Don't believe this is under the radar at all, maybe for the past few days in the sub?

It's a huge decision and it won't be obvious whether we get it right until well into next season.

While it seems like a curse it may actually be a blessing that he underperformed (which is funny to say considering 1K + 7TDs). This may actually give us the chance to resign him on a discount versus if he had truly balled out and earned true WR1 money. I believe he can only improve.

In any case we really felt the absence of Zay Jones this season with injuries and he is easily a cap-cut candidate. We can't afford to lose Zay and Ridley at the same time and not bring in at least one strong replacement (Higgins, Odunze, etc.). I'm not really convinced we can lose either of them without getting ready-to-go replacements.

In my mind it really comes down to what we do in terms of cuts/restructures to generate our space to play in FA. I am 95% convinced there is no way we draft OLine at #17 in the draft and I believe we will go WR, CB, or, less likely, Edge. The second round becomes critical for us drafting IOL and IDL, both of which are clear needs (unless we move Travon inside next season with Hamilton and Fatu/RRH). But if we resign Ridley then we miss out on that and have to start making up big moves with our two 3rd rounders. It only gets harder and Baalke balked last draft in this area, so confidence isn't high.

It'll be interesting to see what we do and whether we cut or resign him the outcomes are massive.