Derek Carr won’t take a pay cut for 2025 but willing to restructure to help the cap

I don't disagree that they need to make a move, I just think the circumstances to which those teams were able to do it are vastly different than our circumstance. I could be wrong. For instance, the first year of Paytons Broncos tenure he was able sign some big time FA's to bolster the team. Their cap wasn't hamstrung in the way that ours is, and thus Payton had more to work w/. The Bucs managed to do it while getting Mayfield on a cheap contract, and the Falcons again while aging didn't have the cap restraints.

To do what you want to do, ie rip the bandaid off, requires more flexibility than we have to do it properly. So it's going to be a 2 year process instead of a 1 year thing. The bulk of it will have to come from the draft this year, which we've added picks. You can potentially add about 12-14 new players this year via draft and FA. You can do it again in 2025. Giving you about 30 new players that will not have been on the roster at the end of 2024.

For comparisons sake, Payton, in 2006, was able to bring in that many players in year 1. That's just isn't possible for no matter who the coach is in 2025. So that's why I say I'm not against ripping the band-aid off, it's just that doing it in these circumstance will probably ellicit a lot of unecessary bleeding.
Ok, we're mostly in agreement finally. I just don't believe the bleeding is unnecessary. We need a good old fashion blood letting to cure what ails this team. We need to rid the team of void years and future dead money so we can be nimble when changing directions. That wasn't so important when we were winning, but it's essential now that we've missed the playoffs 4 years in a row and getting worse.