37 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Well, Seth Joyner responded to me. That's something...

Soon they'll be calling you on NBC philly sports network to school guys like Barkan on cap stuff.

26 minutes ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

I posted the whole article above. I hate Brendan sorsby as a prospect. Had an Arizona coach tell me he’s an arrogant jerk.

But couldn't be be OUR arrogant jerk?

19 minutes ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

I posted the whole article above. I hate Brendan sorsby as a prospect. Had an Arizona coach tell me he’s an arrogant jerk.

I heard a La Canfora interview on FOX Radio a couple of days ago; the guy is clueless as to what's going on. He was speaking on Hurts being done in Philly as though it had already been decided and was representing the whole blood clot thing as negligence from the Eagles organization. Not sure where he gets his sourcing but most of what he was saying seemed very out in left field.

I'm going on the belief that Hurts will get healed up and past the blood clot issue by March. That gives the Eagles time for their draft prep at the end of April. Could the Eagles draft a QB? Hell yes, they drafted Hurts in the 2nd round even before Wentz's extension had even kicked in. If Howie believes it's time to turn the page, they will do so. That part is correct.

I also know the Eagles don't "need" to draft a QB in 2027 -- unless Hurts cannot continue his career, which I see as only a remote possibility. The Eagles also have numerous other draft needs. I've always believed you build the roster first, then get the QB to plug in.

39 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Well, Seth Joyner responded to me. That's something...

After they signed the contract, OTC wrote a lengthy article on it. Does a really good job laying out the structure.

Thoughts on Jalen Hurts’ $255 Million Contract with the Eagles

It took some time but the record setting $255 million contract between the Eagles and QB Jalen Hurts is now official and I will do the best to go over the ins and outs of the contract regarding the salary cap hits and the dead money that is associated with the contract. Hopefully I will get a chance to also do a video breaking the numbers down as I think it may be easier to follow along with the dead money schedule in that format but I will do my best to explain it here.

The Contract Structure and Cap Hits

The primary concept behind the contract is to have incredibly low salary cap charges on the front end of the contract by using a triple option bonus structure, which has become a contract mechanism of choice for the Eagles and Browns over the last season. While it may sound complex all it really means is that the Eagles have the option to basically restructure the contract each year and are more or less pre-opting into the restructure. Here is the year by year breakdown:

Hurts’ 2023 salary is the minimum and he received a $24.294 million signing bonus to bring his cash total for the year up to $24.304 million, a raise of $20 million from his rookie contract.  His salary cap charge will be $6.15 million.

Hurts’ 2024 salary is also for the minimum and is fully guaranteed as is an option bonus worth $38.875 million for a total salary of $40 million. The option bonus will be prorated at $7.775 million per year from 2024 through 2028. If Hurts’ is on the roster in 2024 he will have about 40% of his 2026 salary fully guaranteed. His salary cap charge this year will be $13.559 million.

In 2025, Hurts again has the minimum salary and an option worth $40.83 million. The total salary paid that year is $42 million. The salary is already guaranteed. His option will be prorated at $8.166 million per year and will run from 2025 through 2029. 2029 is the first void year of the contract. Hurts’ cap charge will be just $21.769 million  in 2025. IF on the roster the remainder of his 2026 salary is guaranteed.

Hurts’ 2026 salary will again be for the minimum and this time there is an option bonus worth $49.785 million for a total salary of $51 million. He has $3.696 million fully guaranteed at signing, but this will all be fully guaranteed by 2025. The option will be prorated at $9.957 million per year from 2026 to 2030, which is the second void year in the contract.

In 2027, Hurts will have $51 million in salary paid out again mainly as an option bonus. The Eagles have a few options as to the option value, but the primary breakdown will be a $1.345 million salary and a $49.655 million option bonus. This option is prorated over five years at $9.957 million to lead to a cap charge of $41.83 million.  $22 million of this salary is guaranteed in 2026.

2028 is nearly identical to 2027 except the option is worth $49.6 million with a 1.4 million base. The cap charge here is $47.15 million. Nothing this year is guaranteed.

In 2029 the Eagles will have $97.553 million in dead money to deal with if they were to get that far.

The dead money on Hurts’ OTC page is not really going to reflect the way the contract actually works because this is what I call a "dynamic” contract. Like the contract’s of Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, etc… there are early guarantees that kick in and increase the dead money once earned and they probably have about a 95% chance of being earned through 2026.

