00:00Should they have done this backwards?
00:03Just listen to me.
00:05The best player, at least the perceived best player, I don't think it's, you know,
00:10I'm not being biased here.
00:11We love Drake, but that guy is Bajon Robinson,
00:14and I think he's being recognized as much around the league.
00:17And so some Falcon fans feel like, look, that's the guy you take care of first,
00:23plus it costs you less now to do it than waiting because you're going to wait
00:29this year, then he'll play on his fifth-year option, right?
00:32Because that's next year.
00:33That's 27 for Bajon.
00:34Then you can make the decision if you didn't want to pay him.
00:37Now, I don't think that happens.
00:38I think we get into the next offseason just like with this.
00:41He'll play on his fifth-year option, and they'll get a deal done.
00:43But a lot of folks, Mike, are saying, well, why didn't they take care of Bajon
00:46first?
00:46Isn't that the most important player on your team right now?
00:49Yeah, I mean, I think there's two ways of – you could have – you may do it
00:53just like that, and they may just take care of him before he even gets to the
00:56fifth-year.
00:56But Dimitrov would always take care of the big guys going into the fourth
01:00year, it seemed like.
01:00Remember that?
01:01And that's kind of what Garrett Wilson had.
01:02That's why we thought, you know, if we had more calf space last year, we would
01:05have done this, and it might have been a little bit cheaper.
01:07At the end, it wasn't that much more expensive, you know, to do it the way it
01:09happened with Drake getting his deal yesterday.
01:11But, I mean, to me, it's six to one, half a dozen.
01:14I'm not losing sleep over it.
01:15I just assume it's a pecking order who got drafted and when and where, and then
01:19Bajon will get his next season.
01:20I think about the same time, going into the camp.
01:22Yeah, yeah, when I got wind of this, because this is not me, this is people
01:27asking, well, why did they take care of Bajon, and this is what they should have
01:31done.
01:32I'm with Mike on this.
01:33Look, I don't feel like you do this before you have to.
01:37First of all, this is why this rookie scale has allowed the NFL to be successful.
01:43You know, it used to be, and we know this, right?
01:45You drafted a guy and then you paid him up front what you thought the potential was,
01:49even if they didn't live up to it.
01:51Now it's, you earn it, and then I'll get you the bag.
01:54So that's what's changed.
01:56And for me, I mean, is he going to reset the market?
01:58Yes, he is.
01:59If he has a monster year, and we expect him to have a monster season, he is going to
02:04reset the market.
02:05And I'm cool with that.
02:06But again, it's not going to be quarterback money.
02:10And so when we say that, it's not as if Bajon's going to get $55 million a year.
02:14He's still going to be the highest paid running back, and he'll reset the market.
02:17But Mike, it's going to be within reason, and it's not going to hurt the team in a way
02:21where you can't go out and still do other things.
02:22So I'm agreeing with you.
02:24I don't think this is as big of a deal as some people saying, well, they should have
02:27done this first.
02:27They've done it backwards.
02:29And for those who don't remember, because again, not like you have a fantasy league for
02:32capologists and front office people, but back in April, the Falcons hired Bryce Johnston
02:37as senior vice president of football.
02:38He was their cap expert.
02:39And some of the things I think we're going to see, there'll be some more creativity.
02:42And perhaps, you know, he's got a plan.
02:44And if you'd ask me, why are they doing this, it's probably his plan, you know, to how we'll
02:48respond with Ian Cunningham when these guys get their deals.
02:50I'm not sweating it.
02:51I don't think, if you want to turn this into a federal case, Falcon fans, he's going to
02:54get his back next year, Bajon.
02:57Saquon, Christian McCaffrey, A-Chain, right?
03:01Is Derrick Henry still in there?
03:03I think he's got to be top five.
03:04I'll look it up.
03:05And then what?
03:06Brees Hall just got his, right?
03:08Is that right?
03:09So those are the, oh, and Kenneth Walker, who signed with the Chiefs.
03:11But again, that was, you know, a free agent move.
03:13But bottom line is, fully guaranteed, I think it's still $29 million or $28 million.
03:19He is going to get more than all of these guys.
03:22And look, Saquon's total value, by the way, when he signed that deal with the Eagles, was
03:26$41 million.
03:27It was total value.
03:28And it averages $20 a year.
03:30So what I'm telling you is, okay, so he gets $25 a year.
