fuego

I see what you did there.

THIS!!!

In all fairness, the title of this article came from the link at ESPN. So the title may have been a product of the ESPN editors, and not Barnwell actually saying that. Because he doesn’t say that in the article.

Monday, March 16 Austin Hooper, TE, Cleveland Browns The deal: Four years, $44 million Grade: C The highest-paid player at a position isn't always the best player at the position. Heading into free agency, players like Kyle Rudolph, Trent Brown and Xavier Rhodes had the largest average annual salaries at their respective positions. Hooper is unquestionably a starting-caliber tight end, but is he close to the NFL's best tight end? He has ranked seventh among tight ends in fantasy points each of the past two seasons, which included a 16-game stint in 2018 and a 13-game run in 2019. A significant chunk of Hooper's production over that two-year stretch has been a product of garbage time. Everyone has their own definition of what that concept means, but let's look at drives that began with a sub-10% win expectancy for the offense. Hooper has 50 catches for 522 yards and five touchdowns in those situations over the past two years; no other tight end topped 35 catches or 414 receiving yards over that same time frame in similarly desperate situations. This isn't unique to Hooper, as Julio Jones leads all wide receivers in the same category, but it's the sort of production that plays better on paper than it does in reality. It can be difficult to parse out the impact of an individual blocker, but it doesn't appear that Hooper has made a big difference in that category for the Falcons. Over the past two years, the Falcons have averaged 4.11 yards per carry with him on the field ... and an identical 4.11 yards per carry with him on the sideline or inactive. Their first-down rate ticks up slightly, going from 24.1% with Hooper on the field to 22.5% without him. On the other hand, the Falcons have been a much more efficient passing attack with Hooper on the field. Since 2018, Matt Ryan has posted a passer rating of 105.5 and a QBR of 68.8 with his No. 1 tight end on the field. Those marks have fallen to 86.7 and 49.8, respectively, without him in the lineup. What was interesting about Hooper's breakout 2019 season was just how uncommon his usage rate was for a tight end. More than 50% of his receptions and receiving yards came outside of the numbers last season. Among tight ends with at least 35 catches, only three other players fit that bill: Jack Doyle and quasi-wide receivers Mike Gesicki and Jimmy Graham. Atlanta offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter loved getting the ball to Hooper in the flat, and while I don't think there's anything stopping Hooper from going over the middle -- his splits were far more typical in 2018 -- he'll likely have a more common usage pattern in Cleveland. New Browns coach Kevin Stefanski used plenty of multiple-tight-end sets during his lone full season as the offensive coordinator with the Vikings. Minnesota went with two or more tight ends on more than 56% of its offensive snaps, the second-highest rate in football. It was in part a way to substitute for the absence of Adam Thielen, who played only 43% of the offensive snaps while struggling with a hamstring injury. Hooper's signing could serve as a way to account for the absence of Jarvis Landry, who is questionable for Week 1 after undergoing hip surgery in February. Hooper should play the Rudolph role in Stefanski's offense, with David Njoku getting his final shot with the new Cleveland regime to serve as the Irv Smith Jr. Hooper is now getting paid like a superstar tight end. In reality, he has been something closer to a safe pair of hands. He hasn't shown any extraordinary ability to get downfield or make things happen after the catch; while Falcons fans will remember his 88-yard catch-and-run against a blown coverage in Week 1 of 2017, he has ranked 19th in air yards per attempt and 22nd in yards after catch over the past two seasons. Unsurprisingly given the demand for tight end talent around the league and a relatively thin pool of talent in free agency and April's draft, Hooper's new deal resets what had been a stagnant tight end market. Graham had previously set the mark by averaging $10 million per season on both of his deals with the Saints and Packers, but Hooper becomes the first tight end to top $10 million per year on a multiseason pact. The Browns are paying for game-changing production, but they're more likely to get something closer to solid, steady work. https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28871296/2020-nfl-free-agency-trade-grades-bill-barnwell-tracks-every-big-signing-move

