Easy Jackson!
I never call anyone a troll seriously, it's always jokingly or facetiously. The term gets thrown around here regularly and has lost any and all meaning. It's usually used by posters that do post regularly and don't like the content of another's posts. I know you're not a troll, hardly anyone here is, yet if you believed the labels and cheap name calling, as you say, grade-schoolish behavior, there are many.
Having said that, great post, and more astute than most here. Agree that Kyle was a pro-bowler before Mario got here, therefore my attack on the statement that Marios presence' made him better.
I agree with some of your points but not with others. To address the latter ones:
Actually we don't know yet, let's wait to see how the season plays out. Last season was a pass-rush happy defense, yet we allowed 3 more passing TDs than we had the season prior despite setting a franchise record for sacks and what, 3rd ever best in INTs? We ranked 20th in scoring. How do we reconcile those things other than to state that the sacks were overblown. As I've pointed out to many posters, we had 10 combined sacks against Atlanta and NO and yet still allowed 30 some points and great passing days against both teams. Again, we have to reconcile that before declaring Pettine's defense as being good.
The reasons you gave are really not reasons. Anytime you drop $100M on a player it prevents you from spending that money elsewhere.
This issue is more than simply an exercise in whether or not Mario was worth that much, he wasn't, but it's more an exercise in how does one build a winning football team. For an answer to that, from a contract perspective, look at the Pats or Seahawks more specifically, and how much their players get paid.
Mario was signed here to put fannies in the seats coming off another miserable 6-10 campaign. Everyone in the organization foolishly thought, for some unbeknownst reason, that sacks translated to wins despite the glaring lack of evidence of that elsewhere in the league. So they went out and broke the bank on Mario.
But saying that dropping $100M on Mario did not hinder us from signing any other players is the same as saying that dropping $66M on Fitzpatrick didn't prevent us from signing any other players, which is ridiculous.
I look forward to interacting with you in the future.