BakoSaint

I think the plan all along was for DA and Loomis to give themselves record extensions this year to match some of the highest paid coaches and GMs in the league and include guaranteed money long term. So, our offseason play was not just to go all in to win now, it was especially focused on that one goal.

Signing Carr was not just seen as a win now move but also a move to reinforce the idea of paying big money for leaders other people doubt. If it worked, DA and Loomis would present themselves as the next Carrs. Then we gave needless offseason and early season extensions to Jordan, Granderson, and Ruiz, all of whom were still under contract and not holding out. This was to reinforce the idea of keeping the band together and winning with continuity.

The first four games of the season were against the titans with a lame duck tannehill, the panthers with a rookie young player in his second game with no oline, a banged up packers with love replacing rodgers, and the bucs newly without brady and expected to be bottom dwellers. I think the idea was that we would go 4-0 or 3-1 in those easy games and after giving Granderson and Ruiz extensions it would be natural to give DA a deal topping Paytons and Loomis something similar for delivering us to the promised land. Instead of the game ball, Gayle would have given them big checks. The roster was managed with this plan in mind too. For example we greatly overcompensated for Kamara’s possible suspension signing a top FA RB and using one of our top draft picks at RB even though it would only effect the first few games. We didnt move on from older and more injury prone players unlikely to last all year, because we only needed them to last 4 games. We didnt worry about adding young depth or keeping a player like Ellis, because we were not playing the long game, and he would not have been on the field much until someone got hurt or slowed down.

The plan went perfect when we started 2-0 and were up on the Packers. Had we beat the Packers and gone to 3-0 with Carr healthy I think DA and Loomis’ new record contracts would have been announced on that Tuesday. But then the wheels fell off the oline, Carr went down with an injury that looked serious, and we lost the next two. But DA and Loomis were so close to their desired $100 million plus contracts that would allow them to really relax all week.