03:34Like, that's what we're talking about.
03:35He's going to make more than Saquon did because, one, he's younger.
03:39And again, the production.
03:40But at the time, when Saquon signed that deal, Mike, everybody thought the running back market
03:44was dead.
03:44And we now know it's not.
03:46And so, and before Saquon, it was Christian McCaffrey's deal with the 49ers, if I remember
03:50correctly.
03:51And he, I think he's a year older than Saquon Barkley.
03:53I think Christian is.
03:54But either way, that's what we're talking about.
03:56I don't think it's backwards.
03:57I don't think they did it in a fashion in which it's going to hurt the team in any way,
04:01shape, or form.
04:02Bottom line is, guys, take care of your stars.
04:05If you have stars, you take care of them.
04:08Now, there was a while where we didn't have stars, okay?
04:10There was a while where we didn't have guys that you felt like were going to be on this
04:13team long-term.
04:15We've turned that corner, Mike, and we've drafted guys that are going to help us hopefully get
04:18to a Super Bowl.
04:19A guy just hit me up on the text line saying, well, what are we going to do with the
04:22quarterback?
04:22Well, first things first, he's got to win the job.
04:24And, you know, a guy says, what if Tua balls out?
04:26You still have the risk of the concussion.
04:28The concussion thing is still a concern.
04:29It's not like it's stopped being a concern.
04:32Now, again, I don't think Tua's agent would feel this way, but I've always felt if he
04:35does well here, he would get a Sam Darnold-type contract that he got in Seattle.
04:38That's what I think.
04:39I don't think it would be the top four or top five.
04:41I think it would be a fair contract.
04:43I mean, by any guesstimation, this is about what you and I thought it was going to be,
04:48right, for Drake London's contract.
04:49We said he'll reset the market to a degree.
04:51If they had the space, they could have done it for the same time that Garrett Wilson got
04:54his contract, same draft class.
04:56So, it's not a big deal.
04:59Now, again, Bijan will get his.
05:00Bergeron will get his.
05:01The question, if you want to get really into the weeds on the cap, first things first,
05:05can we make the playoffs, guys, and we can worry about the cap?
05:07As Carl says, it's been a rocket ship to the moon because of the growth of the NFL and
05:12all the money they're making.
05:13So, you know, barring, like, the only time the cap went flat or went down was the COVID
05:16year because there was no concessions, no ticket sales, everything else.
05:19But getting back to us, Jesse Bates, now that's a conversation that Ian Cunningham is going
05:25to have to have with Matt Ryan.
05:26What are you going to do with Jesse Bates at some point?
05:28But we do, getting the Cousins thing off the books and getting us back to where we will
05:32have cap space, we've been down at the bottom of cap, available cap space, the number of
05:36years.
05:37And for a minute there, Fontenot got us out of the weeds that he inherited and then we
05:41kind of went back in when we had the Matt Ryan, I should say, Matt Ryan's contract that
05:47kind of got kicked around and then the Kirk Cousins deal.
05:50So, Darnold's deal, for those who don't remember, was basically three years, $100 million.
05:54His average annual salary was, is, should I say, because he's a Super Bowl champion, is
06:00about $33.5 million.
06:02That's what Mike's talking about.
06:03Baker Mayfield, the deal he signed with the Bucs was a $100 million deal.
06:07Three years.
06:08So, this is where this is kind of at.
06:11And I agree with you.
06:12Now, it may go up.
06:13Let's say it's $115,000, okay, cost of inflation or whatever.
06:16You know, you add some percentages onto that.
06:18But that's right.
06:19When we talk about Tua and God, let's hope one of these guys, and it balls out, maybe
06:24both help us win and we get to the playoffs.
06:26I don't know how it's going to look.
06:27But if that happens, Tua is not going to get $300 million, okay?
06:32That's what we're telling you.
06:34And I know you're going to be like, well, what if, what if, what if?
06:35What if we win a couple of playoff games?
06:38What if, if we go to the Super Bowl?
06:41I hear all of that.
06:42But I still feel like, Mike, it would be a short deal in which the Falcons could get
06:46out of if they wanted to do that.
06:47And if not, here's the other part about this.
06:49He could walk.
06:50Right.
06:50I mean, look, the good news is we'd like to have this conversation where we're talking
06:53about winning 10 or games, 10 games or more.
