Flacco

[champ&dreallday]

I've never really been a Flacco fan. I never thought he was terrible, but I did think he was terrible for the Ravens the way they were built. It's hard to really label his style of play. He loves to throw the deep ball, but has appeared to be comfortable throwing check downs and running the play action system that Kubiak introduced to him. His decision making was always the issue with me where in big games, he'd throw bone headed passes that got intercepted at the worst times.

Here in Denver I'm giving him a chance. Honestly, Elway has fielded these unproven QBs that have dink and dunked me to death over the past few years and I'm just happy we have a guy that at least wants to throw the ball more than 10 yards. I think Flacco has been motivated and humbled. Hopefully that plays well for us. I wouldn't call Flacco a gunslinger, but he'll throw up 50/50 balls and hope his guy wins. The year they beat us in the playoffs and he went on his insane run, he used his TEs and threw a bunch of passes up to grab to either Bolden or Torrey Smith and they came down with the ball. Sanders is a beast, even at his size, but I think I receiving core has to change a lot to get the most out of Flacco. IMO that means spending on a receiving TE and a deep threat WR. I don't trust drafting a TE or WR and having faith they're going to get it in year one. Sutton showed flashes, but I wouldn't even gamble on him being the main deep threat. Sanders will likely return and make big plays, but with his age and injury, I'd think he'll work the middle of the field and dominate on more of the intermediate routes rather than deep passes.

[Butler By'Note]

Those numbers are a little off. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/denver-broncos/cap/ has us at 22m in cap space. Cut Keenum and get to 32m, cut Wolfe and Sanders to get to 52m. Don't forget draft picks -10m. So 42m, and that is not much left to cover replacing those key contributors we cut or to re-sign/replace/tender the many key contributors whose contracts are expiring.

Brandon Marshall, Jared Veldheer, Domata Peko, Tramaine Brock, Shaquil Barrett, Matt Paradis, Shane Ray, Billy Turner, Bradley Roby, Andre Holmes, Zach Kerr, Gino Gradkowski, Jamar Taylor, Shelby Harris, Jeff Heuerman, Deiontrez Mount, Max Garcia, Kevin Hogan, Casey Kreiter, Jordan Taylor, Jerrol Garcia-Williams, Elijah Wilkinson, Joe Jones, Brian Parker, Matt LaCossse, Dymonte Thomas, Tim Patrick

There's just a lot of holes to fill and not much resources for it. Would help to have a significantly cheaper QB situation instead of a top 3 highest cap hit in the league for QB(even if we cut Keenum) https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/positional/quarterback/

Should have cut Keenum, used the 11m saved on a 2 year 10m deal for Fitzpatrick and draft drew Lock. Our QB cap hit would be around 17.5m instead of ~30m and that could be the difference between signing/retaining a key player.

Draft picks don't cost that much because they replace players already on the roster counting against the Top 51. So a player signing a $4 million a year contract would be a bump of $3.5 million. But once you get to the later round picks you're getting into no real increase, or the player not even being in the top 51.

[Butler By'Note]

Spotrac's figure does include ~8.5M for rookies. They call it draft pool cap. Close to the bottom of the page they breakdown what each draft pick is projected to cost.

On another note... Leary can be cut, he does have an injury guarantee on the contract but is capped at 24M, he has been paid 18.84M ... doing the math if cut would save ~4.2M. Otherwise he is scheduled to be a 9.2M cap hit. I have researched this and I could still be wrong but I'm pretty sure this is correct. Still they might want to keep him at 9.2M ?

Yep. And as I mentioned you're swapping out the picks cap value for a player already being counted in the top 51. So the $8.5 rookie pool amount will actually end up counting less against the cap than that. It'll be in the $5 million range.

[TheAsianPA]

I'd like to see us sign Jessie James from Pitt. He's played in all games the last 3yrs and is familiar with Munchak.

I honestly think we need better than Jesse James. TJ Hockenson or Irv Smith is the level I'm thinking of.

