Yeah agree on this. It may be harder to build an offence around Lamar than milquetoast Daniel Jones but the ceiling is enormous as we’ve seen when he won an mvp. Not fully guaranteed contract big (unless it’s 2-3 year deal or something) but definitely should be on more than Daniel Jones if the Ravens/whoever actually care about maximising their equity.
GMs shouldnt and likely won’t let what NY shelled out for Danny dimes affect what they offer Lamar. Overpaying for 2 or 3 years is a problem but not franchise crippling if you get it wrong, especially if your current cap situation allows for it. Mahomes gets a 10 year deal because obviously. But guys who are inconsistent but at their best worth a max deal are a lot tougher. You give them more than 3 years guaranteed and they shit the bed that can torch your franchise for many years.
It’s pretty crazy that a $200 bet gets you a longer suspension than sexually assaulting 20+ women. I’ll definitely be rooting for Ridley and Trevor in jax next year
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Not so hot take. NFLPA are worse than eDems
Where were they about these issues during CBA negations? Their constituents are in a losing position because of their short time horizon relative to the owners, but the union itself is not. They needed to be fighting these things out when the CBA is up in the air. The idea that a player can be drafted in the first round, franchised twice under the nonexclusive tag and basically be 7 years into a 10 year career after which they’ll end up hobbled with a life expectancy to their mid 50s, without ever having a chance to negotiate in an actual free market is complete BS and borderline chattel.
Lamar should skip camp, sign the tag the day before their first game, then pull a hammy and then manage to see the field for about 4 or 5 games next year
At some point in my future I’m going to have to explain to my young kids why I support such an industry as a fan and I don’t know how I’ll do it.
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I have no problems with the current NFL gambling policy and no sympathy for Ridley.
I don’t think you can completely count out that a large part of the rookie wage scale was supported by veteran players who were tired of seeing the biggest contracts go to first round picks while a 6th round draft pick who worked his way up and was ready for a second deal gets screwed because the cap money is blown on 1st round busts.
The CBA basically guarantees that 48% of league revenue goes to the players. How it’s then distributed among the 53 on the roster is up to the team. They can spend 20% on a QB, or however they want to do it. But players just as much as fans and owners don’t want non-competitive teams who are saddled by big contracts to underperforming players. I’ve found most players support guys when they sign a huge deal, but at the same they are competitive as hell. It’s not just a job for them, they want to win championships. And they know that the best of the best guys will get this done. Believe me the other players on the Giants will know if Danny isn’t playing at a high level that his contract is the reason they can’t sign 2 or 3 other top players and why they’re losing, and they don’t want that.
We can complain about the exploitation of athletes all we want, but I’m mostly thankful that a good chunk of them will make more money in their short careers than the average worker will in their entire lives. That’s one of the ways I justify my fandom. They are relatively well compensated for what they put their bodies through, and many people, I assume many here, would make the same business decisions if we had the talent. Lamar will make a lifetimes worth of fuck you money next year, no matter how he gets it.
The NFLPA has to balance ensuring that players get what they’re owed, while also leaving enough flexibility for teams to ensure that 1 or 2 bad contracts don’t screw their salary cap so poorly that the other 51 players on the team have no real chance of competing for a championship during their careers.
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If the NFL was run like MLB where the Chiefs would have like a 99% chance of losing Mahomes to the Rams or Giants, the NFL would be much less popular and the whole pie would be a lot smaller. A player like Lamar specifically might fare better, but most wouldn’t.
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And what can they do about it? Vote with their feet the way I can if my company signs a shitbag executive to run my division? No they cant.
How many players do you actually know in person? They are under tremendous social pressure to claim this publicly (that’s it’s all about sacrificing for the team and the other guys in the locker room) whether they believe it or not. Like the Ricky Watters “for who, for what” is still a meme because it was so out of what we are taught to think being a good teammate is supposed to be, but there are probably many other guys who feel that. At the same time basically every other industry is given the opposite treatment. I.E. Your employer doesn’t give a shit about you so don’t climb up on a cross and sacrifice anything for them. Think about what’s in that Calvin Ridley article, should his loyalty be to his teammates trying to win a championship or to his two year old who needs a father for her whole life?
Maybe we would make the same decision but it doesn’t make it a free and fair market. guys like Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder are making billions by shortchanging players on the fair market value for their labor. full stop. Just because they still are getting rich doesn’t actually mean they are treated fairly or they are ending up with good lives. Reading that essay from Ridley or many others in the players tribune I wouldn’t trade places with them for a second, and I didn’t grow up anything even close to upper middle class.
It’s really weird to me on this site how we an cheer with such moral certitude for this Halli guy form Iceland (who is a millionaire many times over) against Elon Musk but not have the same opinion for Lamar against Stephen Bisciotti
If Lamar can get his fair market value without turning the NFL into MLB, I’m all for it.
Because it’s not as simple as “Lamar vs Stephen Biscotti.” The players have a union. The union agreement is that the players get 48% of league revenue. Feel free to argue that number as fair or not. Keep in mind the player salaries aren’t the only expense on a team. There’s coaches, trainers, front office, facilities, all the staff it takes to make a Sunday game go off. I have no idea how much money owners are making. But I suspect the number doesn’t start with a B. These assholes were all mega rich before buying their teams. Owning an NFL team isn’t what got them there.