06:55Vegas has a 7.5 over-under.
06:57And the Tua comes in, kicks ass, or Pennix eventually, whether he wins the job in camp
07:02or wins it over the course of the year, we establish our quarterback.
07:04The cheapest option is Pennix, because then you're going next, you'll be year four.
07:08So that's the problem.
07:08If we're going into year three, we still don't know what Michael Pennix is, other than you
07:11guys have hopes for what you think Michael Pennix Jr. is.
07:13The reality is we still have a guy who doesn't have a lot of experience.
07:16So year four, and then you'd have year five, you'd pick up that option.
07:20So I think for guys that are getting freaky over this, I think you're missing the script.
07:25I think you've lost the script.
07:26I think we're okay.
07:27And I think we've also brought in some folks to help us be on the right side of the cap
07:30for years
07:31to come, if you look at the way we've assembled the front office.
07:33Yeah, look, I'm not going to say that the previous front office capologist guys didn't know what
07:39they were doing.
07:40A lot of times you're following the lead of what?
07:43Your general manager and what they want to do with certain players.
07:47And when you make these big decisions, Mike, this is the problem.
07:50When you get it wrong, I don't care who you are, what organization, you're screwed.
07:54Okay?
07:55And I'll give you the Chiefs as an example.
07:57When they invested all that money after Patrick Mahomes' second year and they go to Super Bowl
08:00and he wins, and let's just say revisionist history, it looked different.
08:05Mahomes is now hurt.
08:06Mahomes is not winning games.
08:07And you go, wait a minute, we just paid this guy half a billion dollars.
08:10All of a sudden, that comes into play.
08:12And it's playing itself out even now.
08:15They haven't been able to hold on to some of their guys because of Mahomes' salary,
08:18and they've already readjusted.
08:20But it's not like you're not going to pay him.
08:21My point is simply, paying guys fairly keeps you on the right track.
08:27It's when you overpay that gets you in trouble.
08:30And that's with any NFL team.
08:31Right now, guys, again, this is before some guys get dropped off this roster.
08:36More contracts are readjusted.
08:38Right now, we are right in the middle.
08:4016 of 32 NFL teams as far as cap space.
08:43And to your point, though, we have never, I can't remember, 15 years?
08:48Have we been top five in salary cap space?
08:51We've never come in.
08:52You think about it.
08:53Some of the usual suspects, I mean, famously in the offseason,
08:57the Jets always have all that space.
08:59It's always seems to never seem to be able to do anything with it.
09:02It's interesting, a team which has been jammed up will certainly come out on top.
09:05They've been living in cap hell in San Francisco.
09:07They've had to make some hard decisions about it.
09:0949ers are finally coming out.
09:10Some vets.
09:10Tennessee, if Tennessee gets going, they're in a good position
09:13if they get traction with their quarterback.
09:15Washington has a lot of cap space moving forward.
09:18The Chargers.
09:19But these are all teams that had to move on from their older wide receivers
09:21and big money contracts.
09:23Guys that are just costing them a lot of loot.
09:26Same thing goes for the Falcons.
09:27And that's why, guys, it's not personal with Julio,
09:29but things like a guy asking for a raise,
09:31when you give him a five-year deal and it's two and a half years into his contract,
09:36he wants an extension because some guy who's not as good as Julio
09:39has just reset the market.
09:40For all we know, Justin Jefferson could be in his feels right now
09:42that Drake London has just surpassed him.
09:44You know, things like that happen all the time in the league.
09:46But because Matt, and it wasn't like Matt,
09:49and I think sometimes guys don't understand how it works.
09:51It's confusing.
09:52The only guy they could keep moving to was Matt to restructure.
09:56And that's why Matt's contract got so big.
09:58And at the end of the time he left, it was a big dead hit,
10:02even though we moved on to the Colts.
10:04It's just, he was the only place you could ever go for relief
10:06to make the moves you would restructure in a form of a signing bonus
10:09to create cap space year after year,
10:11from the end of Dimitrov into the first year of Fontenot.
10:13Well, and let's be honest, those are the decisions,
10:16and you can say now, what did they just say no to Julio?
10:20Well, it's tough when your owner says he's a falcon for life,
10:23and your general manager, you know, moved heaven and earth to get him,
10:26so it was kind of like a done, Julio knew he had the leverage.
10:29He did.
10:29He did.
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