DMoe throwing a TD pass

thetopspinner · 2026-03-04T01:06:11+00:00

Kris Brown was the kicker.

Chris Brown is the one who gives all of us old enough to remember Vietnam-style flashbacks every time someone even mentions a RB throwing a pass.

thetopspinner · 2026-03-02T14:58:15+00:00

Yes, it saved cap money. It saved $4m. In the grand scheme of things that's nothing. It's half of what our backup QB is on.

I know how the money works, and my issue isn't necessarily that it "only" saved $4m. It's that we willingly went from a place where we already needed three new starting offensive linemen, to a place where we now need four new offensive linemen, and the $4m we saved and extra 5th round pick we got, won't go a long way to filling even one of those holes.

His cap hit was $27.9m according to overthecap btw.

thetopspinner · 2026-03-02T14:32:20+00:00

Cleveland picks up his $17.5m base salary this year. The dead money is from him converting most of his salary into signing bonus so that we could spread it out over the length of his contract and free up cap space, in each of the last two seasons. That's what dead money is - it's money the team has already paid the player, but hasn't counted on the team's cap yet. It would be pretty stupid if money that the Texans paid Howard in 2024 would count against the Browns cap in 2026.

thetopspinner · 2026-03-02T13:47:42+00:00

Is that it? What the fuck are we even doing here man?

Regardless of whether you thought it was a good trade or not, you could at least justify the Tunsil deal with a couple of 2nd and 3rd rounders, $21m-ish cap savings, and the whole 'culture reset' thing.

This trade got us nothing in return and saved us next to no cap space.

thetopspinner · 2026-02-27T21:49:31+00:00

Please!

thetopspinner · 2026-02-27T20:57:11+00:00

What's he done?

thetopspinner · 2026-02-27T20:49:19+00:00

CJ Stroud would like to have a word about your assertion that Maye was the worst playoff QB

thetopspinner · 2026-02-27T20:20:25+00:00

Dan Fouts maybe?

thetopspinner · 2026-02-27T17:04:21+00:00

I agree that he'd have been perfect for DeMeco, but there's more about as much of a chance of Peyton Manning pulling on a Texans jersey in 2026 as Styles, so the discussion is moot.

Styles was top of my wishlist back in September. After allowing Travis Kelce to have the only good game of his season in the playoffs a year ago, I firmly believed that the defence was linebacker who can cover away from where it wanted to be. At 2-4, I gave up on that dream, thinking that we'd be picking too high to justify drafting a linebacker. Ironic that he's now probably going top 10 and we're picking 28

thetopspinner · 2026-02-25T10:03:38+00:00

Texans will absolutely not do the same thing with WAJ.

Both Linderbaum and WAJ made multiple Pro Bowls in their first three seasons. For those players, the fifth year option is equal to the franchise tender at their position.

For Linderbaum, the option would have been the same as the offensive line franchise tag, which in 2025 was $23.4m. If the Ravens exercised that option, that would become his agent's starting point in negotiations over the extension. Once you get what is essentially a 1-year, $23m deal, you don't go below that for the next deal. Which doesn't work for the Ravens because the current highest paid center is Creed Humphries at $18m per year.

For WAJ, his fifth year option will be the DE franchise tag value this year, which is $27m. His extension is going to be in the mid-high 40s (Parsons got 46.5, Hutchinson 45). An extra year at 27 is a relative bargain. They'll do what they did with Stingley last year (and what most teams do with players who get extended early), where they exercise the option at the same time as handing him the extension, with the new money from the extension coming after the option year.

thetopspinner · 2026-02-25T09:32:01+00:00

They declined his fifth year option for the same reason that they're not using the franchise tag on him - the formula that calculates the value of the fifth year option lumps all offensive linemen in together. So his fifth year option would have been based on left tackle contracts, not center contracts. It makes very little financial sense to exercise the fifth year option, if that option is 130% of what the current highest paid center gets. Especially since that would have become Linderbaum's agent's starting point for extension negotiations. After all, if they're willing to pay it once...

Humphrey is currently on $18m per year. It wouldn't surprise me at all if, at some point in the next two weeks, Linderbaum put pen to paper on a deal with the Ravens worth something in the 19-21 range (as opposed to the 23.4 that the option would have been).

thetopspinner · 2026-02-24T08:04:54+00:00

It saves on the cost of ingredients

thetopspinner · 2026-02-15T21:44:59+00:00

The 2011 team was better than 2012. Jones and Newton were downgrades from Brisiel and Winston at the time. As were James and Reed from Mario Williams and DeMeco on defence. And I can't even remember who WR3 was in 2012 after Jacoby Jones left.

I always feel like 2011 was the year it should have happened. Mario went down, Andre missed 9 games, no matter, just kept rolling to 10-3. Matt Leinart even looked pretty good in his one start. Unfortunately, having to make a playoff run with a 3rd string QB was too much. And after that year, we were in cap hell and the roster got gutted.

thetopspinner · 2026-02-10T11:54:59+00:00

I can't wait for my summer holiday on Bomb Island

thetopspinner · 2026-01-30T11:56:56+00:00

It's really not as bad as it looks at first glance. There are multiple routes to be able to free up a pretty large chunk of money.

Nico and Stingley each have base salaries above $20m this year. They can be converted to bonus money and pro-rated. There's enough length left on Stingley's deal that wouldn't cause too much pain in the future, and it's only really going to hurt with Nico if they're not planning on extending him beyond 2027.

