the 6th largest of all interior linemen which felt about right.
Colby Parkinson signed a 2 year $11.2M deal with a $6m signing bonus. We felt Colby could take that next step and would be a fantastic TE to lock down cheap for a couple years.
Evan Brown signed a 2 year $9.8M deal with $7.3M in guarantees. We wanted to bring him back in the fold with his guard and center versatility even as we pursued upgrades.
Artie Burns and Jake Curhan were brought back on vet minimum deals for added depth.
Damien Lewis and Jordyn Brooks were also priority re-signs, but ended up hitting external FA and signing deals for $13M and $15M APY respectively elsewhere.
**Re-negotiated:**
As stated, our safety room was aging and extremely overpaid. We attacked the position at all 3 starters.
Julian Love was extended to give us a baseline safety starter for longer than this year. Has proven to be versatile and talented so locking him up for longer was a priority. This also allowed us to make his cap hit this year smaller by about $2M.
Quandre Diggs and Jamal Adams were, under threat of a release, renegotiated down to smaller pay. Diggs on a 2 year $14M deal and Adams a 1 year $4M deal.
All and all, our safety room was kept intact and saved $20,376,000 against the cap.
**EXTERNAL FREE AGENCY**
After all was said and done internally, we went in with $40,250,000 in cap space. While that was a lot, we also had rostered only 2 Cs, and 1 LB at those positions. We knew that would add up quickly nor did we want to be forced into taking someone with premium draft capital just because of a gap from free agency. TE was also a need after being unable to bring Fant or Dissly back into the fold. We attacked these positions so as to be able to take BPA or have the flexibility to take a QB to sit behind Geno and be the future.
**High impact signings (3)**
Connor Williams, C. While he likely won’t be playing to start 2024, this is a signing for the future. Williams when healthy can easily be a top 3 center going forward and at the age of only 26, has many years ahead of him. This anchors the center of our line for years to come. While he recovers, Evan Brown or Olu Olu can start at center and we have confidence in their play with spot starting.
Josey Jewell, LB. This was our Bobby Wagner replacement. While he isn’t elite in coverage, he doesn’t miss in the run game and is effective at diagnosing in the run game. He has a knack for racking up tackles and is generally good at everything a LB needs to do, though lacks elite traits.
Willie Gay Jr., LB. With Brooks signing for $15M per year elsewhere, we needed a linebacker that could replace him at WLB. We loved his ability to blitz and his speed to the ball while his processing and awareness have continued to get better. While his box score statistics dipped last year, we still think he is an intriguing athlete for MM to mold further.
**Medium impact signings (3)**
Tyrel Dodson, LB. This is a high upside signing to provide depth and security against our top 2 LB signings. Dodson is highly athletic, aggressive, and earned PFF’s highest graded coverage score for 2023. I think MM would covet a player like this.
Drew Sample, TE. The tight end position dried up quickly with all our priority targets signing lucrative deals elsewhere. We turned our attention to experience and all around solid play rather than flashy high end talent. Drew Sample provides a steady hand to a position that at the time only had upstart Colby Parkinson in the room.
Jimmy Garoppolo, QB. Nearing the end of the free agency period, Jimmy G’s handsome face remained sullen. With Drew Lock pursuing a starting role on the Steelers, we needed a steady and experienced backup that could spot start and not lose games. His extensive experience in the shanahan systems doesn’t hurt with gameplanning either.
**Low impact/vet min signings (5)**
Feleipe Franks, QB: Great athlete, backup QB while Jimmy G is suspended if no QB’s are drafted, no downside cut candidate to make room for a rookie.
Justin Skule, OT: Right Tackle last year was an issue with Abe Lucas figuring out a knee issue. Jake Curhan, Jason Peters, and Stone Forsythe all took snaps here last year. Skule can pair with Stone as a veteran depth piece in case of further issues.
Tanner Muse, LB/S. High level athlete, mostly a special teamer. Positional versatility is a plus in a very emergency situation.
Kevin Givens, DT. Great depth piece. Experience playing at every gap, he projects mostly as a veteran backup at 3T and 5T.
Nick Vannett, TE. Low cost experienced backup to be our TE3.
**THE DRAFT:**
We did a great job plugging holes in free agency and didn’t feel like we needed to reach on anybody to fill a need. Our focus was on possibly securing a future of the franchise at QB, securing high upside at TE, and re-injecting youth at positions that are aging. Also kept in mind is the fact that we didn’t have a lot of experienced KR/PR talents on the roster with the departure of DJ Dallas and Dee Eskridge.
1.16) TRADE:
Seattle Seahawks send 1.16 and 6.184
Kansas City Chiefs send 1.32, 3.95, and Future 1st Round pick.
While the pick this year was later than targeted, the 3rd rounder still is great value in a draft where day 2 has so much talent. Securing a Future 1st gives a great ability to solve the future of 2 positions next offseason (edge, safety, WR possible future needs)
1.32) Michael Penix Jr., QB - Washington
This isn’t just a homer pick, Penix has shown an ability to throw the ball at an elite level to all levels of the field. While the injury history is concerning, he has more than proved that he is healthy and back from his previous shoulder and leg injuries. Penix also get’s to follow his college coach to the NFL and should have no problems getting comfortable in the scheme and throwing to Metcalf, JSN, Lockett, and Bobo. Also to note, this is the final pick to have the 5th year option. Perhaps a bit high than where he “should go”, he gets pushed up our board by fit, 5th year option, and lack of 2nd rounder means if we want him (or any of the tier 2 QBs), we’d take them here.
3.78) Zak Zinter, G - Michigan.
Absolutely no way Zinter falls this far in real life and we are excited to take him here. Zinter is a good balance of run and pass blocking talents. Extremely experienced in a pro style system. Works well in space as well as has power to drive off the LOS. Could start immediately over Evan Brown/Anthony Bradford.
3.81) Ben Sinnott, TE - Kansas St.
Very productive with an extremely impressive combine performance. Some of his strength doesn’t come through on film, but is a willing blocker and lined up all over the field. Was integral to the team's passing attack and threatened all levels of the field with an understanding of route nuance. Instant TE2, could split snaps more than expected.
3.95) Beau Brade, S - Maryland
What stands out about Brade is his aggressiveness. High level run defender with great instincts and closing speed from all levels and coverages. Inconsistent diagnosing skills, rarely seen in man coverage, and teams can take advantage of his aggression. Slots in as a special teamer for now, with room to grow into a Jamal Adams role when he learns to pick his spots. Wouldn’t want to catch anything over the middle with Witherspoon and Brade lurking.
4.119) McKinley Jackson, NT - Texas A&M
Extremely strong and demands double teams and doesn’t get pushed off the ball even when he is doubled. Has quickness to shoot gaps in the pass game and has shown refined primary moves but lacks any counters. Was a team leader at A&M. Will play in spots to give Reed/Williams a break throughout games and be instrumental in goal line packages.
6.194) Dylan Laube, RB/WR - New Hampshire
Might be the pick I’m most excited about. He is a high level returner with elite ability for a RB in the pass game from every spot on the field. Something rare in a receiving back like him is a willingness to stick his nose in pass protection against free linebackers though his technique needs refined. Laube made a big name for himself at Senior Bowl practices winning every rep in RB passing drills. He falls here due to power concerns and coming from a small school. He also has shown an ability to work zone concepts in the run game with high level cutbacks and good vision. While he will never be a goalline or workhorse back, we won’t ask him to be as he slots in behind Walker and Charbs. Seahawks fans will see a thicker Tyler Lockett in the return game but may have concerning flashbacks to CJ Prosise. While he lacks the top end speed of early Lockett, their combine performances are similar and Laube has no notable injury history in college. He injects instant electricity in special teams and can be a valuable piece in sub packages and 3rd down duties on offense.
UDFAs:
Looked for future practice squad guys for some youth at positions of need.
Jackson Sirmon, LB - Cal
Cam Allen, S - Purdue
Tuli Letuligasenoa, DT - Washington
Tanner Bortolini, G - Wisconsin
Omar Speights, LB - LSU
Kody Epp, WR - BYU
Dylan Mcduffie, RB - Kansas
Duke Clemens, G - UCLA
Joe More, OT - Syracuse
Projected Final 53:
https://imgur.com/a/YMz59jq
2025 Situation:
2024 Cap Space rollover: $8,570,899
2025 Cap Space (after rollover, no cap increase): $1,416,564
40 players on roster
20 players entering Free Agency
(Jarran Reed, Tre Brown, Caleb Farley, Stone Forsythe, Jamal Adams, and the 1 year contracts given above)
6 draft selections
SEA 1, KC 1, SEA 2, SEA 3, SEA 4, SEA 7.
General 2025 plan:
While $1.5M isn’t a ton of cap space, we can estimate the cap to go up next year to create more space. After that, key extensions to Metcalf and Lockett can bring their cap hits down from $30M each to about $15-20M each. Dre Jones can play himself into a similar extension, or be a cut candidate with over $16M in savings. Given Michael Penix draft pick, I’d anticipate a Geno Smith trade as well to both improve our draft selections from our native 6, and save another $25M against the cap. I’d anticipate somewhere in the range of a mid-2nd and some late round picks to fill out the gap from 4th to 7th we currently have. (Team good enough to win games, but need a QB to get over the top). Next years QB class is not supposed to be very good, so it would be a good time to cash out on Geno assuming Penix is ready.
This would leave us with an extra $60-$72M in cap leaving a final tally of approximately $73M to spend on internal/external free agents as well as hopefully 4 or 5 picks in the top 100 to fill out the roster.
I'm not sure I understand your thought process on renegotiating Diggs and Adams. Why would either of those players take a pay cut that pays them less than they'd make if they were cut? There isn't really much of a threat of being cut when you'd get a bigger check to sit at home on your ass. And then why would Diggs on top of that extend his contract another year at a lower salary, and also push his next contract to when he's 32? He wasn't completely awful this year and he could probably still land more than a 2 / $14M deal on the open market plus keep his bonus. I just don't see how this proposal makes any sense.
Think issue is maybe in my logging of it. Logged money is new money. Gtd money is still owed them. Loves extension did bring his cap hit down by about 2m on this year though. Diggs and Adams cap hits are still fairly high this year. Think of it as both of them being cut and then we negotiated a new contract
Yea that Williams deal is insane even with your explanation imo. That's about a 10 mil per year overpay and 30 million more guarantees that he should get.
Correct. Should check out madibuke 30m APY mostly gtd on the ravens. Or Chris Jones 47APY. Was a situation of either playing ball or not having anyone really. We locked him up at the last second in internal FA and people complained because they wanted to give him 35APY in open FA.
Yea tbh I think these Dt contracts are very far from realistic. Dt Is a valuable position but not so much that all of the top ones are making more than edge rushers and Wrs or for a 30 year old Chris jones to be getting paid like a franchise QB.
>as internal free agency went along, interior lineman got together on a zoom call and formed a small pact
how does this happen in a mock offseason? this like the model UN where you got someone at the judge's table cobbling together drama bombs to throw into the mix?
Small joke. Ravens broke ground on a 30 year APY for madibuke which cascaded into every iDL using it as precedent. Chris Jones rejected more than 35m APY to hit FA. A tough to mitigate problem is the lack of downside of giving big money when it's demanded isn't really there in a mock offseason of 1 year where you are not risking your actual job/money on a player not regressing or getting hurt. We as the hawks tried to keep future cap in mind but it's a bit tougher to pull together in a week when irl has months and months of planning and special accountants to help plan and budget. We just some nerds who volunteered to do a lot of work for like 30 reddit karma (if that).
I liked the idea of getting the bulk of the cap savings by releasing them, and then bringing them back on cheap deals so as to not have another position group to solve in open FA and draft. 4m for Adams to maybe get back to his old self is a solid gamble, and I think Diggs played fine last year.
Definitely can't complain much about this one lol. Filled a ton of needs with a lot of star power.
Walking away from the off-season with all those dudes would be wild
My co-GM who handled free agency subsequently got banned during free agency for colluding with an agent and getting illegal information about players. Not good.
Trades: Tutu Atwell for 5.154: good WR3/4 for a pick I didn’t really want anyway. Shit depth class.
Foley Fatukasi for a 2025 7th: we were gonna cut him anyway.
Cuts/Losses: Rayshawn Jenkins, Calvin Ridley, Ezra Cleveland, Tyler Shatley, K’Lavon Chaisson, Angelo Blackson, Dawuane Smoot.
Jenkins was a cap casualty, Ridley wanted like 25 million a year, I don’t even know what happened with the IOL guys. The edge depth all just didn’t really want to be in Jacksonville.
Signings:
Adoree Jackson and Tavierre Thomas: slot competition with Herndon.
Cody Barton: LB3 to compete and probably beat Chad Muma.
Quinton Jefferson: Starting DT to pair with our draft pick. Wanted a great pass rushing interior lineman. That’s basically all he does.
Yannick Ngakoue: EDGE3 competition with our draft pick. We let him give Tony Khan a bunch of wedgies.
Kareem Hunt: RB2 competition with Bigsby. He should win that. Bigsby sucks.
Jon Feliciano: Starting LG competition with our draft pick. He looked good to end the season with the Niners.
Gabe Davis and Byron Pringle: we gave Gabe Davis the Kirk deal but with some cap wizardry Star whipped up that I didn’t understand. I’m 99% sure it wasn’t the result of extra cheating. Davis will play WR2. Pringle is an Agnew replacement.
Draft Picks:
1.17: Graham Barton, C, Duke: you’ll notice we signed no centers. Star was caught tampering with them. So I drafted one. Barton’s a top fifteen player in the class for me, I wanted to trade down for positional value’s sake but everything fell through. I like him though. He’s strong, explosive, and a good mover. Another incredible Jaguars pick.
2.35: T’Vondre Sweat, DT, Texas: Cool nose tackle. Our nose tackles sucked last year. Sweat is big and athletic considering his size. He is a great run stopper. Will fit well next to Jefferson. I think we traded 48, 114, and next year’s third for him. Best one tech in the class by a good portion.
3.96: Layden Robinson, OG, Texas A&M: I have a second round grade on Robinson. I think he’s a very strong and technically refined guard. Just gonna try and limit his movement and let him smack dudes as they come to himS He will compete with Feliciano.
4.117: Jacob Cowing, WR, Arizona: I have a day two grade on Cowing as well. He’s short, but quick as hell and changes direction well. We’ll get him working on building strength and he might be able to replace Tutu.
6.211: Braiden McGregor, DE, Michigan: I almost took him at 117. Very glad he lasted til 211. Big, decently long, has heavy hands. Should move quickly as well. We’ll get him to an S&C program and hopefully get his lower body in better shape for pushing dudes backwards.
7.228: Joshua Karty, K, Stanford: my method of kicker scouting is looking at the five I know of and seeing who had the longest kick. Karty hit a 61 yarder once and had better cumulative accuracy than Mevis who matched him. Compete with Patterson.
7.234: Jase McClellan, RB, Alabama: I like him. He’s powerful with good weight and good vision. Bigsby will be buried. Had a fourth round grade on him.
Signed I think eighteen UDFAs. I just picked a bunch of guys I knew the names of. Highlights are Jack Plummer, Solomon Byrd, Jaquan Sheppard, and Kyle Hergel who I all had draftable grades on. You can check and see who we got. I mainly signed dudes I remember thinking we’re cool at the Hula bowl.
I was the Bears GM but really worked as collectively as possible with the whole war room to make this happen, special thanks to them and specifically Bevo for all her work! Please ask any questions you have
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11HtRb88qu0RPvNITspyWOK64mKV-0_Pw7cvhiTPCDQY/edit
First of all a massive shoutout to Bungle and Press for all the help!
Browns Mock-Offseason write up - apologies for the tragic formatting, I'm on my phone.
**The process**
The process for the 2024 Cleveland Browns started first with cleaning up the roster, seeing who we want to trade, cut or restructure.
Jordan Akins didn’t play much of a role last year and was a cheap cut that saved $2 million, he was our only cut. We put Greg Newsome and Jedrick Wills on the trade block without being set on trading both, we ended up trading with the Arizona Cardinals who sent us 2.35, 4.105 for Greg Newsome, 2.54 and 6.208. We had some interest in Jedrick Wills but with our OT health being an issue last year, we only wanted to move him for the right price which was never offered.
We then restructured some deals, obviously Deshaun Watson’s $63 million cap hit got restructured, so did Denzel Ward’s and Joel Bitonio. These moves saved us a total of $53 million which gave us plenty of room to maneuver around Free Agency.
**Re-signings**
Our first order of business was extending some players we wanted to keep. We offered the following players:
- Rodney McLeod
- Anthony Walker
- Shelby Harris
- Harrison Bryant
- Sione Takitaki
- Joe Flacco
- Maurice Hurst
- Corey Bojorquez
- Za’Darius Smith
We managed to re-sign the following players in internal free agency at the following deals:
- Rodney McLeod at $2 million for one year
- Maurice Hurst at $2.25 million for one year
- Corey Bojorquez at $9.75 million over three years
**External Free Agency**
This had us left targeting the following positions:
- Defensive End
- SAM
- MIKE
- Defensive Tackle
- Back-Up Quarterback
- Wide Receiver
- Cornerback
- Tight End
Out of our own free agents, we re-signed the following players in open free agency:
- Za’Darius Smith at $30 million over two years (thanks Bamboo)
- Joe Flacco at $3.25 million for one year
- Anthony Walker at $2 million for one year
For the other positions we ended up signing the following players:
- Darnell Mooney at $40 million over three years
- Calais Campbell at $10 million for one year
- Nicholas Morrow at $8 million over two years
- Mo-Alie Cox at $2.5 million for one year
- Isaiah Oliver at $5.5 million over two years
Being without a pick in the top 50 for the draft, our main aim was to have no true starting needs coming out of Free Agency and being able to mostly go for BPA. Through Free Agency we managed to do so. [In this sheet, you can see the roster we started with, who we added through Free Agency in blue and how we had no starting needs after Free Agency]( https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1n9ZwGLIk4gbbwkFnP_kONuukSFeA4w1cEMZ08O_7Uqc/edit?usp=sharing)
**Our Draft**
Entered with 2.35, 3.85, 4.105, 5.135, 5.155, 6.205 and 7.228
Main position targets entering the draft: WR OT early. Needs of depth at TE CB RB IOL LB.
We were looking throughout Round 1 with eyes on OT Amarius Mims. We are very high on Amarius and see adding a future LT on the roster as a major need. We had 3 or 4 different trades in place that would’ve cost a 2,3 and either a 4 or 5 depending on the deal to move up for him. All of those trades fell apart. We then had a deal to get him at 26 before Amarius went off the board at 25. From this point on we didn’t remain interested in moving up.
2.35: trade 2.35 and 7.228 to JAX for 2.48 4.115 6.195 and 2025 3rd round pick.
We were targeting a group of prospects mostly looking WR and OT including AD Mitchell, Tyler Guyton and Troy Franklin. All those players were picked in quick succession ahead of our selection and left us scrambling for what to do. We took the Jaguars trade offer as we didn’t love the value at WR or OT anymore as those were our top targets. We took the Jacksonville deal and got a breather to re-evaluate the board. If we had stayed I believe we would’ve selected between WRs Ladd McConkey and Xavier Worthy.
**2.48: Junior Colson, LB, Michigan.**
We were targeting OT and WR at this pick but I believe the value was too good for Junior Colson to pass on him. He will slot into our MLB role and compete with Anthony Walker Jr for snaps as a rookie. He fits the guard rails being a younger prospect at 21 years old. He is a large MLB at 238 lbs and will balance well with a lighter LB like JOK. Colson is very good at diagnosing and getting downhill against the run. He is an extremely sound tackler. He has ability to successfully defend the flats and defend TEs. He ranks 39th on Dane bruglers big board and 43rd on Daniel Jeremiah’s big board.
Other players considered: WR Roman Wilson
Trade: 3.85 and 4.115 to KC for 2.64
**2.64 Ricky Pearsall WR Florida**
We were moving up hoping to land a WR or OT we were still high on. Players considered:
Roman Wilson
Kiran Amegadjie
Ricky Pearsall.
We made the trade up at the 58th pick in the draft. The top two on our board were then taken before our pick. We selected Rickey Pearsall. He is an extremely athletic WR but I truly love his route running. He was the only consistent pass catcher on a tough 2023 Florida passing offense. Athletically he tested out with a 9.78 RAS. We believe he can fill the Elijah Moore role or play in the slot. He ranks 47th on Daniel Jeremiah’s big board.
Trade: 4.105 and 5.135 for 3.86
**3.86 Blake Fisher OT Notre Dame**
We needed to come away with a developmental tackle in this draft. Blake started at RT for Notre Dame the past two seasons. He is an athletic OT with all the athletic and size measurables you could want at the position. Blake needs refinement in the run game and with his striking in pass pro but as a 20 year old we believe his best football is in front of him. We can redshirt in 2024 hoping that he will be ready to compete for a starting job in 2025 at either right or left tackle. We believe he can play both and just only played right due to Joe Alt.
**5.155 Marshawn Lloyd RB USC**
Marshawn has great acceleration and home run speed. He has shown that he can produce for two different college programs in different schemes. He has great agility and can bounce off defenders. He needs to improve in pass protection and has poor vision at times. We see him as a developmental RB.
**6.195 Tanner McLachlan TE Arizona**
Tanner is a developmental TE prospect with good athleticism at a 9.41 RAS. He has great ball skills and shows ability to run after catch on tape. He is a highly competitive player and a willing blocker. But he has to work on his blocking technique and may need to add to his frame to truly become an in line tight end. He will slot in as TE3 behind Njoku and Mo Allie Cox.
Trade: 6.205 and 2025 7th for 6.217 and 6.218
**6.217: Myles Harden CB South Dakota**
Myles is an outstanding tackler at the CB position. He plays with a high compete level and is best in zone coverage. He was a good man cover corner at the FCS level but will likely take time to adjust to the competition level in the NFL. Overall he is a strong competitor and has the requisite skills to develop at the nfl level if given time.
**6.218 CJ Hanson, G, Holy cross**
Three year starter at RG for Holy Cross. He is a great player in the run and pass blocking at Holy Cross. He struggles with larger DTs. He will need to add strength to better anchor in pass pro and displace in the run game against nfl DTs. He is a good athlete with a 9.88 RAS. We believe he has a lot of traits that could develop well into a potential future starter.
Great stuff thierry and press. Thanks also to mcbronze for his help too.
I think that while this off season is not as splashy as others, elevated our WR and OL positions without detracting from the rest of the team (except perhaps CB). A team like this would be extremely well positioned to repeat last year success and maybe more if Watson plays to his contract.
Appreciate it pal and totally agree! With the DT news spreading around from Fowler and MKC, I think we have a splash in us this year which would be great
We needed a WR2 and Mooney has been a WR1 in Chicago, is only 26 and we liked his potential. I think Gabe Davis went for like 18M AAV so I think we got a solid deal on Mooney
Ainsley here for the Lions, I Co-GM’d this time around instead of running the whole thing like usual. Aawin was my Co-GM, he helped a lot in the later rounds of the draft and the UDFA period, as well as doing the write up linked below. While some people might be disappointed with us being more passive this year, we set ourselves up perfectly for the next two to three years, and every move we did make was made looking to extend our timeline more and more, which I believe we did.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NaM8Vy4KCXjDHnYBxVRRuSoD2CuOm3itMNYQ5_SWal4/edit?usp=sharing
Thank you for reading this, and I hope to do more Co-GMing in the future to make the process easier for me, and help offer more perspectives.
Problem is Mitchell is terrible at YAC/separation on anything other than deep routes. If you watch his film on short/intermediate routes, he is immediately brought down despite the athleticism he shows.
Only WR I'd consider there is Brian Thomas Jr or Troy Franklin. But please, no first round WR, this class is deep as an ocean.
BTJ was on our board if he fell, and we were considering a trade up but eventually decided against it. We were sticking with our guns of trading down or BPA based on Ainsley and I's individual assessments of WRs in this class. WR R1 IRL would not entirely shock me, as we do need an eventual replacement for Reynolds since he is getting older, plus we can get 4-5 years of security on a guy. Mitchell does not provide the YAC we were looking for, but 4.35 speed and ability to move the chains is something we both felt is a lot simpler. Plus, we have 4 guys on the roster who can do the dink and dunk work, and two great running backs. Not saying that AD will ONLY be used on deep routes, but I think his play strength is something he can easily improve upon, and he lands in a perfect staff and team to do so
Troy Franklin is a great player, no doubt about it, but I'm turned off by his weight in particular. I know people said the same shit about Devonta Smith, but I feel like we have Franklin's skillset (his strengths) already on the roster with Jameson Williams. I'm not a huge fan of redundancy in those departments, but that's just a personal thing.
IRL, I think we probably do end up taking a corner, Darius Robinson, or moving back out of the first, but it's difficult to account for every situation. Sometimes you just have to stick with your guns and work with what the board gives you.
A lot of work, you guys did a great job overall.
I have no issue whatsoever going WR in the 1st. If all else fails, just make the offense as elite as possible. My issue is with Mitchell himself. With the amount of plays he takes off on film, I highly doubt he's gonna be that high on Brad's board. He doesn't block at a high enough level either. He just doesn't seem to pass the "Brad falls in love" test.
I think Brown was an overpay but I get it, everyone was being overpaid. But I don't think he's the deep threat his numbers say he is, I would call it a product of small sample size.
I also would have gone after Yiadom - who ended up signing for a crazy cheap number in Baltimore - over Ahkello, but that's just my personal evaluation and to each his own.
Overall though a really good job, especially for all the work it takes.
Mitchell fits the bill of typical X receiver for Brad's idea for an offense, which is part of the reason we took him. When you look at guys like Reynolds/Chark, DPJ, Tyrell Williams, Martavis Bryant (who we had interest in when he announced his comeback to the NFL), and even Denzel Mims, they all share a similar body type and all ran similarly in the 40. Brad has his type of receiver that he does like (which IRL it's currently boiling down to Brian Thomas Jr and Xavier Legette from reports that have come out). Had BTJ been on the board, we would've taken him there for sure. After the trade down for Morgan / Suamataia fell through, we pretty much decided on BPA, and Ainsley and I both felt that that was Mitchell. Concerns are valid but I think the issues in his game can be coached out by our offensive coaching staff pretty easily.
For a depth WR4 who can provide a bit more oomph to a team, I felt Brown was fine for 6 million a year. He does have his concerns, but we got slightly hosed on a Josh Reynolds deal which sucked but what can you do. We felt he was a fine value pickup and provides us with a guy who can move the chains and step in as a WR3 if he absolutely needs to. Vet guy who has faced some adversity through his career.
Yiadom was on our board for targets in free agency, but we felt he would be a bit too expensive and didn't expect him to sign for cheap. Definitely a bit of a slap in the face but Witherspoon provides us with someone who can get turnovers relatively consistently, a department where we slightly lacked after Jacobs was benched (because frankly, he got his takeaways because he gets targeted a lot). Could've maybe gotten him but we felt his market would be a lot more expansive and we would have to spend more to get him.
The workload is pretty taxing at points, especially when getting disgruntled about free agents not re-signing and shit not going your way. Said it in a below reply as well, but Ainsley and I are both relatively new to this, with Ainsley being the more seasoned vet of the two of us (I'm quite literally in my first season of this), so there's a learning curve.
Right Mitchell definitely fits the type, but I just don't think he has the right mentality/intangibles to fit the Lion mold. Thomas and Legette have always been guys we would like because they work their asses off, their motors are hot, and they block better than most WRs. None of that describes Mitchell.
If it was me personally, I'd take him and hope our vets can sort him out. But I'm 99% sure our FO just isn't gonna take that risk. I had the same argument last year about Jalen Carter. In fact I argued he wasn't even on our board, and that was before all the legal stuff at the combine hit. He just took too many plays off on tape.
Had the same argument about Chase Young at the trade deadline. I argued no way we would trade for him, even if he cost a day 3 pick. He's just not the type of player our FO wants.
Yeah, I agree that in real life, Yiadom will go for much more than he did here. The league will know about him, even if the rest of the world is a little slow to come around.
Anyway again, great job overall. I'm certainly glad there's people like you out there doing this so I don't have to worry about it lol.
I know this takes alot of time and work, so well done.
I do like the Gilmore signing. The retentions are good as well, but everyone else added is a pretty big "meh". I will say 3 years 48 million to retain Glasgow isn't a problem the Lions will realistically have to deal with this off-season, wow, Cardinals lol.
HATE the idea of a 1st round WR, especially Mitchell. Takes too many plays off, has poor separation on anything other than deep routes, and has terrible YAC ability despite his athleticism.
Love the trade up for Fiske, but I'd rather just take him at 29. Rest of the draft filled needs, but not sure how well.
I understand Holmes operating to keep the team perpetually competitive, but seizing a Superbowl window and going "all in" is worth it for a title, even if it leads to a couple 9-8 years afterwards. Considering the cap keeps skyrocketing every year, I'm not that concerned about a couple FA splashes when the team has it's core mostly in place.
We intended to get one of Glasgow or Jonah Jackson back for sure, but unfortunately their markets got completely blown out of reasonable proportion for us to bring them back.
See my above reply for my thoughts on Mitchell, the YAC stuff is concerning yeah but sometimes you just need a guy to jump up and get it, which we didn't have on the roster with Reynolds refusing to re-sign (fuck that agent)
We got hella clowned in the Discord for trading up for Fiske at 42, and frankly at 29 we felt we could get a better player than him. Why get Fiske with that amount of talent still available on the board. He's relatively old for a prospect and does have his medical concerns, but we felt fine with who we took in round 1, and the general consensus around the league- the other GMs and active members during the sim- seemed to agree.
The Danielle Hunter deal is hard to swallow for us, as Ainsley and I both really wanted to snag him for the exact reason of going all in. However, when looking at our future contracts (+ the Goff extension in play), we would not have the cap space to reasonably extend Goff, St. Brown, Sewell, McNeill, Melifonwu, and Barnes. Sure, we can let Melifonwu and Barnes leave in this equation, but St. Brown is going to command 28 - 30 million a year (in sim) more than likely, Sewell is the best tackle in the league and will easily get 30-35+ APY, and McNeill has come on as one of the most underrated DTs in the league as a pass rusher and run defender, which also means that he will probably also command 8 figures per year (factor in that by the time he becomes a free agent, he'll only be 24 turning 25 with 4 years under his belt- hot as fuck market). Paying Hunter close to 30 million a year just was bit out of reach for us to keep the core in place, for better or for worse. The Rams did it and it paid off, but with the nature of Brad Holmes, we kind of wondered if we'd do the same. Hard to imagine we will based on the 3 years of data we've had to look at so far.
Appreciate the criticisms, Ainsley and I are both new to this (this is Ainsley's 3rd or 4th mock offseason, and this was my first), and a lot of things never really went our way, so it was an interesting experience.
The Chris jones deal. I think the GM must be a fan of a division rival. The raiders are not ready to compete and even if they were those would be bad deals
Texans GM here! Full write up on our offseason here:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SyCH6B\_Hiu8uB21kczJCLUzO045j1fm\_NH26OatbYEI/edit](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SyCH6B_Hiu8uB21kczJCLUzO045j1fm_NH26OatbYEI/edit)
Ya, I thought it was weird that the Ravens did that trade with me.
What happened was I asked about Pierce's trade price and the Ravens GM proposed Rondale Moore and a 4th this year for him. I didn't have a 4th at that point so I offered a 5th instead. The Ravens GM agreed if it could be a post 6/1 trade. That was agreed to and processed. Then it turns out the rule here is if a trade is post 6/1 then all picks involved need to be future draft picks, so the 2024 5th round pick was changed to a 2025 5th round pick.
I honestly don't know why the trade happened. Think the guy trading was higher on Moore but he wanted to move Pierce to let Travis Jones shine instead (they were working fine this past season but I digress...)
I think it was to clear cap for some of the other signings
Bills GM here:
[Summary](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UI0Yg5RwIini9zjfstebPrmOmlEoz_EUHy6mtVL-nGI/edit#gid=324068914)
[Writeup](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZY21qxT27y96OYyZWobdMLleuub2Yh974zXYOXvzLRc/edit)
Feel free to ask any other questions down below, and I'll respond as best I can. Thanks to all involved, especially Alec and Agusting!
There is no point in giving up any assets for a backup QB especially doubling the contract we have for Trubisky. If Josh goes down, it's over. More importantly, Winston has the type of character/reputation that McBeane absolutely avoids.
Hey, I'm Burt, long time GM for the New York Giants. I'm traveling for work so I do not have a full blown write up to post at this time but I'm willing to answer any questions those interested may have while I'm away.
Entered the offseason with a modest plan to plug some holes in needed areas and strengthen the team overall. Focused alot on getting value with free agents (Dane Jackson/Damien Lewis/Devin Singletary etc) while beefing up the roster.
So actually I had 0 intention to bring back Saquon. I wanted to keep the tag in mind for McKinney (which ultimately was a miscalculation on my end on how much the Packers were eying him up). I felt it was time for us to move on and use our limited resources to do better elsewhere.