The Dead Money

Here is the breakdown of the dead money on a regular release:

Year	Date	Cap Charge	Dead money	Cap Saved
2024	Pre 2026 Trigger	$13,558,800	$104,331,200	($90,772,400)
2024	Post 2026 Trigger	$13,558,800	$102,196,000	($88,637,200)
2025	Pre 2026 Trigger	$21,769,800	$107,272,400	($85,502,600)
2025	Post 2026 Trigger	$21,769,800	$138,076,400	($116,306,600)
2026	Pre 2027 Trigger	$31,771,800	$116,306,600	($84,534,800)
2026	Post 2027 Trigger	$31,771,800	$138,306,600	($106,534,800)
2027	Pre 2027 Option	$41,832,800	$106,534,800	($64,702,000)
2027	Post 2027 Option	$41,832,800	$134,189,800	($92,357,000)
2028		$47,149,000	$93,702,000	($46,553,000)
2029	Void	$97,553,000	$97,553,000	$0

 What you can see with the dead money is that Hurts is incredibly well protected by the structure of the deal. It takes until 2028 for the dead money to drop below $100 million. Hurts has a no trade clause so the Eagles do not have the Carson Wentz emergency red button to push in this case unless things get so bad for Hurts he just wants out. If things really did go that bad this would probably be more of a Jared Goff situation where you are giving a team  a 1^st round pick to take the contract and maybe having to give Hurts a few extra dollars to take the trade.

The first real out year for the Eagles I assume would be 2027 at which point he would be a June 1 cut. On a June that year I believe the cap would be $47.9M taken in 2027 and $54 million deferred to 2028. If they pay out the 2027 option the June 1 in 2028 would be $35.8 million and $57.8 million in 2029.  My assumption is the Eagles have a contingency to split the 2029 dead money.

Why the Deal is Good for the Eagles

The big thing with the contract is that it is not a monumental leap forward for the QB market. While it is a strong deal for Hurts, it shows what I would consider more incremental growth for the QB market, moving from Russell Wilson’s $49 million a year (Ill discount Aaron Rodgers in the QB market as an outlier) to $51 million a year, about a 4% increase. That’s around average and not in the ballpark of the massive market movers who have typically moved the market by around 10% or more.

The Eagles did not have to give a massive raise this year which would have been difficult with their salary cap. The $20 million is well under the major contracts which have seen raises during the "old” contract years over $30 million. So this is more in between the top deals and the wacky Pat Mahomes contract.

Through one year Hurts will earn $60 million in new money which is $15 million below Dak Prescott, $13 million below Wilson, $12.6 million below Kyler Murray, $8.5 million below Josh Allen, and $6 million below Stafford.

Through two new years Hurts will be at $102 million. That is $8 million less than Wilson and about $3 million under Murray. He will be above the others mentioned above.

It will take until year 3 for Hurts to take his position as the top market earner at $153 million, $3 million more than Wilson. Again this is often a trait that you see with contracts that are not real market movers even as they technically set the market in terms of APY. A deal that skews more in favor of the player will have him be the top earner, but quite a bit at each stage of his contract.

Why the Deal is Good for Hurts

Protection, protection, protection. Hurts received $110 million guaranteed at signing, $153 million virtually guaranteed at signing and $179 million guaranteed for injury. While some are going to point out that the initial guarantee is lower than Wilson the fact is that is not comparing apples to apples. Players like Wilson and Murray had millions of dollars virtually guaranteed or actually guaranteed on their prior contract. Hurts had $4.3 million.

$175 million in new injury guarantees are about $50 million more than the market and the full guarantee is only second to Deshaun Watson who received the greatest guarantee in the history of the NFL. Hurts injury guarantee covers 68.6% of his new contract value. Few late picks have gotten big deals of this size but as a point of comparison Derek Carr in 2017 was at 55.2%. This matches Wilson’s 2015 guarantee and Wilson had a Super Bowl win under his belt at the time.

While the cap structure is all about the way the Eagles do business the fact is it gives Hurts protection every step of the way. It is more or less $100 million in dead money on the front end of the contract which makes it hard to ever move on, even with a post June 1 designation until 2027. Hurts has the no trade clause so he controls anywhere he goes if they ever get into trade discussions.

The structure makes this more of a three or four year contract rather than a five year one. The Eagles are going to be best off with their salary cap if they extend Hurts again, so if he does play well he should be in a good position to earn over $51 million per year rather than being locked in at that salary through 2028. My assumption would be that even if they made it to a franchise tag conditions the cost would be outrageous based on the cap hit associated with the void.

