Top 10 Reasons Why Peyton Manning Is Taking A $4 Million Pay Cut

Mo Money, Mo Problems

10) Nation- wide is on his side, especially when he's got that losing feeling

9) Profits from his Papa John's franchises skyrocketed after marijuana legalization in Colorado

8) Didn't want to get traded for a LB coming off ACL surgery

7) Gives the Broncos a chance to attract a new name brand coach to play to lose playoff games at home

6) Wanted to finally let Eli be the brother making the most money in a year

5) Buicks are just that gosh-darn affordable, what with the low repair record and domestic parts, and this blog is in no way sponsored by the fine, fine people at Buick

4) As those DirecTV ads show, can easily make up the lost scratch by dropping a rap album

3) $4 million is life-changing money to everyone reading this, but it's also a whopping 1.74% of his lifetime earning from football, so it's not as if he'll ever miss it

2) Really didn't want to have to learn new last names of receivers at his advanced age

1) Starting to realize that this whole "1 Super Bowl Win In His Whole Damn Career, And It Was Against Rex Freaking Grossman" isn't doing much for his legacy

Lost in McCoyMageddon, Trent Cole's Exit

Heart, Torn Out

There's something to be said about being, well, completely callous about your personnel. It means that you are never playing and paying people past their time, your salary cap isn't in peril, and you are theoretically creating a meritocracy where the best players always come to the top. It's what sports talk lives on, what guys in fantasy leagues appreciate, and how GMs get to be the New Heroes of Sport. (A terrible trend, this. But so be it.)

The problem is that, well, even in sports, everything is not a meritocracy. Players aren't lines of code in a video game or numbers in a spreadsheet. Some are put in better roles than others, for reasons that are not just about Game. They are emotional, human, prone to worrying about aging and their families and job security and the like. They respond to leadership and positivity, get distracted by insecurity and negativity, and all of that comes into play hard when you get to moments like attracting a free agent, or keeping someone from becoming one.

Today, the Eagles cut LB Trent Cole, one of the best defensive players in the history of the franchise. Doing so was the right football move if and only if it was an either/or choice between Cole and LB Brandon Graham, who does similar things to Cole while being a lot younger, but the plain and simple fact of the matter is the Eagles had the money to make Cole an offer, and the ability to spot him secondary snaps in their play-riffic speed scheme.

That didn't happen, seemingly. Instead, the club just cut him, leaving Cole to toss out angry Tweets like he was being perp-walked to the door with a cardboard box.

And sure, none of this is very likely to matter in a week or two if the club comes in with some big money offer to the next guy, or in the summer when the coaches and training camp get to work on molding a team out of individual agendas...

Or, well, will it?

Cole was moved off defensive end by this regime and given a sink or swim directive to be an OLB. He swam, well enough to be a positive player on two 10-win teams. That's pretty remarkable flexibility for a guy nearing the end, who only seemingly wanted to be a guy with one team on his roster. Unlike, say, Brian Dawkins, or Donovan McNabb, or Reggie White, or Clyde Simmons, or Seth Joyner, or Harold Carmichael, or Wilbert Montgomery, or...

Well, you get the point.

And Eagle Fan, who is still parade-less in the Super Bowl era?

Might also as well.

Along with any free agent, who now has Are They Tanking to add to Can I Trust Them to his check list (hello, or should I say goodbye, Jeremy Maclin?), or on the rise player who gets approached about a club-friendly extension, same noise...

Top 10 Reactions To LeSean McCoy Getting Chipped Out Of Philadelphia

Chipped Out

10) With the release of Trent Cole, Cary Williams and Todd Herremans, the emergence of Dallas, Odell Beckham Jr. coming up to speed in New York and DC not somehow tossing out Bob Griffin Jr. for pennies on the dollar, you may be forgiven for thinking Sam Hinkie is now running the club

9) As useful as LB Kiko Alonso might be, the fact that the team is making a move for yet another Oregon guy, yet alone one with an injury rehab issue who will have to spend his time in town as being That Guy We Got For The Best RB In Franchise History, does not inspire confidence

8) At least Buffalo isn't in the NFC East, so McCoy's Revenge Factor is somewhat limited

7) The moves this week clear out $50 million in cap space, which makes the team's fans thrilled, because cap space is always what you root for

6) Bryce Brown's professional obituary, in which it's written "Never Escaped LeSean McCoy's Shadow", can be safely written and filed now

5) You can be forgiven for not wanting to buy any Eagle jerseys, since Chip Kelly seems to like moving out a star or two every year

