Thank you for this! I hadn’t heard about it until you made me look it up.
Dan Quinn had the opportunity to take a head coaching job, but he’s recommitting to Dallas.
I think the translation here is that he didn’t get the job he wanted. Since he was supposedly in the lead for the Arizona gig, maybe he wanted the Denver job (the top two are said to be Demeco Ryans and the HC from Stanford). Working with that defense and having some familiarity with Russ could have been attractive. Can’t imagine he wanted the Colts gig.
Sean Payton has done a great job of self-promotion. His record is almost exactly the same as McCarthy in both regular season and playoff numbers and both won one SB. And people are begging to trade round 1 picks for Payton while some think McCarthy is the problem in Dallas.
Not sure how much people get that even if Jerry Jones isn’t calling plays, he keeps enough of a handle on the football side of the business that it’s hard to tell if a coach can actually do fully what they want. Why has an obviously lesser version of Elliot been starting over a much better Pollard for years now? Why tie yourself to the RB position by vastly overpaying Elliott in the first place? And why wait to pay Dak $50mil/year instead of getting him for about half that by signing him a year or two early? I don’t think Jerry is still openly subverting his HC like he used to by having an open door policy with players to go directly to him and not thru the HC first like he used to. But he loves him some Elliott and Dak.
Dak makes about 22% of the teams salary cap in 2023. The team that paid the largest percent to a QB and won the SB was the Bucs paying Brady 12%. The highest percent for a QB just being in the SB was Manning in 2009 with 19% with the average of all QBs in the SB being paid just 7% of a team’s salary cap. If Mahomes wins this year he’ll have around 20% or so I think. So basically, Dallas is screwed and can’t build a strong enough team around Dak to win it all barring having zero injuries heading into the playoffs.
I think they’re viewed by many (though not me) as ‘McCarthy won because of Aaron Rodgers while Payton built a winning franchise.’ Agree that Payton is great at self-promotion, as seen when he openly talked about what it would cost a team in picks to hire him.
Unrelated to Payton, the final plays of last season and this season for Dallas are evidence to many that he can be a game management bonehead. Then again, Andy Reid during his Philly tenure was horrible at late-game clock management, yet he is HOF bound.
Last week Jones apparently walked onto the field before the game to talk to kicker Brett Maher, who as we know was PAT challenged. No coach needs that sort of game-day meddling.
This is Philly’s (and every team with a stud QB’s) situation. Hurts is on his rookie contract and the GM surrounded him with expensive veterans on one-year deals. This year is their window, because next year they’ll have to pay him, and their FA options will be much more limited.
Oh, live in DFW so totally know how much Jerrah gets involved. I don’t think it’s as bad as a decade or so ago, but it still isn’t helping things. His loyalty to certain players is admirable as an owner. But as a GM it just totally screws up the team dynamics both on the field and on the books.
I was super surprised that the average cap hit for QBs in the SB was only 7% and the highest winning was only 12%. You really have to be right when signing a QB to long term deals. I know you can spread out the cap hit the longer the deal is, but the QB better be a 100% difference maker like Mahomes and also not be hurt heading into the playoffs or the team just doesn’t haven enough cap space to fill out the rest of the team.
Yup. Talk to the Arizona Cardinals.
1000% this! I don’t think running QBs can last in the NFL. You have to be able to consistently throw the ball. I think a running QB can be good for a few years due to young legs and the time it takes for defenses to learn how to defend him, but long term the injuries or even just day to day wear slows you down enough that you need to be able to throw. Cam Newton lasted the longest as a runner just due to his size, but Murray is small. And getting slower. And never was super consistent with the pass to start. His small window was over before he signed his massive deal.
I’ve been saying this ever since Randall Cunningham.
Your numbers about the Cap % are accurate as of this moment, but the Cowboys have been playing cap games with restructures with him so far (like adding void years and converting money to signing bonuses) and I would expect to see that continue this year:
They are obviously not alone in doing this and you can definitely question the logic, but if your owner is willing to spend the cash you can generally find ways to push the cap out a long ways. This is just a long way around to saying I don’t think you’ll actually see him at 22% of the Cap once we get to the start of the season.