Time is ticking. NFL free agency is approaching quickly. And Austin Hooper might soon find himself wearing a new uniform. Hooper, the Atlanta Falcons' two-time Pro Bowl tight end, officially becomes a free agent March 18. His agent, Steve Caric, can begin negotiating with other teams March 16. So how will this scenario all play out? How much money will Hooper secure in the end? Former NFL agent Joel Corry, now a contract and salary-cap analyst, has been monitoring Hooper's situation closely. Corry doesn't buy any talk of the Falcons not having enough salary-cap space to commit to Hooper despite their current $199.1 million in cap commitments. "The cap is always an excuse like, 'Well, we don't have any cap room to sign somebody.' If you truly want somebody, you can find a way," Corry said. "If this is a desperation year for the Falcons, that would suggest that you want to make a huge run at trying to keep Austin Hooper. Before he got hurt last season, he was arguably the most productive tight end in the NFL." Through the first eight games of last season, Hooper stood fifth in the league in receptions with 52, behind only receivers Michael Thomas (73), DeAndre Hopkins (60), Cooper Kupp (58) and Julian Edelman (53). Hooper's hot start was derailed by an MCL sprain that caused him to miss three games, but he still finished with a career-best 75 catches for 787 yards and six touchdowns. Corry pointed out how the tight-end market has been stagnant since 2014 when Jimmy Graham got $10 million per year with $20.9 million in guarantees from the Saints as a franchise player. Hooper is expected to top Graham's $10 million per year average wherever he ends up signing, even if he remains with the Falcons. "You've got two [impending] free agents who could move the needle, I would think, past Graham, and one who I'm pretty sure will hit the open market in Hooper," Corry said. "Franchising him [at around $10.7 million] would be difficult. The other guy is Hunter Henry, who's got a better chance of being restricted by either the franchise or transition tag. If Henry gets restricted, that's pretty much going to leave Hooper as the guy out there in free agency." Corry foreshadowed how a Hooper deal might look. "Let's say like $44 million over four years, and totally guarantee the first two years at $26.5 million," Corry said. "The player would probably want a three-year deal. Hooper is 25 years old. His best football is ahead of him. If he can put himself [in position] for a contract extension after playing two years when he's still in his prime, that would be preferable to him. "The team probably would want to do a five-year deal because you can prorate the signing bonus over five rather than three [for cap space]. But he's not doing a five because he's going to want another bite at the apple. That's why I say it's probably going to be four years." Getting $11 million per year with almost $27 million guaranteed would put Hooper not only ahead of Graham in average salary per year, but ahead of Chicago's Trey Burton ($22 million guarantee) in guaranteed money. But for Hooper or any other tight end, being the richest at the position might not last long. San Francisco's George Kittle still has one year remaining on his deal but will cash in soon. "Kittle will get done at some point, and that is going to raise the bar dramatically," Corry said. "The best thing for the impending free-agent tight ends -- and I don't think it's going to happen -- would be for Kittle and the 49ers to get something done quickly. But I suspect there's going to be sticker shock on that one. If I'm George Kittle, I'm taking the position of, 'I'm your No. 1 receiver, so don't talk to me about tight-end money. I want to be paid like a top receiver threat.' "I don't anticipate Kittle signing for anything under $13 million per year. You've never had a tight end with $30 million in guarantees. He'll probably be the first." As for Hooper, the Falcons would have to do some reshuffling to re-sign him. They already restructured the contracts of quarterback Matt Ryan and defensive tackle Grady Jarrett to create more cap space. Their most pressing need is for pass-rushers, but general manager Thomas Dimitroff previously called Hooper a priority. Losing Hooper probably would mean targeting a pass-catching tight end in the draft, although they saw some flashes from undrafted Jaeden Graham last season. "To sign Hooper, you're going to have to restructure some more contracts, like maybe Julio Jones," Corry said. "You'll have to cut somebody like Devonta Freeman [$3.5 million cap savings]. You went out and paid some offensive linemen that don't necessarily need to be there next season. Like I said, if you really want to sign someone, you'll find a way." https://www.espn.com/blog/atlanta-falcons/post/_/id/35013/austin-hoopers-next-deal-could-reset-the-tight-end-market

BINGO!