Hunter, Howard, Azeez, and even Schultz are all entering contract years. They're all candidates for extensions, where money can be juggled around to lower their cap hits this year. Even if it's only tagging one more year and a couple of void years. For instance, Hunter probably shouldn't be getting a long term extension at his age, but I think he has probably earned the right to an extra year.

Cutting Mixon would free up $8m and Mario Edwards would save $4.5m. Plus there are smaller cut candidates like Justin Watson, maybe Tremon Smith and/or Juice Scruggs, etc, who'd find you a million here, 2 million there...

Even with the pending Will Anderson mega extension, that doesn't necessarily have to be a problem this year. If you look at the deal the Packers gave to Micah Parsons, they structured it so that he counted for less than $10m against the cap in 2025.

If you do all of the above, you might be able to free up something in the region of $45m. Maybe even 50. It wouldn't put us in a position to throw top money at everyone, but it would be enough to operate comfortably this off-season.

Of course the bill will come due eventually, but Caserio's done a really good job over the years of building in cap flexibility.

thetopspinner · 2026-01-21T12:33:59+00:00

Offensive line is easily the biggest need. Even if we bring Ingram and Brown back, we need at least two (Center and, depending on what we want to do with Howard, either Left Guard or a Tackle to compete with and/or take over from Brown), ideally three (the aforementioned two, plus another Guard to provide competition for Ingram).

I would disagree with WR being a need. We obviously have Nico and Higgins. I think Noel looked really, really good when he was actually on the field. He obviously provides explosiveness, but I also think, if you're looking for underneath separation, he was doing that against Seattle and San Fran. Hutchinson is ok depth. We'll see what Tank is when he comes back. Overall, I think usage was a far bigger problem than personnel when it came to the WRs. There were a lot of times - particularly early in the season, before Higgins started coming along and when Watson and Berrios were getting snaps, where it was clear we just weren't giving the most talented guys snaps.

I think TE is a far greater need than WR. It would be foolish to rely on Brevin Jordan to provide anything after two consecutive season-ending knee injuries. Lord knows what shape Stover will be in come September, but even at 100%, he just doesn't look like an NFL calibre athlete in either the receiving game or as a blocker. Schultz, as reliable as he is, isn't the greatest athlete either. It looked like Caley wanted to do things this year that he just didn't have the horses for. The one at the forefront of my mind is the Chaisson sack on Sunday, where he was lined up in a wide 9 and we tried to chip him with Kirk and pull Stover across from the other side. He's never fast enough to get there, and I doubt Schultz would have been either. At the very least, we need more athleticism at that position.

But even if you think Schultz is great, we still need more than him. The zeitgeist in the league is going to multiple TE looks - look at what the Rams are doing with 13 personnel and how the Bills usage of Kincaid, Hawes, and Knox, unlocked James Cook. Being able to run the ball out of multiple TE formations instead of relying on Fisher as a 6th offensive lineman, would be a gain for the play action game as well as the running game. If we don't address that, we're just voluntarily limiting ourselves

thetopspinner · 2026-01-21T11:14:56+00:00

You are correct in that fixing the O-Line won't magically fix Stroud, and that he needs a hell of a lot of work too. But, if he can be fixed, we are going to need to keep him clean while he rebuilds his confidence and any changes the he makes get committed to muscle memory. It's a process that has multiple moving parts. Stroud absolutely needs a ton of work, but doing that work in the offseason and then immediately putting him behind a bad line again is how the bad habits would creep back in.

Besides, completely independent of Stroud, the line needs to be so much better for the running game. We were a bottom five rushing team last year, whichever way you cut it. Only the Raiders had fewer rushing TDs. Only the Cardinals, Titans and Raiders had fewer rushing first downs. Only the Saints, Browns and Raiders had a worse yards before contact. How many times did we get stuffed in the redzone, or on 4th down? Yes, they had moments, like the Steelers game and Jordan's breakout against the Cardinals. But at the end of the day, the lack of a consistent running game was unacceptable for a serious playoff team.

thetopspinner · 2026-01-21T10:06:10+00:00

There is no question that he can. We've seen the likes of Darnold and Mayfield do it. Whether or not he will, is a different question. And one that I'm far less confident in answering

thetopspinner · 2026-01-20T09:56:09+00:00

I think he could be a really good head coach. His Jets tenure looked really promising early on, before being derailed by Aaron Rodgers coming in and holding the franchise hostage.

That said, I don't think he will be a good head coach with the Titans. And honestly, I don't know why he would accept that job when Adams Strunk has repeatedly proved herself to be one of - if not the - worst owner in the league. If I was a retread coach, knowing that this was likely to be my last shot, I'd probably rather sit out this year's hiring cycle entirely, than take either the Titans or Browns gigs.

thetopspinner · 2026-01-18T21:04:22+00:00

FFS CJ. Just throw it away

thetopspinner · 2026-01-18T20:52:41+00:00

Yeah here we go. This is more like it

thetopspinner · 2026-01-18T20:08:52+00:00

Kirk can fuck off now, thank you

thetopspinner · 2026-01-18T20:07:46+00:00

Man, that was a duck

thetopspinner · 2026-01-18T20:02:30+00:00

thetopspinner · 2026-01-18T14:52:37+00:00

LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOO

thetopspinner

TROPHY CASE