[TheAsianPA]

A lot of the OL needs refinement Munchie boy will help but we likely will lose Paradis to FA. I would be okay with McGovern taking over at C but we need two OGs as I don't believe Leary was playing very well prior to injury and now after I don't think he will be much better. Maybe we'll end up with two Connor McGoverns on the OL?

Leary is going to be here regardless, but I'm not sure how well he's recovered since his achilles tear, which is a tough recovery. Sam Jones may end up being the replacement at C, and keeping McGovern at OG. Wilkinson played fairly well for being a third string OG, As well as Billy Turner. We'll see how it all shakes out, but I wouldn't be surprised if we draft OL late again.

I think RT is going to be the biggest need. Veldheer is long odds of being here again, and will require a large contract to retain.

[JvDub95]

I honestly think we need better than Jesse James. TJ Hockenson or Irv Smith is the level I'm thinking of.

Hockenson would be awesome but I just dont see a path for Denver to draft him. No way on Gods green earth he makes it to day 2

[TheAsianPA]

Hockenson would be awesome but I just dont see a path for Denver to draft him. No way on Gods green earth he makes it to day 2

He'll be there if we trade back with the Redskins

[Fantaztic7]

Leary is going to be here regardless, but I'm not sure how well he's recovered since his achilles tear, which is a tough recovery. Sam Jones may end up being the replacement at C, and keeping McGovern at OG. Wilkinson played fairly well for being a third string OG, As well as Billy Turner. We'll see how it all shakes out, but I wouldn't be surprised if we draft OL late again.

I think RT is going to be the biggest need. Veldheer is long odds of being here again, and will require a large contract to retain.

Speaking of achilles tear, what’s in the water in Denver? Leary, Sanders and DT all suffered achilles injuries. Granted DT’s happened after he left but it seems like a bit much to see three from the same team in one season. Coincidence?

[Rastic]

On a more serious note....should probably steer the conversation back towards flacco...

Consider it done.

[Fantaztic7]

I looked at Flacco’s interceptions in 2017 and some from 2018 season. About one third were bad decisions. About one third were rollouts to the right with inaccurate throws. The remaining third were a mix such as 50/50 balls when the receiver lost the battle, quit on the route, overthrown or tipped ball.

According to ESPN’s Jamison Hensley, the Ravens were 48-13 when Flacco does not throw an interception and 37-43 when he does throw an interception.

I think Sutton can win the 50/50 balls if Flacco puts it anywhere near him. It will also help if the offense can score earlier to avoid increasing pass attempts to play catch up. Flacco should avoid “Mahomes like passes” on rollouts to the right. Lastly he needs to reduce the bad decisions.

If he can protect the ball we should see more wins.

[worldsoutro]

Might as well just ate with Tina

[Sam_Z]

[Insane Tacos]

I’ve sat and festered on it for a bit and the most I can come up with is this...

I expect nothing from Flacco but hope for him to succeed in a more suitable offense.

If not then we move on to our next QB. It sucks but that’s how it goes.. Elway to Manning was a long wait.. I doubt we’ll find our answer anytime in the immediate future.

[Hadez]

Clean Pockets have been rare in Denver for years.

We got quality coaching but we still need to get the coaches quality talent or the path to a clean pocket will be a bumpy uphill battle. Even IF we do all that imo Flacco will not lead us to a Super Bowl win.

Flacco is just not that good of a 34 year old QB. He has Trent Dilfer/Mark Rypien/Brad Johnson/Dough Williams written all over his career. At a 10-5 playoff record he is top of that list but imo he will not move beyond that list.

We a QB starved franchise tho so we do desperate things.

[Hadez]

I’ve sat and festered on it for a bit and the most I can come up with is this...

I expect nothing from Flacco but hope for him to succeed in a more suitable offense.

If not then we move on to our next QB. It sucks but that’s how it goes.. Elway to Manning was a long wait.. I doubt we’ll find our answer anytime in the immediate future.

At this point the only thing I am ok with in the Flacco trade is that at any point before the season contracts becomes guaranteed (I think week 1) we can cut him and not owe him a single penny on his 64 mill remaining contract.