Will we and/or Should we keep Antonio Smith for the 2013 Season ?

[amazing80]

Originally Posted by 76Texan

$6M base, $1.3M in roster and/or incentive bonus.
$2.5M on top is the prorated signing bonus when he first signed the contract.

He already restructured, losing some of the value of his original contract.

Basically, he already gave the Texans a discount.

so if we extend him, only the 2.5 would stay.

So if we did 3 years 12 mil, with 6 mil signing bonus youd have (hed actually get 12.5 this season, but not all of that is against the cap)

4 + 2.5 + 2, saving a million and keeping him another 3 years while lowering his hit the next 2 seasons, correct?

[76Texan]

Originally Posted by amazing80

so if we extend him, only the 2.5 would stay.

So if we did 3 years 12 mil, with 6 mil signing bonus youd have (hed actually get 12.5 this season, but not all of that is against the cap)

4 + 2.5 + 2, saving a million and keeping him another 3 years while lowering his hit the next 2 seasons, correct?

Unfortunately, that's not going to work.

As per last year, there were 24 D-linemen who earned more than the 7.1 per annum that Smith was making (not counting 34 OLB.)

4 more guys made slightly less than him but still at or above the $7M threshold.

And there were a ton of them making more than $6M.

Base on that going rate, I think a 3-yr deal is probably in the 7.1, 6.5, 6 range at the minimum. That is he will probably get paid about $6.5M per year.

You just can't find a FA with that caliber for cheaper.

There's a temporary saving in cap space to restructure his contract (taking into account that we still have the $2.5 signing bonus in the book.)

Let's say we give him a new 3-yr contract at $19.5 ($4.5M restructuring bonus and $5M base salary per yr.)

Add the $2.5 to the $4.5, we have $7M that need to be prorated over 3 years for $2.333M per annum.

His cap hit for each of the next 3 years would be $5+$2.333= $7.333

Instead of $9.6M, we only need to deal with $7.333; therefore, we will have an extra $2.267M to use (kicking the can down the road.)

So I guess that can be done; but I doubt there's any more we can do.

[76Texan]

Wait a minute, as I reread your post, it seems like you were offering an $18M contract for 3 years, which is only $1.5M lower than what I think need to happen.

Your calculation for cap space, I think, is just a bit off.

[gafftop]

Keep him. At least he has heart.
The one we shold have traded/dumped was Mario if we could have saved 18 million his last year.

[b0ng]

Why do people continuously post about how we should basically trade any player that has any value in the last year of their contract? You can't just push a button and a trade magically happens, somebody has to want to take on that $18m contract AND give up something of value to get him (most of the time in the form of draft picks).

In fact, I don't even think the idea of trading Mario Williams came up until after 2011 was already finished and a bunch of Captain Hindsight's start running around this board talking about how we should've traded Mario before 2011 and blah blah blah.

[gafftop]

Originally Posted by b0ng

Why do people continuously post about how we should basically trade any player that has any value in the last year of their contract? You can't just push a button and a trade magically happens, somebody has to want to take on that $18m contract AND give up something of value to get him (most of the time in the form of draft picks).

In fact, I don't even think the idea of trading Mario Williams came up until after 2011 was already finished and a bunch of Captain Hindsight's start running around this board talking about how we should've traded Mario before 2011 and blah blah blah.

04-19-2011 #131
gafftop
Hall of Fame


Join Date: Apr 2006
Age: 54
Posts: 1,277
Rep Power: 1843 The Mario Issue, Let's look at it in another way

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Simplified possible Mario outcomes next season:
1. Plays good when healthy but has some type of nagging injury as last two years
2. Does not adapt to 3-4.
3. Plays great in his contract year

In 1 we get probably nothing or do we get compensation because we do not sign as we did with Dunta. Last pick in draft. LOL

In 2 same as 1

In 3, do you want to give Mario say 20+ million for the next 5 years based on his last year of performance. Say the cap is 120 million. If you divide in half, half for offense and half for defense, do you really want to give Mario 33% of all money for defense? I sure don't. DO YOU?

In reality probably no player is worth that large of % of cap. Maybe Peyton or Brady etc QBs of that caliber may be the only position that warrants that and even then it is a crap shoot because of injury.

The above is why I think IF you can get a good deal in a trade this year you do it.

It is very likely that other teams view Mario in the same way and will give nothing for him this year. I don't know. But if there are teams out that that covet him I think it should seriously be considered by the Texans.

I don't think Aso is a good deal based on reasoning above.
Just my opinion.