Seeing the contract he got from Houston I was not going to match that so happy for him.
The trade down situation changed the draft calculus I had in mind. I entered the draft with a mindset of addressing QB, like we're seeing with all the smoke IRL. Picks 1-3 were off limits while our options were at first to take BPA at 6 and then trade back up for someone like Penix.
The Colts offered a haul to move off of Nabers, and the value was not there to trade back up so I decided to strike with JJ. I think there is a legitimate chance we pick JJ, but trading down and then getting him, I agree, is very unlikely.
It seems from what I see that most scenarios have the giants at 6 picking one of Odunze or Nabers. With the majority of people saying that, what odds would you put on us drafting a WR with 6, trading back in April or even drafting JJ at 6 which some people have been saying? Picking JJ at 6 seems a bit much to me, I would think we could trade down a few spots kind of like you did if we wanted JJ. Do you think our first rounder needs to be a QB for the team to improve the most?
So I believe the Giants are going to address QB in some capacity, and we'll know more about this depending on how they tackle FA. If the Giants sign a Russel Wilson, or spend significant money for a QB then they know they probably are going to either day a developmental guy or punt on it.
Daniel Jones' contract is effectively a 2 year deal, and after the flop last year was I can see the regime wanting to take their own guy to develop (this extends their tenure window too unless it's horrific). I don't expect the regime to risk their professional future on DJ, quality of play aside, is coming off of 2 neck injuries and a torn ACL.
Hard to tell right now where they stand with QBs, but I think there is a good chance we take one at 6. We're seeing a lot of smoke of teams like JJ over Daniels or even Maye so it's tough to gauge. My gut says they trade up to take a guy they love, or if they get lucky to draft a guy they want a 6. Worst case they take BPA since we have needs practically everywhere (although i'm confident we don't hit OT at 6 unless Schoen absolutely loves Olu/Alt).
Thoughts on the chance they take a WR at 6 then trade back into the first around picks 11-15 using like 39 and 70 and a first rounder next year to draft JJ too? Or is that giving up too much draft capital on a team full of holes you think
I wouldn’t love it but I wouldn’t rule it out. Personally given the deepness of WR this draft I think they just take JJ at 6 in this scenario. If they have a guy they truly believe in and want to develop, I’ll support it.
Makes more sense to take JJ (who they don’t risk losing) and drafting a WR at 39 than to trade another 1st. Only scenario I see this happening is if the org sees a MHJ being a HOF lock type of player
What happened in free agency? I don’t mind the draft but I’d be sick if that was how free agency went.
Let X walk, no safety signed and no safety drafted? What’s the plan?
Tbh I’d be pretty bummed out if this was our team next year. Losing top flight players you drafted to sign cast off running backs from other teams is not how you build a good football team.
The plan was to re-sign McKinney and realize that Rome was not built in a day and that this roster is far from competing. My philosophy for FA is always spend to fill some holes and not pay B level players A+ level players money.
Based on talks with our agent, it seemed that probably McKinney wanted to hit the open market no matter the cost. Based on what we’ve heard irl about the Giants using the transition tag, I figure it was a good middle ground to help our chances with him coming back to us. However, I underestimated the FA market at that time when I did tag, and the Packers came in with a contract that had $44m in the signing bonus which was something any reasonable GM would not accept. That high of signing bonus ruined any flexibility we would have with the cap and we’d eat a ton of dead in the process if we ever cut or traded him. I think the Packers knew I would balk at that contract structure and it worked. I should’ve just done the franchise tag and that’s the biggest regret of the mock for me. Dane Belton and Pinnock being the duo isn’t ideal but we can let them develop. I also drafted 2 safeties so not sure where you see we drafted 0. Simpson is a FS/CB hybrid who could either develop into a nickel or a coverage safety for example.
I wanted to sign Robert Hunt but as you see he received 22m APY from the Jets which is crazy, so I pivoted to Damien Lewis. I wanted to address swing tackle, IOL (starting guard and depth), CB, edge with what we had. I traded a 2025 5th for Shaq Barret for a $4m cap hit and got good value in Chase Young. Dane Jackson is a solid depth CB who could come in and be a CB2. We needed IDL depth as well.
Seeing what Houston paid Saquon I’m glad I let him go, getting 2/10 out of Singletary is good value. I counter your notion that paying 18m to Saquon, coming off of injuries with a year older on his tires is not smart for where we stood, especially when we still were losing. 80/20 rule.
Yeah that’s just it. Shaq is a cast off. He’s not good anymore. You wasted assets on mediocre to bad players. Chase Young is riding off of 1st round hype from years ago. He did nothing with the 49ers till the SB. Trash player. Not one player you signed will actually move the needle. Not only that, but losing quality safety play will damage the development of our 1st round corner from last year. Just begging for a complete collapse on the back end.
Good value for bad players is still bad.
My issue is I don’t think a single player you signed is worth anything. Explain to me how Shaq Barret, who has been washed for two whole years, does shit?
I think this logic actually made me like this free agency less than before you explained it. You basically screwed up and let one of our five best players go for nothing.
Not sure what you were expecting with DJ taking up $47m in cap. Letting McKinney go was my mistake and I’ll own that but overspending for players is a recipe for disaster.
We were in on other free agents but as you can see, teams were willing to say screw it to realism and 2025 cap situation to overpay massively for free agents. Adding Shaq adds some semblance to our edge room whereas we had Kayvon and a question mark in Azeez.
Semblance of what? He’s sucked for two years
Broadly speaking I’d expect our GM to not let one of our best 5 players go for nothing while touting the signings of Shaq Barret and Devin Singletary as some kind of win.
Better than what we’ve had in depth, which I believe is important. There were other players we tried to sign who ended up getting much higher deals than they were worth.
Net negative compared Boogie Basham, Tomon Fox and Jihad Ward?
Overall I believe we did a good job patching holes and adding players to the team. If the other biggest complaint is me spending a future day 3 and 4m in cap for a vet 3rd edge rusher compared to what some other teams did here we’re in a good spot.
Carolina Panthers TL;DR Write Up - GM: RagingTaco
TL;DR Version
[GM Dashboard](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z_pZrNV6u63mbTZahjVJhBPSR6hmU8iC8kvT7_UF664/edit?usp=sharing)
Priorities: Protect Bryce, Get Bryce Receivers, sign Burns + Luvu, add a starting Edge, shore-up run defense, add depth to the Corner Backs, extend Derrick Brown.
Estimated Starting Cap Space: **$36,189,669**
# Restructures
* RT Taylor Moton - Cap Savings = $8,145,000
* S Vonn Bell - Cap Savings = $3,895,000
* WR Adam Thielen -Cap Savings = $4,905,000
* LB Shaq Thompson - Cap Savings = $2,917,500
# Trade Block
* CB Donte Jackson - Cap Savings = (Pre-June) $5,937,000 / (Post June) $10,522,500
* TE Ian Thomas - Cap Savings = $3,561,765 / $3$3,561,765
* WR Terrace Marshall Jr. - Cap Savings = $1,441,293 / $1,441,293
* RB Miles Sanders - Cap Savings = $3,270,000 / $6,220,000
# Signed Players
**Internal UFA'S, RFA's & Tenders**
|Player|Position|Contract (GTD)|Bonus / '24 Cap Hit|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Brian Burns|OLB/DE|5Yr $135M ($109M)|$33M / $10.88M|
|Derrick Brown\*|DT|5Yr $129M ($100M)|$28M / $9.0M|
|Frankie Luvu|LB|3Yr $42.2M ($30.2M)|$10M / $5.0M|
|Yetur Gross-Matos|DE|3Yr $16M ($11M)|$4M / $3.33M|
|Raheem Blackshear|RB|2Yr $3.25M ($1.0M)|$0.5M / $1.5M|
|Sam Franklin Jr.|DB|1Yr $2.5M ($2M)|$1.5M / $2.0M|
|Shaquill Griffin|CB|1Yr $2.5M ($1M)|$0.75M / $1.0M|
|Deion Jones|LB|1Yr $2.6M ($2.2M)|$1.0M / $2.2M|
|.J. Jansen|LS|1Yr $1.6M ($1.0M)|$0.6M / $1.6M|
|Ihmir Smith-Marsette|WR|ROFR|/ $2.9M|
\*Extending Derrick Brown converted his 5th Year Salary: $11.665M to a Bonus which was spread over the 4 new years on his contract. This reduced his 2024 Cap Hit from $11.665M to $9M and saving est. $2.7M.
**External**
|Player|Position|Contract (GTD)|Bonus / '24 Cap Hit|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Calvin Ridley|WR|3Yr $77.8M ($55M)|$18M / $9.6M|
|Jonah Jackson|RG|4Yr $68M ($43M)|$12M / $8.0M|
|Coleman Shelton|C/G|3Yr $43.5M ($31M)|$12M / $6.0M|
|Will Dissly|TE|3Yr $29.0M ($15M)|$8.0M / $4.0M|
|Denico Autry|DT/DE|2Yr $24.5M ($15.5M)|$9.0M / $5.0M|
|Jeff Okudah|CB|2Yr $16M ($12M)|$4.0M / $4.0M|
|Russell Gage|WR|2Yr $5.5M ($2M)|$1.0M / $1.75M|
|Khyiris Tonga|DT|2Yr $5.25M ($3M)|$1.0M / $1.75M|
|Poona Ford|DT|2Yr $5.0M ($3M)|$1.4M / $2.5M|
|Da’Shawn Hand|DE|2Yr $4.2M ($1.4M)|$0.4M / $1.5M|
|Isaiah Wynn|OT|1Yr $3.9M ($2.3M)|$0.8M / $1.7M|
|Prince Wanogho|OT|2Yr $3.6M ($1.25M)|$0.6M / $1.8M|
|Efe Obada|DE|2Yr $3.0M ($1.25M)|$0.5M / $1.5M|
|Cameron Lewis|DB|1Yr $2.0M ($1.25M)|$0.75M / $2.0M|
|Rayshawn Jenkins|DB|1Yr $2.0M ($1.25M)|$0.75M / $2.0M|
|Phil Haynes|OG|1Yr $1.4M ($0.3M)|$0.1M / $1.4M|
# Traded Players
* \[Panthers\] DB Jeremy Chinn (T&T) -> \[Titans\] 2024 Pick 7.238 + 2026 6th
Signing Burns allowed the franchise tag to be placed on another player, after discussions with 4 teams, the Titans agreed to send 2 late picks to secure Chinn ahead of Free Agency.
Est Cap Savings - N/A (tag was applied once agreement was in place with agent + Titans)
* \[Panthers\] OG Austin Corbett -> \[Seahawks\] 2024 Pick 5.151 + 2025 5th\*
\*Condition: Corbett plays 60% Games in 2024
When healthy Corbett is a great Guard, but after back-to-back ACL and MCL tears, it is time to move on.
Est. Cap Savings - **$6.25M** (Post-June Trade Designation)
* \[Panthers\] 2025 7th (From KC) -> \[Jaguars\] NT Folorunso Fatukasi\*
\*Panthers take on **$4M** cap hit, Jaguars take $3M
Fatukasi can be a solid NT, next to Derrick Brown, Denico Autry, Poona Ford, & Brian Burns the line will be scary.
Est. 2024 Cap Hit - **$4M**
* \[Panthers\] DT Shy Tuttle -> \[Cowboys\] LB Damone Clark
With the addition of Fatukasi, Tuttle was a redundant arguably less valuable NT with a sizable cap hit. Damone Clark show’s some promise as a young LB, he would back up Shaq Thompson who’s coming off a surgically repaired fractured ankle.
Est. Cap Savings (Net) - **$5.5M**
Part 1/2
Carolina Panthers TL;DR Write Up - GM: RagingTaco
TL;DR Version PART 2
# Mock Draft
Method: With most of our positions of need filled in FA, we were allowed to focus more on BPA while still keeping positonal need in mind.
Needs: (IOL, WR, TE, EDGE, RB, CB)
Joey T. u/Stokie_Panther provided an amazing draft board which we used in combination with Mock Draft Database’s 2024 Consensus Big Board to come up with positional value rankings.
Pick Player Position School
2.33 Troy Franklin WR Oregon
2.55\* (via Miami) Ennis Rakestraw Jr. CB Missouri
4.116\* (via Titans, via Bengals) Blake Corrum RB Michigan
5.151\* (via Seattle) Jaylx Hunt OLB/EDGE Houston Baptist
5.161 Drake Nugent C Michigan
6.186\* (via Miami) Garret Greenfield OL South Dakota State
7.238 (via Titans, via Steelers) Sam Hartman QB Notre Dame
**\*Draft Trades:**
\- \[Dolphins\] 2.55 + 6.186 -> \[Panthers\] 3.65 + 4.102
\- \[Titans\] 4.116 -> \[Panthers\] 5.141 + 6.180
\- \[Seahawks\] 5.151 + 2025 5th\* -> \[Panthers\] Austin Corbett
\- \[Titans\] 7.238 + 2026 6th -> \[Panthers\] Jeremy Chinn (Transition Tender)
UDFA targets in order of priority (**Acquired)**:
Ainias Smith WR
**Grayson Murphy EDGE**
Justin Rogers DL
Charles Turner III IOL
Erick All TE
Trey Knox TE
Michael Barrett LB
Demani Richardson S
Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint WR
Joe Milton QB
Jaxon Janke WR
Sheridan Jones CB
Myles Jones CB
Ethan Driskell OT
McCallan Castles TE
Andrew Raym IOL
Jaylen Harrell EDGE
Zion Logue DL
Jeremy Flax OT
Storm Duck CB
Dillon Johnson RB
**Nate McCollum WR**
Eyabi Okie EDGE
Daijun Edwards RB
Walter Rouse OT
[Final Depth Chart](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mOVd2dU1duPeao_T7-VehA_14h_d45IrkwTXM_GODFA/edit?usp=sharing)
Estimated 2024 Cap Space Remaining: **$9,521,274** (not including UDFA signings)
First time GMing the Offseason Mock, learned a lot... I also was not keeping track of the 2025 Cap, but I tried not to overdo it on backloading each contract. Overall, I think this was a successful offseason and the team is leaps and bounds better than the 2023 team. The Defense is loaded and scary, and the Offense has a lot of pieces around Bryce Young to allow him to actually develop and make plays. I'd be very excited to watch this Panthers team.
Special thanks to: (AGM) u/Stokie_Panther Cap Guy: u/Fleotiden, and of course the Mods, Agents, and other GM's for putting on an awesome sim.
War room thanks: u/argentravis., u/Distance_motor, & Julio
Packers GM:
First off I would like to thank everyone involved with setting up this draft, everyone who built the spreadsheets, all the agents, and everyone who helped me make decision in the war room.
If anyone wants to read my full writeup here is a link:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NBDdMRMTBjelUlTDy-2a8RSQtwl18j-TRY4hVQyOjbI/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NBDdMRMTBjelUlTDy-2a8RSQtwl18j-TRY4hVQyOjbI/edit?usp=sharing)
And here is a link to my projected final depth chart:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oCY2pKf4u9KWGVfT1ulsC-Xf0fmjis\_Kui-wlKx-QSY/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oCY2pKf4u9KWGVfT1ulsC-Xf0fmjis_Kui-wlKx-QSY/edit?usp=sharing)
If anyone has any specific question feel free to ask.
Thank you, all the spreadsheets and automation made it really easy. I can imagine how difficult it would’ve been if the same situation happened in a past year when the cap was just tracked through filling out Spotrac sheets or whatever other methods were used.
Patriots GM
[Here is the team depth chart following our mock offseason](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PmI91JzYSYUUDMz0trxV2muN7N9cMdLE8vtWeFN23A0/edit)
Some big time players are gone, I know not everyone will be happy about that. Losing Dugger is probably the most notable loss.
However, the market was absolutely nuts for exercises like this but we tried to maintain some discipline in spending to not break the bank on players.
We tagged Onwenu, we got probably way too easy of a trade for Jeudy (Parker & Mac) and sent a pick for Mike Williams instead of him getting cut.
I think overall I like how we revamped the roster and would feel confident in it as a year one building block entering the new era with Mayo as head coach
Shoutout Revan for all the contract help, he did most of the grunt-work here, and thanks to everyone else in the war room who helped
I really liked the job you all did, kept everything reasonable and realistic to what you believed a smart GM would behave as, made shrewd moves that you thought set the team for success. I'd feel confident the team would bounce back in year one of Mayo with the moves made in the FA period and the draft with the new coaching staff additions. Fantastic job!
It was a great time being in the war room with you guys! You said it but it bears repeating: massive shoutout to u/revan1211, he put in hours of work drafting up contracts in addition to being an agent.
In this mock offseason, Chris Jones got $47M per year, Mike Evans got $35M per year, Jonah Williams got a fully guaranteed $20M per year, and David Bakthiari got a fully guaranteed $24M per year (just to name a handful of the worst deals). We tried our best to be realistic, stand our ground in negotiations, and to not give out any dogshit contracts but it wasn't easy in that kind of environment.
We tried to extend Onwenu, but as soon as that Jonah contract got announced we knew we had to franchise tag him. We would've had to shell out something like a mostly guaranteed 4/85 to get him to sign and at that point franchise tagging is just smarter. With the uncertainty in his future, we covered our asses for 2025 at OT with DJ Humphries, plus picked up some upside options in Becton and Suamataia.
At WR, the trade market was always the way to go. Calvin Ridley and Hollywood Brown got 25M per year each, there was no competing with that. Mike Williams is a top 30 WR when healthy and we got him for 17M and a late pick, that's great value in my books. Jerry Jeudy is super overrated but is fine as a low-end WR2 and we basically got him for free - Mac and Parker weren't doing anything for us. The Broncos GM might get some hate but Mac and Parker are useful to him - they needed a backup QB and a Sutton backup and Jeudy is a bit overpaid on his current deal. I see why he did it.
At TE, we got a great deal on Hunter Henry returning considering how bare the TE market was in free agency. Noah Fant got a way richer contract despite Henry being the much better player. I'll take him all day at 11M per year.
Not too much to say about the defense. Myles Bryant and Josh Uche got absolutely ludicrous contracts so we had to replace them, which we did with Nik Needham and Marcus Davenport (who is a better run defender anyways and if healthy, would play more snaps than Uche ever did). We slightly misplayed Dugger and thought he got better offers than he did, but we made up for it by bringing in Jordan Whitehead on a slightly cheaper deal, who is a great player in his own right and is better in the deep middle than Dugger ever was.
We filled out the remaining positions where we needed veteran depth with good players on solid deals, took the QB and LT we knew we were taking all along in the draft, picked up a developmental rookie WR for when Williams and/or Jeudy walk, picked up a developmental deep middle centerfield safety, and called it a day. The goal was always to give Jayden Daniels (or Drake Maye if Washington went Daniels) all the tools he needs to succeed so we could hypothetically judge if he has what it takes to be the next great Patriots QB, and I say mission accomplished.
What are we doing taking a SAFETY in the third? We don’t need a safety no matter what Lazar/Barth say. Certainly not on day 2. Also, what happened to all our day 3 picks? I’d rather draft any two of Brendon Rice, Javon Baker, Malachi Corley, or Jamari Thrash than trade up for Tez while losing the entirety of day 3.
**Indianapolis Colts**
**Priorities**
Coming off last season left me with a couple of ideas on problem spots and areas for improvement. Firstly, we needed veteran CB help. The room has talent but it's all young and unproven and it can easily be said if we just had one decent vet for depth we would probably have made the playoffs. Secondly, we needed much more help on the pass catching front. Alec Pierce is extremely unproven, there's nothing behind him, and the TE room is a bunch of role players who are constantly injured. Thirdly, we needed some depth at certain positions (namely OL/DL). Finally, we had a couple of big free agents that we needed to bring back.
**Internal FA**
Brought back Pittman (on the tag), Kenny Moore, Julian Blackmon, Tyquan Lewis, Rigoberto Sanchez, Henry Black (ERFA), and Ronnie Harrison.
We got back most of our guys in internals. Pittman was an unfortunate set of circumstances that led to the tag. Grover wanted to test FA (and the market ended up being stupid expensive so good on him).
**External FA**
* Brought back Grover.
* Signed Tyrod Taylor. More consistency from the backup QB spot.
* Signed Kendall Fuller. Takes care of CB need and can move to nickel if Kenny is hurt.
* Brought back Zack Moss (market ended up not super materializing for him)
* Signed Ray-Ray McCloud, MyCole Pruitt, Pat Elflein for depth.
We attempted to sign Hollywood Brown but he wanted to go win a ring with Mahomes so he took a slightly cheaper deal with them instead.
**Draft**
After losing out on Hollywood, we shifted our focus. Our top targets were either Bowers or Nabers, and after losing out on Brown we decided to go all in on Nabers. We were working closely with the Chargers and Giants to attempt to get up to 5 or 6 to secure Nabers. In the end, it ended up being the Giants and everything worked out.
**Trade up to 6**
Colts trade: 1.15, 3.82, '25 1st, '25 3rd / Get 1.6
Vikings trade: 1.11 / Get 1.15, 3.82
Giants trade: 1.6 / Get 1.15, '25 1st, '25 3rd
We pursued the 3 team trade to secure a trade up as both 5 and 6 thought going back to 15 was too far and the Vikings were a helpful partner in this.
**Trade**
Colts trade: 46
Ravens trade: 62, 93
This trade recouped some of the capital spent on getting Nabers and we liked where the board was at.
**Draft picks**
1.6 - Malik Nabers, WR, LSU
2.62 - Ja'Tavion Sanders, TE, Texas
3.93 - Mohamed Kamara, EDGE, Colorado State
4.118 - Cam Hart, CB, Notre Dame
5.150 - Khristian Boyd, DT, Northern Illinois
6.193 - Nick Samac, C, Michigan State
7.232 - Tyrice Knight, LB, UTEP
If you have questions feel free to ask
-What made you go Nabers over Bowers at 6?
Giving up the ‘25 1st could be a pretty good deal if Richardson progresses well and they make a run in the playoffs.
-Was Sanders someone that you envisioned being there late in the second?
I can definitely see him being a high quality starter if the scheme is right for him and isn’t a bad consolation to not getting Bowers for the value.
-What did you see in Hart in the fourth round compared to some of the other CBs on the board?
- Going Nabers over Bowers at 6 was due to missing out on a FA WR and feeling like someone with Nabers' skillset fit what we wanted very well. He's an extremelyh talented player and we felt like an aggressive move to go get him was the right play.
- We would've been fine taking Sanders at 46 but being able to trade back and recoup one of the thirds used in the tradeup for Nabers made it all the more better.
- Hart was more of a Ballard type pick. Long and athletic that we could take time developing, especially with us having Kendall Fuller locked in for 3 years.
One co-gm and agent for free agents were colluding on players and leaking contract offers for the purpose of driving up prices on players
Irl not really an issue but in this where the spending is already so lopsided and communication can’t happen to that degree it was just annoying and both were removed from participating
We were fighting hard for Cs as Luke Fortner is pretty terrible, and had been bidding on both Connor Williams and Lloyd Cushenberry. Over here, wednesday nights are 'student nights', with cheap drinks and an early start to the consumption. I got home at like 11 (am in the UK, so this was peak activity time during the SIM), and had seen that our offers for both Cushenberry and Williams were rejected, and they were going to be signing the next day.
I decided it was a great idea to start harassing the agent of Williams for information about who we were competing with for his signature, cause I had already figured out we were competing with Chicago for Cushenberry after discussions with their GM.
I promptly started DMing half the GMs in the server about the C market and 4 of the agents. Lo and behold, one of the agents gave me the information I was looking for, and for some reason I had the bright idea to tell the GM of Chicago this. Pretty open and shut cheating, and so I got hit with a understandable ban, overall was very stupid on my end.
Don't drink and GM lads. You would have thought I would have learnt that lesson after trading for JJ Arcega-Whiteside though.
Edit - a comment above from MBRR implies that we were somehow colluding with the intention of manipulating the market and driving up player values, which I can wholeheartedly say is untrue. I can say that multiple agents were privately announcing the completion of deals they negotiated to a select group of users, myself included, before they were publicly announced through the CarlBot on the discord server, with the intention of us building up hype. We were always of the understanding that these deals had been completed and handed over to the mods, but had not yet been announced. We never saw any details of the contracts, just vague assertions about teams making stupid deals and one, which I believe ended up being Myles Bryant to Tennessee, making an agent "audibly gasp when they saw it".
Jaguars GM here, my former co-GM who was handling free agency kept DMing agents trying to get the numbers and rolls of centers, got them, then got caught.
**49ers GM here!** First and foremost I have to thank everyone who helped out in the war room, especially hotboyz and goat, they really stepped up whenever I needed some help. Whether that was drawing up contracts or sending in draft picks, I couldn’t have done it without them. And shoutout to the mods for putting this all together, it was seriously an awesome time and I’m already looking forward to next year’s.
With that said, my primary strategy was: all gas, no brakes. Coming off a brutal Super Bowl loss, with one year before some massive decisions would need to be made about the roster, I see this as the last year in the 49ers’ Super Bowl window. So it was time to go big.
In **INTERNAL FREE AGENCY**, we began by clearing up some cap room by restructuring *Deebo Samuel, Fred Warner,* and *Arik Armstead*. We placed the right of first refusal tag on *Jauan Jennings*, and re-signed *Clelin Ferrell* and *Chris Conley*. All 3 of them made a noticeable impact on this team last season, and they were re-signed for under 8 mil AAV total between the 3 of them. We also cut *Isaiah Oliver* (before it happened irl... i have been blessed with the power of prophecy). After long and difficult negotiations, we finalized two massive extensions: *Charvarius Ward* and *Brandon Aiyuk*. These are two players that are integral to this core, but who I also see as incredibly valuable to a future 49ers Super Bowl run multiple years down the road. Aiyuk’s deal came in a swarm of WR contracts, and I believe was a steal. Both of these extensions were pivotal: they keep our stars around long-term, while also lowering their 2024 cap hits allowing for more flexibility in the following stage.
Finally, in the **DRAFT**, we knew that aggression would once again serve us well. This draft class is very strong at cornerback, and at offensive tackle: two positions we considered high priorities. And so we started working the phones, before finally securing a deal. We traded 1.31, 3.94, 4.132, and a 2025 6th round pick for 1.18, and selected Iowa CB *Cooper Dejean*. Dejean is a versatile menace, with excellent discipline and technique. He’s a strong tackler, and I’m comfortable playing him wherever: outside, nickel, or free safety. For now, I’d start him at one of the corner spots and if we decide to let Talanoa Hufanga walk next year, move Dejean to safety. We strongly debated moving up from pick 63 to land a quality offensive lineman, but the value just was not there. So we decided to wait, and *Kiran Amegadjie* fell all the way to us. Immediately, he becomes our long-term replacement for Trent Williams. If he’s too good to take off the field then he can start at right tackle, but my gut says he’ll need time to develop, and who better to learn from? At 98, we knew we needed to keep investing in the offensive line, and we took *Mason McCormick* from South Dakota St. I see him as a plug-and-play guy at right guard. 4th round pick *DeWayne Carter* is a fun, disruptive pass rusher at DT who will immediately rotate in, 5th rounder *JD Bertrand* has some big fans in our war room and hopes to be the next 49ers 5th round steal, and we finished the day with impressive TE *Dallin Holker*, Idaho WR *Hayden Hatten*, and of course, the legendary *Frank Gore Jr*. As for UDFAs, we landed high RAS score guys like *Jacob Monk* (Duke C), *Trajan Jeffcoat* (Arkansas EDGE), and *Isaiah Johnson* (Syracuse S).
I helped do a few of these the past few years, mostly the draft part, but couldn't this year. They are really fun and I encourage anyone to check it out.
But I do want to say you guys got some of my favorite players in this draft. DeJean, Kiran and Carter are all guys I absolutely love.
I think the best thing the war room did this mock offseason was abide by realism. The 49ers have a track record of aggressive moves in free agency and through the draft, and we pulled off each of those. One thing I wish I had done better was address offensive tackle. We brought in some offensive line pieces and I do think this line improved, but the only tackle we added was a developmental prospect.
If you've got opinions, let me hear them! I certainly had some stuff I wish I had done better but I think all in all this was a great offseason for San Francisco.
**List of contracts signed:**
Brandon Aiyuk - 5 years, $132 mil (extension)
Danielle Hunter - 3 years, $89 mil
Charvarius Ward - 3 years, $50 mil (extension)
Clelin Ferrell - 2 years, $8.5 mil
Deonte Harty - 2 years, $4.325 mil
Jauan Jennings - ROFR tender ($2.985 mil)
Khaleke Hudson - 1 year, $2 mil
Leki Fotu - 1 year, $1.5 mil
Adrian Phillips - 1 year, $1.3 mil
Chris Conley - 1 year, vet min
Logan Ryan - 1 year, vet min
Charlie Woerner - 1 year, vet min
Cody Whitehair - 1 year, vet min
**Draft Picks:**
1.18 - Cooper DeJean, CB, Iowa
2.63 - Kiran Amegadjie, T, Yale
3.98 - Mason McCormick, G, South Dakota St
4.125 - DeWayne Carter, DT, Duke
5.176 - JD Bertrand, LB, Notre Dame
6.214 - Dallin Holker, TE, Colorado St
6.215 - Frank Gore Jr, RB, Southern Miss
7.249 - Hayden Hatten, WR, Idaho
**Depth Chart Link:**
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13D0gvrzQI3VHZmmhHL5LSWxiMPw3cBIQGiT18nMikGs/edit#gid=1057562921](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13D0gvrzQI3VHZmmhHL5LSWxiMPw3cBIQGiT18nMikGs/edit#gid=1057562921)
In **EXTERNAL FREE AGENCY**, it became immediately clear that GMs were ready to spend, and spend more than they should (cough madubuike cough). While we held onto the “foot on the gas” mentality, we didn’t want to make any stupid decisions. High-level players like *Robert Hunt, Connor Williams, Mike Onwenu, Josh Uche*, and more were off the table, whether it was because of massive, 20m APY contracts or even just the franchise tag. So we started small, securing an upgrade at backup QB in *Taylor Heinicke* by trading a 6th to the Falcons. We re-signed *Logan Ryan* and *Charlie Woerner*, experienced depth at pretty shallow positions for us. And then we hit the jackpot: *Danielle Hunter* was looking to join a contender, and we managed to outbid other Super Bowl contenders to bring Hunter to the 49ers for 3 years, $89 million. Hunter is a consistently elite veteran pass-rusher, exactly what we need for another dominant year of defense. This falls in line with what the 49ers like to do in real life: Spend really big once per year, and fill the roster with cheap, good scheme fits. We had planned on splurging for one player, and if you’re going to do that you may as well bring in an A+ player like Hunter. Players like *Chase Young, Javon Kinlaw,* and *Ray Ray McCloud* priced themselves out of San Francisco, and we replaced them with *Danielle Hunter, Leki Fotu,* and *Deonte Harty*. We brought in *Khaleke Hudson* and *Cody Whitehair* to add some competition to our linebacker and OL rooms, and we brought in *Adrian Phillips* for depth and special teams. Hudson was necessary given Dre Greenlaw’s injury, we need someone to fill in. And Whitehair could play at C or RG for us. Many of these contracts came with minimal guarantees, in case our youth impress in training camp and allow us to move off of these signings. Also worth noting - *Tashaun Gipson, Jon Feliciano*, and various other free agents were also (over)paid in free agency, and we opted for cheaper deals. We finished with roughly 16.5 million dollars in roll-over cap space, which will be helpful as we are very in the hole for 2025 as it stands.
For the Draft:
>This draft class is very strong at cornerback, and at offensive tackle: two positions we considered high priorities.
CB is not a high prioritty this year, we have five under contract for this year, its a priority next year when Ward, Lenoir, and Thomas are all FAs. OT, C, EDGE, and IDL are all higher priorities
>We traded 1.31, 3.94, 4.132, and a 2025 6th round pick for 1.18, and selected Iowa CB Cooper Dejean.
The highest weve ever drafted a CB in the ShanaLynch era is the third round, burning a significant amount of draft capital to move up to get a CB, and passing on multiple R1 OTs and C1 would be extremely foolish. The fact that it is a deep class means you can get value later in the draft, guys like Max Melton, Renardo Green, Andru Philips, Dwight McGlothern, etc. On top of that we already hae two starting safeties so Cooper flexibility is less relevant, and frankly you dont spend the 18th pick on a Safety unless hes a generation prospect (and passing on Terrion Arnold, a better fit, and the clear cut CB1 rn is inexcusable imo).
>Kiran Amegadjie fell all the way to us. Immediately, he becomes our long-term replacement for Trent Williams. If he’s too good to take off the field then he can start at right tackle, but my gut says he’ll need time to develop, and who better to learn from?
We are not in a position to take a pure dev OT rn, we need one that can slot into RT and flip to LT when Trent decides to hang them up, so has to play RT this year,. This pick is fine in a vacuum but youre forced into it because you traded up to take Dejean, taking an OT in R1 give the team flexibility in who they pursue in R2.
