The notion of a big reset sounds attractive to a fed up fanbase. I get it, and in general I agree, it probably should happen or needs to happen.
It can't.
There's too much money tied up in aging veterans and old contracts to allow for a successful overhaul. We lead the league in dead cap in 2025, and ripping the bandaid off a wound before it's finished healing wouldn't be considered smart would it?
Top 3 Reasons you can't do a major reset.
#1 - Derek Carr counts 18.3% against the cap next year. Whatever wins you get he's going to be part of the reason you get them in 2025, oddly enough we haven't won a single game he didn't play this year. Should show his value despite the hate he receives. More importantly any new HC you bring in is basically going to be told he has to work w/ Carr in 2025. We aren't picking high enough to secure one of the top QB's and more importantly, Derek carr was among the top 5 QB's in the league this year in Passer Rating. Blowing it up, and putting him in yet another new offensive system, after he just finished w/ the highest QB rating of his career in 2024 would not be smart business.
#2 - Aging veterans galore. Cam Jordan, Taysom Hill, Demario Davis, Tyrann Mathieu, Nathan Shepherd, Alvin Kamara all account for 25.01% of the cap. This is the 30 and up club and if you want to add Carr it would be over 43% of you cap invested in guys past their FB prime. Oh yeah, I forgot to add Ramczy's 10.64% ca[ jot tp that to push it to 53% of your roster. None of those guys are getting cut next year, not even Cam Jordan. At the least, Nathan Shepherd and his 2.38% still keeps you at 50% of your roster.
#3 - Not enough cap space to remake roster in a new coaches image. In 2006, Payton's brought in over 30 new players to add to his 53 man roster. Thats roughly a 50% overhaul and that included, trades, free agents, and the 06 draft class. The impossible part of my thread title hits home here. A new coach will not be able to come in and rebuild the culture lol. He won't be able to bring in his guys, that fit his scheme, and his way of doing things. He'll be outnumbered by guys who are tenured here in doing things a certain way.
At the very least you'll have to wait til 2026 if you truly want that "reset" to happen in a clean way. I mean you can do it, but it's going to be even more of a feces film than it already is. In 2026 you'll have the cap space to sign players, and the ability to move on from that aging core. Carr's dead cap hit will drop into the 28mil range making it easier to move on from him. That way a new coach and or offensive scheme can bring their own guy(s) in. Hell even w/ a top 10 draft pick in 2025 based on reports this draft is wack, we could easily move back and stock pile picks for 2026 that put us in better position to draft a new QB and properly do a reset.
The best consolation prize I can give anyone making it this far in the thread is YES.... Loomis brilliantly screwed up by convincing themselves and the fan base that we were a LT and a WR away from getting back to the playoffs in 2022. The rebuild potentially should have started then, but it didn't and instead we dug the whole a bit deeper. It's water under the bridge now, but there's no reason to make it worse when the timing is bad.
And 2025 for many reasons isn't s great time to do it and do it well,
Sincerely LL Cool J