Overall Thoughts

This should be a solid deal for the market as it will set a standard for QBs, even those with a limited history, to reach the top of the market while being extended after three years in the NFL. This should set the stage for the next crop of QBs to reach up to $55 million per year but in the case of higher drafted QB’s I would expect the structure to be far more money up front in those deals than we see here so in that respect this doesn’t change much since the Prescott and Wilson high points remain.

While the $51 million number is big, my guess is the Eagles feel this was under whatever market would have existed if they waited longer. As mentioned above the QB market is headed to $55 million. Even if those QBs get there in a more bullish manner, the price for Hurts would only increase if the Eagles waited and the market changed in the interim. This is what happened with the Cardinals and Murray and the Broncos and Wilson last year with the market moving before they could get deals done.  

The Eagles probably consider that even within the NFC this gives them a chance to get in under market in a year or two. This should set up Dak Prescott to cost the Cowboys much more than Hurts will cost Philadelphia. If their QB’s take off, the Eagles will be paying less than the Bears and Packers. So what looks big today may not be so big tomorrow even in the NFC.

Still I am a little surprised the Eagles did the deal that they did here. The guarantee structure is well slanted toward Hurts and the Eagles do not have much in the way of outs here if Hurts ends up not being the QB he was last season. NFL teams are spending more and more in dead money on QB’s that quickly fall out of favor and by no means does this contract have the upside of the Mahomes and Allen contracts while still carrying some of the same financial risks as it pertains to guarantees.

I am not sure that there is a team more aggressive than Philadelphia at locking up their own talent without too much hassle and that there was little negative that could possibly occur this year to change the overall decision matrix on Hurts which probably made this an easy call to finalize now rather than in the summer. With the way QB contracts have gone you are pretty much screwed no matter what if the player drops off significantly. In this case this is arguably the most aggressive contract structure pertaining to the cap structure in over 20 years.

The contract is structured in a way where basically there are two roads for them in 2027. If Hurts fails they will have wiggle room to drop his salary down to the mid $20M range that year. If he succeeds they can extend the contract and continue to push the cap charges into the future.  My fear is that there is little gray area for him being a "good but not great QB” where you wind up in the situation that the Vikings are in with Kirk Cousins every year where the contract structure basically puts him in charge of almost every decision that is made.

I will predict this right now. Even the Jalen Hurts critics will come to miss what he brought to the table when they see how hard it is to find a Top 15 QB. Some years he's been Top 10. Cry in your soup then, at 4-13 and 6-11 the next couple of years. Long road ahead. At this point, I am actually counting him out and Sirianni. Sirianni is ironclad gone. End of this season. Hurts if he can come back from his health issues will get another crack at 2027. He will once again likely be starting all over again with a new offense and coaching staff. What a joke! But it could be that the timeline and Superbowl horizon just isn't right for him with needs at TE, RB and a major overhaul at OL. And the defense still needing fixing. So it will become a mutual decision in the end. He ain't gonna waste time here in his prime if things don't look majorly improved next year. I will leave the door open for sure. But my guess is this just isn't a match at this point. And this team just isn't close enough to doing anything.

The Eagles have two options of they want to save face and still be looked at as a top organization. Give Jalen Hurts an extension in the summer of fully guarantee the final two years his deal and then explore an extension the following year.

Are we really supposed to believe Howie was gonna use a second-round pick on a quarterback with a gambling addiction?

Just now, ManuManu said:

Are we really supposed to believe Howie was gonna use a second-round pick on a quarterback with a gambling addiction?

Not sure if this has been posted yet. So basically the Eagles are on the bottom of league with pressure rate (sacks included), turnovers forced and tackling.

11 minutes ago, jojodancer said:

Not sure if this has been posted yet. So basically the Eagles are on the bottom of league with pressure rate (sacks included), turnovers forced and tackling.

ugh.. thats disgusting

I think people who want the Eagles to be sellers will disappointed at their "haul." There are more than a few really bad teams who will be sellers and the Eagles would have to compete with them. There are only so many good teams willing to part with high picks. Don't think the Eagles trade Barkley. He would bring the best return. They only have Shipley under contract at RB next year other than Barkley and they will need to field a team. That leaves Woolen and Ojomo. Dickerson needs to prove he is healthy and considering the edge situation I would not trade Nolan Smith. Maybe Hollywood can fetch a 6th.