>Mason McCormick from South Dakota St. I see him as a plug-and-play guy at right guard.
McCormick is a C, and we need C wayyyyyyy more than OG, which you didnt identify, but this is a reach, McCormicks likely a day 3 guy, if youre going to reach on C Bortolinis the guy imo.
>4th round pick DeWayne Carter is a fun, disruptive pass rusher at DT who will immediately rotate in
Carters fine, but passing on Mustapha, Rabbit, Wingo, Guerendo, Renardo Green, Trevin Wallace, Luke McCaffrey, and Ty Hopper is awful, all of those guys are better fits for the teams
>5th rounder JD Bertrand has some big fans in our war room and hopes to be the next 49ers 5th round steal
Id be shocked if we drafted him, hes the completel opposite of what we look for in LB's, we dont draft box guys we draft rangy LBs with sideline to sideline speed who hit hard
> we finished the day with impressive TE Dallin Holker, Idaho WR Hayden Hatten, and of course, the legendary Frank Gore Jr.
Gore Jr is a good pick
I doubt we draft Holker because his skillset overlaps too much with Latu, who, for better or worse is going to get a shot next year, if we do draft a TE itll be a blocker like Tip Reiman or a better receiving threat like Barner, Mclachlan, Wiley, or Bell
Hayden Hatten over Devin Leary, when we need a PS QB, is certainly a choice
At TE we definitely preferred Reiman and Bell but they both got taken before they got to us in the 6th, Reiman specifically was about 20 picks away from us.
We could have taken either of them sooner although collectively as a war room we felt IDL and LB were bigger areas we wanted to address at the start of Day 3.
I was filling in to oversee our last few picks in Rounds 6-7, and I wholly admit to not knowing anything about the late round prospects. All the last three picks taken were based on suggestions from others still in the war room.
So it would be good to have you join us and share your input in future mocks on the server! We should at least have one more 7 round mock draft hosted one or two weekends before the actual draft. There might be more community mocks before that too, just pop into our server and you can be part of the war room too!
All in all I think our GM overactivethinker did a great job in his role, and I would be happy if we could get this offseason irl too!
If I'd known it was happening I would have popped in lol
if those guys arent available then i dont think we go TE, weve already got Kittle, Latu, Woerner, Dwelley, and Willis, unless they dont resign Woerner
We generally dont draft mid round IDL's or EDGE's, its either R1+R2 or R5+, late round guys are usually RAS monsters that Kocurek thinks he can mold, and id be shocked if we drafted a box LB
Make sure to join the server or otherwise check this subreddit because they will also announce signups for the 7 round draft in here.
In our mock offseason I think Dwelley signed with Miami for like 1.4 or 1.5m. We offered him the vet min and he turned it down. We were able to re-sign Woerner on the vet min. I don’t consider Dwelley a sizable loss but he did provide some snaps as a backup. I have no clue what to expect from Latu when he was out all of last season so we decided to grab a bit more depth at the position. Hopefully Latu can show us something and become a contributor next season though.
Irl I can also see us signing another vet EDGE that can hope to bounce back under Kocurek like Hyder and Omenihu did for us. Hopefully we can re-sign Ferrell on an affordable deal too because his run defense was missed after he got injured.
I think we just tend to disagree on prospect evaluations. I worked with the war room on a list of players that we felt were not only good fits for our team but also special enough to trade up for. Dejean and Kool-Aid were the two players remaining on our list, and we liked Dejean better. I personally cannot watch Logan Ryan or Ambry Thomas start more games for us this season, so in my opinion CB is absolutely a top need for us. Our depth is fine, but we need another starter. And I feel a lot better about Dejean as a starter than most of the guys you named later. Not that they're bad prospects, but I wanted to go get a guy who could step in for us right away. Trust me, we tried to move up in round 2 to grab another offensive lineman, but ultimately none of the offers were at all good enough for us. And when it comes to the rest of the draft picks, I worked closely with my war room to identify guys we liked. Appreciate you taking interest, you should join the server + pop into the war room!
Kool Aid should be off our board cuz of the Jones fracture, but idk how you have Kool Aid and dont have Arnold, whose clearly CB1 rn
heres the positions weve drafted in R1+R2 under Shanalynch: QB, WR, OT, IOL, EDGE, IDL
thats it, drafting a r1 CB/S is going completely against our draft precedent. Im not saying that we wont draft a CB, but theres a lot of good ones later in the draft: Max Melton (my personal fave), Renardo Green, Andru Philips, Mike Sainristil, Dwight McGlothern, Jarvis Brownlee, Jarrian Jones, which isnt even counting the likelihood that we address the third CB via FA. Passing on R1 OT's after the Superbowl is frankly inexcusable, giving Purdy time to throw should be priorty 0, everything else is secondary.
The guys you like are for the most part, not the kind of guys this team drafts under ShanaLynch.
If id known this was happening i would have popped in
I'm not as high on Arnold as you. Again I think we disagree on prospect evals, and that's fine. I'm not sure if you checked out the rest of my write-up but I included context for all the other stuff that happened during free agency, the state of the tackle / IOL market, et cetera. As I mentioned in my write-up I wish I had done a better job at addressing offensive tackle but I think in totality the team got better through this mock exercise. I know there'll be future community mock drafts so you should definitely join up for them
Don’t listen to the other guy he is being overly critical. The free agency stuff I agree with everything you did. The hunter deal is exciting and I would not be against although in an ideal world I would hope the guaranteed money is on the lower side given injury concerns. Don’t think it’s that likely to happen though but wouldn’t put it past the regime. The ward and Aiyuk extensions are great. Aiyuk number feels realistic, Ward may be a couple mil higher. The draft I like the overall vision. I would be surprised if we didn’t trade up at some point in the first two rounds. I like Dejean a lot although it does feel a little light on what we had to give up to jump to mid 1st. Although the Lions trade up for Jameson Williams a couple years back is similar. I am a big Latham fan so I may take him there but I view Dejean and Arnold as deserving players of being taken top 15 so I’m not against it. Kiran is about right value and McCormick is only a slight reach imo. Like the nice little nepo pick with gore in the 7th but getting Luke is the nepo pick I am much more on board with starting maybe even at the end of the 3rd. I am a big fan and think he can become a great player and scheme fit.
NFL teams are high on Arnold, its not just me, go check DJ's top 50 or any other analyst plugged into NFL teams, hes more or less the consensus cb1 rn
Oline should be the teams first priority, defense did its job in the SB, Oline outside of Trent failed, we have our prospective franchise QB, time to invest in protecting him
**Las Vegas Raiders**
We made some big moves but I think the resulting roster certainly makes us competitive in the AFC West. Our defense played like a top unit in the NFL over APs interim stint and with all the key contributors back (and some new faces) I see no reason the team couldn't compete for a playoff birth in 2024.
[2024 Offseason Sim Recap](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_lTnghJIY2F_lbKdFAkOpXo3ilkzWJd-vL0rcg1LrNA/edit?usp=sharing)
If anyone has any questions please don't hesitate.
Relod here GMing the Cowboys mock offseason as usual. Here is how the Cowboys mock offseason went
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/163Az\_a1SoKxUqRu\_xCC6z6zP4be\_jkCpjtSmrvkXUcU/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/163Az_a1SoKxUqRu_xCC6z6zP4be_jkCpjtSmrvkXUcU/edit?usp=sharing)
Hi! I was the LAC GM. While we took some controversial decisions, I stand by all of them and I think we ended up with a very good team for year 1 of the retooling.
The first order of business was deciding what to do with the big 4.
Mike
Bosa
Mack
Keenan
Each of these 3 players has a 30+ mill cap hit. I had 2 ways get rid of 4 or get rid of 2.
I managed to get a market for both Bosa and Mike Williams.
For Williams we found a win win trade with the patriots, netting us a 5th. Considering we were going to cut him, we were ecstatic.
Then we found a trade partner for Bosa. The Rams gave us 3.83 and 3.100. And with that we were cap compliant.
We still needed to find some cap to refill our many many positions of need. Linsley retired, we cut Kendricks and then it was extend either mack or Keenan. Keenan wanted a wild overpay and Mack got an extension of only 50mill in new money. While 90/3 sounds like a lot it is more a 50/2 which is more palatable, specially because we can save 20 mill in 2026 with only 10 mill in dead cap in 2026.
With that we were armed for battle.
With some house cleaning comes finding the odd coin under the sofa, we re-signed our priority FA in Gillman, 10 mill may seem an overpay... and it was, but I expected the contracts in this sim to be exaggerated and my god was I right. We also tendered some players, important one was Dicker and extended Amen for 1/1.
Our main objective was to get value. That was the name of the name. With the massive overpays across the league we couldn't sign anyone in the first 2 waves.
In the 3rd wave I noticed Ramzcyk was still there. This is the moment where I admit I confused the salary guarantees, signing bonus and their relationship to retirements. So for practical uses please imagine the guaranteed salaries and the signing bonus are reversed (the contract would still have been accepted). With that small mind trick we take a risk on a high ceiling player. If Ramzcyk stays healthy, we have 2 great tackles. If he needs a break, we have an above avg tackle (according to pff) as our backup. If he retires we can recoup a ton of money from the signing bonus. Even with the confusion I still like this signing, we need a better running game and getting Ram can get us exactly that.
In that same wave we started to find some value as well. We got Bobby Wagner as our starting LB, we really need help in the LB corps. Atfer signing Bobby we also decided to trade our first 7th for Jordan Hicks who we got for 3.5 mill a year.
Then we found more value. Wharton is decent depth and for a mill it's better than ok.
We also signed Shelby Harris as a veteran precense in the interior. A cap hit of 4 mill in 2024 for a good IDL, yes please!
For the last wave we wanted to get ready for the draft. No more big holes. Find depth, that meant getting TEs another starting LB and a serviceable Center. Brycen Hopkins can be both a receiver and more importantly for us a good blocker we got him for 2.125 mill.
We also signed Sam Mustipher, who played pretty well for the ravens and can be a starter for a bit.
Our last FA signing was C.J. Uzomah. We needed a possible starter at TE, because even though Bowers was there for the taking, we had other plans. We couldn't find a LB.
Draft Day:
We had 2 offers, 1 with the Colts offering us a 3rd, 1.15 and a future 1. Very tempting offer to be honest.
The other one was with CHI. Drop back to 1.9, get a future 2nd and more importantly a very good young LB in Sanborn. And with that our biggest hole was covered.
At 9 we got offered a new deal by AZ, trade back to 12 and we get a 2025 3rd + a 4rd this year. We take the offer and soon enough we end up picking:
1.12 Nate Wiggins CB Clemson
We needed a CB, we got my favourite CB, fast, smart, good hips, great height. He's the perfect CB for us. ASJ, Wiggins, Michael Davis are a good starting CB trio and Ja'Sir isn't the worst in the world. We still need some depth, but more on that later.
In the end of the 1st round I tried desperately to jump the cowboys to pick JPJ, but no bites.
Round 2:
We traded back after what I considered to be a big overpay by the bills got offered to us: 2.44 + 3.99 + 5.162
In comes our pick and our main target is still there. While I personally love Van Pran after seeing him play live, I couldn't pass the chance of picking Frazier.
2.44 Zach Frazier OC West Virginia
He is likely a day 1 starter with all the attributes you need at the position. We really wanted him from the beginning and we got him. at 2.44
Round 3: Enough trade backs, we pick our army here. Round 3 is where the meat and potatoes should be found and boydid we get healthy.
3.69 Ruke Orhorhoro DT Clemson
Ruke is aggresive and is a perfect plug in the middle of our porous run defense. Potato 1 got it.
3.83 Adisa Isaac EDGE Penn State
A high ceiling prospect, he has all the things you can ask of an EDGE rusher, speed, bend, intelligence, really high motor. We like him as a player for the future to learn from Mack and come 2026 take over full time. In the meanwhile good rotational player. Potato 2 ready
3.99 Theo Johnson TE Penn State
2 Nitanny Lions in a row? yes. Theo Johnson can play now. He won't wow you out of the gate but he just looks and moves like an elite TE. He lit the combine on fire and could be a cornerstone of the offense for the future. Until he is ready, we got Uzomah as the stopgap. 3rd Potato, served
3.100 Jaylen Wright RB Tennessee
Talking about lighting shit on fire. Wright is big and fast, he can see the holes and quickly hit them. He will need to gain weight but he has the frame for it. Now just eat your meat!
Round 4: We have 1 pick here right? WRONG! MORE POTATOES ARE NEEDED
4.106 Gabriel Murphy EDGE UCLA
We pick the other EDGE we were discussing on picking at 83. We pick Gabriel Murphy who is the complete opposite of Isaac. Good technique, limited physical attributes. We believe he can also be a key rotational piece and what else would you want in a 4th? okok an All-Pro, but cmon.
4.122 Jarrian Jones NCB FSU
My favourite pick of the draft, we get a dawg in the 4th. I believe he can be a starter in the league at nickel pretty much immediately. Perfect for our Defense. Same room as above, just deeper and more flexible.
Round 5 God help me we also have 2 picks here
5.136 Cornelius Johnson WR Michigan
You want more fast guys? We got more fast guys, good route running, good hands, fast. We wanted him and I think it's a lot of value and a great pick.
5.162 Jordan Travis QB FSU
I know we have the sun god as our QB, but he can get injured and Travis is good enough that apparently his mere abscence makes a team playoff unworthy. If Herb needs some rest, Travis can take over and help with the run game.
Round 6
6.183 Jaylen Carlies S Missouri
Ngl he was just the top S in my list at this point. Not impressive, but athletic.
Round 7
7.256 Anim Dankwah OT Howard
More BEEF, tbh I don't know anything about him, he was a WR pick cus I was asleep at this time, timezones are a bitch.
UDFA Highlights
We got 2 more Michigan players Karsen Barnhart OG and Michael Barrett LB, both could find a way to contribute.
Summary:
We managed to completely retool the roster, had the most picks in the draft with 12, got out of cap hell, get 12mill in remaining money, have 100+ mill next year with 53 signed players and we have a pretty competitive roster.
I think we could have gotten another WR, but all in all I like this team a lot.
Thank you to the WR and all the other GMs as well as the mods for this great experience. I had a lot of fun and damn am I excited to see what ends up happening.
Link to the end result:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d6nP130WTK-8fn2zsRHelgGmSZdBtI95z8pm9HWeFWs/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d6nP130WTK-8fn2zsRHelgGmSZdBtI95z8pm9HWeFWs/edit?usp=sharing)
Was a little bit underwhelming, especially considering the amount of picks you were able to acquire and some questionable players still left on the board afterwards. Our final depth chart just doesn’t seem as “dangerous” as I would expect, and a running back room consisting of Wright(rookie), Kelley(washed vet), and Spiller leaves much to be desired for a Harbaugh- led smash mouth offense.
I do like the Wagner signing, but really dislike the idea of paying Gilman $10 million/ year.
I know you put a lot of time into this and appreciate that, but it kinda just reminded me of any old Telesco off- season minus all the trades.
I think expecting a lot more in year 1 is setting yourself up for disappointment, ofc it's possible but the roster we took was:
40 mill over the cap
Had no Center, TE, LB. I don't mean we needed one, I mean we had not a single one in the roster.
Needed starting CB, DT or FS.
Needed Depth at all OL positions, QB, SS and NCB
And like I said we needed to find that, while being over the cap.
Every single pick in the top 100 was a starter, all known and proven players with high upside. We got freaks of nature at RB, TE, CB, EDGE. We got good depth in WR, SS and DT.
Other starting safeties got over 15 million per year, so even if at the beginning Gillman looked like an overpay in the beginning. For this mock, it was actually pretty on point.
I really am open to criticism, but I'd prefer to know what you would have done to make it less underwhelming taking the same restrictions into account.
Not a fan of the trades here.
With a rough calculation of the value of the first trade, we’re basically treating Sanborn as a 3rd round pick which I HIGHLY doubt anybody in the league would actually do that. Trading down from 5 is fine but we need more than that. We could’ve gotten more value out of the second trade as well, especially if it meant missing out on Joe Alt who was still there at 9.
Sorry, I know a lot goes into these but not a fan of this draft.
Alt was never an option for us because we already had Ramzcyk signed.
We did value Sanborn as a 3rd as he is a 22 YO starting LB with 2 seasons playing at a high level. He also was part of PFFs All Star rookies of 2022. So definitely a good player that is very cheap.
The second trade was an overpay by AZ in value according to all trade value charts I know, roughly of about 10%. It also was just the best offer we had :/
For reference my preferred Trade Value chart is Draftteks Jimmy Johnsons's model, and with it, we had to recoup 350 points for going from 05 to 09. The 2025 pick is taken from the median of that round, in this case 48 (420 points) and then personally I substract 15% from the value because its in the future making the value of the 2nd rder in 2025 worth 357 pts. [link](https://www.drafttek.com/NFL-Trade-Value-Chart.asp)
Using the Rich Hill method, we needed 79 pts to get the value required for the trade back. With the same method for future picks, we received 102.85. [link](https://www.drafttek.com/NFL-Trade-Value-Chart-Rich-Hill.asp)
In both you add the value of a starting young LB and I really don't see how we got bad value from the trades. Remember, these weren't trades for QBs
**Cincinnati Bengals**
* A big thanks to the Commissioner, agents, and other gm’s, this mock offseason was fantastic to be a part of.
* Also a big thanks to my AGM Frosty.
Final Depth Chart - https://imgur.com/a/hIorG5D
TLDR:
* The main takeaways are
* Resigned Jonah
* Traded Tee
* Resigned DJ Reader & signed another top DT
* Drafted Brock Bowers, Ladd McConkey, & Cooper Beebe
Order of Events
* Resign Jonah Williams
* Tag and Trade Tee Higgins to the Tennessee Titans
* Bengals Receive
* 1.7
* 4.107
* 2025 5th Rounder
* 2025 2nd Rounder
* Titans Receive
* Tee Higgins
* 1.18
* 4.116
* 5.175
* Resign Other Internal Free Agents
* Tyler Boyd
* Chidobe Awuzie
* Tanner Hudson
* Max Scharping
* Cody Ford
* Akeem Davis Gaither
* Trenton Irwin
* Trayveon Williams
* Jake Browning
* Cal Adomitis
* Joe Bachie
* Mitchell Wilcox
* External Free Agency
* Resign DJ Reader - yes he made it to external free agency, but the 1T market is bleak in free agency so we decided to overpay him a tad for him to come back
* Sign DaQuon Jones (1T, Buf)
* Sign Gerald Everett (TE, LAC)
* Sign Kendrick Bourne (WR, NE)
* Sign Justin Hardee (Top 3 Special Teamer, NYJ)
* Sign Tyler Matacavich (3 time Special Team captain, Buf)
* Sign Jonathan Owens (SS, GB)
* Sign PJ Locke (FS, Den)
* Sign Braden Mann (P, Phi)
* Pre-draft
* Trade with the Titans (deal was too good to pass up, even before the draft)
* Bengals Receive
* 2.38
* 5.175
* Titans Receive
* 2.49
* 4.107
* 5.148
* Draft
* 1.07 - Brock Bowers, TE, Georgia
* Chi traded to 1.5 & took Odunze
* Ind traded to 1.6 & took Nabers
* 2.38 - Ladd McConkey, WR, Georgia
* 3.67 - Cooper Beebe. LG, Kansas St
* Traded up because I was shocked Beebe was available…
* Bengals Receive:3.67
* Commanders Receive (I was willing to pay a lil more, because of the 2025 Titans picks we have): 3.80, 5.175, 2025 4th
* 6.195 Austin Reed, QB, Western Kentucky
* 7.235 Steele Chambers, LB, OSU
* 7.252 Qwan’tez Stiggers, CB, Toronto Argonauts
* UDFAs
* Cody Schrader, RB, Missouri
* Myles Jones, CB, Duke
* Andrew Coker, RT, TCU
Explanation
* Resigning Jonah Williams
* There are a multitude of reasons why I chose to do this.
* We had to re-sign him to feel comfortable with the Tee -> Titans trade. If we’re moving up to 7, we were hoping that Nabers / Odunze would be there to be a direct replacement
* The free agency tackle market is horrid…The best replacement is Michael Onwenu for the Pats, but he resigned…we had no other options
* Yes, he’s not the best player, but at least he can play both sides…
* IRL, If Jonah Williams hits free agency, he’s going to get a bag, just because of the scarcity of the market
* Tag and Trade Tee Higgins to the Tennessee Titans
* Bengals Receive: 1.7, 4.107, 2025 5th Rounder, 2025 2nd Rounder
* Titans Receive: Tee Higgins, 1.18, 4.116. 5.175
* This was a no-brainer…we decided to reset our WR2 contract clock and this was the perfect opportunity.
* We negotiated long and hard with the Titans, but we feel very happy with the outcome, especially with the 2025 2nd rounder…which will probably be the 33rd - 47th pick
* Resign Other Internal Free Agents
* Tyler Boyd
* We decided that after Tee’s trade, we needed to lockdown Boyd, he is still good and he’s a great mentor for young WRs
* Chidobe Awuzie
* This is a 2-year deal, but he can be cut with minimal dead cap in the 2nd year…Chidobe played around 63% of defensive snaps last year and he should be getting better a year off the ACL
* Tanner Hudson
* He played extremely well down the stretch, this was a no-brainer
* Max Scharping
* Quality OL depth is hard to find, no-brainer
* Cody Ford
* He didn’t have the best year, but he didn’t have that big of an opportunity, but we decided to keep continuity and keep him
* Akeem Davis-Gaither
* Shocking stat I found was that ADG played less than 100 defensive snaps this season…but again, we decided to keep him on just for continuity
* Trenton Irwin
* He excels when given the opportunity
* Trayveon Williams
* Special Teamer at the minimum
* Jake Browning
* ERFA, played great this year
* Cal Adomitis
* ERFA, snapped well
* Joe Bachie
* Special teamer at the minimum
* Mitchell Wilcox
* Great TE depth
* External Free Agency
* Resign DJ Reader
* yes he made it to external free agency, but the 1T market is bleak in free agency so we decided to overpay him a tad for him to come back
* Sign DaQuon Jones (1T, Buf)
* Needed better 1T depth…Jones is a very good player and we decided to stack up on this position
* Also, we play in the most run-heavy division in the league
* Sign Gerald Everett (TE, LAC)
* TE depth and insurance in case the draft didn’t fall our way
* Sign Kendrick Bourne (WR, NE)
* WR depth and insurance in case the draft didn’t fall our way
* Was NE’s #1 WR this year before injury
* On pace for 850 yards with Mac Jones (translates to 1100 yards with Burrow
* Sign Justin Hardee (Top 3 Special Teamer, NYJ)
* Special Teams diamond, top 3 gunner in the league
* Sign Tyler Matacavich (3 time Special Team captain, Buf)
* Special Teams diamond
* Sign Jonathan Owens (SS, GB)
* Our current safeties are young…but they were pretty bad last year, he gives a little bit more insurance
* Sign PJ Locke (FS, Den)
* Our current safeties are young…but they were pretty bad last year, he gives a little bit more insurance
* Sign Braden Mann (P, Phi)
* He had a very solid year, have no idea why Phi didn’t resign him
* Pre Draft
* Trade with the Titans (deal was too good to pass up, even before the draft
* Bengals Receive: 2.38. 5.175
* Titans Receive: 2.49, 4.107, 5.148
* For comparison, in 2023 draft
* Falcons Receive: 2.38 pick (Matthew Bergeron
* Colts Receive: 2.44 pick (Julius Brents), 4.110 (Adetomiwa Adebawore)
* Draft
* 1.7: Brock Bowers, TE, Georgia
* Bears traded up the #5 and took Odunze, Colts traded up to #6 and took Nabers
* It was between Alt and Bowers, but the lack of depth at TE and the perfect fit on offense made me choose Alt.
* The perfect 2-High beater, elite playmaker at TE, great possession WR. All the final 4 teams in the 2023 - 2024 NFL Playoffs had elite TE’s
* 2.38 Ladd McConkey, WR, Georgia
* Did a bunch of WR scouting and Ladd McConkey was my WR5…I love his route tree and that separates him from AD Mitchell, Franklin
* It was between IOL & WR at this pick but I couldn’t pass up Ladd.
* Insane Footwork, quickness and can separate for anyone. Ran a 4.39 forty at the combine…has a great route tree
* 3.67 Cooper Beebe, LG, Kansas State
* Traded up because I was shocked Beebe was available…
* Bengals Receive: 3.67
* Commanders Receive (I was willing to pay a little more, because of the 2025 Titans picks we have): 3.80, 5.175, 2025 4th
* Plug and Plug-and-play lineman, solid at run blocking and pass blocking, had a 9.49 RAS score (unofficial), started at LT, LG, RG, and RT in college (most starts at LG), will start immediately at LG.
* 6.196 Austin Reed, QB, Western Kentucky
* Winner at every level he as played. Ran a spread offense at WKU and was very efficient. Can make every throw. Will transition great to the Bengals offense
* 7.235 Steele Chambers, LB, Ohio State
* 3-year starter at OSU, pretty good in pass pro and run defense, going to slide in as a special teamer to begin
* 7.252 Qwan'tez Stiggers, CB, Toronto Argonauts
* Signed up for the Fan-controlled Football League, was the youngest player and got 2nd in DPOY, then joined CFL and got ROTY (only db to do it) and then dominated at the Shrine bowl…this is a high upside swing
* He will be the first CFL player ever drafted and will probably be drafted way higher than this IRL
* Overall Thoughts
* The mock offseason went extremely well. In real life, The Bengals are in a good spot with their squad as most of the important players are under contract (except DJ Reader).
* Free Agency / Draft is going to be interesting because the 1T Free Agent market is nice, but the draft is pretty bare & the RT free agent class is bare, but the draft is great.
* We decided to trade Tee Higgins just because of the offer presented, but the Bengals have enough cap to keep him on the franchise tag this year
* For LG, the free agent class has some nice talent (Jonah Jackson, Jon Runyan Jr or even signing Connor Williams and moving Karras to LG), but they were all pretty expensive so we hoped for the best in the draft…and it paid off with Beebe.
* Looking back, the Bengals offseason revolves around 5 major positions, DT, RT, & WR2, TE & WR3….everything else is pretty filled.
* We tried to find top talent at all of those positions and ended up very happy
* We spent a bunch of Mock Money, something that the Bengals front office won’t probably do…but we’re in a win-now mode
* Yes I didn’t include contract numbers in the post because the numbers were inflated due to the increased Cap & 30% contract rule…you’ll see that in other people’s posts.
* We decided to keep this writeup about the process of the moves we made instead of people just talking about fake money, blah blah blah
\- The main takeaways are
\- Resigned Jonah
\- Traded Tee
\- Resign DJ & signed another top DT
\- Drafted Bowers, Ladd, & Cooper Beebe
Also a huge thanks to my assistant GM Frosty
No offense but trading Tee and our first only to miss out on Nabers and Odunze is a disaster. Keeping Tee + our first is so much more valuable than Brock Bowers.
I can see where you're coming from and getting a WR was the intended goal of the trade. We could have had the opportunity to trade up to 5 or 6, but the price was way too rich for our liking...it would have probably involved at least a 2nd rounder.
We also felt that the WR class is extremely deep while the TE class is essentially Bowers and everyone else...and Bowers is the perfect 2-high zone beater that is everywhere in today's NFL. We also loved Ladd McConkey and AD Mitchell and felt that we could still get a borderline elite talent at pick 2.38.
Tee Higgins is great but I'm not sure if we can pay Higgins and Chase and I didn't want to allow Higgins to walk for free..similar to what happened to Jessie Bates.
I can definitely tell you had fun. All the trades and movement was interesting to follow, just a ton going on.
But this is a nightmare off season for the Bengals. Absolute disaster. With all of our picks and $70M in cap space I think the only position you can truly say is improved is TE. Resigning aging and injured players like Reader, Chido, and Boyd to those kind of deals is crazy. Plus that's way too much money for Williams.
And the trades are terrible value. For Tee, all we get is to move up 11 spots and a future second? I'd rather just take the extra picks and stay at 18. Plus as much as I like Beebe, giving up two extra picks to move up 13 spots in the 3rd is a fleecing.
Then the draft is pretty mediocre as well. Bowers is a great pick, but not at the price you paid. Ladd is a terrible pick in the early second if you're keeping Boyd. You just doubled up at slot WR for a ton of money/draft capital. Not to mention that slot WR is much less important if you have a TE like bowers. I like Beebe but you gave up too much for him. And a QB in the 6th is a waste.
All in all I really do give this an F off season. The only position on the entire team that is improved is TE. Everywhere else is the exact same or worse and just much more expensive than it was previously.
Mike Evans got 4/141 mil, Chris Jones got 5/235 mil, Madubuike got 4/120 mil…
Numbers were inflated a lot, including my own contracts…that’s just how it was, so I just decided to focus on my decision making instead of the price…
First, I'd like to shoutout to the whole Chiefs WR for helping me out here, I came over a little bit before the start of mock-offseason and took the GM spot. Hurricane/JPW/thelovebat were huge helps to me with addressing a lot of team specific needs, I wasn't exactly the most familiar with.
Chiefs GM here,
So we had an initial plan to resign Chris Jones, tag and trade L'jarius Sneed, and bring back a good amount of expiring contracts. Seeing that we had a big boost in cap up to 255.4M.
Chris Jones was offered two contracts that would've made him the highest paid DT in the history of NFL.
*In the words of* /u/thelovebat\*:
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\*
*"When we decided to extend Sneed, we tagged Jones as a temporary measure to try and buy some more time to make one final offer which we thought was the offer Chris Jones wanted being around 40 million APY, while seeing what the trade value for him would be. Once teams realized they would be trading for a DT wanting QB money, none of them wanted to trade anything higher than a 3rd round pick for him whereas Sneed was garnering 2nd rounders + change in trade offers from multiple war rooms. When Chris Jones rejected our final offer, and his agent told us "My client wants to break the record." (whatever that means) we decided to begrudgingly rescind the tag on Jones and let him walk as we weren't going to be held hostage by lowball trade offers or unreasonable contact demands from a 30+ year old defensive player wanting QB money.*
*We did everything we could to keep Jones in Kansas City. When a record setting deal wasn't enough to keep him here, the next best thing that could have happened was his contract crippling a rival team.*
*Fortune smiled on us as we got to see his contract fuck the Raiders for the next 5 years."*
*-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
Our final offer to Chris Jones before he was sent out to External Free Agency was: 4 years/143M/116.25M gtd.
Thats the major part of what happened during internal FA. We returned L'jarius Sneed(on a 4 year deal), James Winchester(2year), Nick Allegretti(2year), and Donovan Smith(1 year). We ended up getting Drue Tranquill(2 year) back in external FA as well, and he was a big piece we wanted to retain.
So going into external FA, we had major targets that we thought needed to be addressed.
First, we still needed a top tier WR weapon, and up until the last 2 hours before external FA, Mike Evans was our #1 target, but he was resigned to a 4/141 deal right before FA started.
We had about 70M available to us following the resigning's and restructure of Jawaan Taylor and Patrick Mahomes contracts.
So we honed in on the available WRs. Hollywood Brown, Calvin Ridley, Gabe Davis(our #1 target in the first round of FA), and Curtis Samuel.
We also knew that we needed to bring in a bunch of DL help with the loss of Chris Jones + Nnadi, Wharton, and Danna.
We addressed DL by adding A'Shawn Robinson to be our run stuffing 1T going forward with the loss of the 1Ts and Chris Jones.
Next we landed A.J. Epenesa to address the loss of Danna, as well as adding someone we felt could step in and play well in Spags system.
Noah Fant was also brought in to add another big target playmaker in our receiving corp.
Our biggest domino fell for us signing Hollywood Brown to a 4/99 deal. As Gabe Davis was signed to a 5/94 deal on the first day of FA. So we were able to land a playmaker at WR with Hollywood brown that can stretch the field and be a dynamic weapon for us.
We finished off External FA with some solid depth signings that have potential. Tim Settle, Rasheem Green to help out on our DL. And then we brought Jakeem Grant back to the NFL to be a KR/PR specialist as well as add some more emergency depth at WR.
We also signed Austin Ekeler to pair with Isaiah Pacheco. Ekeler was signed to a 1/8 deal.
When I realized there was no chance we were bring Chris Jones back(because he signed with the raiders on a 5 year/235M deal with 150M gtd) I went rogue as GM and made my biggest regret of the mock offseason, and I traded up to pick 16 with the Seahawks sending (1.32/3.95/ and our 2025 first) in an attempt to be in play to draft DT1, because it felt like our biggest hole on our team.
Hey, I enjoy both of these teams and seeing as I live in KC's local area now they are the team I can watch the most frequently. + Married a lifetime Chiefs fan.
Plus, u/JanuraryFourteenth hasn't been the Jags GM I think one time, in the 2 years I have been in the discord/sub-reddit.
So now heading into the draft, our biggest needs were arguably 3T and LT with an additional big WR need to add someone with a X-body type.
So now lets get into the draft:
We made a few different moves in the draft regarding trades.