Wrong

[b0ng]

Originally Posted by gafftop

04-19-2011 #131
gafftop
Hall of Fame


Join Date: Apr 2006
Age: 54
Posts: 1,277
Rep Power: 1843 The Mario Issue, Let's look at it in another way

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Simplified possible Mario outcomes next season:
1. Plays good when healthy but has some type of nagging injury as last two years
2. Does not adapt to 3-4.
3. Plays great in his contract year

In 1 we get probably nothing or do we get compensation because we do not sign as we did with Dunta. Last pick in draft. LOL

In 2 same as 1

In 3, do you want to give Mario say 20+ million for the next 5 years based on his last year of performance. Say the cap is 120 million. If you divide in half, half for offense and half for defense, do you really want to give Mario 33% of all money for defense? I sure don't. DO YOU?

In reality probably no player is worth that large of % of cap. Maybe Peyton or Brady etc QBs of that caliber may be the only position that warrants that and even then it is a crap shoot because of injury.

The above is why I think IF you can get a good deal in a trade this year you do it.

It is very likely that other teams view Mario in the same way and will give nothing for him this year. I don't know. But if there are teams out that that covet him I think it should seriously be considered by the Texans.

I don't think Aso is a good deal based on reasoning above.
Just my opinion.

Wrong

Even then you're still having to qualify this statement with the gigantic IF that we need to get a good deal which was at best, a crackpot idea. Go ahead and show off your prowess of things that would never happen and didn't happen and weren't a good idea at the time. It's pretty funny.

EDIT You coming in now, and making the statement that the Texans should've traded Mario makes the idea look even dumber. Who were we going to trade with exactly and what, pray tell should we have gotten in return?

[gafftop]

Originally Posted by b0ng

Even then you're still having to qualify this statement with the gigantic IF that we need to get a good deal which was at best, a crackpot idea. Go ahead and show off your prowess of things that would never happen and didn't happen and weren't a good idea at the time. It's pretty funny.

EDIT You coming in now, and making the statement that the Texans should've traded Mario makes the idea look even dumber. Who were we going to trade with exactly and what, pray tell should we have gotten in return?

Really. How am I supposed to know that. My feeling is and I stated it in that thread that not trading Mario would be one of the biggest mistakes the Texans could make and that it would hurt this team in the future. I still believe that and you don't. No problem.

[Dutchrudder]

Originally Posted by 76Texan

$6M base, $1.3M in roster and/or incentive bonus.
$2.5M on top is the prorated signing bonus when he first signed the contract.

He already restructured, losing some of the value of his original contract.

Basically, he already gave the Texans a discount.

The 1.3 million is part of what he restructured in 2011. The team converted 3.9 million of his 2011 salary into signing bonus, thus prorating it over 3 years. That 1.3 million in 2013 has already been paid to him and is guaranteed to hit the cap next year regardless of what happens to him. The only money on his deal that can be adjusted is the 6 million in salary, which is not guaranteed.


Reference:

The math is complicated, but basically Smith, Ryans and Johnson got their paychecks going forward reduced in exchange for taking more cash up front in the form of signing bonuses. Specific numbers were not made available.

http://www.chron.com/sports/texans/a...on-2081486.php

This was all part of the effort to fit JJo and Manning into the cap.

[thunderkyss]

Originally Posted by b0ng

Even then you're still having to qualify this statement with the gigantic IF that we need to get a good deal which was at best, a crackpot idea. Go ahead and show off your prowess of things that would never happen and didn't happen and weren't a good idea at the time. It's pretty funny.

EDIT You coming in now, and making the statement that the Texans should've traded Mario makes the idea look even dumber. Who were we going to trade with exactly and what, pray tell should we have gotten in return?

Doesn't matter. A lot of things could have been done, should have been done & we have no idea what the Texans tried to do. It makes more sense to sign Mario before his final season. For all we know, they were in good faith negotiations. Maybe they believed Mario was going to sign with us.

Then they were left holding the bag.

Again, I don't know that happened, it's a theory. Another, is that they thought they would have money with the cap escalating. They were wrong & had to cut bait.

It's a lot easier to make these decisions, when you don't have to deal with the real world, or live with their consequences.

[tru80texan]

Originally Posted by thunderkyss

Doesn't matter. A lot of things could have been done, should have been done & we have no idea what the Texans tried to do. It makes more sense to sign Mario before his final season. For all we know, they were in good faith negotiations. Maybe they believed Mario was going to sign with us.

Then they were left holding the bag.

Again, I don't know that happened, it's a theory. Another, is that they thought they would have money with the cap escalating. They were wrong & had to cut bait.

It's a lot easier to make these decisions, when you don't have to deal with the real world, or live with their consequences.