1 hour ago, eagle45 said:

I'm fine with Hurts being the QB as long as the Eagles view him as a placeholder and are actively looking for the next franchise QB. "Anybody but Hurts" would be a mistake and a likely downgrade. Paying Hurts and building around him again would be the inverse of the other mistake. Blame Siri, blame the carousel of OC's that couldn't make it work. But you all know that no QB survives this many years of being the arm behind a wretched passing game. They just don't.

I don't need to see him cut or traded. Someone needs to be the QB and just anyone isn't going to be better. As long as they have an eye on the future.

Every QB is a placeholder for Howie.

42 minutes ago, ManuManu said:

Are we really supposed to believe Howie was gonna use a second-round pick on a quarterback with a gambling addiction?

The haters are desperate to believe anything and everything when it comes to the possibility of a new QB.

3 hours ago, Vileborg said:

Yeah, it was sarcasm. I was just impressed with the way he took away their safe option and manipulated them into a long pass knowing Maxey would have a chance to jump it. It won't show up the stat sheet but it put a big nail in the Knicks coffin.

As you stated, I know nothing but it just seemed like some GOAT level instinct.

I knew you weren't being totally serious but alot of the good players make similar plays. Its not really anything crazy. Lebron is still an all time great for sure.

1 hour ago, eagle45 said:

I'm fine with Hurts being the QB as long as the Eagles view him as a placeholder and are actively looking for the next franchise QB. "Anybody but Hurts" would be a mistake and a likely downgrade. Paying Hurts and building around him again would be the inverse of the other mistake. Blame Siri, blame the carousel of OC's that couldn't make it work. But you all know that no QB survives this many years of being the arm behind a wretched passing game. They just don't.

How is paying Hurts and building around him a mistake? They won a Super Bowl doing that. He is only 28 years old on a Hall of Fame track. QBs generally improve into their 30s. With the accumulation of picks they have over the next two years they a terrific opportunity to completely rebuild the offense again around him and likely a new HC as well. You have a franchise championship winning QB that has taken you to not just one but two Super Bowls that isn't even 30 yet.

There has been talk that Lebron looked less athletic last night. I mean he is almost 42. I will still take this version. He makes everyone better. It was just so easy to spot last night. And how he will affect youngens like Edgecombe and Philon is immeasurable. And Maxey off the ball is lethal. Want to get the bigs back, so these guys get load managed as they should. Nurse likes to overwork his starters.

50 minutes ago, ManuManu said:

Are we really supposed to believe Howie was gonna use a second-round pick on a quarterback with a gambling addiction?

If it gets clicks.

7 minutes ago, RememberTheKoy said:

How is paying Hurts and building around him a mistake? They won a Super Bowl doing that. He is only 28 years old on a Hall of Fame track. QBs generally improve into their 30s. With the accumulation of picks they have over the next two years they a terrific opportunity to completely rebuild the offense again around him and likely a new HC as well. You have a franchise championship winning QB that has taken you to not just one but two Super Bowls that isn't even 30 yet.

He’s clearly improving.

1 hour ago, RememberTheKoy said:

The Eagles have two options of they want to save face and still be looked at as a top organization. Give Jalen Hurts an extension in the summer of fully guarantee the final two years his deal and then explore an extension the following year.

You didn't include trading for Justin Herbert so you are wrong.

1 hour ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

I posted the whole article above. I hate Brendan sorsby as a prospect. Had an Arizona coach tell me he’s an arrogant jerk.

My friend worked for Cincinnati’s college football program and was there when Sorsby was. He said they had someone from the NCAA come in to give a presentation on how they’re not allowed to gamble or use the sportsbook apps. Most of the room was passively listening/half asleep already understanding that they’re not allowed to bet on games.

Apparently Sorsby was lighting the guy up with questions and all these different types of scenarios on if that would be allowed (i.e "Can I have a friend place wagers, can I bet on this sport, what if it’s only a small amount” etc).

Let’s just say he wasn’t surprised when the story broke of him getting busted for placing 9,000+ bets.

8 hours ago, ManuManu said:

That's amazing. You'd think that just ONE would work as a fluke.

10 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

He’s clearly improving.

We saw all the passes over the middle this season that everyone was clamoring for and saying he couldn't do. The only reason we even have any wins this season is because of him.

6 minutes ago, RememberTheKoy said:

We saw all the passes over the middle this season that everyone was clamoring for and saying he couldn't do. The only reason we even have any wins this season is because of him.

Yea sign me up for another 5 years

25 minutes ago, RememberTheKoy said:

He is only 28 years old on a Hall of Fame track.

No, he is not.