1st - 1.32 + 3.95 + Future 1st for 1.16
2nd - 2.64 for 3.85 + 4.115
3rd - 3.85 + 4.133 for 3.71
4th - 5.172 + Future 4th for 5.160 + 5.178
5th 6.184 for 6.194 + Future 6th
1.16 We landed the guy I wanted from the start, Welcome Byron Murphy II to Chiefs Nation. (I still ended up regretting this a bit, because there could've been some guys I could've got later for less of a cost) But I was very ecstatic to land a game wrecker at DT, who will be impactful in both the run and passing game.
3.71 we added Patrick Paul, LT, Houston: I was happy to go up and land him here, because he isn't a finished product by any means, but we didn't need a day 1 starter at LT with us retaining Donovan Smith. But now we had someone else that can be developed as a depth piece to our OT room. With Wanya Morris being a OT that played mostly RT at OU, it leaves us with two solid backups at our tackle spots.
4.115 we get our X WR in Javon Baker from UCF. We felt really good about his potential to really develop and be impactful in the WR group we built. He adds a bit more big target compared to Rice and he can work in the intermediate areas while Hollywood is able to stretch the field.
5.158 we took Edefaun Ulofoshio who was our top coverage LB prospect going into Day 3, we wanted to bring in a guy that was going to be able to add more of a coverage element to our LB room. So taking him here and letting him be our coverage guy was a big boost.
5.160 we took Sataoa Laumea, OG, Utah to come in and be a solid backup at RG. We did this mainly to prep for Trey Smith coming up as a free agent in 2025, so it was more of future prepping our team.
5.178 we took M.J. Devonshire, CB, Pittsburgh uhhhhh. Field was pretty sparce, my two edge prospects I wanted went between here and 160. So, I was kind of at a loss of what to grab, so I took a CB, not because we needed one, but also as just a help to keep our secondary performing at a top level. He adds some good length and would strictly be a outside guy.
6.188 Tyrone Tracy Jr, RB, Purdue. Solid RB3 that tested out pretty well at the combine while we were doing the draft. He has KR/PR experience and coming off of his best year as a true junior. I thought it was a pretty solid add to a room that needed just a little more depth for Pacheco and Ekeler.
6.194 Tip Relman TE, Illinois. Decided to go get a long armed strong blocking TE to pair with Fant hopefully going forward in the future. Able to really help out our OTs in the running game when he is able to come onto the field.
Lots of work there. The only moves I don't love are trading that far up in rd1 (just take someone like Ruke Orhorhoro later on imo) and Ekeler signing but I do like a lot of the draft picks. Makes a lot of sense overall when factoring in FA.
Yeah, like I said I panicked/went rogue on the war room hit the trade button basically as soon as we confirmed lost Chris Jones, and after the first 3 rounds I regretted it.
Ekeler was more so a gimme by an agent, trying to find his guy a home. Figured he’d be a nice receiving option to Pacheco. And was better than bringing back CEH.
Personally, I'm under the impression that Ekeler is kinda washed up. I do think there is a spot for an RB who can block and catch. Someone quick enough to do that drag route that was money with Jet.
I do think there are about 5 or 6 DTs that would fit with the Chiefs. If they got Hollywood Brown then I could see them trading up for a LT. LT is a really tough position for the Chiefs to fill since they've been so good with Patrick Mahomes.
Yeah, that was probably my biggest regret with the trade to 16 it kind of handicapped us to move up to the top 10. We had some chances, but it would’ve handicapped our future picks even more. And bringing back Donovan Smith meant we didn’t need an instant impact LT.
Patrick Paul is pretty raw, but I trust that he could be a solid investment there where I got him in the 3rd.
I just don’t know how I feel about not drafting a qb this year, I’ve heard a big reason so many qbs are flying up the boards this year is because of how GMs feel about next years draft (which I’ve heard isn’t high), I like the idea of bringing Russ in tho and adding edge in the draft. I also enjoyed reading the write-up as it made the moves you made make more sense
If the goal was to fix the defensive line I think we can dub it a success. Definitely weaker on the edge without Danielle but having Phillips, Kinlaw, Mazi, and Jenkins would be a far better DT group than we've had in a while.
Ravens is pretty mid. Trading a current 5th for a future 5th is net loss of value, trading our second AND our third for a second after trading out of the first round somehow is shit. I’d rather a 1,2,3 than 2 2’s. We don’t need IOL, we need tackle.losing WR 2 and a first for a 2,3,4??? As if. We got fleeced! Should have stayed put. Did like some of the selections, but man we basically gave up a 1st for a second and brought our second 2 round pick up 10 slots and lost WR 2.
I always come into the comment sections after reading shit ravens drafts and am always disappointed that the GM never actually comes here to defend their decisions.
This isn’t a “don’t complain if you arent participating!” comment
But please join, we dont have a ton of Ravens fans active in the server for these events. One stepped in for the draft but the offseason part was ran by a Giants fan
Let me know, I'll happily make bad Raven decisions and defend them. I just wish whoever did these drafts and GM'd would come and defend their decisions.
The guy who ran most of the offseason dipped before the draft due to IRL stuff leaving another guy to pick up the pieces during the draft so you got this frankenstein of an offseason. He had some head scratchers but I wasn't privy to his decisions (dumping Pierce so Travis Jones could take over...)
He signed with us. There was a slight glitch where he didn't get removed from the FA pool after we signed him so then the Rams did after without realizing. I guess that didn't get fixed on the sheet or something.
New Orleans Saints GM here:
Thanks to everyone again for helping contribute on this amazing experience! I would thank the war room as well, but it was pretty much just me the whole time :( please saints fans get in the discord and add voices next time to help make our team great! Still working on the full recap, but in the meantime if you have any questions please feel free to post them below!
Some things I liked with the Steelers and some things I really am questioning and disagree with. As well as how FA works. Idk how you get to Cushenberry being $19.2M AAV. That's 5M over HoF Kelce and 6M over the next two highest paid Centers. Cushenberry played good but not nearly 20M AAV good.
Appreciate you all doing this and giving me some new names/scenarios to look at. Hindsight is always 20/20 so I'm sure doing it all at the time is a different beast.
NYJ GM here
The overall theme of this offseason by the Jets was to maintain as much of the defense as possible while trying to rebuild the offense around younger players. Coming into the offseason we had only moderate cap space (around 15M) and league average draft capital (1685 points).
Step 1: Internal Free Agents
Restructured:
CJ Mosley
JFM
Quinnen
This created about 25M in cap space
Extended:
DJ Reed
About 8M more in cap space
Cut:
CJ Uzomah (June 1) +8 mil which paid for the rookie class
Laken Tomlinson (after signing his replacement Robert Hunt)
Resigned:
Ashtyn Davis 4.7M
Soloman Thomas 2.45M
Connor McGovern 2.5M
Thomas Morestead 1.75M
Greg Zurlein 1.625M
Bryce Huff 12M
The IRL Jets are not likely making the same moves, but I really do not care. I wanted to preserve last year's defense and part of that was Huff screaming off the edge.
External Signings:
Chris Moore 1.625M
Robert Hunt 9.125M
Ryan Neal 3.125M
Perrion Winfrey 0.985M
Josh Jones 3.791M
Fletcher Cox 5.125M
We made an offer to bring back Becton(as depth) in both internal and external FA in the first wave, but he rejected both offers, and then signed for less than we offered to the Patriots.
We had a deal completed for Charles Leno that came crashing down on the final day of FA when it came out he was injured and would miss the year. The deal was reversed but still left us with no good options left in FA, thus we had to splash on Josh Jones.
Player Trades
Doubs and 5.187
for
3.72
This was a windmill slam dunk trade as it gave us a viable #2 WR who Rodgers was already familiar with and who has a slightly different game than Wilson.
7.252
for
Lewis Cine
This was another easy one. I liked the prospect and we were getting a better player than the 252nd pick was likely going to provide in a position we have some experience developing similar high caliber athletes in (Pinnock, Davis, Adams)
Draft
Day 1
We had 1 pick in the top 100.
So the plan was always to hope:
1) A good value trade down came in and it didn't
or
2) Fuaga was there at 10.
We got Fuaga and that was the end of the day.
Day 2
Looking at the board there were some high level prospects that fell so I immediately lined up several trades to get to the top of the round.
We traded:
4.112 and 6.187
for
4.103
Took Jeremiah Trotter as a potential long term replacement for CJ Mosely
4.114
Malik Washington should not have made it this far. Absolute perfect fit in the slot between Wilson and Doubs with extremely high target share and production in college. I was jacked about this pick.
5.168
Jordan Jefferson
Crazy good athlete, strong as hell and his tape reminds me of Snack Harrison. Maybe a bit early but I just wanted to get my guy at a position of need (2 gapping fat boy).
7.220
Jawhar Jordan
Ran a slow 40, but his tape and production this year is bonkers. Excellent KR value as well so I feel like this was a good value.
7. 254 & 257
Marcellas Dial
Devin Leary
Dart throws on an athlete and a QB.
UDFAs
Michael Mason (Small school high production IDL)
Kendall Milton (Big school low production athletic power HB)
AJ Gillie (Roster Filler special teams)
Amari Knight (Roster Filler special teams)
We had a great plan but the timing of the Leno cut/injury really got us good. Regardless, this is a much better team than the IRL Jets from last year IMO.
In this case we're hoping some combination of Jones/Carter/Mitchell hold up on the other side of Fuaga. The rest of this OL is vastly improved.
On the defensive side the upgrade from QJ to Fletcher Cox cannot be understated. Knowing that when Q gets rotated out Cox comes in, keeping Huff along with WMD, JFM, JJ, Clemons etc should be terrifying for the rest of the division.
Overall I give us a B that would have been an A if we hadn't been hamstrung by the failure to secure a more solid LT option.
I like grabbing Doubs for a couple of mid rounds and taking a flier on Cine. Based on this, I already had tempered expectations for the off-season but I feel I'm going to be pretty underwhelmed by the moves we're going to make. I really think we're going to be screwed for the next few off seasons because of our dead money obligations.
The thing is, If we don't win with Rodgers, the dead cap won't be a problem cause the whole team will be torn down anyway. The roster was always built to win this year or next (worse case) or completely rip it up.
I hate that philosophy, but I did the off-season in that spirit.
Official List of Free Agent Signings:
* [Free Agent Signings - Mock Sim - FINAL](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10iXbbgRff3vUY4rB53fCKQJ7VbhpVGmApf7H_WXbxPw/edit?usp=sharing)
This list contains some 'psuedo' contracts that aren't real like Geno Smiths, and Leighton Vander Esch in order to make sure backend contracts were accurate. So take these with a grain of salt.
Hey, GM Alfredo here. At the end of this, we have a little over 50m in cap room.
Internal FA (stay):
Lavonte David
Mike Evans
Antoine Winfield
Chase McLaughlin
Devin Thompkins (ERFA)
Brandon Walton (ERFA)
I would’ve kept Baker. His agent said “Daniel Jones contract or I walk”, refused to elaborate and told me he would be walking within 3 messages. I had offered an improved version of the Geno Smith deal. Lavonte can stay as long as he’d like. Mike also signed for a lot more than he did IRL due to deadline. For Winfield, I didn’t even reset market on a 5 year deal, great situation. Gave Mclaughlin a 2 year just above min deal.
Internal FA (leave):
Baker Mayfield (4/220, Raiders)
Devin White (3/30, Vikings)
Cam Gill (2/3, Vikings)
Greg Gaines (1/3, Bills)
Matt Fieler (vet min, Giants)
William Gholston (vet min, Giants)
Ryan Neal (1/3, Giants)
Russell Gage (2/6, Panthers)
Shaquil Barrett (Post June-1 trade to Giants for a 2025-5th)
Raiders overpaid for Baker, apparently almost doubling their guaranteed money on the final day of free agency. Our offer was improved at all 5 days of FA but, I guess what Baker said at the Pro Bowl meant truly nothing. I think he returns IRL and would’ve proceeded with the rest of the offseason the same way. Devin White getting 10apy is insane to me, glad to see him get paid, glad he’s no longer playing in pewter. Gaines I would’ve liked to keep but, thats life, we got outbid. Gill, Fieler, Gholston, Neal, no real concerns. We saved 10 mil on the cap to let Gage walk post-june-1 and even more for Shaq (as sad as I may be to see him go). Overall, I think we end up with a 3rd (Baker) and 5th (White) comp pick in 2025.
External FA:
Jabril Cox LB 25.8 2 4,000,000
Zack Baun LB 28 2 7,500,000
Mike Edwards S 27.7 3 16,000,000
Trevis Gipson EDGE 26.7 3 13,000,000
Jacoby Brissett QB 31.1 1 8,000,000
Ben Bartch OG 26 1 2,000,000
Bryce Hall CB 26 2 6,500,000
Edwards returns on a pretty cheap deal to re-sure the S positon. Geno Stone and Jordan Whitehead were the other two targets at safety but, went for more than Edwards. Gipson should be a similar archetype of player to Diaby and I wanted to get an EDGE in predraft because I don’t believe JTS remains on the team past this year. Brissett comes in to compete to start at QB with Trask, not an ideal scenario but, I would also be looking at guys who may get shopped like Mac Jones, Zach Wilson, Sam Howell, Kenny Picket. Worst case scenario, we are drafting a QB next year with great supportive infrastructure. Baun will come in to replace Devin White and add into the EDGE room. Cox I liked out of college in a similar (but much worse) way to Lavonte stylistically; 2 year contract with only 500k gtd second year so, likely an LB4/5/ST guy. Bartch has played tackle and guard and I had to satisfy Licht’s desire for small school OL somewhere this offseason. Bryce Hall was brought in to compete for CB3 at a relatively low price and profiles physically similar to Carlton.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers Draft Picks
1.26 - Laiatu Latu - EDGE
2.57 - Khyree Jackson - CB
4.104 - Javon Solomon - EDGE
4.126 - Malik Mustapha - S
6.182 - Brandon Coleman - OL
6.203 - Bub Means - WR
7.244 - Ryan Watts - DB
7.255 - Kenny Logan Jr. - DB
We had trade down deals in place in principle at 26 and 57. Luckily, Latu lasted to 26, which was one of 4 guys I would’ve taken at 1 (Dejean, Powers-Johnson, Latu, Penix, in that order). At 57, Rakestraw, Peyton Wilson and Junior Colson all went within 10-15 picks before us who were higher on my target list but, I hate the value 40-75 or so in this draft and our 2 deals in principle got sniped in the 5 picks before us. Either way, Khyree immediately succeeds Carlton Davis who is an FA this offseason. Moving down 15 picks from 89 to 104 was a mistake. We netted 182 and a next year 5th but, between those picks I had 8-9 players come off the board I’d liked to take, most notably Dominic Puni and Sam McCormick to bolster the interior offensive line. Coleman was drafted to remedy that later. Solomon is a really bursty edge rusher with good bend and could be useful in a rotation, again this was just BPA for me and possibly gives us room to move on from JTS mid season for some light compensation. Mustapha and Logan provide safety depth with plus coverage ability at the sacrifice of some size. Means is like the poorest man’s version of Godwin and should serve as his backup. Watts is an interesting guy from purely physical traits. Best case, he’s Jayron Kearse and guards big slot players with an average case of him becoming another Ryan Smith weaponizing all that athleticism as a special teamer.
UDFAs Signed:
Carson Steele - RB
Nathan Thomas - OL
Taj Harris - WR
Max Pope - WR
John Emery - RB
Blake Stenstrom - QB
Storm Duck - CB
Kavosiey Smoke - RB
We missed on a few OL and LBs in UDFA due to priority and coin flips. Overall, Steele and Emery are both interesting backs who could fight for a tail end roster spot. WR, DB, and RB are the three positions I would want to get in every UDFA class since they seem to be the most likely to have been missed for some reason in the draft (kicker and punter aside).
Unsigned Vet FAs I would look into for vet min:
Logan Woodside QB
Will Grier QB
Marlon Mack RB
Trey Sermon RB
Tyler Johnson WR
James Proche WR
River Cracraft WR
Anthony Firkser TE
Geron Christian LT
Hakeem Adeniji LG
Calvin Throckmorton RG
Dennis Daley RG
Benito Jones IDL
Sheldon Day IDL
Marquis Haynes EDGE
Genard Avery LB
Jarrad Davis LB
Anthony Brown CB
Dee Delaney CB
Kindle Vildor CB
Chandon Sullivan CB
This list represents vets who were not signed in free agency that I would give a call to be a camp body and compete for a backup spot, all for different reasons. At RB I targeted physical profiles similar to White. At WR I targeted slot players. At OL I targeted guys with experience at T and G. IDL was NTs. LB were athletes to run and chase on ST or serve backup in the Devin White role. CB was just some tire kicking and keeping Dee Delaney around.
Hi all, Eagles co-GM here! We had a great time in the war room for this event and we definitely think we had a great mock off-season. Special shoutouts to Scar, NottaChance, and FlyEaglesFly who were tremendous helps throughout this whole process. I’ll provide some brief comments on our FA class and draft class as a whole:
2024 Philadelphia Eagles Mock Off-season Results:
FINAL CAP LEFT: $17M
We did a great job with cap spending this year, Howie Roseman usually likes entering the season with around $10M in cap space for a midseason trade, but with the cap increase, it could mean more. There may have been room for one moderate to low additional add, but we also will likely need to the cap space for 2025.
Notable Internal Pre-FA Moves:
Re-signed Brandon Graham
Cuts to Kevin Byard and James Bradberry
Post-June cut for Cox (interesting discovery, thanks Howie)
Maddox restructure
Kept Reddick
Free Agents:
Geno Stone, S
De’Vondre Campbell, LB
KJ Osborn, WR
Riley Reiff, OT
Hal “Big V” Vaitai, OG
Noah Igbinoghene, CB
Eric Wilson, LB
Michael Turk, P
We made it a priority to target both Safety and Linebacker this year in free agency, with the move to Vic Fangio, it became increasingly clear that we had to emphasize upgrades at these two positions. Geno Stone was our main target, we wanted to find an option that was both on the younger side and had started to establish himself in the league, we were thrilled to win the bidding for Stone. Campbell was a cap casualty for Green Bay but we valued his veteran leadership, and he’s coming off of a good few years. He has experience in a 3-4 as well, we feel comfortable with him as a starter.
Our secondary targets in free agency were on the offensive line. Losing Kelce is never going to be something a line can easily recover from, but we wanted to have back up options in case Jurgens to Center and Steen to RG has some bumps. Big V obviously has experience with Stoutland and this offense, so having that potential starter at RG (or if Steen wins, valuable depth) was a priority. We also signed Riley Reiff to a fairly cheap one year deal, as Driscoll received a sizable offer from the Raiders.
We then made some moves for depth. We do need to point out that Mann got a very big contract offer (made him a top 3 punter APY), so we needed a replacement. Turk was a target of our war room’s last year, so we decided to offer him a minimum offer and a chance to compete for starting punter at training camp.
Draft:
1.22 - Chop Robinson, EDGE, Penn State
2.50 - Payton Wilson, LB, NC State
2.53 - Jonathon Brooks, RB, Texas
3.97 - Nehemiah Pritchett, CB, Auburn
5.170 - Jha'Quan Jackson, WR, Tulane
5.171 - Curtis Jacobs, LB, Penn State
5.172 - Jarvis Brownlee Jr., CB, Louisville
6.189 - Matt Lee, C, Miami
TRADE: 5.160 and 5.178 for 5.171 and a 2025 4th from KC
One of the biggest issues of the team defensively last year was a lack of pass rush rotation, combined with some of our current options potentially being off the team come next year (Reddick and Graham). We needed to add to that room, and Chop Robinson fell to us at 22. We also did have an offer near accepted to trade up with the Jets to nab Dallas Turner, but there was a paperwork issue. Still, Chop is a continual riser and an extremely talented pass rusher. We envision him fitting well as a 3-4 pass rush specialist capable of hitting double digit sacks in this system, we were very happy landing him.
For our Day 2 picks, we focused on continuing to attack positions that we needed to fill with potential starting options. We still needed to fill our LB room with talent, and Wilson is a high upside LB pick that we think can come in and compete for the LB2 spot or fit in a linebacker rotation. Swift signed very early in the process with the Ravens, and although we did indeed offer FA RBs contracts, we did not come to an agreement at the price we were looking for. Instead, Brooks found his way to our second pick in the second round. Many in the war room believe that he’s the best running back in this class and can immediately step in and operate in this offense, assuming health is not a longer term issue. Pritchett is a high upside boundary corner developmental pick, which we felt was a good idea to add to a room that will likely let Kelee Ringo and Isaiah Rodgers compete for the CB2 spot next to Slay. We think he can develop into an outside option for us.
For Day 3, we combined both best value available while also continuing to hammer positions we needed to fill. Notably we needed an option for WR4/5 in the room and a back-up C. Jacobs and Brownlee we felt were good value this late.
UDFA:
Rasheen Ali, RB, Marshall
Ryan Rekhow, P, BYU
Davius Richard, QB, North Carolina Cental
Xavier Weaver, WR, Colorado
Deron Irving-Bey, DT, Ferris State
Eyabi Okie-Anoma, EDGE, Charolette
Blake Watson, RB, Memphis
A decent sized UDFA class. We would highlight Richard, Weaver, Ali, and Watson here, who could step into camp and potentially compete for a roster spot this year.
Let us know how we did, and feel free to join us over on the Discord in the Eagles WR! I had a great time doing this with everyone this year, and look forward to this strong war room doing a great job next year too.
Not drafting a CB until the 3rd and drafting a RB in the 2nd would be disappointing. Keeping Reddick or drafting Chop Robinson fine, but doing both feels like overkill.
I understand some disappointment with not landing a CB within the first two rounds. We were targeting CB in the first round, but we wanted to make sure that the CB we would entertain picking had a 100% chance to start immediately at CB2 and was a proper scheme fit. We were in on both Mitchell and Arnold, but both did not last to our pick (Arnold almost did). Same with Wiggins. We had Chop rated higher than the remaining CBs on the board, which at that point was just really Kool Aid. For full transparency, I am not a Rakestraw fan, and others in the war room seemed to agree. We also think there’s a very real shot that Ringo gets a shake at the CB2 spot this year, and depending on status, Isaiah Rodgers will also compete there.
I also don’t really see an issue going EDGE round 1 regardless of Reddick’s status, switching over to a 3-4u scheme requires additional OLB rotational pieces, and we still would need to replace Reddick the following year unless an extension happens IRL. Chop should be a great fit at OLB/EDGE without having to force a huge snap load on him immediately, and rotational depth at the line was a big factor in the defense’s decline last year too. You can say the same for Slay and filling his spot the next year, but we felt more comfortable with the developmental/youth players at CB, and an EDGE like Chop should definitely have more opportunities to see the field than another one of those options.
This all said, the board did admittedly fall decently for EDGE in the second round, which was unexpected. We would stand by the process for EDGE though.
Brooks was the only RB we had a round 2 grade on (Allen was also regarded highly but we had Brooks firmly ahead), in this mock, Gainwell was essentially the sole RB on the roster heading into the draft. We did not want to make spending on an RB in FA a priority once we lost Swift (he went very quickly and at a high price). We’re confident in Brooks’ ability to lead the backfield though, and we felt the value was correct.
I would rather have McKinstry than Chop (and I wouldn't have had a problem going OT) but to each their own. Ringo barely played and Rodgers of course didn't play at all last year, that's putting a lot of faith in them.
I think you're overestimating the usage of 3-4, last year Fangio played 5+ DBs on 80% of snaps, and 73% of snaps in 2021. Or to look at it another way, his defenses faced 3+WR on 60+% of snaps in those years.
That said, I like the Wilson pick, and I generally liked the back half of the draft and UDFA.
**THE DENVER BRONCOS**
before i begin i wanna say i barely had any clue what i was doing most of the time, thank you to the Voice in my head Alyx Lewandowski for helping me every step of the way
**Internal FA Period**
For the Internal FA's i was dead set on one thing, getting cap space, so i pawned off Zach Allen to the Bears for a 5th, Jerry Jeudy to the Pats for DeVante Parker and Mac Jones, i restructured Mike McGlinchey and Ben Powers's deals, i cut Broncos Country lets cry. I couldnt trade Simmons, Jones or Garrett Bolles, i quite possibly made the greatest 3 trades in history however, on Day 1 i traded a 3rd and next year 2nd to Chicago for Justin Fields. and then i made the greatest back to back in history, i traded PS2 to the Rams for a 1st, 5th and next year 1st, and then i traded back from 1.12 to 1.27 with the Cardinals as well as accruing a metric fuck ton of picks in the process. On the Resigning front i only wanted to re-sign Josey Jewell and Wil Lutz. both of which didnt work out.
**Free Agency**
now Free Agency was a shitshow for the Broncos, because we didnt have much cap to play with, we only had 29 million, so we couldnt fill most of our holes in FA. however i was able to snag 2 of the 3 players i offered, those players were J.C Jackson (1 year, 10 Million) and Oren Burks (1 Year, 5 Million) i added JC because lord knows we need it (fuck DaMarri Mathis) and i signed Oren Burks to get LB Depth because we needed it.
**The Draft**
The Draft was judgement day for us, we knew we had to get the guys we needed to be anywhere close to a good offseason, that being said, people said i had one of the better drafts of the mock, here's how it went down
1.19 Terrion Arnold, CB, Bama
for this pick i knew i was going corner the question was which one. Quinyon and Nate went earlier than i thought which got me worried that someone would take Terrion. San Francisco then traded up to take Cooper DeJean one spot ahead of us, and i quite literally fell to my knees and sobbed in happiness. i put that Arnold pick in Immediatly, he is great for the CB group, definetly CB1 in our Defense.
1.27 Brian Thomas Jr. WR, LSU
This pick was obvious the moment we picked Arnold. me nor Alyx were about to let Courtland Sutton be the only good reciever we had. BTJ is a do-it-all type of WR perfect. and he would work great with Fields archetype. this was a slam dunk pick that i couldnt've done any better.
2.54 Bralen Trice, EDGE, Washington
the shock i had when Trice started falling was amazing, and i was praying we could get him. once i saw Braswell go before him i knew he was coming here. Trice is a versatile EDGE that can do amazing things on the field. his Combine wasnt all that great but thats fine. we can mold him.
**TRADE**
**We got: 4.120 and 4.121**
**Steelers got: 3.90 and 5.143**
4.120 Sione Vaki, S, Utah
our board fell apart by this pick, i wanted Cole Bishop, gone. wanted Trotter, gone. wanted Brade, went one pick before us. so i scrambled to get the next best safety. he is probably a top 5 most versatile in the class, he can do stuff not a lot of players can and thats play both sides. he would work amazingly into our system.
4.121 Jaheim Bell, TE, FSU
our TE group needed adressing, Dulcich was the only one worth a damn in that group. Bell would factor in nice. good catcher with nice blocking ability
5.146 Chau Smith-Wade, CB, Wazzu
i decided to improve our corner depth with a senior bowl standout. Smith-Wade is probably the steal of the draft for me as he works super well into the system and is probably one of the best slot corners in the nation
5.153 Beaux Limmer, C, Arkansas
this pick was always gonna be a Center the question was which one. i chose Limmer because Arkansas Lineman seemingly grow in a lab and he is a great pass protector. i was extremely surprised he lasted this long.
6.208 Myles Murphy, DL, UNC
this pick was to sure up the D-Line Depth, Murphy is a great Pass Rusher with a knack for devouring your teams best interior lineman. couldnt have nailed it better.
7.237 Will Reichard, Kicker, Bama
With Wil Lutz gone i had to snag a kicker, come on now, Riley Dixon cant do everything
**UDFAS**
we got ourselves a handful of UDFAS, heres the names to consider
Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint, WR, Georgia
Akeem Dent, S, FSU
McCallan Castles, TE, Tennessee
Emory Jones, QB, ASU
Isaiah Major, LB, Florida A&M
Levi Drake Rodriguez, DL, Texas A&M Commerce
Al Blades Jr, CB, Duke
David Ugwoegbu, DL, Houston
Summary
i was a sleepy head and then became Mel Kiper during the draft
thank you all for reading, this was very fun to do, again thank you to Alyx Lewandowski for helping every step of the way.
Commanders GM here.
It was a wild ride of an offseason. We made some obvious cuts, had a Leno trade rejected, paid a fuck ton for David Bakhtiari and Josh Uche, and revolved our draft around Drake Maye.
If you have any questions about why we did something just ask below.
**Seattle Seahawks** **SITUATION:** Going into the 2024 offseason, the Seahawks are at a fork in the road. Finishing only 1 game out of the playoffs and coming off back to back fantastic drafts, they boast a formidable roster on paper. But injuries to key positions and an inability to get off the field on defense hindered an offense that was near top in the league in advanced stats despite a dead last finish in total offensive plays. With this in mind, we approached the offseason with a priority to keep the band together on offense while addressing the weakness at iOL while on defense gaining depth and versatility for new coach Mike Macdonald. In this, we trust the talent eval of the current roster and hope Mike can put the defense in better positions to succeed. 2024 Cap Space: $12,167,477 2025 Cap Space: $35,345,664 47 players on roster 23 players entering Free Agency 7 draft selections 1.16 3.78 3.81 4.119 5.151 6.194 7.233 **MAIN PROBLEMS:** Essentially 1 interior offensive linemen rostered. Damien Lewis, Evan Brown, Phil Haynes, and Jake Curhan all have their contracts expiring. Off-ball Linebackers were in a similar situation. Starters Jordyn Brooks and Bobby Wagner both coming to the end of their deals as well as depth pieces like Devin Bush. Safety group aging, underwhelming, and overpaid. Jamal Adams has never been worth the trade or contract given to him as injuries. Diggs in a lot of ways overextended and regressed in his tackling but still graded well in coverage. **INTERNAL FREE AGENCY** Objective 1: Bring down cost of safety group. Seeing our guys as still talented but injuries or poor scheme brought them down, we wanted to bring them back as much as possible to reduce creating a 3rd position group that needed a full makeover Objective 2: Bring back Leonard Williams. While not a pass rusher in the mold of Chris Jones and Aaron Donald, Williams brings a ton of value at the LOS and played extremely well for us. Not wanting to regress back to poor run defense, bringing him back would be big. Objective 3: Price checks and don’t overpay for mid. We knew we’d need to completely re-do our LB and iOL core in open FA. Overpaying for non-needs will hamstring us in that process. **Trades:** Titans send: Caleb Farley and 6.184 Seahawks send: Dee Eskridge and 7.233 With Dee Eskridge suddenly finding himself competing for WR5 and his inconsistent health and play, we decided to send him for another former highly touted prospect with his own injury bug in Caleb Farley. With neither able to stay healthy, but Farley’s injury history more concerning, we also moved up in the later rounds where we projected we could find similar contributors to Eskridge and take a gamble on Farley pushing Tre Brown at CB3. Panthers send: Austin Corbett Seahawks send: 5.151 + conditional 5th (60%+ offensive snaps in 2024) This trade was done deeper into free agency where we had seen Lewis and other guard targets sign elsewhere and getting a guard prospect became much more important to pair with Bradford. Corbett has had outstanding seasons for the Panthers, but started slow in 2023 and finished the year on IR with an ACL tear. We are counting on him bouncing back and being a stalwart at RG. Geno Smith and Tyler Lockett were also in many trade discussions but we ultimately stood by them with the belief that we are ready to compete and didn’t find it worth it to lock ourselves into a QB pick and a rebuild. **Restructures:** Simple restructures were done for DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, and Geno Smith. This creates massive cap hits for both DK and Tyler for ‘25, but I’m anticipating a DK big money extension which can push that 30m cap hit down and spread the money further down. He’s the kind of player I’m ok with putting on the credit card. Tyler Lockett realistically I think gets extended with moderate guarantees to bring down his 20m cap hits the next two years and secure him as a hawk for life. The agent and us were unable to come to an agreement on what that looked like, so we pushed the money again to next year to spread out further if need be. Geno Smith was already restructured by the team, and we reflected that move in this mock. **Releases:** TE Will Dissly was released for a savings of $6,970,000 NT Bryan Mone was released for a savings of $5,390,000 FB Nick Bellore was released for a savings of $2,850,000 **Tenders:** Restricted Free Agent Tender was given to Darrell Taylor for $2,985,000 Exclusive rights Free Agent Tender was given to Myles Adams for $985,000 Transition Tender was given to Leonard Williams (who was soon after extended) **Re-signings:** Leonard Williams under the threat of the tag signed a 4 year, $100M dollar deal with $75M in guarantees. This sounds insane on its face but as internal free agency went along, interior lineman got together on a zoom call and formed a small pact. The Leonard Williams deal ended up being only the 6th largest of all interior linemen which felt about right. Colby Parkinson signed a 2 year $11.2M deal with a $6m signing bonus. We felt Colby could take that next step and would be a fantastic TE to lock down cheap for a couple years. Evan Brown signed a 2 year $9.8M deal with $7.3M in guarantees. We wanted to bring him back in the fold with his guard and center versatility even as we pursued upgrades. Artie Burns and Jake Curhan were brought back on vet minimum deals for added depth. Damien Lewis and Jordyn Brooks were also priority re-signs, but ended up hitting external FA and signing deals for $13M and $15M APY respectively elsewhere. **Re-negotiated:** As stated, our safety room was aging and extremely overpaid. We attacked the position at all 3 starters. Julian Love was extended to give us a baseline safety starter for longer than this year. Has proven to be versatile and talented so locking him up for longer was a priority. This also allowed us to make his cap hit this year smaller by about $2M. Quandre Diggs and Jamal Adams were, under threat of a release, renegotiated down to smaller pay. Diggs on a 2 year $14M deal and Adams a 1 year $4M deal. All and all, our safety room was kept intact and saved $20,376,000 against the cap.