I definitely agree that they should have signed him cheaper earlier.
I thought this was an interesting video the other day about the possiblility of the QB market ever resetting
From afar it looks like Jerry tries to will average/above average QBs into superstars. He’s done it back to back with Romo and Prescott.
I also give him “credit” for being a significant factor in Green Bay blowing that playoff game to Seattle.
Not sure this is true (though maybe it is as far as fan perception). Word from a Denver sports reporter yesterday is he made a real stink and pissed off ownership in Denver. I gather he’s looking for the royal treatment and complete control of operations. Meanwhile, he seems to be leaking information everywhere he goes (though that falls under self-promotion I guess). Starting to think he’s not going to wind up with a job and he’ll just brush that aside as not liking any of the open positions.
Oooh, some sanity from ownership. Interesting. I don’t think he’s a terrible coach or anything, but for whatever reason (being from Parcell’s tree helps) he seems to have a reputation that kind of outstrips his record. Part of it around Dallas is that he worked under Parcells when he was here. And Jerruh has openly wanted him at least a few times over the years.
That may have been my best day as an NFL fan… (wasn’t a fan of the NFL - or the Bears - back when they won Super Bowl XX. Might have a different best day in that case).
Maybe I’m mis-reading this, but it sure seems like a lot of the “Payton is souring on Denver” articles are saying without saying it that race is involved. While Greg Penner is the majority owner of the team now, he’s had Condi Rice, one of the other owners, very involved in their interview process. As she formerly ran Stanford, she has some experience, but it does raise the question of how much day to day involvement she is going to have going forward. Its interesting that we started with Sean Payton and Dan Quinn as the favorites to land the job and now its probably going to be either DeMeco Ryans or former Stanford head coach David Shaw (who just resigned after several bad seasons).
Meanwhile, Steve Wilks’ lawyer is flat out saying race and the Brian Flores lawsuit (which Wilks is part of from his one year in Arizona) kept him from getting the Panthers job and most think that means that Carolina passing onb him is going to be added to the lawsuit now. Ironically, Flores is viewed as the favorite to get the Cardinals job now, but we’ll see how that plays out.
I would guess this stuff is more Denver leaking a story that makes them look good versus Payton doing anything specifically unreasonable or unprecedented. It’s been pretty widely reported that Payton is looking for a position with a lot of operational control, if it wasn’t a surprise to me then it surely wasn’t a surprise to Denver. That they couldn’t agree on the parameters of a position is most likely just a business or philosophical thing.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an organization leak that they passed on a top tier head coach candidate because they just didn’t want to pay them $XX million a year, but that’s got to be the reason about half the time. Also, if Payton said “look, I think Russ is cooked and if I come in and give him 1 year to try and make it work but if he doesn’t we need to move on” and Denver ownership didn’t agree they sure as hell aren’t going to leak that story.
Of course, not saying that they should have hired him no questions on entirely his terms or anything, but these kinds of leaks are predictable spin.
But that’s the thing. It’s being suggested Payton is doing most of the leaking. Not just from Denver, but other places that were interested.
I don’t know the answer. There was said to be friction between Payton and one of the members of the ownership group, but not who it was. It’s possible those articles are leaping to a conclusion that is unwarranted, but I think it could also have potentially been a reference to Greg Penner, since it had supposedly been said that the next HC would report directly to him and not Paton.
Can’t wait for Sunday. I’m just so excited for these two games.
I don’t actually have high hopes for the Chiefs against the Bengals with a hobbled Mahomes, but the fact that both sides know it will be a hobbled Mahomes in advanced really makes me curious as to what the resulting coaching battle will be like and who will win it.
And the Eagles have basically carried my Fantasy team all season, so I’m just really invested in their offense, and am really hoping they blow the doors off the 49ers defense. But at the same time, that’s such a great matchup, I can’t wait to see it.