4) Both of Chris Polk's fantasy football owners are over the moon right now, and will remain happy for the weeks it takes until he gets hurt

3) At least the Eagles have a half dozen first round draft picks to fill all of their new holes -- um, wait, crap

2) This will teach everyone in the Eagle locker room to think about asking for money, or be old, or to go to the Pro Bowl

1) The streak of Philadelphia teams not going to the playoffs is going to extend at least until 2016, or however long it takes for the Sixers to start trying to win games

Top 10 reasons why the Sixers waived JaVale McGee

Muppet, Man, Myth

10) Really hated having someone on the team that casual NBA fans had heard of

9) Were deathly afraid that he was going to infect Nerlens Noel or Joel Embiid with his essential McGee-ness

8) Just like last year's fun watching Evan Turner not be in rotation for a playoff team, wanted to see if McGee can do the same thing

7) Avoiding appearances on "Shaqing A Fool" is nearly as important as draft position

6) GM Sam Hinkie is convinced that this will somehow result in his favorite thing in the world, a second-round draft pick

5) Sales of McGee's jersey were disappointing, in that JaVale didn't buy one either

4) McGee had already done all the good he was going to do for the team by getting them over the penalty for salary minimum

3) Made the team's current point guards feel inadequate with his comparatively slick handle and strong decision making ability

2) At 27, is clearly insanely old for the Sixers

1) He's JaVale Freaking McGee, so it's not like this is going to be the last team to just up and cut his goofy ass

Cap dancing with LeSean McCoy

Here We Go Again

So there's hype on the Interwebs as to how the Eagles might go out and cut RB LeSean McCoy, which would save them $7.5mm, rather than continue the relationship with what will soon be the highest paid running back in the league. (Or use him to land QB Marcus Mariota, which is just one of those rumors that makes no sense in real life, and just refuses to die. For the record, if any team is ready to take a past-prime RB as a major part of a package to land a top tier QB, you have to do that deal, and no team should be that dumb.)

And this is, of course, one of those math versus meat moments, because running backs aren't valued any more in the league, and McCoy is, if last year is any indication, on the downside of what is usually a quick ride down, in regards to career value. There were plenty of times last year when the Eagle offense looked better with Darren Sproles between the 20s, and Chris Polk at the goal line.

The problem, of course, is what does the money get you? The Eagles have been under the cap for the vast majority of the Jeffrey Lurie Era, and rarely have been very big players in the free agent market. Mostly, this has been a good thing; the Nnamdi Asomugha / Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie splash class of four years ago still has scar tissue among the faithful, so much so that there isn't the interest that you might think in the top DBs on the market.

The bigger issue to me is what happens on the field, and whether the team would be better without McCoy: well, clearly not. The Chip Kelly system seems to make RB talent less important, but that's only to the untrained eye. The reality is that when the offense is going well, there will be 40+ carries a game to spread around, and having a guy that can fulfill all three roles of a RB -- run, catch, block -- makes the scheme a hell of a lot harder to diagnose. Sproles works here as a change of pace, and Polk is fine to sweat the concussion-riffic goal-line yards, but McCoy's combo skills and relative lack of fumbling is critical. (How he avoids putting the ball on the field when he exposes it as much as he does is another matter, but results matter more than style.)

So if the team isn't likely to be better without him, and the money probably isn't getting spent to make the team better where it matters -- 3/4s of the defensive backfield, WR2 to upgrade the Riley Cooper Problem, RG since they've cut aging Todd Herremans, MLB since DeMeco Ryans is aging and coming back from injury...

Well, why do it?

Possibly because McCoy's east-west style irritated Kelly more than he let on last year. Or that while Shady has never shown the kind of troublesome behavior that DeSean Jackson did, he's still not Chip's guy, being a holdover from the previous era. Or that they just can't take the idea of looking like dumb money, and paying for RBs looks like dumb money right now.

Which, well, Aren't Football, and the Aren't Football reasons of getting rid of Jackson last year really didn't seem to help them last year, especially when Jackson was helping DC knock the Eagles out of playoff contention.

So I'm kind of hoping that the deal doesn't go down, or that McCoy throws them back a feel-good contract restructure that helps ensure that he's that rarest of Eagle stars -- AKA, a guy that ends his career with just one team on his stat sheet.

Because, well, this team has enough holes without inventing one.

And if this somehow ends up with McCoy in New York, giving the Giants their own ex-Eagle star to make the faithful gag?

Well, that might explain why Philly Fan might have a reason for their Angry Rep, no?