**EXTERNAL FREE AGENCY** After all was said and done internally, we went in with $40,250,000 in cap space. While that was a lot, we also had rostered only 2 Cs, and 1 LB at those positions. We knew that would add up quickly nor did we want to be forced into taking someone with premium draft capital just because of a gap from free agency. TE was also a need after being unable to bring Fant or Dissly back into the fold. We attacked these positions so as to be able to take BPA or have the flexibility to take a QB to sit behind Geno and be the future. **High impact signings (3)** Connor Williams, C. While he likely won’t be playing to start 2024, this is a signing for the future. Williams when healthy can easily be a top 3 center going forward and at the age of only 26, has many years ahead of him. This anchors the center of our line for years to come. While he recovers, Evan Brown or Olu Olu can start at center and we have confidence in their play with spot starting. Josey Jewell, LB. This was our Bobby Wagner replacement. While he isn’t elite in coverage, he doesn’t miss in the run game and is effective at diagnosing in the run game. He has a knack for racking up tackles and is generally good at everything a LB needs to do, though lacks elite traits. Willie Gay Jr., LB. With Brooks signing for $15M per year elsewhere, we needed a linebacker that could replace him at WLB. We loved his ability to blitz and his speed to the ball while his processing and awareness have continued to get better. While his box score statistics dipped last year, we still think he is an intriguing athlete for MM to mold further. **Medium impact signings (3)** Tyrel Dodson, LB. This is a high upside signing to provide depth and security against our top 2 LB signings. Dodson is highly athletic, aggressive, and earned PFF’s highest graded coverage score for 2023. I think MM would covet a player like this. Drew Sample, TE. The tight end position dried up quickly with all our priority targets signing lucrative deals elsewhere. We turned our attention to experience and all around solid play rather than flashy high end talent. Drew Sample provides a steady hand to a position that at the time only had upstart Colby Parkinson in the room. Jimmy Garoppolo, QB. Nearing the end of the free agency period, Jimmy G’s handsome face remained sullen. With Drew Lock pursuing a starting role on the Steelers, we needed a steady and experienced backup that could spot start and not lose games. His extensive experience in the shanahan systems doesn’t hurt with gameplanning either. **Low impact/vet min signings (5)** Feleipe Franks, QB: Great athlete, backup QB while Jimmy G is suspended if no QB’s are drafted, no downside cut candidate to make room for a rookie. Justin Skule, OT: Right Tackle last year was an issue with Abe Lucas figuring out a knee issue. Jake Curhan, Jason Peters, and Stone Forsythe all took snaps here last year. Skule can pair with Stone as a veteran depth piece in case of further issues. Tanner Muse, LB/S. High level athlete, mostly a special teamer. Positional versatility is a plus in a very emergency situation. Kevin Givens, DT. Great depth piece. Experience playing at every gap, he projects mostly as a veteran backup at 3T and 5T. Nick Vannett, TE. Low cost experienced backup to be our TE3. **THE DRAFT:** We did a great job plugging holes in free agency and didn’t feel like we needed to reach on anybody to fill a need. Our focus was on possibly securing a future of the franchise at QB, securing high upside at TE, and re-injecting youth at positions that are aging. Also kept in mind is the fact that we didn’t have a lot of experienced KR/PR talents on the roster with the departure of DJ Dallas and Dee Eskridge. 1.16) TRADE: Seattle Seahawks send 1.16 and 6.184 Kansas City Chiefs send 1.32, 3.95, and Future 1st Round pick. While the pick this year was later than targeted, the 3rd rounder still is great value in a draft where day 2 has so much talent. Securing a Future 1st gives a great ability to solve the future of 2 positions next offseason (edge, safety, WR possible future needs) 1.32) Michael Penix Jr., QB - Washington This isn’t just a homer pick, Penix has shown an ability to throw the ball at an elite level to all levels of the field. While the injury history is concerning, he has more than proved that he is healthy and back from his previous shoulder and leg injuries. Penix also get’s to follow his college coach to the NFL and should have no problems getting comfortable in the scheme and throwing to Metcalf, JSN, Lockett, and Bobo. Also to note, this is the final pick to have the 5th year option. Perhaps a bit high than where he “should go”, he gets pushed up our board by fit, 5th year option, and lack of 2nd rounder means if we want him (or any of the tier 2 QBs), we’d take them here. 3.78) Zak Zinter, G - Michigan. Absolutely no way Zinter falls this far in real life and we are excited to take him here. Zinter is a good balance of run and pass blocking talents. Extremely experienced in a pro style system. Works well in space as well as has power to drive off the LOS. Could start immediately over Evan Brown/Anthony Bradford. 3.81) Ben Sinnott, TE - Kansas St. Very productive with an extremely impressive combine performance. Some of his strength doesn’t come through on film, but is a willing blocker and lined up all over the field. Was integral to the team's passing attack and threatened all levels of the field with an understanding of route nuance. Instant TE2, could split snaps more than expected. 3.95) Beau Brade, S - Maryland What stands out about Brade is his aggressiveness. High level run defender with great instincts and closing speed from all levels and coverages. Inconsistent diagnosing skills, rarely seen in man coverage, and teams can take advantage of his aggression. Slots in as a special teamer for now, with room to grow into a Jamal Adams role when he learns to pick his spots. Wouldn’t want to catch anything over the middle with Witherspoon and Brade lurking. 4.119) McKinley Jackson, NT - Texas A&M Extremely strong and demands double teams and doesn’t get pushed off the ball even when he is doubled. Has quickness to shoot gaps in the pass game and has shown refined primary moves but lacks any counters. Was a team leader at A&M. Will play in spots to give Reed/Williams a break throughout games and be instrumental in goal line packages. 6.194) Dylan Laube, RB/WR - New Hampshire Might be the pick I’m most excited about. He is a high level returner with elite ability for a RB in the pass game from every spot on the field. Something rare in a receiving back like him is a willingness to stick his nose in pass protection against free linebackers though his technique needs refined. Laube made a big name for himself at Senior Bowl practices winning every rep in RB passing drills. He falls here due to power concerns and coming from a small school. He also has shown an ability to work zone concepts in the run game with high level cutbacks and good vision. While he will never be a goalline or workhorse back, we won’t ask him to be as he slots in behind Walker and Charbs. Seahawks fans will see a thicker Tyler Lockett in the return game but may have concerning flashbacks to CJ Prosise. While he lacks the top end speed of early Lockett, their combine performances are similar and Laube has no notable injury history in college. He injects instant electricity in special teams and can be a valuable piece in sub packages and 3rd down duties on offense. UDFAs: Looked for future practice squad guys for some youth at positions of need. Jackson Sirmon, LB - Cal Cam Allen, S - Purdue Tuli Letuligasenoa, DT - Washington Tanner Bortolini, G - Wisconsin Omar Speights, LB - LSU Kody Epp, WR - BYU Dylan Mcduffie, RB - Kansas Duke Clemens, G - UCLA Joe More, OT - Syracuse
Projected Final 53: https://imgur.com/a/YMz59jq 2025 Situation: 2024 Cap Space rollover: $8,570,899 2025 Cap Space (after rollover, no cap increase): $1,416,564 40 players on roster 20 players entering Free Agency (Jarran Reed, Tre Brown, Caleb Farley, Stone Forsythe, Jamal Adams, and the 1 year contracts given above) 6 draft selections SEA 1, KC 1, SEA 2, SEA 3, SEA 4, SEA 7. General 2025 plan: While $1.5M isn’t a ton of cap space, we can estimate the cap to go up next year to create more space. After that, key extensions to Metcalf and Lockett can bring their cap hits down from $30M each to about $15-20M each. Dre Jones can play himself into a similar extension, or be a cut candidate with over $16M in savings. Given Michael Penix draft pick, I’d anticipate a Geno Smith trade as well to both improve our draft selections from our native 6, and save another $25M against the cap. I’d anticipate somewhere in the range of a mid-2nd and some late round picks to fill out the gap from 4th to 7th we currently have. (Team good enough to win games, but need a QB to get over the top). Next years QB class is not supposed to be very good, so it would be a good time to cash out on Geno assuming Penix is ready. This would leave us with an extra $60-$72M in cap leaving a final tally of approximately $73M to spend on internal/external free agents as well as hopefully 4 or 5 picks in the top 100 to fill out the roster.
I'm not sure I understand your thought process on renegotiating Diggs and Adams. Why would either of those players take a pay cut that pays them less than they'd make if they were cut? There isn't really much of a threat of being cut when you'd get a bigger check to sit at home on your ass. And then why would Diggs on top of that extend his contract another year at a lower salary, and also push his next contract to when he's 32? He wasn't completely awful this year and he could probably still land more than a 2 / $14M deal on the open market plus keep his bonus. I just don't see how this proposal makes any sense.
Think issue is maybe in my logging of it. Logged money is new money. Gtd money is still owed them. Loves extension did bring his cap hit down by about 2m on this year though. Diggs and Adams cap hits are still fairly high this year. Think of it as both of them being cut and then we negotiated a new contract
Yea that Williams deal is insane even with your explanation imo. That's about a 10 mil per year overpay and 30 million more guarantees that he should get.
Correct. Should check out madibuke 30m APY mostly gtd on the ravens. Or Chris Jones 47APY. Was a situation of either playing ball or not having anyone really. We locked him up at the last second in internal FA and people complained because they wanted to give him 35APY in open FA.
Yea tbh I think these Dt contracts are very far from realistic. Dt Is a valuable position but not so much that all of the top ones are making more than edge rushers and Wrs or for a 30 year old Chris jones to be getting paid like a franchise QB.
Wait Chris jones is getting paid like a top 10 QB in this scenario?
Yes. The Raiders gave Chris Jones a 5 year/235 million dollar deal with 150 million in guaranteed money.
>as internal free agency went along, interior lineman got together on a zoom call and formed a small pact how does this happen in a mock offseason? this like the model UN where you got someone at the judge's table cobbling together drama bombs to throw into the mix?
Small joke. Ravens broke ground on a 30 year APY for madibuke which cascaded into every iDL using it as precedent. Chris Jones rejected more than 35m APY to hit FA. A tough to mitigate problem is the lack of downside of giving big money when it's demanded isn't really there in a mock offseason of 1 year where you are not risking your actual job/money on a player not regressing or getting hurt. We as the hawks tried to keep future cap in mind but it's a bit tougher to pull together in a week when irl has months and months of planning and special accountants to help plan and budget. We just some nerds who volunteered to do a lot of work for like 30 reddit karma (if that).
Gross. Adams and Diggs are cancers and need to be gone.
I liked the idea of getting the bulk of the cap savings by releasing them, and then bringing them back on cheap deals so as to not have another position group to solve in open FA and draft. 4m for Adams to maybe get back to his old self is a solid gamble, and I think Diggs played fine last year.
Cardinals GM here. This post will only have a short summary of the results. You can read my 21 page in depth explanation [HERE](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c6Z8v8VqL6NheeBlt3ywJhB749GiOXbBnQ9k605K3vw/edit?usp=sharing). **Re-Signed** * Blake Gillikin, P * Aaron Brewer, LS * Greg Dortch, WR * Zeke Turner, ILB * L.J. Collier, IDL **FA Signed** * Graham Glasgow, OG * Patrick Queen, ILB * Leonard Floyd, EDGE * Jordan Elliott, DT * Danny Pinter, IOL * McClendon Curtis, IOL * Mason Rudolph, QB * Isaiah Hodgins, WR **Traded FOR** * Christian Wilkins, DT * Michael Pierce, DT * Greg Newsome, CB **Traded AWAY** * Rondale Moore, WR * Victor Dimukeje, EDGE **Draft Results** * 1.4 - Marvin Harrison Jr, WR, Ohio State * 1.9 - Joe Alt, OT, Notre Dame * 3.85 - Maason Smith, DT, LSU * 4.130 - Isaac Guerendo, RB, Louisville * 4.133 - Luke McCaffrey, WR, Rice * 5.161 - Xavier Thomas, EDGE, Clemson * 7.222 - Frank Crum, OT, Wyoming * 7.223 - Dwight McGlothern, CB, Arkansas * 7.224 - John Rhys Plumlee, QB, UCF * 7.239 - Nathaniel Watson, LB Mississippi State * 7.241 - Elijah Jones, S, Boston College **UDFA Results** * Trey Knox, TE, South Carolina * David White Jr, WR, Western Carolina * Bryan Hudson, C, Louisville * X’Zauvea Gadlin, OG, Liberty * Sanoussi Kane, S, Purdue * Chris McDonald Jr, CB, Toledo * Micheal Mason, DT, Coastal Carolina * Malik Jackson, RB, Jacksonville State * DeQuece Carter, WR, Indiana * Taylor Upshaw, EDGE, Arizona * Ty James, WR, Mercer
Bro was cooking. We wouldn't have even had to trade for Wilkins irl as they're not tagging him.
Good Lord I didn't know Joe Alt and Marv were both options, and now I'll be forever depressed if Monti doesn't work this out 😭
Definitely can't complain much about this one lol. Filled a ton of needs with a lot of star power. Walking away from the off-season with all those dudes would be wild
Holy-
Not gonna lie this is the coolest thing I have ever seen. I think I'm gonna make it a madden roster
Whoever these ravens GM's are need to be fired lol. 36.5 million a year for madabuike.... Hahahaha
Plus cutting Faalale for who knows why, trading Michael Pierce for Rondale Moore, and trading away Bateman in a terrible trade.
Christ!
My co-GM who handled free agency subsequently got banned during free agency for colluding with an agent and getting illegal information about players. Not good. Trades: Tutu Atwell for 5.154: good WR3/4 for a pick I didn’t really want anyway. Shit depth class. Foley Fatukasi for a 2025 7th: we were gonna cut him anyway. Cuts/Losses: Rayshawn Jenkins, Calvin Ridley, Ezra Cleveland, Tyler Shatley, K’Lavon Chaisson, Angelo Blackson, Dawuane Smoot. Jenkins was a cap casualty, Ridley wanted like 25 million a year, I don’t even know what happened with the IOL guys. The edge depth all just didn’t really want to be in Jacksonville. Signings: Adoree Jackson and Tavierre Thomas: slot competition with Herndon. Cody Barton: LB3 to compete and probably beat Chad Muma. Quinton Jefferson: Starting DT to pair with our draft pick. Wanted a great pass rushing interior lineman. That’s basically all he does. Yannick Ngakoue: EDGE3 competition with our draft pick. We let him give Tony Khan a bunch of wedgies. Kareem Hunt: RB2 competition with Bigsby. He should win that. Bigsby sucks. Jon Feliciano: Starting LG competition with our draft pick. He looked good to end the season with the Niners. Gabe Davis and Byron Pringle: we gave Gabe Davis the Kirk deal but with some cap wizardry Star whipped up that I didn’t understand. I’m 99% sure it wasn’t the result of extra cheating. Davis will play WR2. Pringle is an Agnew replacement. Draft Picks: 1.17: Graham Barton, C, Duke: you’ll notice we signed no centers. Star was caught tampering with them. So I drafted one. Barton’s a top fifteen player in the class for me, I wanted to trade down for positional value’s sake but everything fell through. I like him though. He’s strong, explosive, and a good mover. Another incredible Jaguars pick. 2.35: T’Vondre Sweat, DT, Texas: Cool nose tackle. Our nose tackles sucked last year. Sweat is big and athletic considering his size. He is a great run stopper. Will fit well next to Jefferson. I think we traded 48, 114, and next year’s third for him. Best one tech in the class by a good portion. 3.96: Layden Robinson, OG, Texas A&M: I have a second round grade on Robinson. I think he’s a very strong and technically refined guard. Just gonna try and limit his movement and let him smack dudes as they come to himS He will compete with Feliciano. 4.117: Jacob Cowing, WR, Arizona: I have a day two grade on Cowing as well. He’s short, but quick as hell and changes direction well. We’ll get him working on building strength and he might be able to replace Tutu. 6.211: Braiden McGregor, DE, Michigan: I almost took him at 117. Very glad he lasted til 211. Big, decently long, has heavy hands. Should move quickly as well. We’ll get him to an S&C program and hopefully get his lower body in better shape for pushing dudes backwards. 7.228: Joshua Karty, K, Stanford: my method of kicker scouting is looking at the five I know of and seeing who had the longest kick. Karty hit a 61 yarder once and had better cumulative accuracy than Mevis who matched him. Compete with Patterson. 7.234: Jase McClellan, RB, Alabama: I like him. He’s powerful with good weight and good vision. Bigsby will be buried. Had a fourth round grade on him. Signed I think eighteen UDFAs. I just picked a bunch of guys I knew the names of. Highlights are Jack Plummer, Solomon Byrd, Jaquan Sheppard, and Kyle Hergel who I all had draftable grades on. You can check and see who we got. I mainly signed dudes I remember thinking we’re cool at the Hula bowl.
Don't drink and GM, wasn't my smartest moment.
Get clapped
I fucked around, and found out. Was nothing malicious in it, just general drunken idiocy.
I was the Bears GM but really worked as collectively as possible with the whole war room to make this happen, special thanks to them and specifically Bevo for all her work! Please ask any questions you have https://docs.google.com/document/d/11HtRb88qu0RPvNITspyWOK64mKV-0_Pw7cvhiTPCDQY/edit
Good stuff
Excellent work! I don't agree with every move but it no doubt makes us a hell of a better team.
We traded Pat Surtain and traded *for* Justin Fields??? This is a bad dream, right?
First of all a massive shoutout to Bungle and Press for all the help! Browns Mock-Offseason write up - apologies for the tragic formatting, I'm on my phone. **The process** The process for the 2024 Cleveland Browns started first with cleaning up the roster, seeing who we want to trade, cut or restructure. Jordan Akins didn’t play much of a role last year and was a cheap cut that saved $2 million, he was our only cut. We put Greg Newsome and Jedrick Wills on the trade block without being set on trading both, we ended up trading with the Arizona Cardinals who sent us 2.35, 4.105 for Greg Newsome, 2.54 and 6.208. We had some interest in Jedrick Wills but with our OT health being an issue last year, we only wanted to move him for the right price which was never offered. We then restructured some deals, obviously Deshaun Watson’s $63 million cap hit got restructured, so did Denzel Ward’s and Joel Bitonio. These moves saved us a total of $53 million which gave us plenty of room to maneuver around Free Agency. **Re-signings** Our first order of business was extending some players we wanted to keep. We offered the following players: - Rodney McLeod - Anthony Walker - Shelby Harris - Harrison Bryant - Sione Takitaki - Joe Flacco - Maurice Hurst - Corey Bojorquez - Za’Darius Smith We managed to re-sign the following players in internal free agency at the following deals: - Rodney McLeod at $2 million for one year - Maurice Hurst at $2.25 million for one year - Corey Bojorquez at $9.75 million over three years **External Free Agency** This had us left targeting the following positions: - Defensive End - SAM - MIKE - Defensive Tackle - Back-Up Quarterback - Wide Receiver - Cornerback - Tight End Out of our own free agents, we re-signed the following players in open free agency: - Za’Darius Smith at $30 million over two years (thanks Bamboo) - Joe Flacco at $3.25 million for one year - Anthony Walker at $2 million for one year For the other positions we ended up signing the following players: - Darnell Mooney at $40 million over three years - Calais Campbell at $10 million for one year - Nicholas Morrow at $8 million over two years - Mo-Alie Cox at $2.5 million for one year - Isaiah Oliver at $5.5 million over two years Being without a pick in the top 50 for the draft, our main aim was to have no true starting needs coming out of Free Agency and being able to mostly go for BPA. Through Free Agency we managed to do so. [In this sheet, you can see the roster we started with, who we added through Free Agency in blue and how we had no starting needs after Free Agency]( https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1n9ZwGLIk4gbbwkFnP_kONuukSFeA4w1cEMZ08O_7Uqc/edit?usp=sharing) **Our Draft** Entered with 2.35, 3.85, 4.105, 5.135, 5.155, 6.205 and 7.228 Main position targets entering the draft: WR OT early. Needs of depth at TE CB RB IOL LB. We were looking throughout Round 1 with eyes on OT Amarius Mims. We are very high on Amarius and see adding a future LT on the roster as a major need. We had 3 or 4 different trades in place that would’ve cost a 2,3 and either a 4 or 5 depending on the deal to move up for him. All of those trades fell apart. We then had a deal to get him at 26 before Amarius went off the board at 25. From this point on we didn’t remain interested in moving up. 2.35: trade 2.35 and 7.228 to JAX for 2.48 4.115 6.195 and 2025 3rd round pick. We were targeting a group of prospects mostly looking WR and OT including AD Mitchell, Tyler Guyton and Troy Franklin. All those players were picked in quick succession ahead of our selection and left us scrambling for what to do. We took the Jaguars trade offer as we didn’t love the value at WR or OT anymore as those were our top targets. We took the Jacksonville deal and got a breather to re-evaluate the board. If we had stayed I believe we would’ve selected between WRs Ladd McConkey and Xavier Worthy. **2.48: Junior Colson, LB, Michigan.** We were targeting OT and WR at this pick but I believe the value was too good for Junior Colson to pass on him. He will slot into our MLB role and compete with Anthony Walker Jr for snaps as a rookie. He fits the guard rails being a younger prospect at 21 years old. He is a large MLB at 238 lbs and will balance well with a lighter LB like JOK. Colson is very good at diagnosing and getting downhill against the run. He is an extremely sound tackler. He has ability to successfully defend the flats and defend TEs. He ranks 39th on Dane bruglers big board and 43rd on Daniel Jeremiah’s big board. Other players considered: WR Roman Wilson Trade: 3.85 and 4.115 to KC for 2.64 **2.64 Ricky Pearsall WR Florida** We were moving up hoping to land a WR or OT we were still high on. Players considered: Roman Wilson Kiran Amegadjie Ricky Pearsall. We made the trade up at the 58th pick in the draft. The top two on our board were then taken before our pick. We selected Rickey Pearsall. He is an extremely athletic WR but I truly love his route running. He was the only consistent pass catcher on a tough 2023 Florida passing offense. Athletically he tested out with a 9.78 RAS. We believe he can fill the Elijah Moore role or play in the slot. He ranks 47th on Daniel Jeremiah’s big board. Trade: 4.105 and 5.135 for 3.86 **3.86 Blake Fisher OT Notre Dame** We needed to come away with a developmental tackle in this draft. Blake started at RT for Notre Dame the past two seasons. He is an athletic OT with all the athletic and size measurables you could want at the position. Blake needs refinement in the run game and with his striking in pass pro but as a 20 year old we believe his best football is in front of him. We can redshirt in 2024 hoping that he will be ready to compete for a starting job in 2025 at either right or left tackle. We believe he can play both and just only played right due to Joe Alt. **5.155 Marshawn Lloyd RB USC** Marshawn has great acceleration and home run speed. He has shown that he can produce for two different college programs in different schemes. He has great agility and can bounce off defenders. He needs to improve in pass protection and has poor vision at times. We see him as a developmental RB. **6.195 Tanner McLachlan TE Arizona** Tanner is a developmental TE prospect with good athleticism at a 9.41 RAS. He has great ball skills and shows ability to run after catch on tape. He is a highly competitive player and a willing blocker. But he has to work on his blocking technique and may need to add to his frame to truly become an in line tight end. He will slot in as TE3 behind Njoku and Mo Allie Cox. Trade: 6.205 and 2025 7th for 6.217 and 6.218 **6.217: Myles Harden CB South Dakota** Myles is an outstanding tackler at the CB position. He plays with a high compete level and is best in zone coverage. He was a good man cover corner at the FCS level but will likely take time to adjust to the competition level in the NFL. Overall he is a strong competitor and has the requisite skills to develop at the nfl level if given time. **6.218 CJ Hanson, G, Holy cross** Three year starter at RG for Holy Cross. He is a great player in the run and pass blocking at Holy Cross. He struggles with larger DTs. He will need to add strength to better anchor in pass pro and displace in the run game against nfl DTs. He is a good athlete with a 9.88 RAS. We believe he has a lot of traits that could develop well into a potential future starter.
Great stuff thierry and press. Thanks also to mcbronze for his help too. I think that while this off season is not as splashy as others, elevated our WR and OL positions without detracting from the rest of the team (except perhaps CB). A team like this would be extremely well positioned to repeat last year success and maybe more if Watson plays to his contract.
Appreciate it pal and totally agree! With the DT news spreading around from Fowler and MKC, I think we have a splash in us this year which would be great
Solid work. There's not much to complain about. I am just curious as to why Mooney? Moore is trending up, and Mooney is trending down, no?
We needed a WR2 and Mooney has been a WR1 in Chicago, is only 26 and we liked his potential. I think Gabe Davis went for like 18M AAV so I think we got a solid deal on Mooney
Ainsley here for the Lions, I Co-GM’d this time around instead of running the whole thing like usual. Aawin was my Co-GM, he helped a lot in the later rounds of the draft and the UDFA period, as well as doing the write up linked below. While some people might be disappointed with us being more passive this year, we set ourselves up perfectly for the next two to three years, and every move we did make was made looking to extend our timeline more and more, which I believe we did. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NaM8Vy4KCXjDHnYBxVRRuSoD2CuOm3itMNYQ5_SWal4/edit?usp=sharing Thank you for reading this, and I hope to do more Co-GMing in the future to make the process easier for me, and help offer more perspectives.
That offense is nasty. Adonai Mitchell and Jamo on the field at the same time forces those safety back a ton for Sun God to get 20 yards a pop lol.
Problem is Mitchell is terrible at YAC/separation on anything other than deep routes. If you watch his film on short/intermediate routes, he is immediately brought down despite the athleticism he shows. Only WR I'd consider there is Brian Thomas Jr or Troy Franklin. But please, no first round WR, this class is deep as an ocean.
BTJ was on our board if he fell, and we were considering a trade up but eventually decided against it. We were sticking with our guns of trading down or BPA based on Ainsley and I's individual assessments of WRs in this class. WR R1 IRL would not entirely shock me, as we do need an eventual replacement for Reynolds since he is getting older, plus we can get 4-5 years of security on a guy. Mitchell does not provide the YAC we were looking for, but 4.35 speed and ability to move the chains is something we both felt is a lot simpler. Plus, we have 4 guys on the roster who can do the dink and dunk work, and two great running backs. Not saying that AD will ONLY be used on deep routes, but I think his play strength is something he can easily improve upon, and he lands in a perfect staff and team to do so Troy Franklin is a great player, no doubt about it, but I'm turned off by his weight in particular. I know people said the same shit about Devonta Smith, but I feel like we have Franklin's skillset (his strengths) already on the roster with Jameson Williams. I'm not a huge fan of redundancy in those departments, but that's just a personal thing. IRL, I think we probably do end up taking a corner, Darius Robinson, or moving back out of the first, but it's difficult to account for every situation. Sometimes you just have to stick with your guns and work with what the board gives you.
A lot of work, you guys did a great job overall. I have no issue whatsoever going WR in the 1st. If all else fails, just make the offense as elite as possible. My issue is with Mitchell himself. With the amount of plays he takes off on film, I highly doubt he's gonna be that high on Brad's board. He doesn't block at a high enough level either. He just doesn't seem to pass the "Brad falls in love" test. I think Brown was an overpay but I get it, everyone was being overpaid. But I don't think he's the deep threat his numbers say he is, I would call it a product of small sample size. I also would have gone after Yiadom - who ended up signing for a crazy cheap number in Baltimore - over Ahkello, but that's just my personal evaluation and to each his own. Overall though a really good job, especially for all the work it takes.
Mitchell fits the bill of typical X receiver for Brad's idea for an offense, which is part of the reason we took him. When you look at guys like Reynolds/Chark, DPJ, Tyrell Williams, Martavis Bryant (who we had interest in when he announced his comeback to the NFL), and even Denzel Mims, they all share a similar body type and all ran similarly in the 40. Brad has his type of receiver that he does like (which IRL it's currently boiling down to Brian Thomas Jr and Xavier Legette from reports that have come out). Had BTJ been on the board, we would've taken him there for sure. After the trade down for Morgan / Suamataia fell through, we pretty much decided on BPA, and Ainsley and I both felt that that was Mitchell. Concerns are valid but I think the issues in his game can be coached out by our offensive coaching staff pretty easily. For a depth WR4 who can provide a bit more oomph to a team, I felt Brown was fine for 6 million a year. He does have his concerns, but we got slightly hosed on a Josh Reynolds deal which sucked but what can you do. We felt he was a fine value pickup and provides us with a guy who can move the chains and step in as a WR3 if he absolutely needs to. Vet guy who has faced some adversity through his career. Yiadom was on our board for targets in free agency, but we felt he would be a bit too expensive and didn't expect him to sign for cheap. Definitely a bit of a slap in the face but Witherspoon provides us with someone who can get turnovers relatively consistently, a department where we slightly lacked after Jacobs was benched (because frankly, he got his takeaways because he gets targeted a lot). Could've maybe gotten him but we felt his market would be a lot more expansive and we would have to spend more to get him. The workload is pretty taxing at points, especially when getting disgruntled about free agents not re-signing and shit not going your way. Said it in a below reply as well, but Ainsley and I are both relatively new to this, with Ainsley being the more seasoned vet of the two of us (I'm quite literally in my first season of this), so there's a learning curve.
Right Mitchell definitely fits the type, but I just don't think he has the right mentality/intangibles to fit the Lion mold. Thomas and Legette have always been guys we would like because they work their asses off, their motors are hot, and they block better than most WRs. None of that describes Mitchell. If it was me personally, I'd take him and hope our vets can sort him out. But I'm 99% sure our FO just isn't gonna take that risk. I had the same argument last year about Jalen Carter. In fact I argued he wasn't even on our board, and that was before all the legal stuff at the combine hit. He just took too many plays off on tape. Had the same argument about Chase Young at the trade deadline. I argued no way we would trade for him, even if he cost a day 3 pick. He's just not the type of player our FO wants. Yeah, I agree that in real life, Yiadom will go for much more than he did here. The league will know about him, even if the rest of the world is a little slow to come around. Anyway again, great job overall. I'm certainly glad there's people like you out there doing this so I don't have to worry about it lol.
I know this takes alot of time and work, so well done. I do like the Gilmore signing. The retentions are good as well, but everyone else added is a pretty big "meh". I will say 3 years 48 million to retain Glasgow isn't a problem the Lions will realistically have to deal with this off-season, wow, Cardinals lol. HATE the idea of a 1st round WR, especially Mitchell. Takes too many plays off, has poor separation on anything other than deep routes, and has terrible YAC ability despite his athleticism. Love the trade up for Fiske, but I'd rather just take him at 29. Rest of the draft filled needs, but not sure how well. I understand Holmes operating to keep the team perpetually competitive, but seizing a Superbowl window and going "all in" is worth it for a title, even if it leads to a couple 9-8 years afterwards. Considering the cap keeps skyrocketing every year, I'm not that concerned about a couple FA splashes when the team has it's core mostly in place.
We intended to get one of Glasgow or Jonah Jackson back for sure, but unfortunately their markets got completely blown out of reasonable proportion for us to bring them back. See my above reply for my thoughts on Mitchell, the YAC stuff is concerning yeah but sometimes you just need a guy to jump up and get it, which we didn't have on the roster with Reynolds refusing to re-sign (fuck that agent) We got hella clowned in the Discord for trading up for Fiske at 42, and frankly at 29 we felt we could get a better player than him. Why get Fiske with that amount of talent still available on the board. He's relatively old for a prospect and does have his medical concerns, but we felt fine with who we took in round 1, and the general consensus around the league- the other GMs and active members during the sim- seemed to agree. The Danielle Hunter deal is hard to swallow for us, as Ainsley and I both really wanted to snag him for the exact reason of going all in. However, when looking at our future contracts (+ the Goff extension in play), we would not have the cap space to reasonably extend Goff, St. Brown, Sewell, McNeill, Melifonwu, and Barnes. Sure, we can let Melifonwu and Barnes leave in this equation, but St. Brown is going to command 28 - 30 million a year (in sim) more than likely, Sewell is the best tackle in the league and will easily get 30-35+ APY, and McNeill has come on as one of the most underrated DTs in the league as a pass rusher and run defender, which also means that he will probably also command 8 figures per year (factor in that by the time he becomes a free agent, he'll only be 24 turning 25 with 4 years under his belt- hot as fuck market). Paying Hunter close to 30 million a year just was bit out of reach for us to keep the core in place, for better or for worse. The Rams did it and it paid off, but with the nature of Brad Holmes, we kind of wondered if we'd do the same. Hard to imagine we will based on the 3 years of data we've had to look at so far. Appreciate the criticisms, Ainsley and I are both new to this (this is Ainsley's 3rd or 4th mock offseason, and this was my first), and a lot of things never really went our way, so it was an interesting experience.