I think the FO had to have a worst case scenario in mind in case the salary cap wasn't raised & it seems that is what panned out based on Mario's claim that they basically showed him the door w/ no offer. Of course a trade would have been ideal before his final year to at least get something as opposed to nothing. But as another mentioned who would've taken him. His salary was huge, he just came off the IR the year before, & everyone probably assumed he was destined to be a FA the following year. It would not have made sense for any team to take on an $18M salary w/ no guarantee he would've stayed at seasons end.

In the end, it was a good decision not to re-sign Mario as he is overpaid & simply is not worth his current salary. It's a shame that he got away & the Texans got nothing in return, but this was one situation in which the culprit was Casserly. Smith's hands were tied in this situation & that was probably a good thing when its all said & done because 11 sack seasons are not worth $100M in any way shape or form imo.

[leebigeztx]

I think both smith guys will be gone. I like antonio,but they drafted crick and in situational football,mitchell can play snaps there. The texans have to be very careful wen dealing with 30+ yr old solid players. If it were me and I. Didn't have a cap charge, I would cut daniels,smith,smith,let cody go. They need money for cushing,quinn,and maybe even barwin. In thi draft alone,there are a few 5 techniques in this draft like goodman of clemson and jones of ucla. The texans can go jenkins 1st,goodman 2nd,thomas 3rd,and king in the 4th.

[welsh texan]

Going back to the Mario thing, totally different situation to the Antonio Smith situation, 16 players got more sacks than Mario in 2012, 65 got more than him in 2011, 27 in 2010...I could go on.

Now, whilst I'm not claiming that sack numbers are the be-all and end-all in DE/OLB effectiveness, I'd say for the highest paid player on D in the history of the NFL, and even before that contract one of the top paid guys in the league anyway ($18m in 2011), and a guy who really should be all about pass-rush with, the guy has never made a splash at his position.

Just because the Bills got an itchy trigger in FA doesn't mean the offer was there on the table to take him in his final season. We got a 3rd for an oft-injured, mid-level DE in the end anyway.

If you were in any FO around the league, are you about to offer higher than a 3rd for that talent? Are you going to take on $18m without determining that that is the market value for him?

It was perfectly acceptable to hope for a trade at the time, but to go back to that argument now is ridiculous, the FO obviously thought they'd give him chance to prove his worth in a contract year, he went off for a few games then handed in his sick-note pretty quickly, pretty much confirming the reason for not negotiating with him early, the reason to show him the door, the reason why no-one in their right mind would have traded for him prior to his contract year.

Antonio OTOH is a great guy to have in the D, does his job really well, but is getting paid a heck of a lot especially when he's playing across from a guy who's even better.

Now, I'm hoping they can get something worked out this year which takes into account his age and the upheaval that moving city would bring, and his chances of winning an SB anywhere thats got cap space to improve on what we can offer.

Does he deserve his money? Yes. Can we afford it? Time will tell.

76 makes some great points about what the rest of the league will determine his value is, I'm just hoping that at his age we might be able to put a pile of cash in his hand up front and increase his guaranteed money, whilst locking him up into years when he can't be certain of earning anywhere else.

He'd be taking a gamble to hit the open market, change scheme, and hope to play well enough to stay on a roster. Rick Smith will really be earning his money if he can sell that argument to him.

[welsh texan]

Originally Posted by leebigeztx

I think both smith guys will be gone. I like antonio,but they drafted crick and in situational football,mitchell can play snaps there. The texans have to be very careful wen dealing with 30+ yr old solid players. If it were me and I. Didn't have a cap charge, I would cut daniels,smith,smith,let cody go. They need money for cushing,quinn,and maybe even barwin. In thi draft alone,there are a few 5 techniques in this draft like goodman of clemson and jones of ucla. The texans can go jenkins 1st,goodman 2nd,thomas 3rd,and king in the 4th.

Couple of points here lee...firstly, are you happy with the idea of yet more upheaval on the Oline next year? Wade Smiths cap saving isn't huge, and whilst he hasn't been great the last couple of years, at least he's passable.

I saw nothing in the RG battle to suggest that I want to simply peg both those guys as starters next season, I let them battle it out for 1 position in camp, bring in some competition, and look for them to improve going into the following season before I entertain the idea of handing them both starting spots.

That gives me confidence of improvement through experience next season, and allows me to keep them rotating if need be.

Crick, another who needs to see more game-time before we simply rely on him, sure he's got potential but again, am I going to hand him the starter position with maybe a rookie to fend off in camp?

You scare me with your willingness to lessen our experience in return for cap-savings we don't necessarily need to make.