Where Shanahan went wrong Bill Barnwell The mistakes Shanahan made that really hurt the 49ers were earlier in the game. I wrote about his conservative decision-making on fourth down during the playoffs in my game preview, but against the Vikings and Packers, those decisions hadn't mattered given San Francisco's dominance elsewhere. On Sunday, those decisions mattered, and they cost his team dearly. Start with how Shanahan handled the end of the first half. After stopping the Chiefs on third-and-14 at midfield with 1:47 to go and the game tied at 10, he could have chosen to use his first timeout as his team prepared to get the ball back. Instead, despite general manager John Lynch signaling for a timeoutfrom the executive suite, Shanahan let the clock run. The Chiefs punted at 1:08. Garoppolo handed the ball off at 59 seconds and the 49ers continued to let the clock run. Curiously, the Niners then snapped the ball with 15 seconds left on the play clock and 28 seconds on the game clock and handed the ball off again for a modest gain, leading the Chiefs to call timeout. Then, suddenly, the 49ers kicked into gear. An angle route to Jeff Wilson went for 20 yards. Now interested, Shanahan dialed up a bomb to Kittle against Daniel Sorensen. Garoppolo hit him with a perfect pass for a 42-yard completion, only for the play to be called back for offensive pass interference. (For those asking, I thought it was a close call and could have gone either way, although I was surprised that Kittle was flagged in a game in which the referees mostly swallowed their whistles on big judgment calls.) Suitably chastened, the 49ers then kneeled and went to halftime. After the game, Shanahan said he felt "really good at 10-10." That's the wrong way to think about things in a game in which the other team has shown a propensity for getting blindingly hot on offense with no notice and is expected to score more than 28 points in the game, even if you've slowed them down in the second quarter. It's the same lack of big-picture awareness Texans coach Bill O'Brien showed in kicking a field goal on fourth-and-short against the Chiefs in the divisional round. Teams need to score as many points as they can, and while the 49ers might have turned the ball back over to the Chiefs with a three-and-out, Shanahan simply needed to have more faith in his offense given what it was going to need to do to win this game. The two big passing plays (or nearly big passing plays) the 49ers hit afterward showed otherwise. And if they wanted to just get into halftime without trying to score, why were they snapping the ball for a running play when time was running with 15 seconds left on the play clock? Why were they even handing the ball off at all? This was the worst of both worlds and a far more egregious set of mistakes from Shanahan. On the first drive of the second half, Shanahan got conservative again. Facing a fourth-and-2 from the Kansas City 24-yard line, the 49ers coach chose to send out Robbie Gould to kick a 42-yard field goal. The San Francisco offense was averaging 7.6 yards per play at the time and had yet to punt in the game. Playing against the Chiefs isn't about field position. It's about possession. The only way a team can ensure Mahomes isn't about to score is by leaving him on the bench. By the Edjsports model, the decision to kick the field goal dropped the 49ers' win expectancy by 5%. It was clearly the wrong move at the time and only looked worse afterward. https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28624233/barnwell-super-bowl-liv-andy-reid-masterpiece-how-chiefs-came-back-49ers-blew-it#shanahan

I was replying to your snide comment about me being in the wrong forum, so you were provoking me with that comment. No reason for you to even say that with your condescending 'sparky' comment. We have a history so I would obviously take that as a dig. @Rings called you out for the remark also. Without that I would have never said anything to you. So 'without provocation' and your earlier statement that you weren't even involved in the thread are wrong. Just return the favor of what you're asking of me. Without your original post directed at me I don't say a thing. Having said that, it's dropped.

Oh brother.

I didn’t get over 22k posts by being here only 2 years.

Just his hypocrisy showing because he is butt-hurt at me (and others) because we call him out on all his horrible rose-colored-glasses predictions about the Falcons. Especially the ones before the start of this season. He's hardly ever right and deletes posts then disappears when it all doesn't turn out like he predicted.

Just sayin'.

I didn't say he deserved it. Just making an observation. You don't think the thought it was a nice way to end it?

The maddening thing was if I remember correctly they called us for about 4 pass interference in a row. It was ridiculous.