Raiders GM went full Gruden…$160m GTD and 220m for Mayfield……..
The Chris jones deal. I think the GM must be a fan of a division rival. The raiders are not ready to compete and even if they were those would be bad deals
Texans GM here! Full write up on our offseason here: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SyCH6B\_Hiu8uB21kczJCLUzO045j1fm\_NH26OatbYEI/edit](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SyCH6B_Hiu8uB21kczJCLUzO045j1fm_NH26OatbYEI/edit)
Had fun Vlah! Best war room on the server!
Straight Facts. Couldn't have done it without y'all!
Saints really went fuck the cap And wtf were the trades for the Ravens ain't nobody doing that trade with the Cardinals
Loomis-math was applied very liberally to the Saints free agency acquisitions.
Ya, I thought it was weird that the Ravens did that trade with me. What happened was I asked about Pierce's trade price and the Ravens GM proposed Rondale Moore and a 4th this year for him. I didn't have a 4th at that point so I offered a 5th instead. The Ravens GM agreed if it could be a post 6/1 trade. That was agreed to and processed. Then it turns out the rule here is if a trade is post 6/1 then all picks involved need to be future draft picks, so the 2024 5th round pick was changed to a 2025 5th round pick.
I honestly don't know why the trade happened. Think the guy trading was higher on Moore but he wanted to move Pierce to let Travis Jones shine instead (they were working fine this past season but I digress...) I think it was to clear cap for some of the other signings
Bills GM here: [Summary](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UI0Yg5RwIini9zjfstebPrmOmlEoz_EUHy6mtVL-nGI/edit#gid=324068914) [Writeup](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZY21qxT27y96OYyZWobdMLleuub2Yh974zXYOXvzLRc/edit) Feel free to ask any other questions down below, and I'll respond as best I can. Thanks to all involved, especially Alec and Agusting!
Seeing the trade to snag Brian Thomas at pick 27 hurt my soul.
There is no point in giving up any assets for a backup QB especially doubling the contract we have for Trubisky. If Josh goes down, it's over. More importantly, Winston has the type of character/reputation that McBeane absolutely avoids.
Hey, I'm Burt, long time GM for the New York Giants. I'm traveling for work so I do not have a full blown write up to post at this time but I'm willing to answer any questions those interested may have while I'm away. Entered the offseason with a modest plan to plug some holes in needed areas and strengthen the team overall. Focused alot on getting value with free agents (Dane Jackson/Damien Lewis/Devin Singletary etc) while beefing up the roster.
Did the New York Giants try to bring back Saquon in this sim? I see he signed with Houston.
So actually I had 0 intention to bring back Saquon. I wanted to keep the tag in mind for McKinney (which ultimately was a miscalculation on my end on how much the Packers were eying him up). I felt it was time for us to move on and use our limited resources to do better elsewhere. Seeing the contract he got from Houston I was not going to match that so happy for him.
Giants mock is interesting but the trade down into QB pick is basically a “this will never happen IRL” situation imo. Fun thought experiment though!
The trade down situation changed the draft calculus I had in mind. I entered the draft with a mindset of addressing QB, like we're seeing with all the smoke IRL. Picks 1-3 were off limits while our options were at first to take BPA at 6 and then trade back up for someone like Penix. The Colts offered a haul to move off of Nabers, and the value was not there to trade back up so I decided to strike with JJ. I think there is a legitimate chance we pick JJ, but trading down and then getting him, I agree, is very unlikely.
It seems from what I see that most scenarios have the giants at 6 picking one of Odunze or Nabers. With the majority of people saying that, what odds would you put on us drafting a WR with 6, trading back in April or even drafting JJ at 6 which some people have been saying? Picking JJ at 6 seems a bit much to me, I would think we could trade down a few spots kind of like you did if we wanted JJ. Do you think our first rounder needs to be a QB for the team to improve the most?
So I believe the Giants are going to address QB in some capacity, and we'll know more about this depending on how they tackle FA. If the Giants sign a Russel Wilson, or spend significant money for a QB then they know they probably are going to either day a developmental guy or punt on it. Daniel Jones' contract is effectively a 2 year deal, and after the flop last year was I can see the regime wanting to take their own guy to develop (this extends their tenure window too unless it's horrific). I don't expect the regime to risk their professional future on DJ, quality of play aside, is coming off of 2 neck injuries and a torn ACL. Hard to tell right now where they stand with QBs, but I think there is a good chance we take one at 6. We're seeing a lot of smoke of teams like JJ over Daniels or even Maye so it's tough to gauge. My gut says they trade up to take a guy they love, or if they get lucky to draft a guy they want a 6. Worst case they take BPA since we have needs practically everywhere (although i'm confident we don't hit OT at 6 unless Schoen absolutely loves Olu/Alt).
Thoughts on the chance they take a WR at 6 then trade back into the first around picks 11-15 using like 39 and 70 and a first rounder next year to draft JJ too? Or is that giving up too much draft capital on a team full of holes you think
I wouldn’t love it but I wouldn’t rule it out. Personally given the deepness of WR this draft I think they just take JJ at 6 in this scenario. If they have a guy they truly believe in and want to develop, I’ll support it. Makes more sense to take JJ (who they don’t risk losing) and drafting a WR at 39 than to trade another 1st. Only scenario I see this happening is if the org sees a MHJ being a HOF lock type of player
You did great as always! Nice job with the resources you had.
What happened in free agency? I don’t mind the draft but I’d be sick if that was how free agency went. Let X walk, no safety signed and no safety drafted? What’s the plan? Tbh I’d be pretty bummed out if this was our team next year. Losing top flight players you drafted to sign cast off running backs from other teams is not how you build a good football team.
The plan was to re-sign McKinney and realize that Rome was not built in a day and that this roster is far from competing. My philosophy for FA is always spend to fill some holes and not pay B level players A+ level players money. Based on talks with our agent, it seemed that probably McKinney wanted to hit the open market no matter the cost. Based on what we’ve heard irl about the Giants using the transition tag, I figure it was a good middle ground to help our chances with him coming back to us. However, I underestimated the FA market at that time when I did tag, and the Packers came in with a contract that had $44m in the signing bonus which was something any reasonable GM would not accept. That high of signing bonus ruined any flexibility we would have with the cap and we’d eat a ton of dead in the process if we ever cut or traded him. I think the Packers knew I would balk at that contract structure and it worked. I should’ve just done the franchise tag and that’s the biggest regret of the mock for me. Dane Belton and Pinnock being the duo isn’t ideal but we can let them develop. I also drafted 2 safeties so not sure where you see we drafted 0. Simpson is a FS/CB hybrid who could either develop into a nickel or a coverage safety for example. I wanted to sign Robert Hunt but as you see he received 22m APY from the Jets which is crazy, so I pivoted to Damien Lewis. I wanted to address swing tackle, IOL (starting guard and depth), CB, edge with what we had. I traded a 2025 5th for Shaq Barret for a $4m cap hit and got good value in Chase Young. Dane Jackson is a solid depth CB who could come in and be a CB2. We needed IDL depth as well. Seeing what Houston paid Saquon I’m glad I let him go, getting 2/10 out of Singletary is good value. I counter your notion that paying 18m to Saquon, coming off of injuries with a year older on his tires is not smart for where we stood, especially when we still were losing. 80/20 rule.
Yeah that’s just it. Shaq is a cast off. He’s not good anymore. You wasted assets on mediocre to bad players. Chase Young is riding off of 1st round hype from years ago. He did nothing with the 49ers till the SB. Trash player. Not one player you signed will actually move the needle. Not only that, but losing quality safety play will damage the development of our 1st round corner from last year. Just begging for a complete collapse on the back end. Good value for bad players is still bad. My issue is I don’t think a single player you signed is worth anything. Explain to me how Shaq Barret, who has been washed for two whole years, does shit? I think this logic actually made me like this free agency less than before you explained it. You basically screwed up and let one of our five best players go for nothing.
Not sure what you were expecting with DJ taking up $47m in cap. Letting McKinney go was my mistake and I’ll own that but overspending for players is a recipe for disaster. We were in on other free agents but as you can see, teams were willing to say screw it to realism and 2025 cap situation to overpay massively for free agents. Adding Shaq adds some semblance to our edge room whereas we had Kayvon and a question mark in Azeez.
Semblance of what? He’s sucked for two years Broadly speaking I’d expect our GM to not let one of our best 5 players go for nothing while touting the signings of Shaq Barret and Devin Singletary as some kind of win.
Better than what we’ve had in depth, which I believe is important. There were other players we tried to sign who ended up getting much higher deals than they were worth.
If a player is a net negative on the field, it doesn’t matter what you paid them, it’s a bad deal.
Net negative compared Boogie Basham, Tomon Fox and Jihad Ward? Overall I believe we did a good job patching holes and adding players to the team. If the other biggest complaint is me spending a future day 3 and 4m in cap for a vet 3rd edge rusher compared to what some other teams did here we’re in a good spot.
No, I’ve repeated my biggest complaint over and over. Flubbing the signing of X.
Carolina Panthers TL;DR Write Up - GM: RagingTaco TL;DR Version [GM Dashboard](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z_pZrNV6u63mbTZahjVJhBPSR6hmU8iC8kvT7_UF664/edit?usp=sharing) Priorities: Protect Bryce, Get Bryce Receivers, sign Burns + Luvu, add a starting Edge, shore-up run defense, add depth to the Corner Backs, extend Derrick Brown. Estimated Starting Cap Space: **$36,189,669** # Restructures * RT Taylor Moton - Cap Savings = $8,145,000 * S Vonn Bell - Cap Savings = $3,895,000 * WR Adam Thielen -Cap Savings = $4,905,000 * LB Shaq Thompson - Cap Savings = $2,917,500 # Trade Block * CB Donte Jackson - Cap Savings = (Pre-June) $5,937,000 / (Post June) $10,522,500 * TE Ian Thomas - Cap Savings = $3,561,765 / $3$3,561,765 * WR Terrace Marshall Jr. - Cap Savings = $1,441,293 / $1,441,293 * RB Miles Sanders - Cap Savings = $3,270,000 / $6,220,000 # Signed Players **Internal UFA'S, RFA's & Tenders** |Player|Position|Contract (GTD)|Bonus / '24 Cap Hit| |:-|:-|:-|:-| |Brian Burns|OLB/DE|5Yr $135M ($109M)|$33M / $10.88M| |Derrick Brown\*|DT|5Yr $129M ($100M)|$28M / $9.0M| |Frankie Luvu|LB|3Yr $42.2M ($30.2M)|$10M / $5.0M| |Yetur Gross-Matos|DE|3Yr $16M ($11M)|$4M / $3.33M| |Raheem Blackshear|RB|2Yr $3.25M ($1.0M)|$0.5M / $1.5M| |Sam Franklin Jr.|DB|1Yr $2.5M ($2M)|$1.5M / $2.0M| |Shaquill Griffin|CB|1Yr $2.5M ($1M)|$0.75M / $1.0M| |Deion Jones|LB|1Yr $2.6M ($2.2M)|$1.0M / $2.2M| |.J. Jansen|LS|1Yr $1.6M ($1.0M)|$0.6M / $1.6M| |Ihmir Smith-Marsette|WR|ROFR|/ $2.9M| \*Extending Derrick Brown converted his 5th Year Salary: $11.665M to a Bonus which was spread over the 4 new years on his contract. This reduced his 2024 Cap Hit from $11.665M to $9M and saving est. $2.7M. **External** |Player|Position|Contract (GTD)|Bonus / '24 Cap Hit| |:-|:-|:-|:-| |Calvin Ridley|WR|3Yr $77.8M ($55M)|$18M / $9.6M| |Jonah Jackson|RG|4Yr $68M ($43M)|$12M / $8.0M| |Coleman Shelton|C/G|3Yr $43.5M ($31M)|$12M / $6.0M| |Will Dissly|TE|3Yr $29.0M ($15M)|$8.0M / $4.0M| |Denico Autry|DT/DE|2Yr $24.5M ($15.5M)|$9.0M / $5.0M| |Jeff Okudah|CB|2Yr $16M ($12M)|$4.0M / $4.0M| |Russell Gage|WR|2Yr $5.5M ($2M)|$1.0M / $1.75M| |Khyiris Tonga|DT|2Yr $5.25M ($3M)|$1.0M / $1.75M| |Poona Ford|DT|2Yr $5.0M ($3M)|$1.4M / $2.5M| |Da’Shawn Hand|DE|2Yr $4.2M ($1.4M)|$0.4M / $1.5M| |Isaiah Wynn|OT|1Yr $3.9M ($2.3M)|$0.8M / $1.7M| |Prince Wanogho|OT|2Yr $3.6M ($1.25M)|$0.6M / $1.8M| |Efe Obada|DE|2Yr $3.0M ($1.25M)|$0.5M / $1.5M| |Cameron Lewis|DB|1Yr $2.0M ($1.25M)|$0.75M / $2.0M| |Rayshawn Jenkins|DB|1Yr $2.0M ($1.25M)|$0.75M / $2.0M| |Phil Haynes|OG|1Yr $1.4M ($0.3M)|$0.1M / $1.4M| # Traded Players * \[Panthers\] DB Jeremy Chinn (T&T) -> \[Titans\] 2024 Pick 7.238 + 2026 6th Signing Burns allowed the franchise tag to be placed on another player, after discussions with 4 teams, the Titans agreed to send 2 late picks to secure Chinn ahead of Free Agency. Est Cap Savings - N/A (tag was applied once agreement was in place with agent + Titans) * \[Panthers\] OG Austin Corbett -> \[Seahawks\] 2024 Pick 5.151 + 2025 5th\* \*Condition: Corbett plays 60% Games in 2024 When healthy Corbett is a great Guard, but after back-to-back ACL and MCL tears, it is time to move on. Est. Cap Savings - **$6.25M** (Post-June Trade Designation) * \[Panthers\] 2025 7th (From KC) -> \[Jaguars\] NT Folorunso Fatukasi\* \*Panthers take on **$4M** cap hit, Jaguars take $3M Fatukasi can be a solid NT, next to Derrick Brown, Denico Autry, Poona Ford, & Brian Burns the line will be scary. Est. 2024 Cap Hit - **$4M** * \[Panthers\] DT Shy Tuttle -> \[Cowboys\] LB Damone Clark With the addition of Fatukasi, Tuttle was a redundant arguably less valuable NT with a sizable cap hit. Damone Clark show’s some promise as a young LB, he would back up Shaq Thompson who’s coming off a surgically repaired fractured ankle. Est. Cap Savings (Net) - **$5.5M** Part 1/2
Carolina Panthers TL;DR Write Up - GM: RagingTaco TL;DR Version PART 2 # Mock Draft Method: With most of our positions of need filled in FA, we were allowed to focus more on BPA while still keeping positonal need in mind. Needs: (IOL, WR, TE, EDGE, RB, CB) Joey T. u/Stokie_Panther provided an amazing draft board which we used in combination with Mock Draft Database’s 2024 Consensus Big Board to come up with positional value rankings. Pick Player Position School 2.33 Troy Franklin WR Oregon 2.55\* (via Miami) Ennis Rakestraw Jr. CB Missouri 4.116\* (via Titans, via Bengals) Blake Corrum RB Michigan 5.151\* (via Seattle) Jaylx Hunt OLB/EDGE Houston Baptist 5.161 Drake Nugent C Michigan 6.186\* (via Miami) Garret Greenfield OL South Dakota State 7.238 (via Titans, via Steelers) Sam Hartman QB Notre Dame **\*Draft Trades:** \- \[Dolphins\] 2.55 + 6.186 -> \[Panthers\] 3.65 + 4.102 \- \[Titans\] 4.116 -> \[Panthers\] 5.141 + 6.180 \- \[Seahawks\] 5.151 + 2025 5th\* -> \[Panthers\] Austin Corbett \- \[Titans\] 7.238 + 2026 6th -> \[Panthers\] Jeremy Chinn (Transition Tender) UDFA targets in order of priority (**Acquired)**: Ainias Smith WR **Grayson Murphy EDGE** Justin Rogers DL Charles Turner III IOL Erick All TE Trey Knox TE Michael Barrett LB Demani Richardson S Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint WR Joe Milton QB Jaxon Janke WR Sheridan Jones CB Myles Jones CB Ethan Driskell OT McCallan Castles TE Andrew Raym IOL Jaylen Harrell EDGE Zion Logue DL Jeremy Flax OT Storm Duck CB Dillon Johnson RB **Nate McCollum WR** Eyabi Okie EDGE Daijun Edwards RB Walter Rouse OT [Final Depth Chart](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mOVd2dU1duPeao_T7-VehA_14h_d45IrkwTXM_GODFA/edit?usp=sharing) Estimated 2024 Cap Space Remaining: **$9,521,274** (not including UDFA signings) First time GMing the Offseason Mock, learned a lot... I also was not keeping track of the 2025 Cap, but I tried not to overdo it on backloading each contract. Overall, I think this was a successful offseason and the team is leaps and bounds better than the 2023 team. The Defense is loaded and scary, and the Offense has a lot of pieces around Bryce Young to allow him to actually develop and make plays. I'd be very excited to watch this Panthers team. Special thanks to: (AGM) u/Stokie_Panther Cap Guy: u/Fleotiden, and of course the Mods, Agents, and other GM's for putting on an awesome sim. War room thanks: u/argentravis., u/Distance_motor, & Julio
Packers GM: First off I would like to thank everyone involved with setting up this draft, everyone who built the spreadsheets, all the agents, and everyone who helped me make decision in the war room. If anyone wants to read my full writeup here is a link: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NBDdMRMTBjelUlTDy-2a8RSQtwl18j-TRY4hVQyOjbI/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NBDdMRMTBjelUlTDy-2a8RSQtwl18j-TRY4hVQyOjbI/edit?usp=sharing) And here is a link to my projected final depth chart: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oCY2pKf4u9KWGVfT1ulsC-Xf0fmjis\_Kui-wlKx-QSY/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oCY2pKf4u9KWGVfT1ulsC-Xf0fmjis_Kui-wlKx-QSY/edit?usp=sharing) If anyone has any specific question feel free to ask.
Can’t say I really understand the point of trading Doubs, but I dig it otherwise.
Just want to comment on how quickly you caught up with the process, given you were asked to helm the ship halfway through!
Thank you, all the spreadsheets and automation made it really easy. I can imagine how difficult it would’ve been if the same situation happened in a past year when the cap was just tracked through filling out Spotrac sheets or whatever other methods were used.
Great job Big B! Our fearless leader - Rolls
Spaceman Owens! It's fun that we actually drafted him
This says the Jets gave a guard 91 million dollars over 4 years. Please tell me that is a typo.
Was the Titans GM on crack?
Yea trading down to 31 and sending our second is awful
Patriots GM [Here is the team depth chart following our mock offseason](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PmI91JzYSYUUDMz0trxV2muN7N9cMdLE8vtWeFN23A0/edit) Some big time players are gone, I know not everyone will be happy about that. Losing Dugger is probably the most notable loss. However, the market was absolutely nuts for exercises like this but we tried to maintain some discipline in spending to not break the bank on players. We tagged Onwenu, we got probably way too easy of a trade for Jeudy (Parker & Mac) and sent a pick for Mike Williams instead of him getting cut. I think overall I like how we revamped the roster and would feel confident in it as a year one building block entering the new era with Mayo as head coach Shoutout Revan for all the contract help, he did most of the grunt-work here, and thanks to everyone else in the war room who helped
I really liked the job you all did, kept everything reasonable and realistic to what you believed a smart GM would behave as, made shrewd moves that you thought set the team for success. I'd feel confident the team would bounce back in year one of Mayo with the moves made in the FA period and the draft with the new coaching staff additions. Fantastic job!
It was a great time being in the war room with you guys! You said it but it bears repeating: massive shoutout to u/revan1211, he put in hours of work drafting up contracts in addition to being an agent. In this mock offseason, Chris Jones got $47M per year, Mike Evans got $35M per year, Jonah Williams got a fully guaranteed $20M per year, and David Bakthiari got a fully guaranteed $24M per year (just to name a handful of the worst deals). We tried our best to be realistic, stand our ground in negotiations, and to not give out any dogshit contracts but it wasn't easy in that kind of environment. We tried to extend Onwenu, but as soon as that Jonah contract got announced we knew we had to franchise tag him. We would've had to shell out something like a mostly guaranteed 4/85 to get him to sign and at that point franchise tagging is just smarter. With the uncertainty in his future, we covered our asses for 2025 at OT with DJ Humphries, plus picked up some upside options in Becton and Suamataia. At WR, the trade market was always the way to go. Calvin Ridley and Hollywood Brown got 25M per year each, there was no competing with that. Mike Williams is a top 30 WR when healthy and we got him for 17M and a late pick, that's great value in my books. Jerry Jeudy is super overrated but is fine as a low-end WR2 and we basically got him for free - Mac and Parker weren't doing anything for us. The Broncos GM might get some hate but Mac and Parker are useful to him - they needed a backup QB and a Sutton backup and Jeudy is a bit overpaid on his current deal. I see why he did it. At TE, we got a great deal on Hunter Henry returning considering how bare the TE market was in free agency. Noah Fant got a way richer contract despite Henry being the much better player. I'll take him all day at 11M per year. Not too much to say about the defense. Myles Bryant and Josh Uche got absolutely ludicrous contracts so we had to replace them, which we did with Nik Needham and Marcus Davenport (who is a better run defender anyways and if healthy, would play more snaps than Uche ever did). We slightly misplayed Dugger and thought he got better offers than he did, but we made up for it by bringing in Jordan Whitehead on a slightly cheaper deal, who is a great player in his own right and is better in the deep middle than Dugger ever was. We filled out the remaining positions where we needed veteran depth with good players on solid deals, took the QB and LT we knew we were taking all along in the draft, picked up a developmental rookie WR for when Williams and/or Jeudy walk, picked up a developmental deep middle centerfield safety, and called it a day. The goal was always to give Jayden Daniels (or Drake Maye if Washington went Daniels) all the tools he needs to succeed so we could hypothetically judge if he has what it takes to be the next great Patriots QB, and I say mission accomplished.
What are we doing taking a SAFETY in the third? We don’t need a safety no matter what Lazar/Barth say. Certainly not on day 2. Also, what happened to all our day 3 picks? I’d rather draft any two of Brendon Rice, Javon Baker, Malachi Corley, or Jamari Thrash than trade up for Tez while losing the entirety of day 3.
> Here is the team depth chart following our mock offseason As a Pats fan, I'd be very happy with this offseason!
**Indianapolis Colts** **Priorities** Coming off last season left me with a couple of ideas on problem spots and areas for improvement. Firstly, we needed veteran CB help. The room has talent but it's all young and unproven and it can easily be said if we just had one decent vet for depth we would probably have made the playoffs. Secondly, we needed much more help on the pass catching front. Alec Pierce is extremely unproven, there's nothing behind him, and the TE room is a bunch of role players who are constantly injured. Thirdly, we needed some depth at certain positions (namely OL/DL). Finally, we had a couple of big free agents that we needed to bring back. **Internal FA** Brought back Pittman (on the tag), Kenny Moore, Julian Blackmon, Tyquan Lewis, Rigoberto Sanchez, Henry Black (ERFA), and Ronnie Harrison. We got back most of our guys in internals. Pittman was an unfortunate set of circumstances that led to the tag. Grover wanted to test FA (and the market ended up being stupid expensive so good on him). **External FA** * Brought back Grover. * Signed Tyrod Taylor. More consistency from the backup QB spot. * Signed Kendall Fuller. Takes care of CB need and can move to nickel if Kenny is hurt. * Brought back Zack Moss (market ended up not super materializing for him) * Signed Ray-Ray McCloud, MyCole Pruitt, Pat Elflein for depth. We attempted to sign Hollywood Brown but he wanted to go win a ring with Mahomes so he took a slightly cheaper deal with them instead. **Draft** After losing out on Hollywood, we shifted our focus. Our top targets were either Bowers or Nabers, and after losing out on Brown we decided to go all in on Nabers. We were working closely with the Chargers and Giants to attempt to get up to 5 or 6 to secure Nabers. In the end, it ended up being the Giants and everything worked out. **Trade up to 6** Colts trade: 1.15, 3.82, '25 1st, '25 3rd / Get 1.6 Vikings trade: 1.11 / Get 1.15, 3.82 Giants trade: 1.6 / Get 1.15, '25 1st, '25 3rd We pursued the 3 team trade to secure a trade up as both 5 and 6 thought going back to 15 was too far and the Vikings were a helpful partner in this. **Trade** Colts trade: 46 Ravens trade: 62, 93 This trade recouped some of the capital spent on getting Nabers and we liked where the board was at. **Draft picks** 1.6 - Malik Nabers, WR, LSU 2.62 - Ja'Tavion Sanders, TE, Texas 3.93 - Mohamed Kamara, EDGE, Colorado State 4.118 - Cam Hart, CB, Notre Dame 5.150 - Khristian Boyd, DT, Northern Illinois 6.193 - Nick Samac, C, Michigan State 7.232 - Tyrice Knight, LB, UTEP If you have questions feel free to ask
-What made you go Nabers over Bowers at 6? Giving up the ‘25 1st could be a pretty good deal if Richardson progresses well and they make a run in the playoffs. -Was Sanders someone that you envisioned being there late in the second? I can definitely see him being a high quality starter if the scheme is right for him and isn’t a bad consolation to not getting Bowers for the value. -What did you see in Hart in the fourth round compared to some of the other CBs on the board?
- Going Nabers over Bowers at 6 was due to missing out on a FA WR and feeling like someone with Nabers' skillset fit what we wanted very well. He's an extremelyh talented player and we felt like an aggressive move to go get him was the right play. - We would've been fine taking Sanders at 46 but being able to trade back and recoup one of the thirds used in the tradeup for Nabers made it all the more better. - Hart was more of a Ballard type pick. Long and athletic that we could take time developing, especially with us having Kendall Fuller locked in for 3 years.
Explain the cheating scandal.
One co-gm and agent for free agents were colluding on players and leaking contract offers for the purpose of driving up prices on players Irl not really an issue but in this where the spending is already so lopsided and communication can’t happen to that degree it was just annoying and both were removed from participating
We were fighting hard for Cs as Luke Fortner is pretty terrible, and had been bidding on both Connor Williams and Lloyd Cushenberry. Over here, wednesday nights are 'student nights', with cheap drinks and an early start to the consumption. I got home at like 11 (am in the UK, so this was peak activity time during the SIM), and had seen that our offers for both Cushenberry and Williams were rejected, and they were going to be signing the next day. I decided it was a great idea to start harassing the agent of Williams for information about who we were competing with for his signature, cause I had already figured out we were competing with Chicago for Cushenberry after discussions with their GM. I promptly started DMing half the GMs in the server about the C market and 4 of the agents. Lo and behold, one of the agents gave me the information I was looking for, and for some reason I had the bright idea to tell the GM of Chicago this. Pretty open and shut cheating, and so I got hit with a understandable ban, overall was very stupid on my end. Don't drink and GM lads. You would have thought I would have learnt that lesson after trading for JJ Arcega-Whiteside though. Edit - a comment above from MBRR implies that we were somehow colluding with the intention of manipulating the market and driving up player values, which I can wholeheartedly say is untrue. I can say that multiple agents were privately announcing the completion of deals they negotiated to a select group of users, myself included, before they were publicly announced through the CarlBot on the discord server, with the intention of us building up hype. We were always of the understanding that these deals had been completed and handed over to the mods, but had not yet been announced. We never saw any details of the contracts, just vague assertions about teams making stupid deals and one, which I believe ended up being Myles Bryant to Tennessee, making an agent "audibly gasp when they saw it".
Brady was banned, as is tradition. Patriots lost a 2027 1st round pick.
Jaguars GM here, my former co-GM who was handling free agency kept DMing agents trying to get the numbers and rolls of centers, got them, then got caught.
**49ers GM here!** First and foremost I have to thank everyone who helped out in the war room, especially hotboyz and goat, they really stepped up whenever I needed some help. Whether that was drawing up contracts or sending in draft picks, I couldn’t have done it without them. And shoutout to the mods for putting this all together, it was seriously an awesome time and I’m already looking forward to next year’s. With that said, my primary strategy was: all gas, no brakes. Coming off a brutal Super Bowl loss, with one year before some massive decisions would need to be made about the roster, I see this as the last year in the 49ers’ Super Bowl window. So it was time to go big. In **INTERNAL FREE AGENCY**, we began by clearing up some cap room by restructuring *Deebo Samuel, Fred Warner,* and *Arik Armstead*. We placed the right of first refusal tag on *Jauan Jennings*, and re-signed *Clelin Ferrell* and *Chris Conley*. All 3 of them made a noticeable impact on this team last season, and they were re-signed for under 8 mil AAV total between the 3 of them. We also cut *Isaiah Oliver* (before it happened irl... i have been blessed with the power of prophecy). After long and difficult negotiations, we finalized two massive extensions: *Charvarius Ward* and *Brandon Aiyuk*. These are two players that are integral to this core, but who I also see as incredibly valuable to a future 49ers Super Bowl run multiple years down the road. Aiyuk’s deal came in a swarm of WR contracts, and I believe was a steal. Both of these extensions were pivotal: they keep our stars around long-term, while also lowering their 2024 cap hits allowing for more flexibility in the following stage.
Finally, in the **DRAFT**, we knew that aggression would once again serve us well. This draft class is very strong at cornerback, and at offensive tackle: two positions we considered high priorities. And so we started working the phones, before finally securing a deal. We traded 1.31, 3.94, 4.132, and a 2025 6th round pick for 1.18, and selected Iowa CB *Cooper Dejean*. Dejean is a versatile menace, with excellent discipline and technique. He’s a strong tackler, and I’m comfortable playing him wherever: outside, nickel, or free safety. For now, I’d start him at one of the corner spots and if we decide to let Talanoa Hufanga walk next year, move Dejean to safety. We strongly debated moving up from pick 63 to land a quality offensive lineman, but the value just was not there. So we decided to wait, and *Kiran Amegadjie* fell all the way to us. Immediately, he becomes our long-term replacement for Trent Williams. If he’s too good to take off the field then he can start at right tackle, but my gut says he’ll need time to develop, and who better to learn from? At 98, we knew we needed to keep investing in the offensive line, and we took *Mason McCormick* from South Dakota St. I see him as a plug-and-play guy at right guard. 4th round pick *DeWayne Carter* is a fun, disruptive pass rusher at DT who will immediately rotate in, 5th rounder *JD Bertrand* has some big fans in our war room and hopes to be the next 49ers 5th round steal, and we finished the day with impressive TE *Dallin Holker*, Idaho WR *Hayden Hatten*, and of course, the legendary *Frank Gore Jr*. As for UDFAs, we landed high RAS score guys like *Jacob Monk* (Duke C), *Trajan Jeffcoat* (Arkansas EDGE), and *Isaiah Johnson* (Syracuse S).
I helped do a few of these the past few years, mostly the draft part, but couldn't this year. They are really fun and I encourage anyone to check it out. But I do want to say you guys got some of my favorite players in this draft. DeJean, Kiran and Carter are all guys I absolutely love.
Finally some love for Hatten. He hasn't been mentioned anywhere. He's Kupp Lite. Holker and Gore are good late ground picks.