With the space we have currently, we can re-sign any/all of the FA's if we want to, no problem. Any further saving would be going towards either improving our ability to sign mid-level FA's off other teams (a gamble in itself) or freeing us up to negotiate with people like Cush who we'd be able to resign next year anyway given the money we'll have coming off the books then.

Last year we desperately needed to make cap savings or else our team was going to lose some huge pieces in a month or so's time. This year not...not so much, and the places you are advocating making those savings aren't anywhere near as deep as the 2 positions we did it at last year (sure you can say neither our ILB #2 position, nor RT position panned out that well this past season, but I for one can see that the FO's thinking was correct, both had experienced depth and cheap FA help/inexperienced backups to compete).

I'm seeing some crazy ass stuff going about this forum already and the SB hasn't even been won yet...I've got a feeling this off-season is going to be fugly around here.

[Texcore]

Originally Posted by welsh texan

Couple of points here lee...firstly, are you happy with the idea of yet more upheaval on the Oline next year? Wade Smiths cap saving isn't huge, and whilst he hasn't been great the last couple of years, at least he's passable.

I saw nothing in the RG battle to suggest that I want to simply peg both those guys as starters next season, I let them battle it out for 1 position in camp, bring in some competition, and look for them to improve going into the following season before I entertain the idea of handing them both starting spots.

That gives me confidence of improvement through experience next season, and allows me to keep them rotating if need be.

Crick, another who needs to see more game-time before we simply rely on him, sure he's got potential but again, am I going to hand him the starter position with maybe a rookie to fend off in camp?

You scare me with your willingness to lessen our experience in return for cap-savings we don't necessarily need to make.

With the space we have currently, we can re-sign any/all of the FA's if we want to, no problem. Any further saving would be going towards either improving our ability to sign mid-level FA's off other teams (a gamble in itself) or freeing us up to negotiate with people like Cush who we'd be able to resign next year anyway given the money we'll have coming off the books then.

Last year we desperately needed to make cap savings or else our team was going to lose some huge pieces in a month or so's time. This year not...not so much, and the places you are advocating making those savings aren't anywhere near as deep as the 2 positions we did it at last year (sure you can say neither our ILB #2 position, nor RT position panned out that well this past season, but I for one can see that the FO's thinking was correct, both had experienced depth and cheap FA help/inexperienced backups to compete).

I'm seeing some crazy ass stuff going about this forum already and the SB hasn't even been won yet...I've got a feeling this off-season is going to be fugly around here.

I'm on the fence about keeping Smith or not, I like him. But it may be time to move on.

Addressing the Mario issue, I'm not sure if he was all that tradeable. Teams don't usually trade for a player unless a new team can come to an agreement with that player. You hardly ever see that happen. Plus he was injured. And if you had traded him the year before, we'd still have to deal with a cap hit from his bonus (though I admit I'm not sure how big or little it would have been).

[beerlover]

keep ninja but find future replacement via draft, can't count on Jamison either coming off injury.

[srrono]

Originally Posted by beerlover

keep ninja but find future replacement via draft, can't count on Jamison either coming off injury.

Michigan State DE William Gholston - freak of nature that has to start dominating games and taking over games. And, if he didn't truly do it at MSU, then will he do it in the NFL? Even if he doesn't dominate, he can be a solid 3-4 DE, playing the run well. I could see him being a taller version of Houston Texan Antonio Smith in the future.
http://www.thesidelineview.com/colum...ring-nfl-draft

[badboy]

Jared Crick.

[dream_team]

Originally Posted by badboy

Jared Crick.

I'm no expert talent evaluator, but what do you guys think of Jared Crick? I thought he was fairly quiet on the field. But is he really a viable option if we lose Antonio?

[thunderkyss]

Originally Posted by tru80texan

I think the FO had to have a worst case scenario in mind in case the salary cap wasn't raised & it seems that is what panned out based on Mario's claim that they basically showed him the door w/ no offer. Of course a trade would have been ideal before his final year to at least get something as opposed to nothing. But as another mentioned who would've taken him. His salary was huge, he just came off the IR the year before, & everyone probably assumed he was destined to be a FA the following year. It would not have made sense for any team to take on an $18M salary w/ no guarantee he would've stayed at seasons end.

In the end, it was a good decision not to re-sign Mario as he is overpaid & simply is not worth his current salary. It's a shame that he got away & the Texans got nothing in return, but this was one situation in which the culprit was Casserly. Smith's hands were tied in this situation & that was probably a good thing when its all said & done because 11 sack seasons are not worth $100M in any way shape or form imo.

Do you think we'd have gotten more than a third round pick for him? If the speculation is correct, we'll get a compensatory third for him.