Friday Insider: Dupree would be OK with franchise tag

[SteelerSask2]

Committing anything north of 8m per year for Bud Dupree would be totally asinine. Something the old Steelers (the ones that contended all the time and won championships would never do). That is a false market for a guy who has totally under performed most of his career. I mean you pretty much paid him a million dollars per sack to this point in his career.

 

[slashsteel]

Committing anything north of 8m per year for Bud Dupree would be totally asinine. Something the old Steelers (the ones that contended all the time and won championships would never do). That is a false market for a guy who has totally under performed most of his career. I mean you pretty much paid him a million dollars per sack to this point in his career.

Unfortunately teams look more at the now than the years past. Then you figure eventually Watt will get paid so you don't want to overpay in free agency which could very well happen if you are trying to equal or upgrade talent at the position.

You have to pick your poison. One thing is for sure you don't want a downgrade at the position which could very well happen if you let him go and don't have an adequate replacement.

 

[Steelmann]

I'm not saying he isn't worth a good contract but I'm saying he will be offered more in free agency, let's take a look at the numbers:

1. currently TJ Watt is in his rookie contract's 3th year so in two years he would be in his 5th year option which will be someting like 9-10 millions, then he becomes an UFA, If someone is a must-resign-player is TJ WATT, he should be priority #1 for the front office.

2. Let's see the OLB top salaries around the league:

3. Now let's look at the sack leaders:

4. Back to Dupree, he is top 20 in sacks with a very nice tackle production which would put him in the top 12 to 20 range in the free agent market, say 8 to 12 million dollars between kiko alonso and preston brown contract, probably closer to 12M as Bud still is young, his best years are yet to come.

5. Now if you give that money to Bud, how much will Watt earn? to me he will get something similar to Chandler Jones, maybe get some discount if re-signed before using the 5th year option as leverage. Signing both would mean the FO are allocating 25-30M to OLBs in 2021.

6. You wonder how the team is in cap space? we are dead last with 1M available, no wonder they haven't brought any free agent RB. Next year you ask? ok we have an estimated cap space of 6 millions only, cutting Barron and Chickillo opens up 10 millions, another option to open cap space would be to cut McDonald who has a dead cap of 1.5M and would save 5,5M more (a contract extension lowering his cap hit would be a better option).

Resigning Bud to a 10M/Y contract the team needs to cut Chick (fine by me) and/or Barron (yeap, no problem), leaving 16M in cap space. They can structure the contract to have a low impact in the first season, something like they did with DeCastro who earns an avg salary of 10M in a 5 years contract but the first year cap was less than 6M, so to sum up:

Steelers can offer a 4 years, 40 Millions with a first year (2020) cap hit of 6,5M leaving 10M available to try to re-sign Javon Hargrave, sign the rookie class and complete the roster.

7. Keep in mind that in 2021 Juju becomes an UFA, Heyward, Villanueva and Joe Haden too, also TJ Watt's new monster contract would be in the books and Fitzpatrick enters his 5th year option

So it can be done but it won't be easy or cheap.

PS: thanks to spotrac.com for the data[/QUOTE

Thanks for this. What a frigging headache it must be for the guys making the decisions. It’s pretty easy for us fans saying sign this guy! Without looking at the overall implications. If TJ,JuJu,and Fitz all get resigned they could easily have top 5 contract$$$$$$ in their respective positions of the entire league. This while we will have to slowly but surely replace our aging oline. No wonder hitting consistently on draft choices for those rookie contracts are the most important decisions to have any chance of being a dynasty.

 

[Litos]

Keep in mind, it seems a lot of recent contracts were tied to the timeframe of Ben's contract. When Ben retires, there will be more than a few others leaving as well. Pouncey will almost definitely be one of them.

Yeap, the team has something like 90M available in 2 years


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[mightyguru]

I can see them franchising him next year for a final Superb Owl run with Ben.