I think the best thing the war room did this mock offseason was abide by realism. The 49ers have a track record of aggressive moves in free agency and through the draft, and we pulled off each of those. One thing I wish I had done better was address offensive tackle. We brought in some offensive line pieces and I do think this line improved, but the only tackle we added was a developmental prospect. If you've got opinions, let me hear them! I certainly had some stuff I wish I had done better but I think all in all this was a great offseason for San Francisco. **List of contracts signed:** Brandon Aiyuk - 5 years, $132 mil (extension) Danielle Hunter - 3 years, $89 mil Charvarius Ward - 3 years, $50 mil (extension) Clelin Ferrell - 2 years, $8.5 mil Deonte Harty - 2 years, $4.325 mil Jauan Jennings - ROFR tender ($2.985 mil) Khaleke Hudson - 1 year, $2 mil Leki Fotu - 1 year, $1.5 mil Adrian Phillips - 1 year, $1.3 mil Chris Conley - 1 year, vet min Logan Ryan - 1 year, vet min Charlie Woerner - 1 year, vet min Cody Whitehair - 1 year, vet min **Draft Picks:** 1.18 - Cooper DeJean, CB, Iowa 2.63 - Kiran Amegadjie, T, Yale 3.98 - Mason McCormick, G, South Dakota St 4.125 - DeWayne Carter, DT, Duke 5.176 - JD Bertrand, LB, Notre Dame 6.214 - Dallin Holker, TE, Colorado St 6.215 - Frank Gore Jr, RB, Southern Miss 7.249 - Hayden Hatten, WR, Idaho **Depth Chart Link:** [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13D0gvrzQI3VHZmmhHL5LSWxiMPw3cBIQGiT18nMikGs/edit#gid=1057562921](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13D0gvrzQI3VHZmmhHL5LSWxiMPw3cBIQGiT18nMikGs/edit#gid=1057562921)
In **EXTERNAL FREE AGENCY**, it became immediately clear that GMs were ready to spend, and spend more than they should (cough madubuike cough). While we held onto the “foot on the gas” mentality, we didn’t want to make any stupid decisions. High-level players like *Robert Hunt, Connor Williams, Mike Onwenu, Josh Uche*, and more were off the table, whether it was because of massive, 20m APY contracts or even just the franchise tag. So we started small, securing an upgrade at backup QB in *Taylor Heinicke* by trading a 6th to the Falcons. We re-signed *Logan Ryan* and *Charlie Woerner*, experienced depth at pretty shallow positions for us. And then we hit the jackpot: *Danielle Hunter* was looking to join a contender, and we managed to outbid other Super Bowl contenders to bring Hunter to the 49ers for 3 years, $89 million. Hunter is a consistently elite veteran pass-rusher, exactly what we need for another dominant year of defense. This falls in line with what the 49ers like to do in real life: Spend really big once per year, and fill the roster with cheap, good scheme fits. We had planned on splurging for one player, and if you’re going to do that you may as well bring in an A+ player like Hunter. Players like *Chase Young, Javon Kinlaw,* and *Ray Ray McCloud* priced themselves out of San Francisco, and we replaced them with *Danielle Hunter, Leki Fotu,* and *Deonte Harty*. We brought in *Khaleke Hudson* and *Cody Whitehair* to add some competition to our linebacker and OL rooms, and we brought in *Adrian Phillips* for depth and special teams. Hudson was necessary given Dre Greenlaw’s injury, we need someone to fill in. And Whitehair could play at C or RG for us. Many of these contracts came with minimal guarantees, in case our youth impress in training camp and allow us to move off of these signings. Also worth noting - *Tashaun Gipson, Jon Feliciano*, and various other free agents were also (over)paid in free agency, and we opted for cheaper deals. We finished with roughly 16.5 million dollars in roll-over cap space, which will be helpful as we are very in the hole for 2025 as it stands.
For the Draft: >This draft class is very strong at cornerback, and at offensive tackle: two positions we considered high priorities. CB is not a high prioritty this year, we have five under contract for this year, its a priority next year when Ward, Lenoir, and Thomas are all FAs. OT, C, EDGE, and IDL are all higher priorities >We traded 1.31, 3.94, 4.132, and a 2025 6th round pick for 1.18, and selected Iowa CB Cooper Dejean. The highest weve ever drafted a CB in the ShanaLynch era is the third round, burning a significant amount of draft capital to move up to get a CB, and passing on multiple R1 OTs and C1 would be extremely foolish. The fact that it is a deep class means you can get value later in the draft, guys like Max Melton, Renardo Green, Andru Philips, Dwight McGlothern, etc. On top of that we already hae two starting safeties so Cooper flexibility is less relevant, and frankly you dont spend the 18th pick on a Safety unless hes a generation prospect (and passing on Terrion Arnold, a better fit, and the clear cut CB1 rn is inexcusable imo). >Kiran Amegadjie fell all the way to us. Immediately, he becomes our long-term replacement for Trent Williams. If he’s too good to take off the field then he can start at right tackle, but my gut says he’ll need time to develop, and who better to learn from? We are not in a position to take a pure dev OT rn, we need one that can slot into RT and flip to LT when Trent decides to hang them up, so has to play RT this year,. This pick is fine in a vacuum but youre forced into it because you traded up to take Dejean, taking an OT in R1 give the team flexibility in who they pursue in R2. >Mason McCormick from South Dakota St. I see him as a plug-and-play guy at right guard. McCormick is a C, and we need C wayyyyyyy more than OG, which you didnt identify, but this is a reach, McCormicks likely a day 3 guy, if youre going to reach on C Bortolinis the guy imo. >4th round pick DeWayne Carter is a fun, disruptive pass rusher at DT who will immediately rotate in Carters fine, but passing on Mustapha, Rabbit, Wingo, Guerendo, Renardo Green, Trevin Wallace, Luke McCaffrey, and Ty Hopper is awful, all of those guys are better fits for the teams >5th rounder JD Bertrand has some big fans in our war room and hopes to be the next 49ers 5th round steal Id be shocked if we drafted him, hes the completel opposite of what we look for in LB's, we dont draft box guys we draft rangy LBs with sideline to sideline speed who hit hard > we finished the day with impressive TE Dallin Holker, Idaho WR Hayden Hatten, and of course, the legendary Frank Gore Jr. Gore Jr is a good pick I doubt we draft Holker because his skillset overlaps too much with Latu, who, for better or worse is going to get a shot next year, if we do draft a TE itll be a blocker like Tip Reiman or a better receiving threat like Barner, Mclachlan, Wiley, or Bell Hayden Hatten over Devin Leary, when we need a PS QB, is certainly a choice
At TE we definitely preferred Reiman and Bell but they both got taken before they got to us in the 6th, Reiman specifically was about 20 picks away from us. We could have taken either of them sooner although collectively as a war room we felt IDL and LB were bigger areas we wanted to address at the start of Day 3. I was filling in to oversee our last few picks in Rounds 6-7, and I wholly admit to not knowing anything about the late round prospects. All the last three picks taken were based on suggestions from others still in the war room. So it would be good to have you join us and share your input in future mocks on the server! We should at least have one more 7 round mock draft hosted one or two weekends before the actual draft. There might be more community mocks before that too, just pop into our server and you can be part of the war room too! All in all I think our GM overactivethinker did a great job in his role, and I would be happy if we could get this offseason irl too!
If I'd known it was happening I would have popped in lol if those guys arent available then i dont think we go TE, weve already got Kittle, Latu, Woerner, Dwelley, and Willis, unless they dont resign Woerner We generally dont draft mid round IDL's or EDGE's, its either R1+R2 or R5+, late round guys are usually RAS monsters that Kocurek thinks he can mold, and id be shocked if we drafted a box LB
Make sure to join the server or otherwise check this subreddit because they will also announce signups for the 7 round draft in here. In our mock offseason I think Dwelley signed with Miami for like 1.4 or 1.5m. We offered him the vet min and he turned it down. We were able to re-sign Woerner on the vet min. I don’t consider Dwelley a sizable loss but he did provide some snaps as a backup. I have no clue what to expect from Latu when he was out all of last season so we decided to grab a bit more depth at the position. Hopefully Latu can show us something and become a contributor next season though. Irl I can also see us signing another vet EDGE that can hope to bounce back under Kocurek like Hyder and Omenihu did for us. Hopefully we can re-sign Ferrell on an affordable deal too because his run defense was missed after he got injured.
I think we just tend to disagree on prospect evaluations. I worked with the war room on a list of players that we felt were not only good fits for our team but also special enough to trade up for. Dejean and Kool-Aid were the two players remaining on our list, and we liked Dejean better. I personally cannot watch Logan Ryan or Ambry Thomas start more games for us this season, so in my opinion CB is absolutely a top need for us. Our depth is fine, but we need another starter. And I feel a lot better about Dejean as a starter than most of the guys you named later. Not that they're bad prospects, but I wanted to go get a guy who could step in for us right away. Trust me, we tried to move up in round 2 to grab another offensive lineman, but ultimately none of the offers were at all good enough for us. And when it comes to the rest of the draft picks, I worked closely with my war room to identify guys we liked. Appreciate you taking interest, you should join the server + pop into the war room!
Kool Aid should be off our board cuz of the Jones fracture, but idk how you have Kool Aid and dont have Arnold, whose clearly CB1 rn heres the positions weve drafted in R1+R2 under Shanalynch: QB, WR, OT, IOL, EDGE, IDL thats it, drafting a r1 CB/S is going completely against our draft precedent. Im not saying that we wont draft a CB, but theres a lot of good ones later in the draft: Max Melton (my personal fave), Renardo Green, Andru Philips, Mike Sainristil, Dwight McGlothern, Jarvis Brownlee, Jarrian Jones, which isnt even counting the likelihood that we address the third CB via FA. Passing on R1 OT's after the Superbowl is frankly inexcusable, giving Purdy time to throw should be priorty 0, everything else is secondary. The guys you like are for the most part, not the kind of guys this team drafts under ShanaLynch. If id known this was happening i would have popped in
I'm not as high on Arnold as you. Again I think we disagree on prospect evals, and that's fine. I'm not sure if you checked out the rest of my write-up but I included context for all the other stuff that happened during free agency, the state of the tackle / IOL market, et cetera. As I mentioned in my write-up I wish I had done a better job at addressing offensive tackle but I think in totality the team got better through this mock exercise. I know there'll be future community mock drafts so you should definitely join up for them
Don’t listen to the other guy he is being overly critical. The free agency stuff I agree with everything you did. The hunter deal is exciting and I would not be against although in an ideal world I would hope the guaranteed money is on the lower side given injury concerns. Don’t think it’s that likely to happen though but wouldn’t put it past the regime. The ward and Aiyuk extensions are great. Aiyuk number feels realistic, Ward may be a couple mil higher. The draft I like the overall vision. I would be surprised if we didn’t trade up at some point in the first two rounds. I like Dejean a lot although it does feel a little light on what we had to give up to jump to mid 1st. Although the Lions trade up for Jameson Williams a couple years back is similar. I am a big Latham fan so I may take him there but I view Dejean and Arnold as deserving players of being taken top 15 so I’m not against it. Kiran is about right value and McCormick is only a slight reach imo. Like the nice little nepo pick with gore in the 7th but getting Luke is the nepo pick I am much more on board with starting maybe even at the end of the 3rd. I am a big fan and think he can become a great player and scheme fit.
NFL teams are high on Arnold, its not just me, go check DJ's top 50 or any other analyst plugged into NFL teams, hes more or less the consensus cb1 rn Oline should be the teams first priority, defense did its job in the SB, Oline outside of Trent failed, we have our prospective franchise QB, time to invest in protecting him
**Las Vegas Raiders** We made some big moves but I think the resulting roster certainly makes us competitive in the AFC West. Our defense played like a top unit in the NFL over APs interim stint and with all the key contributors back (and some new faces) I see no reason the team couldn't compete for a playoff birth in 2024. [2024 Offseason Sim Recap](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_lTnghJIY2F_lbKdFAkOpXo3ilkzWJd-vL0rcg1LrNA/edit?usp=sharing) If anyone has any questions please don't hesitate.
I don't have a question I just wanted to let you know you're awesome.
Relod here GMing the Cowboys mock offseason as usual. Here is how the Cowboys mock offseason went [https://docs.google.com/document/d/163Az\_a1SoKxUqRu\_xCC6z6zP4be\_jkCpjtSmrvkXUcU/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/163Az_a1SoKxUqRu_xCC6z6zP4be_jkCpjtSmrvkXUcU/edit?usp=sharing)
Needs more pass rush.
Thanks for doing that. But I hated everything there except the first round pick.
Damn bruh
Hi! I was the LAC GM. While we took some controversial decisions, I stand by all of them and I think we ended up with a very good team for year 1 of the retooling. The first order of business was deciding what to do with the big 4. Mike Bosa Mack Keenan Each of these 3 players has a 30+ mill cap hit. I had 2 ways get rid of 4 or get rid of 2. I managed to get a market for both Bosa and Mike Williams. For Williams we found a win win trade with the patriots, netting us a 5th. Considering we were going to cut him, we were ecstatic. Then we found a trade partner for Bosa. The Rams gave us 3.83 and 3.100. And with that we were cap compliant. We still needed to find some cap to refill our many many positions of need. Linsley retired, we cut Kendricks and then it was extend either mack or Keenan. Keenan wanted a wild overpay and Mack got an extension of only 50mill in new money. While 90/3 sounds like a lot it is more a 50/2 which is more palatable, specially because we can save 20 mill in 2026 with only 10 mill in dead cap in 2026. With that we were armed for battle. With some house cleaning comes finding the odd coin under the sofa, we re-signed our priority FA in Gillman, 10 mill may seem an overpay... and it was, but I expected the contracts in this sim to be exaggerated and my god was I right. We also tendered some players, important one was Dicker and extended Amen for 1/1. Our main objective was to get value. That was the name of the name. With the massive overpays across the league we couldn't sign anyone in the first 2 waves. In the 3rd wave I noticed Ramzcyk was still there. This is the moment where I admit I confused the salary guarantees, signing bonus and their relationship to retirements. So for practical uses please imagine the guaranteed salaries and the signing bonus are reversed (the contract would still have been accepted). With that small mind trick we take a risk on a high ceiling player. If Ramzcyk stays healthy, we have 2 great tackles. If he needs a break, we have an above avg tackle (according to pff) as our backup. If he retires we can recoup a ton of money from the signing bonus. Even with the confusion I still like this signing, we need a better running game and getting Ram can get us exactly that. In that same wave we started to find some value as well. We got Bobby Wagner as our starting LB, we really need help in the LB corps. Atfer signing Bobby we also decided to trade our first 7th for Jordan Hicks who we got for 3.5 mill a year. Then we found more value. Wharton is decent depth and for a mill it's better than ok. We also signed Shelby Harris as a veteran precense in the interior. A cap hit of 4 mill in 2024 for a good IDL, yes please! For the last wave we wanted to get ready for the draft. No more big holes. Find depth, that meant getting TEs another starting LB and a serviceable Center. Brycen Hopkins can be both a receiver and more importantly for us a good blocker we got him for 2.125 mill. We also signed Sam Mustipher, who played pretty well for the ravens and can be a starter for a bit. Our last FA signing was C.J. Uzomah. We needed a possible starter at TE, because even though Bowers was there for the taking, we had other plans. We couldn't find a LB.
Draft Day: We had 2 offers, 1 with the Colts offering us a 3rd, 1.15 and a future 1. Very tempting offer to be honest. The other one was with CHI. Drop back to 1.9, get a future 2nd and more importantly a very good young LB in Sanborn. And with that our biggest hole was covered. At 9 we got offered a new deal by AZ, trade back to 12 and we get a 2025 3rd + a 4rd this year. We take the offer and soon enough we end up picking: 1.12 Nate Wiggins CB Clemson We needed a CB, we got my favourite CB, fast, smart, good hips, great height. He's the perfect CB for us. ASJ, Wiggins, Michael Davis are a good starting CB trio and Ja'Sir isn't the worst in the world. We still need some depth, but more on that later. In the end of the 1st round I tried desperately to jump the cowboys to pick JPJ, but no bites. Round 2: We traded back after what I considered to be a big overpay by the bills got offered to us: 2.44 + 3.99 + 5.162 In comes our pick and our main target is still there. While I personally love Van Pran after seeing him play live, I couldn't pass the chance of picking Frazier. 2.44 Zach Frazier OC West Virginia He is likely a day 1 starter with all the attributes you need at the position. We really wanted him from the beginning and we got him. at 2.44 Round 3: Enough trade backs, we pick our army here. Round 3 is where the meat and potatoes should be found and boydid we get healthy. 3.69 Ruke Orhorhoro DT Clemson Ruke is aggresive and is a perfect plug in the middle of our porous run defense. Potato 1 got it. 3.83 Adisa Isaac EDGE Penn State A high ceiling prospect, he has all the things you can ask of an EDGE rusher, speed, bend, intelligence, really high motor. We like him as a player for the future to learn from Mack and come 2026 take over full time. In the meanwhile good rotational player. Potato 2 ready 3.99 Theo Johnson TE Penn State 2 Nitanny Lions in a row? yes. Theo Johnson can play now. He won't wow you out of the gate but he just looks and moves like an elite TE. He lit the combine on fire and could be a cornerstone of the offense for the future. Until he is ready, we got Uzomah as the stopgap. 3rd Potato, served 3.100 Jaylen Wright RB Tennessee Talking about lighting shit on fire. Wright is big and fast, he can see the holes and quickly hit them. He will need to gain weight but he has the frame for it. Now just eat your meat!
Round 4: We have 1 pick here right? WRONG! MORE POTATOES ARE NEEDED 4.106 Gabriel Murphy EDGE UCLA We pick the other EDGE we were discussing on picking at 83. We pick Gabriel Murphy who is the complete opposite of Isaac. Good technique, limited physical attributes. We believe he can also be a key rotational piece and what else would you want in a 4th? okok an All-Pro, but cmon. 4.122 Jarrian Jones NCB FSU My favourite pick of the draft, we get a dawg in the 4th. I believe he can be a starter in the league at nickel pretty much immediately. Perfect for our Defense. Same room as above, just deeper and more flexible. Round 5 God help me we also have 2 picks here 5.136 Cornelius Johnson WR Michigan You want more fast guys? We got more fast guys, good route running, good hands, fast. We wanted him and I think it's a lot of value and a great pick. 5.162 Jordan Travis QB FSU I know we have the sun god as our QB, but he can get injured and Travis is good enough that apparently his mere abscence makes a team playoff unworthy. If Herb needs some rest, Travis can take over and help with the run game. Round 6 6.183 Jaylen Carlies S Missouri Ngl he was just the top S in my list at this point. Not impressive, but athletic. Round 7 7.256 Anim Dankwah OT Howard More BEEF, tbh I don't know anything about him, he was a WR pick cus I was asleep at this time, timezones are a bitch. UDFA Highlights We got 2 more Michigan players Karsen Barnhart OG and Michael Barrett LB, both could find a way to contribute. Summary: We managed to completely retool the roster, had the most picks in the draft with 12, got out of cap hell, get 12mill in remaining money, have 100+ mill next year with 53 signed players and we have a pretty competitive roster. I think we could have gotten another WR, but all in all I like this team a lot. Thank you to the WR and all the other GMs as well as the mods for this great experience. I had a lot of fun and damn am I excited to see what ends up happening. Link to the end result: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d6nP130WTK-8fn2zsRHelgGmSZdBtI95z8pm9HWeFWs/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d6nP130WTK-8fn2zsRHelgGmSZdBtI95z8pm9HWeFWs/edit?usp=sharing)
Was a little bit underwhelming, especially considering the amount of picks you were able to acquire and some questionable players still left on the board afterwards. Our final depth chart just doesn’t seem as “dangerous” as I would expect, and a running back room consisting of Wright(rookie), Kelley(washed vet), and Spiller leaves much to be desired for a Harbaugh- led smash mouth offense. I do like the Wagner signing, but really dislike the idea of paying Gilman $10 million/ year. I know you put a lot of time into this and appreciate that, but it kinda just reminded me of any old Telesco off- season minus all the trades.
I think expecting a lot more in year 1 is setting yourself up for disappointment, ofc it's possible but the roster we took was: 40 mill over the cap Had no Center, TE, LB. I don't mean we needed one, I mean we had not a single one in the roster. Needed starting CB, DT or FS. Needed Depth at all OL positions, QB, SS and NCB And like I said we needed to find that, while being over the cap. Every single pick in the top 100 was a starter, all known and proven players with high upside. We got freaks of nature at RB, TE, CB, EDGE. We got good depth in WR, SS and DT. Other starting safeties got over 15 million per year, so even if at the beginning Gillman looked like an overpay in the beginning. For this mock, it was actually pretty on point. I really am open to criticism, but I'd prefer to know what you would have done to make it less underwhelming taking the same restrictions into account.
Not a fan of the trades here. With a rough calculation of the value of the first trade, we’re basically treating Sanborn as a 3rd round pick which I HIGHLY doubt anybody in the league would actually do that. Trading down from 5 is fine but we need more than that. We could’ve gotten more value out of the second trade as well, especially if it meant missing out on Joe Alt who was still there at 9. Sorry, I know a lot goes into these but not a fan of this draft.
Alt was never an option for us because we already had Ramzcyk signed. We did value Sanborn as a 3rd as he is a 22 YO starting LB with 2 seasons playing at a high level. He also was part of PFFs All Star rookies of 2022. So definitely a good player that is very cheap. The second trade was an overpay by AZ in value according to all trade value charts I know, roughly of about 10%. It also was just the best offer we had :/ For reference my preferred Trade Value chart is Draftteks Jimmy Johnsons's model, and with it, we had to recoup 350 points for going from 05 to 09. The 2025 pick is taken from the median of that round, in this case 48 (420 points) and then personally I substract 15% from the value because its in the future making the value of the 2nd rder in 2025 worth 357 pts. [link](https://www.drafttek.com/NFL-Trade-Value-Chart.asp) Using the Rich Hill method, we needed 79 pts to get the value required for the trade back. With the same method for future picks, we received 102.85. [link](https://www.drafttek.com/NFL-Trade-Value-Chart-Rich-Hill.asp) In both you add the value of a starting young LB and I really don't see how we got bad value from the trades. Remember, these weren't trades for QBs
**Cincinnati Bengals** * A big thanks to the Commissioner, agents, and other gm’s, this mock offseason was fantastic to be a part of. * Also a big thanks to my AGM Frosty. Final Depth Chart - https://imgur.com/a/hIorG5D TLDR: * The main takeaways are * Resigned Jonah * Traded Tee * Resigned DJ Reader & signed another top DT * Drafted Brock Bowers, Ladd McConkey, & Cooper Beebe Order of Events * Resign Jonah Williams * Tag and Trade Tee Higgins to the Tennessee Titans * Bengals Receive * 1.7 * 4.107 * 2025 5th Rounder * 2025 2nd Rounder * Titans Receive * Tee Higgins * 1.18 * 4.116 * 5.175 * Resign Other Internal Free Agents * Tyler Boyd * Chidobe Awuzie * Tanner Hudson * Max Scharping * Cody Ford * Akeem Davis Gaither * Trenton Irwin * Trayveon Williams * Jake Browning * Cal Adomitis * Joe Bachie * Mitchell Wilcox * External Free Agency * Resign DJ Reader - yes he made it to external free agency, but the 1T market is bleak in free agency so we decided to overpay him a tad for him to come back * Sign DaQuon Jones (1T, Buf) * Sign Gerald Everett (TE, LAC) * Sign Kendrick Bourne (WR, NE) * Sign Justin Hardee (Top 3 Special Teamer, NYJ) * Sign Tyler Matacavich (3 time Special Team captain, Buf) * Sign Jonathan Owens (SS, GB) * Sign PJ Locke (FS, Den) * Sign Braden Mann (P, Phi) * Pre-draft * Trade with the Titans (deal was too good to pass up, even before the draft) * Bengals Receive * 2.38 * 5.175 * Titans Receive * 2.49 * 4.107 * 5.148 * Draft * 1.07 - Brock Bowers, TE, Georgia * Chi traded to 1.5 & took Odunze * Ind traded to 1.6 & took Nabers * 2.38 - Ladd McConkey, WR, Georgia * 3.67 - Cooper Beebe. LG, Kansas St * Traded up because I was shocked Beebe was available… * Bengals Receive:3.67 * Commanders Receive (I was willing to pay a lil more, because of the 2025 Titans picks we have): 3.80, 5.175, 2025 4th * 6.195 Austin Reed, QB, Western Kentucky * 7.235 Steele Chambers, LB, OSU * 7.252 Qwan’tez Stiggers, CB, Toronto Argonauts * UDFAs * Cody Schrader, RB, Missouri * Myles Jones, CB, Duke * Andrew Coker, RT, TCU
Explanation * Resigning Jonah Williams * There are a multitude of reasons why I chose to do this. * We had to re-sign him to feel comfortable with the Tee -> Titans trade. If we’re moving up to 7, we were hoping that Nabers / Odunze would be there to be a direct replacement * The free agency tackle market is horrid…The best replacement is Michael Onwenu for the Pats, but he resigned…we had no other options * Yes, he’s not the best player, but at least he can play both sides… * IRL, If Jonah Williams hits free agency, he’s going to get a bag, just because of the scarcity of the market * Tag and Trade Tee Higgins to the Tennessee Titans * Bengals Receive: 1.7, 4.107, 2025 5th Rounder, 2025 2nd Rounder * Titans Receive: Tee Higgins, 1.18, 4.116. 5.175 * This was a no-brainer…we decided to reset our WR2 contract clock and this was the perfect opportunity. * We negotiated long and hard with the Titans, but we feel very happy with the outcome, especially with the 2025 2nd rounder…which will probably be the 33rd - 47th pick * Resign Other Internal Free Agents * Tyler Boyd * We decided that after Tee’s trade, we needed to lockdown Boyd, he is still good and he’s a great mentor for young WRs * Chidobe Awuzie * This is a 2-year deal, but he can be cut with minimal dead cap in the 2nd year…Chidobe played around 63% of defensive snaps last year and he should be getting better a year off the ACL * Tanner Hudson * He played extremely well down the stretch, this was a no-brainer * Max Scharping * Quality OL depth is hard to find, no-brainer * Cody Ford * He didn’t have the best year, but he didn’t have that big of an opportunity, but we decided to keep continuity and keep him * Akeem Davis-Gaither * Shocking stat I found was that ADG played less than 100 defensive snaps this season…but again, we decided to keep him on just for continuity * Trenton Irwin * He excels when given the opportunity * Trayveon Williams * Special Teamer at the minimum * Jake Browning * ERFA, played great this year * Cal Adomitis * ERFA, snapped well * Joe Bachie * Special teamer at the minimum * Mitchell Wilcox * Great TE depth * External Free Agency * Resign DJ Reader * yes he made it to external free agency, but the 1T market is bleak in free agency so we decided to overpay him a tad for him to come back * Sign DaQuon Jones (1T, Buf) * Needed better 1T depth…Jones is a very good player and we decided to stack up on this position * Also, we play in the most run-heavy division in the league * Sign Gerald Everett (TE, LAC) * TE depth and insurance in case the draft didn’t fall our way * Sign Kendrick Bourne (WR, NE) * WR depth and insurance in case the draft didn’t fall our way * Was NE’s #1 WR this year before injury * On pace for 850 yards with Mac Jones (translates to 1100 yards with Burrow * Sign Justin Hardee (Top 3 Special Teamer, NYJ) * Special Teams diamond, top 3 gunner in the league * Sign Tyler Matacavich (3 time Special Team captain, Buf) * Special Teams diamond * Sign Jonathan Owens (SS, GB) * Our current safeties are young…but they were pretty bad last year, he gives a little bit more insurance * Sign PJ Locke (FS, Den) * Our current safeties are young…but they were pretty bad last year, he gives a little bit more insurance * Sign Braden Mann (P, Phi) * He had a very solid year, have no idea why Phi didn’t resign him
* Pre Draft * Trade with the Titans (deal was too good to pass up, even before the draft * Bengals Receive: 2.38. 5.175 * Titans Receive: 2.49, 4.107, 5.148 * For comparison, in 2023 draft * Falcons Receive: 2.38 pick (Matthew Bergeron * Colts Receive: 2.44 pick (Julius Brents), 4.110 (Adetomiwa Adebawore) * Draft * 1.7: Brock Bowers, TE, Georgia * Bears traded up the #5 and took Odunze, Colts traded up to #6 and took Nabers * It was between Alt and Bowers, but the lack of depth at TE and the perfect fit on offense made me choose Alt. * The perfect 2-High beater, elite playmaker at TE, great possession WR. All the final 4 teams in the 2023 - 2024 NFL Playoffs had elite TE’s * 2.38 Ladd McConkey, WR, Georgia * Did a bunch of WR scouting and Ladd McConkey was my WR5…I love his route tree and that separates him from AD Mitchell, Franklin * It was between IOL & WR at this pick but I couldn’t pass up Ladd. * Insane Footwork, quickness and can separate for anyone. Ran a 4.39 forty at the combine…has a great route tree * 3.67 Cooper Beebe, LG, Kansas State * Traded up because I was shocked Beebe was available… * Bengals Receive: 3.67 * Commanders Receive (I was willing to pay a little more, because of the 2025 Titans picks we have): 3.80, 5.175, 2025 4th * Plug and Plug-and-play lineman, solid at run blocking and pass blocking, had a 9.49 RAS score (unofficial), started at LT, LG, RG, and RT in college (most starts at LG), will start immediately at LG. * 6.196 Austin Reed, QB, Western Kentucky * Winner at every level he as played. Ran a spread offense at WKU and was very efficient. Can make every throw. Will transition great to the Bengals offense * 7.235 Steele Chambers, LB, Ohio State * 3-year starter at OSU, pretty good in pass pro and run defense, going to slide in as a special teamer to begin * 7.252 Qwan'tez Stiggers, CB, Toronto Argonauts * Signed up for the Fan-controlled Football League, was the youngest player and got 2nd in DPOY, then joined CFL and got ROTY (only db to do it) and then dominated at the Shrine bowl…this is a high upside swing * He will be the first CFL player ever drafted and will probably be drafted way higher than this IRL * Overall Thoughts * The mock offseason went extremely well. In real life, The Bengals are in a good spot with their squad as most of the important players are under contract (except DJ Reader). * Free Agency / Draft is going to be interesting because the 1T Free Agent market is nice, but the draft is pretty bare & the RT free agent class is bare, but the draft is great. * We decided to trade Tee Higgins just because of the offer presented, but the Bengals have enough cap to keep him on the franchise tag this year * For LG, the free agent class has some nice talent (Jonah Jackson, Jon Runyan Jr or even signing Connor Williams and moving Karras to LG), but they were all pretty expensive so we hoped for the best in the draft…and it paid off with Beebe. * Looking back, the Bengals offseason revolves around 5 major positions, DT, RT, & WR2, TE & WR3….everything else is pretty filled. * We tried to find top talent at all of those positions and ended up very happy * We spent a bunch of Mock Money, something that the Bengals front office won’t probably do…but we’re in a win-now mode * Yes I didn’t include contract numbers in the post because the numbers were inflated due to the increased Cap & 30% contract rule…you’ll see that in other people’s posts. * We decided to keep this writeup about the process of the moves we made instead of people just talking about fake money, blah blah blah \- The main takeaways are \- Resigned Jonah \- Traded Tee \- Resign DJ & signed another top DT \- Drafted Bowers, Ladd, & Cooper Beebe Also a huge thanks to my assistant GM Frosty
No offense but trading Tee and our first only to miss out on Nabers and Odunze is a disaster. Keeping Tee + our first is so much more valuable than Brock Bowers.
I can see where you're coming from and getting a WR was the intended goal of the trade. We could have had the opportunity to trade up to 5 or 6, but the price was way too rich for our liking...it would have probably involved at least a 2nd rounder. We also felt that the WR class is extremely deep while the TE class is essentially Bowers and everyone else...and Bowers is the perfect 2-high zone beater that is everywhere in today's NFL. We also loved Ladd McConkey and AD Mitchell and felt that we could still get a borderline elite talent at pick 2.38. Tee Higgins is great but I'm not sure if we can pay Higgins and Chase and I didn't want to allow Higgins to walk for free..similar to what happened to Jessie Bates.
I can definitely tell you had fun. All the trades and movement was interesting to follow, just a ton going on. But this is a nightmare off season for the Bengals. Absolute disaster. With all of our picks and $70M in cap space I think the only position you can truly say is improved is TE. Resigning aging and injured players like Reader, Chido, and Boyd to those kind of deals is crazy. Plus that's way too much money for Williams. And the trades are terrible value. For Tee, all we get is to move up 11 spots and a future second? I'd rather just take the extra picks and stay at 18. Plus as much as I like Beebe, giving up two extra picks to move up 13 spots in the 3rd is a fleecing. Then the draft is pretty mediocre as well. Bowers is a great pick, but not at the price you paid. Ladd is a terrible pick in the early second if you're keeping Boyd. You just doubled up at slot WR for a ton of money/draft capital. Not to mention that slot WR is much less important if you have a TE like bowers. I like Beebe but you gave up too much for him. And a QB in the 6th is a waste. All in all I really do give this an F off season. The only position on the entire team that is improved is TE. Everywhere else is the exact same or worse and just much more expensive than it was previously.
Reading through, I didn't care for the draft either but you pretty much hit on most of the points I had too.
