Collingwood fans will be wondering how their club has ended up jettisoning Adam Treloar, Jaidyn Stephenson and Tom Phillips in one of the AFL's most dramatic fire sales.
They will be either perplexed, depressed or angry about the outcome of this post-season, which was a reckoning for decisions that have built up over a period of years.
What should be understood by their understandably flat faithful is that the fire sale did not simply happen in 2020 and if Treloar and Stephenson were the expendables, they themselves were not responsible. It can be likened to a bad debt that accumulated interest and compound interest until it could no longer be carried and had to be repaid, all at once.
In effect, the Magpies have ripped off the Band-Aid of their salary cap issues, and this process involves raw wounds - for Treloar in particular, for Nathan Buckley and for the club's marketing department, which can't sell what has unfolded to an incensed membership base.
Read the full analysis from Jake Niall here.