I was listening to the draft dudes break down the impending FA and draft class of QB and trying to marry them up with prospective teams. It became clear during their analysis that there are more QBs available than starting spots for those out there, that's great for us, the guys couldn't even find a home for Winston.
If we look at our competition for Tua:
- Washington - Highly unlikely that they pass up on Young and take Tua when they still don't know what they have with their hand picked guy in Haskins, think we can rule them out for taking him and probably even entertaining a trade as they would miss out on Young.
- Detroit - Despite the nonsense coming out, financially they can't move on from Stafford this year, they have way too many holes to fill to spend a top 3 pick on a QB that may not play in 2020. Their HC and GM need to win now, Stafford was playing well until he went down, they are not taking a QB there but would be very open to a trade up.
- Carolina - They've lost a lot of talent lately, they are far from being a contender, just employed a HC that is a team builder, feels like they are ripping things up to start again. They may want to do it behind a young QB but is this a year too early for them, much like us we weren't ready for the QB of the future this year. Their line is an absolute mess right now, that's one of the reasons Newton has not stayed healthy, putting Tua in behind that is a recipe for disaster. They don't have the draft capital and cap space to be able to do what we can and build a line this year as well as spending what they need to to jump us for Tua. In an ideal world for them if he fell into their laps they would love him but I really don't see how they can afford to jump ahead of us.
- Chargers - Talking about bad O Lines, Chargers is terrible, again they don't have the draft capital or cap space to be able to fix the line and move up to take Tua, they also need to win now, they have a talented team and a coach that's leash is shortening in a town where they are clearly the 2nd team, they need to make a splash, giving up draft stock to move for a injured QB is probably not wise.
- Raiders - They've got the draft capital especially if they can move Carr on for a first or second, they are perhaps our biggest danger, Tua is the intelligent QB Gruden will favour however he's tended to go with vets and moving to a new city, there is a need to win now. They have no 2nd rounder this year so the best deal they could give (if they don't move Carr) is 2 firsts and another first next, but that first 1 is 12. We can easily beat that by giving up just 5, 1c and probably 2b, not a lot.
- Bucs, Indy, Saints, Pats, anyone else - Way too far back without the capital to be able to jump us.
At the end of the day if you look at it logically there is little to no competition for us, any competition we have is easily beatable with the assets available to us. Holding our nerve and staying at 5 is entirely possible, once the dust settles on FA we will have a clearer idea of what we need to do. There are some things that can torpedos us such as Stafford being done in Detroit, Washington deciding to take a leaf from Zona's book and passing on Young or the Raiders getting a lot of assets for Carr. This is one big poker game right now, hope we are on our game and don't get suckered in but don't risk losing out on the prize.