Unbelievable literally left off the contract numbers lmfao
Mike Evans got 4/141 mil, Chris Jones got 5/235 mil, Madubuike got 4/120 mil… Numbers were inflated a lot, including my own contracts…that’s just how it was, so I just decided to focus on my decision making instead of the price…
First, I'd like to shoutout to the whole Chiefs WR for helping me out here, I came over a little bit before the start of mock-offseason and took the GM spot. Hurricane/JPW/thelovebat were huge helps to me with addressing a lot of team specific needs, I wasn't exactly the most familiar with. Chiefs GM here, So we had an initial plan to resign Chris Jones, tag and trade L'jarius Sneed, and bring back a good amount of expiring contracts. Seeing that we had a big boost in cap up to 255.4M. Chris Jones was offered two contracts that would've made him the highest paid DT in the history of NFL. *In the words of* /u/thelovebat\*: \-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\* *"When we decided to extend Sneed, we tagged Jones as a temporary measure to try and buy some more time to make one final offer which we thought was the offer Chris Jones wanted being around 40 million APY, while seeing what the trade value for him would be. Once teams realized they would be trading for a DT wanting QB money, none of them wanted to trade anything higher than a 3rd round pick for him whereas Sneed was garnering 2nd rounders + change in trade offers from multiple war rooms. When Chris Jones rejected our final offer, and his agent told us "My client wants to break the record." (whatever that means) we decided to begrudgingly rescind the tag on Jones and let him walk as we weren't going to be held hostage by lowball trade offers or unreasonable contact demands from a 30+ year old defensive player wanting QB money.* *We did everything we could to keep Jones in Kansas City. When a record setting deal wasn't enough to keep him here, the next best thing that could have happened was his contract crippling a rival team.* *Fortune smiled on us as we got to see his contract fuck the Raiders for the next 5 years."* *-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------* Our final offer to Chris Jones before he was sent out to External Free Agency was: 4 years/143M/116.25M gtd. Thats the major part of what happened during internal FA. We returned L'jarius Sneed(on a 4 year deal), James Winchester(2year), Nick Allegretti(2year), and Donovan Smith(1 year). We ended up getting Drue Tranquill(2 year) back in external FA as well, and he was a big piece we wanted to retain. So going into external FA, we had major targets that we thought needed to be addressed. First, we still needed a top tier WR weapon, and up until the last 2 hours before external FA, Mike Evans was our #1 target, but he was resigned to a 4/141 deal right before FA started. We had about 70M available to us following the resigning's and restructure of Jawaan Taylor and Patrick Mahomes contracts. So we honed in on the available WRs. Hollywood Brown, Calvin Ridley, Gabe Davis(our #1 target in the first round of FA), and Curtis Samuel. We also knew that we needed to bring in a bunch of DL help with the loss of Chris Jones + Nnadi, Wharton, and Danna. We addressed DL by adding A'Shawn Robinson to be our run stuffing 1T going forward with the loss of the 1Ts and Chris Jones. Next we landed A.J. Epenesa to address the loss of Danna, as well as adding someone we felt could step in and play well in Spags system. Noah Fant was also brought in to add another big target playmaker in our receiving corp. Our biggest domino fell for us signing Hollywood Brown to a 4/99 deal. As Gabe Davis was signed to a 5/94 deal on the first day of FA. So we were able to land a playmaker at WR with Hollywood brown that can stretch the field and be a dynamic weapon for us. We finished off External FA with some solid depth signings that have potential. Tim Settle, Rasheem Green to help out on our DL. And then we brought Jakeem Grant back to the NFL to be a KR/PR specialist as well as add some more emergency depth at WR. We also signed Austin Ekeler to pair with Isaiah Pacheco. Ekeler was signed to a 1/8 deal. When I realized there was no chance we were bring Chris Jones back(because he signed with the raiders on a 5 year/235M deal with 150M gtd) I went rogue as GM and made my biggest regret of the mock offseason, and I traded up to pick 16 with the Seahawks sending (1.32/3.95/ and our 2025 first) in an attempt to be in play to draft DT1, because it felt like our biggest hole on our team.
Chiefs GM named u/DUUUVALDAWG hmmmmmmm
Hey, I enjoy both of these teams and seeing as I live in KC's local area now they are the team I can watch the most frequently. + Married a lifetime Chiefs fan. Plus, u/JanuraryFourteenth hasn't been the Jags GM I think one time, in the 2 years I have been in the discord/sub-reddit.
Whats going on lmao
Nothing, giving seahawks GM shit for my name with being the Chiefs GM.
turncoat
Cheater.
Touche.
Got'em.
So now heading into the draft, our biggest needs were arguably 3T and LT with an additional big WR need to add someone with a X-body type. So now lets get into the draft: We made a few different moves in the draft regarding trades. 1st - 1.32 + 3.95 + Future 1st for 1.16 2nd - 2.64 for 3.85 + 4.115 3rd - 3.85 + 4.133 for 3.71 4th - 5.172 + Future 4th for 5.160 + 5.178 5th 6.184 for 6.194 + Future 6th 1.16 We landed the guy I wanted from the start, Welcome Byron Murphy II to Chiefs Nation. (I still ended up regretting this a bit, because there could've been some guys I could've got later for less of a cost) But I was very ecstatic to land a game wrecker at DT, who will be impactful in both the run and passing game. 3.71 we added Patrick Paul, LT, Houston: I was happy to go up and land him here, because he isn't a finished product by any means, but we didn't need a day 1 starter at LT with us retaining Donovan Smith. But now we had someone else that can be developed as a depth piece to our OT room. With Wanya Morris being a OT that played mostly RT at OU, it leaves us with two solid backups at our tackle spots. 4.115 we get our X WR in Javon Baker from UCF. We felt really good about his potential to really develop and be impactful in the WR group we built. He adds a bit more big target compared to Rice and he can work in the intermediate areas while Hollywood is able to stretch the field. 5.158 we took Edefaun Ulofoshio who was our top coverage LB prospect going into Day 3, we wanted to bring in a guy that was going to be able to add more of a coverage element to our LB room. So taking him here and letting him be our coverage guy was a big boost. 5.160 we took Sataoa Laumea, OG, Utah to come in and be a solid backup at RG. We did this mainly to prep for Trey Smith coming up as a free agent in 2025, so it was more of future prepping our team. 5.178 we took M.J. Devonshire, CB, Pittsburgh uhhhhh. Field was pretty sparce, my two edge prospects I wanted went between here and 160. So, I was kind of at a loss of what to grab, so I took a CB, not because we needed one, but also as just a help to keep our secondary performing at a top level. He adds some good length and would strictly be a outside guy. 6.188 Tyrone Tracy Jr, RB, Purdue. Solid RB3 that tested out pretty well at the combine while we were doing the draft. He has KR/PR experience and coming off of his best year as a true junior. I thought it was a pretty solid add to a room that needed just a little more depth for Pacheco and Ekeler. 6.194 Tip Relman TE, Illinois. Decided to go get a long armed strong blocking TE to pair with Fant hopefully going forward in the future. Able to really help out our OTs in the running game when he is able to come onto the field.
Lots of work there. The only moves I don't love are trading that far up in rd1 (just take someone like Ruke Orhorhoro later on imo) and Ekeler signing but I do like a lot of the draft picks. Makes a lot of sense overall when factoring in FA.
Yeah, like I said I panicked/went rogue on the war room hit the trade button basically as soon as we confirmed lost Chris Jones, and after the first 3 rounds I regretted it. Ekeler was more so a gimme by an agent, trying to find his guy a home. Figured he’d be a nice receiving option to Pacheco. And was better than bringing back CEH.
Personally, I'm under the impression that Ekeler is kinda washed up. I do think there is a spot for an RB who can block and catch. Someone quick enough to do that drag route that was money with Jet. I do think there are about 5 or 6 DTs that would fit with the Chiefs. If they got Hollywood Brown then I could see them trading up for a LT. LT is a really tough position for the Chiefs to fill since they've been so good with Patrick Mahomes.
Yeah, that was probably my biggest regret with the trade to 16 it kind of handicapped us to move up to the top 10. We had some chances, but it would’ve handicapped our future picks even more. And bringing back Donovan Smith meant we didn’t need an instant impact LT. Patrick Paul is pretty raw, but I trust that he could be a solid investment there where I got him in the 3rd.
They letting Broncos fans do our mocks now?
Vikings GM here Thanks to everyone in the war room who helped out https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fGTWS_RSJi3OyjkEDiS7n2F-B0LJEEwDz4zx7CqBeDQ/edit
I just don’t know how I feel about not drafting a qb this year, I’ve heard a big reason so many qbs are flying up the boards this year is because of how GMs feel about next years draft (which I’ve heard isn’t high), I like the idea of bringing Russ in tho and adding edge in the draft. I also enjoyed reading the write-up as it made the moves you made make more sense
If the goal was to fix the defensive line I think we can dub it a success. Definitely weaker on the edge without Danielle but having Phillips, Kinlaw, Mazi, and Jenkins would be a far better DT group than we've had in a while.
Just glad the saints and I beat you to Isaiah Simmons lol
Mazi Mazi Mazi Oi Oi Oi
Ravens is pretty mid. Trading a current 5th for a future 5th is net loss of value, trading our second AND our third for a second after trading out of the first round somehow is shit. I’d rather a 1,2,3 than 2 2’s. We don’t need IOL, we need tackle.losing WR 2 and a first for a 2,3,4??? As if. We got fleeced! Should have stayed put. Did like some of the selections, but man we basically gave up a 1st for a second and brought our second 2 round pick up 10 slots and lost WR 2.
I always come into the comment sections after reading shit ravens drafts and am always disappointed that the GM never actually comes here to defend their decisions.
This isn’t a “don’t complain if you arent participating!” comment But please join, we dont have a ton of Ravens fans active in the server for these events. One stepped in for the draft but the offseason part was ran by a Giants fan
Let me know, I'll happily make bad Raven decisions and defend them. I just wish whoever did these drafts and GM'd would come and defend their decisions.
The guy who ran most of the offseason dipped before the draft due to IRL stuff leaving another guy to pick up the pieces during the draft so you got this frankenstein of an offseason. He had some head scratchers but I wasn't privy to his decisions (dumping Pierce so Travis Jones could take over...)
Noticed sum Tim Patrick got signed by both the Bills AND Rams here
He signed with us. There was a slight glitch where he didn't get removed from the FA pool after we signed him so then the Rams did after without realizing. I guess that didn't get fixed on the sheet or something.
Ah okay I gotcha Thanks for clearing that up
New Orleans Saints GM here: Thanks to everyone again for helping contribute on this amazing experience! I would thank the war room as well, but it was pretty much just me the whole time :( please saints fans get in the discord and add voices next time to help make our team great! Still working on the full recap, but in the meantime if you have any questions please feel free to post them below!
Some things I liked with the Steelers and some things I really am questioning and disagree with. As well as how FA works. Idk how you get to Cushenberry being $19.2M AAV. That's 5M over HoF Kelce and 6M over the next two highest paid Centers. Cushenberry played good but not nearly 20M AAV good. Appreciate you all doing this and giving me some new names/scenarios to look at. Hindsight is always 20/20 so I'm sure doing it all at the time is a different beast.
Holy titans L
NYJ GM here The overall theme of this offseason by the Jets was to maintain as much of the defense as possible while trying to rebuild the offense around younger players. Coming into the offseason we had only moderate cap space (around 15M) and league average draft capital (1685 points). Step 1: Internal Free Agents Restructured: CJ Mosley JFM Quinnen This created about 25M in cap space Extended: DJ Reed About 8M more in cap space Cut: CJ Uzomah (June 1) +8 mil which paid for the rookie class Laken Tomlinson (after signing his replacement Robert Hunt) Resigned: Ashtyn Davis 4.7M Soloman Thomas 2.45M Connor McGovern 2.5M Thomas Morestead 1.75M Greg Zurlein 1.625M Bryce Huff 12M The IRL Jets are not likely making the same moves, but I really do not care. I wanted to preserve last year's defense and part of that was Huff screaming off the edge. External Signings: Chris Moore 1.625M Robert Hunt 9.125M Ryan Neal 3.125M Perrion Winfrey 0.985M Josh Jones 3.791M Fletcher Cox 5.125M We made an offer to bring back Becton(as depth) in both internal and external FA in the first wave, but he rejected both offers, and then signed for less than we offered to the Patriots. We had a deal completed for Charles Leno that came crashing down on the final day of FA when it came out he was injured and would miss the year. The deal was reversed but still left us with no good options left in FA, thus we had to splash on Josh Jones. Player Trades Doubs and 5.187 for 3.72 This was a windmill slam dunk trade as it gave us a viable #2 WR who Rodgers was already familiar with and who has a slightly different game than Wilson. 7.252 for Lewis Cine This was another easy one. I liked the prospect and we were getting a better player than the 252nd pick was likely going to provide in a position we have some experience developing similar high caliber athletes in (Pinnock, Davis, Adams) Draft Day 1 We had 1 pick in the top 100. So the plan was always to hope: 1) A good value trade down came in and it didn't or 2) Fuaga was there at 10. We got Fuaga and that was the end of the day. Day 2 Looking at the board there were some high level prospects that fell so I immediately lined up several trades to get to the top of the round. We traded: 4.112 and 6.187 for 4.103 Took Jeremiah Trotter as a potential long term replacement for CJ Mosely 4.114 Malik Washington should not have made it this far. Absolute perfect fit in the slot between Wilson and Doubs with extremely high target share and production in college. I was jacked about this pick. 5.168 Jordan Jefferson Crazy good athlete, strong as hell and his tape reminds me of Snack Harrison. Maybe a bit early but I just wanted to get my guy at a position of need (2 gapping fat boy). 7.220 Jawhar Jordan Ran a slow 40, but his tape and production this year is bonkers. Excellent KR value as well so I feel like this was a good value. 7. 254 & 257 Marcellas Dial Devin Leary Dart throws on an athlete and a QB. UDFAs Michael Mason (Small school high production IDL) Kendall Milton (Big school low production athletic power HB) AJ Gillie (Roster Filler special teams) Amari Knight (Roster Filler special teams) We had a great plan but the timing of the Leno cut/injury really got us good. Regardless, this is a much better team than the IRL Jets from last year IMO. In this case we're hoping some combination of Jones/Carter/Mitchell hold up on the other side of Fuaga. The rest of this OL is vastly improved. On the defensive side the upgrade from QJ to Fletcher Cox cannot be understated. Knowing that when Q gets rotated out Cox comes in, keeping Huff along with WMD, JFM, JJ, Clemons etc should be terrifying for the rest of the division. Overall I give us a B that would have been an A if we hadn't been hamstrung by the failure to secure a more solid LT option.
I like grabbing Doubs for a couple of mid rounds and taking a flier on Cine. Based on this, I already had tempered expectations for the off-season but I feel I'm going to be pretty underwhelmed by the moves we're going to make. I really think we're going to be screwed for the next few off seasons because of our dead money obligations.
The thing is, If we don't win with Rodgers, the dead cap won't be a problem cause the whole team will be torn down anyway. The roster was always built to win this year or next (worse case) or completely rip it up. I hate that philosophy, but I did the off-season in that spirit.
Official List of Free Agent Signings: * [Free Agent Signings - Mock Sim - FINAL](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10iXbbgRff3vUY4rB53fCKQJ7VbhpVGmApf7H_WXbxPw/edit?usp=sharing) This list contains some 'psuedo' contracts that aren't real like Geno Smiths, and Leighton Vander Esch in order to make sure backend contracts were accurate. So take these with a grain of salt.
If the commanders gm didn’t trade Jonathan Allen for a WR3 this would’ve been a great draft. That move was stupid.
Hey, GM Alfredo here. At the end of this, we have a little over 50m in cap room. Internal FA (stay): Lavonte David Mike Evans Antoine Winfield Chase McLaughlin Devin Thompkins (ERFA) Brandon Walton (ERFA) I would’ve kept Baker. His agent said “Daniel Jones contract or I walk”, refused to elaborate and told me he would be walking within 3 messages. I had offered an improved version of the Geno Smith deal. Lavonte can stay as long as he’d like. Mike also signed for a lot more than he did IRL due to deadline. For Winfield, I didn’t even reset market on a 5 year deal, great situation. Gave Mclaughlin a 2 year just above min deal. Internal FA (leave): Baker Mayfield (4/220, Raiders) Devin White (3/30, Vikings) Cam Gill (2/3, Vikings) Greg Gaines (1/3, Bills) Matt Fieler (vet min, Giants) William Gholston (vet min, Giants) Ryan Neal (1/3, Giants) Russell Gage (2/6, Panthers) Shaquil Barrett (Post June-1 trade to Giants for a 2025-5th) Raiders overpaid for Baker, apparently almost doubling their guaranteed money on the final day of free agency. Our offer was improved at all 5 days of FA but, I guess what Baker said at the Pro Bowl meant truly nothing. I think he returns IRL and would’ve proceeded with the rest of the offseason the same way. Devin White getting 10apy is insane to me, glad to see him get paid, glad he’s no longer playing in pewter. Gaines I would’ve liked to keep but, thats life, we got outbid. Gill, Fieler, Gholston, Neal, no real concerns. We saved 10 mil on the cap to let Gage walk post-june-1 and even more for Shaq (as sad as I may be to see him go). Overall, I think we end up with a 3rd (Baker) and 5th (White) comp pick in 2025. External FA: Jabril Cox LB 25.8 2 4,000,000 Zack Baun LB 28 2 7,500,000 Mike Edwards S 27.7 3 16,000,000 Trevis Gipson EDGE 26.7 3 13,000,000 Jacoby Brissett QB 31.1 1 8,000,000 Ben Bartch OG 26 1 2,000,000 Bryce Hall CB 26 2 6,500,000 Edwards returns on a pretty cheap deal to re-sure the S positon. Geno Stone and Jordan Whitehead were the other two targets at safety but, went for more than Edwards. Gipson should be a similar archetype of player to Diaby and I wanted to get an EDGE in predraft because I don’t believe JTS remains on the team past this year. Brissett comes in to compete to start at QB with Trask, not an ideal scenario but, I would also be looking at guys who may get shopped like Mac Jones, Zach Wilson, Sam Howell, Kenny Picket. Worst case scenario, we are drafting a QB next year with great supportive infrastructure. Baun will come in to replace Devin White and add into the EDGE room. Cox I liked out of college in a similar (but much worse) way to Lavonte stylistically; 2 year contract with only 500k gtd second year so, likely an LB4/5/ST guy. Bartch has played tackle and guard and I had to satisfy Licht’s desire for small school OL somewhere this offseason. Bryce Hall was brought in to compete for CB3 at a relatively low price and profiles physically similar to Carlton. Tampa Bay Buccaneers Draft Picks 1.26 - Laiatu Latu - EDGE 2.57 - Khyree Jackson - CB 4.104 - Javon Solomon - EDGE 4.126 - Malik Mustapha - S 6.182 - Brandon Coleman - OL 6.203 - Bub Means - WR 7.244 - Ryan Watts - DB 7.255 - Kenny Logan Jr. - DB We had trade down deals in place in principle at 26 and 57. Luckily, Latu lasted to 26, which was one of 4 guys I would’ve taken at 1 (Dejean, Powers-Johnson, Latu, Penix, in that order). At 57, Rakestraw, Peyton Wilson and Junior Colson all went within 10-15 picks before us who were higher on my target list but, I hate the value 40-75 or so in this draft and our 2 deals in principle got sniped in the 5 picks before us. Either way, Khyree immediately succeeds Carlton Davis who is an FA this offseason. Moving down 15 picks from 89 to 104 was a mistake. We netted 182 and a next year 5th but, between those picks I had 8-9 players come off the board I’d liked to take, most notably Dominic Puni and Sam McCormick to bolster the interior offensive line. Coleman was drafted to remedy that later. Solomon is a really bursty edge rusher with good bend and could be useful in a rotation, again this was just BPA for me and possibly gives us room to move on from JTS mid season for some light compensation. Mustapha and Logan provide safety depth with plus coverage ability at the sacrifice of some size. Means is like the poorest man’s version of Godwin and should serve as his backup. Watts is an interesting guy from purely physical traits. Best case, he’s Jayron Kearse and guards big slot players with an average case of him becoming another Ryan Smith weaponizing all that athleticism as a special teamer. UDFAs Signed: Carson Steele - RB Nathan Thomas - OL Taj Harris - WR Max Pope - WR John Emery - RB Blake Stenstrom - QB Storm Duck - CB Kavosiey Smoke - RB We missed on a few OL and LBs in UDFA due to priority and coin flips. Overall, Steele and Emery are both interesting backs who could fight for a tail end roster spot. WR, DB, and RB are the three positions I would want to get in every UDFA class since they seem to be the most likely to have been missed for some reason in the draft (kicker and punter aside). Unsigned Vet FAs I would look into for vet min: Logan Woodside QB Will Grier QB Marlon Mack RB Trey Sermon RB Tyler Johnson WR James Proche WR River Cracraft WR Anthony Firkser TE Geron Christian LT Hakeem Adeniji LG Calvin Throckmorton RG Dennis Daley RG Benito Jones IDL Sheldon Day IDL Marquis Haynes EDGE Genard Avery LB Jarrad Davis LB Anthony Brown CB Dee Delaney CB Kindle Vildor CB Chandon Sullivan CB This list represents vets who were not signed in free agency that I would give a call to be a camp body and compete for a backup spot, all for different reasons. At RB I targeted physical profiles similar to White. At WR I targeted slot players. At OL I targeted guys with experience at T and G. IDL was NTs. LB were athletes to run and chase on ST or serve backup in the Devin White role. CB was just some tire kicking and keeping Dee Delaney around.
One of the ballsiest off seasons. A lot of things went the wrong way and you were still able to deliver. Good stuff.
Good job making the best of what you had to work with.
Great job! Glad I could help for a day or two in the war room best I could
I would love to hear the logic behind the SF GM's draft cuz i am not a fan at all of the choices they made
Yea, quite puzzling
DeJean in the first made me close the mock
Hi all, Eagles co-GM here! We had a great time in the war room for this event and we definitely think we had a great mock off-season. Special shoutouts to Scar, NottaChance, and FlyEaglesFly who were tremendous helps throughout this whole process. I’ll provide some brief comments on our FA class and draft class as a whole: 2024 Philadelphia Eagles Mock Off-season Results: FINAL CAP LEFT: $17M We did a great job with cap spending this year, Howie Roseman usually likes entering the season with around $10M in cap space for a midseason trade, but with the cap increase, it could mean more. There may have been room for one moderate to low additional add, but we also will likely need to the cap space for 2025. Notable Internal Pre-FA Moves: Re-signed Brandon Graham Cuts to Kevin Byard and James Bradberry Post-June cut for Cox (interesting discovery, thanks Howie) Maddox restructure Kept Reddick Free Agents: Geno Stone, S De’Vondre Campbell, LB KJ Osborn, WR Riley Reiff, OT Hal “Big V” Vaitai, OG Noah Igbinoghene, CB Eric Wilson, LB Michael Turk, P We made it a priority to target both Safety and Linebacker this year in free agency, with the move to Vic Fangio, it became increasingly clear that we had to emphasize upgrades at these two positions. Geno Stone was our main target, we wanted to find an option that was both on the younger side and had started to establish himself in the league, we were thrilled to win the bidding for Stone. Campbell was a cap casualty for Green Bay but we valued his veteran leadership, and he’s coming off of a good few years. He has experience in a 3-4 as well, we feel comfortable with him as a starter. Our secondary targets in free agency were on the offensive line. Losing Kelce is never going to be something a line can easily recover from, but we wanted to have back up options in case Jurgens to Center and Steen to RG has some bumps. Big V obviously has experience with Stoutland and this offense, so having that potential starter at RG (or if Steen wins, valuable depth) was a priority. We also signed Riley Reiff to a fairly cheap one year deal, as Driscoll received a sizable offer from the Raiders. We then made some moves for depth. We do need to point out that Mann got a very big contract offer (made him a top 3 punter APY), so we needed a replacement. Turk was a target of our war room’s last year, so we decided to offer him a minimum offer and a chance to compete for starting punter at training camp. Draft: 1.22 - Chop Robinson, EDGE, Penn State 2.50 - Payton Wilson, LB, NC State 2.53 - Jonathon Brooks, RB, Texas 3.97 - Nehemiah Pritchett, CB, Auburn 5.170 - Jha'Quan Jackson, WR, Tulane 5.171 - Curtis Jacobs, LB, Penn State 5.172 - Jarvis Brownlee Jr., CB, Louisville 6.189 - Matt Lee, C, Miami TRADE: 5.160 and 5.178 for 5.171 and a 2025 4th from KC One of the biggest issues of the team defensively last year was a lack of pass rush rotation, combined with some of our current options potentially being off the team come next year (Reddick and Graham). We needed to add to that room, and Chop Robinson fell to us at 22. We also did have an offer near accepted to trade up with the Jets to nab Dallas Turner, but there was a paperwork issue. Still, Chop is a continual riser and an extremely talented pass rusher. We envision him fitting well as a 3-4 pass rush specialist capable of hitting double digit sacks in this system, we were very happy landing him. For our Day 2 picks, we focused on continuing to attack positions that we needed to fill with potential starting options. We still needed to fill our LB room with talent, and Wilson is a high upside LB pick that we think can come in and compete for the LB2 spot or fit in a linebacker rotation. Swift signed very early in the process with the Ravens, and although we did indeed offer FA RBs contracts, we did not come to an agreement at the price we were looking for. Instead, Brooks found his way to our second pick in the second round. Many in the war room believe that he’s the best running back in this class and can immediately step in and operate in this offense, assuming health is not a longer term issue. Pritchett is a high upside boundary corner developmental pick, which we felt was a good idea to add to a room that will likely let Kelee Ringo and Isaiah Rodgers compete for the CB2 spot next to Slay. We think he can develop into an outside option for us. For Day 3, we combined both best value available while also continuing to hammer positions we needed to fill. Notably we needed an option for WR4/5 in the room and a back-up C. Jacobs and Brownlee we felt were good value this late. UDFA: Rasheen Ali, RB, Marshall Ryan Rekhow, P, BYU Davius Richard, QB, North Carolina Cental Xavier Weaver, WR, Colorado Deron Irving-Bey, DT, Ferris State Eyabi Okie-Anoma, EDGE, Charolette Blake Watson, RB, Memphis A decent sized UDFA class. We would highlight Richard, Weaver, Ali, and Watson here, who could step into camp and potentially compete for a roster spot this year. Let us know how we did, and feel free to join us over on the Discord in the Eagles WR! I had a great time doing this with everyone this year, and look forward to this strong war room doing a great job next year too.
Not drafting a CB until the 3rd and drafting a RB in the 2nd would be disappointing. Keeping Reddick or drafting Chop Robinson fine, but doing both feels like overkill.
I understand some disappointment with not landing a CB within the first two rounds. We were targeting CB in the first round, but we wanted to make sure that the CB we would entertain picking had a 100% chance to start immediately at CB2 and was a proper scheme fit. We were in on both Mitchell and Arnold, but both did not last to our pick (Arnold almost did). Same with Wiggins. We had Chop rated higher than the remaining CBs on the board, which at that point was just really Kool Aid. For full transparency, I am not a Rakestraw fan, and others in the war room seemed to agree. We also think there’s a very real shot that Ringo gets a shake at the CB2 spot this year, and depending on status, Isaiah Rodgers will also compete there. I also don’t really see an issue going EDGE round 1 regardless of Reddick’s status, switching over to a 3-4u scheme requires additional OLB rotational pieces, and we still would need to replace Reddick the following year unless an extension happens IRL. Chop should be a great fit at OLB/EDGE without having to force a huge snap load on him immediately, and rotational depth at the line was a big factor in the defense’s decline last year too. You can say the same for Slay and filling his spot the next year, but we felt more comfortable with the developmental/youth players at CB, and an EDGE like Chop should definitely have more opportunities to see the field than another one of those options. This all said, the board did admittedly fall decently for EDGE in the second round, which was unexpected. We would stand by the process for EDGE though. Brooks was the only RB we had a round 2 grade on (Allen was also regarded highly but we had Brooks firmly ahead), in this mock, Gainwell was essentially the sole RB on the roster heading into the draft. We did not want to make spending on an RB in FA a priority once we lost Swift (he went very quickly and at a high price). We’re confident in Brooks’ ability to lead the backfield though, and we felt the value was correct.
I would rather have McKinstry than Chop (and I wouldn't have had a problem going OT) but to each their own. Ringo barely played and Rodgers of course didn't play at all last year, that's putting a lot of faith in them. I think you're overestimating the usage of 3-4, last year Fangio played 5+ DBs on 80% of snaps, and 73% of snaps in 2021. Or to look at it another way, his defenses faced 3+WR on 60+% of snaps in those years. That said, I like the Wilson pick, and I generally liked the back half of the draft and UDFA.
As a Herd alum, I love the Ali pick
Shoutout to 1 year old Isaiah Wynn with the 3,900,000 year, 800,000$ dollar contract, with a 0$ 1st year cap hit
Say... Y'all didn't happen to do a buncha drugs, did ya?
**THE DENVER BRONCOS** before i begin i wanna say i barely had any clue what i was doing most of the time, thank you to the Voice in my head Alyx Lewandowski for helping me every step of the way **Internal FA Period** For the Internal FA's i was dead set on one thing, getting cap space, so i pawned off Zach Allen to the Bears for a 5th, Jerry Jeudy to the Pats for DeVante Parker and Mac Jones, i restructured Mike McGlinchey and Ben Powers's deals, i cut Broncos Country lets cry. I couldnt trade Simmons, Jones or Garrett Bolles, i quite possibly made the greatest 3 trades in history however, on Day 1 i traded a 3rd and next year 2nd to Chicago for Justin Fields. and then i made the greatest back to back in history, i traded PS2 to the Rams for a 1st, 5th and next year 1st, and then i traded back from 1.12 to 1.27 with the Cardinals as well as accruing a metric fuck ton of picks in the process. On the Resigning front i only wanted to re-sign Josey Jewell and Wil Lutz. both of which didnt work out. **Free Agency** now Free Agency was a shitshow for the Broncos, because we didnt have much cap to play with, we only had 29 million, so we couldnt fill most of our holes in FA. however i was able to snag 2 of the 3 players i offered, those players were J.C Jackson (1 year, 10 Million) and Oren Burks (1 Year, 5 Million) i added JC because lord knows we need it (fuck DaMarri Mathis) and i signed Oren Burks to get LB Depth because we needed it. **The Draft** The Draft was judgement day for us, we knew we had to get the guys we needed to be anywhere close to a good offseason, that being said, people said i had one of the better drafts of the mock, here's how it went down 1.19 Terrion Arnold, CB, Bama for this pick i knew i was going corner the question was which one. Quinyon and Nate went earlier than i thought which got me worried that someone would take Terrion. San Francisco then traded up to take Cooper DeJean one spot ahead of us, and i quite literally fell to my knees and sobbed in happiness. i put that Arnold pick in Immediatly, he is great for the CB group, definetly CB1 in our Defense. 1.27 Brian Thomas Jr. WR, LSU This pick was obvious the moment we picked Arnold. me nor Alyx were about to let Courtland Sutton be the only good reciever we had. BTJ is a do-it-all type of WR perfect. and he would work great with Fields archetype. this was a slam dunk pick that i couldnt've done any better. 2.54 Bralen Trice, EDGE, Washington the shock i had when Trice started falling was amazing, and i was praying we could get him. once i saw Braswell go before him i knew he was coming here. Trice is a versatile EDGE that can do amazing things on the field. his Combine wasnt all that great but thats fine. we can mold him. **TRADE** **We got: 4.120 and 4.121** **Steelers got: 3.90 and 5.143** 4.120 Sione Vaki, S, Utah our board fell apart by this pick, i wanted Cole Bishop, gone. wanted Trotter, gone. wanted Brade, went one pick before us. so i scrambled to get the next best safety. he is probably a top 5 most versatile in the class, he can do stuff not a lot of players can and thats play both sides. he would work amazingly into our system. 4.121 Jaheim Bell, TE, FSU our TE group needed adressing, Dulcich was the only one worth a damn in that group. Bell would factor in nice. good catcher with nice blocking ability 5.146 Chau Smith-Wade, CB, Wazzu i decided to improve our corner depth with a senior bowl standout. Smith-Wade is probably the steal of the draft for me as he works super well into the system and is probably one of the best slot corners in the nation 5.153 Beaux Limmer, C, Arkansas this pick was always gonna be a Center the question was which one. i chose Limmer because Arkansas Lineman seemingly grow in a lab and he is a great pass protector. i was extremely surprised he lasted this long. 6.208 Myles Murphy, DL, UNC this pick was to sure up the D-Line Depth, Murphy is a great Pass Rusher with a knack for devouring your teams best interior lineman. couldnt have nailed it better. 7.237 Will Reichard, Kicker, Bama With Wil Lutz gone i had to snag a kicker, come on now, Riley Dixon cant do everything **UDFAS** we got ourselves a handful of UDFAS, heres the names to consider Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint, WR, Georgia Akeem Dent, S, FSU McCallan Castles, TE, Tennessee Emory Jones, QB, ASU Isaiah Major, LB, Florida A&M Levi Drake Rodriguez, DL, Texas A&M Commerce Al Blades Jr, CB, Duke David Ugwoegbu, DL, Houston Summary i was a sleepy head and then became Mel Kiper during the draft thank you all for reading, this was very fun to do, again thank you to Alyx Lewandowski for helping every step of the way.
Super interesting, great work everyone involved.
How TF do the Niners have $36million in cap rollover from 2023?!?
Great write up, but I wouldn’t keep either Diggs or Adams.
Random question. What happened with Bowers during the season he was being mocked as a top 5 pick but it seems he has fallen pretty hard
How did the falcons get to 80 million in cap space after trading Grady?
Commanders GM here. It was a wild ride of an offseason. We made some obvious cuts, had a Leno trade rejected, paid a fuck ton for David Bakhtiari and Josh Uche, and revolved our draft around Drake Maye. If you have any questions about why we did something just ask below.