Within that 48% revenue, they have to decide how to build a competitive team. Sometimes that involves giving a QB huge money and a long term deal. Sometimes it’s prove it deals. Sports is not a traditional labor market, but they are unionized. I’m probably more pro-capitalist than most on this forum, but I’m also vehemently pro labor union. They are required to ensure workers get a fair deal, and not just the bare fucking minimum ownership can get away with. I think it works just fine in sports IMO.
Back to Lamar, there are 31 teams that can make him an offer. We will see if any of them decide he’s worth it. But I’ll stand by my statement that his play has been inconsistent enough that if I were a GM, I’d probably consider a lot of other options before giving 15+% of my cap money to him. I’ve got 52 other players to sign. QB is the most important position, but that also means if you swing for the fences and miss (lol Denver) you handcuff your franchise.
Suzzer, I actually kinda lied to you. Teams without their next two natural picks can acquire Lamar, but they would have to give Baltimore something else they would accept. Formally, they would trade for Lamar and then sign him to an extension rather than signing him to a deal and then then giving Baltimore their two firsts if Baltimore does not match, but he isn’t totally off the table for teams without their natural picks. Baltimore would probably demand more than two firsts in that case though.
It’s not normal for every QB needy team to issue statements instantly about how they’re absolutely, definitely not even interested in talking to one of the top two available QBs, gmafb
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Just because he’s a top two FA available doesn’t mean he’s worth 32mil a year and 2 first round picks He will almost certainly be a UFA next year and then will get market value for his skills. He’s likely getting above market now (even if it’s only a 1 year deal). And it’s not that uncommon for teams to make statements regarding any high value FA that hits the market if that team seems like a landing spot based on need. It happened with guys like Baker Mayfield and OBJ last year. GMs were constantly fielding questions and issuing statements on whether they were pursuing them.
Just an aside. Jerry Jones was certainly wealthy before he bought the cowboys, but not a billionaire. He had to basically mortgage his last dollar to buy the cowboys and Texas stadium for some two hundred million dollars back in 1989. How much are the cowboys worth now? Maybe ten billion dollars.
But I agree most owners did not make the bulk of their wealth off the nfl but owners who have held their team for a few years have added billions to their personal wealth valuation.
Yeah, the value in owning an NFL franchise has been in the ridiculous appreciation in value over the years, not necessarily the annual profits.
Sure but they’re still making billions. We will soon get to see what Snyder sells for relative to what he paid. The fact that it’s mostly in unrealized capital gains just means they get a tax break too
Semi-hot take, but the NFLPA should not be fighting for or even encouraging more guarantees in contracts, assuming the current system where the players get a fixed percent of revenues stays in place.
Since that fixed percent is based on cap math and not actual cash payments, non-guaranteed contracts results in players getting their cash sooner. Yes, it can be worse for an individual, but every dollar in dead cap means that they player got the cash in a prior year.
I’m not entirely sure that’s how that works. There’s 2 main sources of payments to players in their contract. The signing bonus and the salary. Signing bonuses are effectively guaranteed money that the player gets up front. Signing bonuses get divided equally amongst the years on the contract. So a 100 mil signing bonus over 5 years counts as 20 mil against the cap each year. If you cut or trade a player the remaining money left to count against the cap becomes due instantly and they have to count it against the cap that year. I believe that’s what most dead cap money is, signing bonus money from released players that still has to count against the cap, and was already paid to the player.
Then there’s the salary portion of the contract, which in many contracts is not fully guaranteed. Lets say a contract is 200 million, 100 million signing bonus and 100 million in salary for 5 years, with 60 million of salary guaranteed. After 3 years you could cut the player, not have to pay out the remaining 40 million on the contract, but then the remaining 40 million of signing bonus that hadn’t hit the cap becomes dead cap next season.
I believe the main reason the NFLPA doesn’t fight for more guaranteed contracts is they still have a financial interest in protecting the overall health of the league, and like Suzzer said, ensuring the entire pie stays as large as possible. If players who don’t play for the full length of their contract have to count their full contract against the cap, that will increase the number of teams who don’t have the cap room to be competitive and potentially decreases the overall revenue of the league.
I was just wondering how much of the pie would the players give up for fully guaranteed contracts? I suspect quite a bit, but not enough for owners to agree.
I am sure some actuaries or the like can figure out the risk of non guaranteed contracts down to the tenth decimal point but I think players treat it very emotionally and the risk looms over them every day.
I’m pretty sure though the reason for the large signing bonuses is the lack of guaranteed contracts. In other sports with guaranteed contacts, you don’t see large signing bonuses (for instance baseball, where I think you could do it). Large signing bonus is a way to give the player the same total guaranteed money but minimize the cap hit. So if players got fully guaranteed contracts, I think you’d see smaller signing bonuses.
Also, think about it not on a player by player basis, but the league as a whole. Every year cash out to players is higher than the total cap - this is all due to dead money. Dead money allows teams to basically borrow future cap space to give players cash earlier.
edit: looking into to this and here’s an NFLPA statement on guaranteed contracts - basically that they are not going to do anything about it and it’s up to players and agents: