The Houston Texans face the Kansas City Chiefs in six days to ring in the 2020 NFL season. Before the ball was kicked, the Texans should have made Deshaun Watson one of the highest paid players in NFL history.
The Texans and Watson’s camp keep their cards close to the vest on this one, but clearly Watson wants a big deal after seeing the half-billion deal Patrick Mahomes received over the course of the summer. There’s a strong belief that an extension will be made by Thursday that ties him to the Texans in the middle of this decade and sees him averaging $ 37 million or more a year.
“My agent and the organization continue to manage this,” Watson said earlier this week. “My main goal is just to get ready for next week.”
Texans and GM head coach Bill O’Brien also gave his required sound byte.
“I don’t really want to get into specific contract negotiations, but obviously we want Deshaun Watson to be here for a long time,” said O’Brien. “He’s had a great training camp. He’s a great player and we’re going to work hard to get there.”
Not only did Watson’s game deserve a big deal, the Texans and BOB fell back to a corner with the Laremy Tunsil deal. By making Tunsil the highest-paid offensive lineman in the league, the Texans have shown they certainly can’t skimp on the engine that keeps everything running. And that’s Watson.
“Bill is a fair guy,” a league source said. “He knows what his team is and is not without Deshaun.”
According to Over The Cap, Watson ranks 39th among all quarterbacks in terms of average annual salary at $ 3.46 million. His cap hit this season is just $ 4.4 million in 2020, with his fifth-year option of $ 17.54 million pending in 2021. Four of Watson’s offensive teammates make the top eight in terms of average annual salary at their positions: Tunsil, David Johnson, Nick Martin and Brandin Cooks.
Watson, who led the team to back-to-back AFC South titles, has seen his favorite target get traded this offseason. His left tackle received an extension of $ 22 million per year. Linebacker Zach Cunningham just became one of the top 10 linebackers with his contract earlier in the week.
Because both sides are discrete, it’s hard to imagine the exact structure of the chord. Sources around the league expect what is essentially equivalent to a four-year extension of $ 150 million.
Russell Wilson was at the top of the market with $ 35 million a year before Mahomes blew it up to $ 45 million a year. Watson’s deal will have to eclipse Wilson’s – and not just a dollar – but I can’t see him getting the kind of average value Mahomes gets.
Watson has two ripped ACLs in his background and doesn’t have a Super Bowl or league MVP to his name like Mahomes. The Chiefs both secured the rights to Mahomes in their mid-30s and were severely strapped for guaranteed cash up front, so Watson can easily “beat” Mahomes on his deal when it comes to go back to free agency while still in its prime and get more upfront money on signing.
Player strike?
A burning question over the past week that has cooled lately is: Will NFL players protest racial injustice and police brutality by not playing in week 1?
The answer: It’s impossible to say what any individual will do, but we are unlikely to see anything like what happened in the NBA last week with postponed playoff games.
We know that another act of filmed police brutality can change everything, and knowing what the 1,696 players who will be on the Week 1 active rosters think is implausible. But sources I’ve spoken to since the NBA wildcat strike don’t expect anything similar in the NFL.
If an active player isn’t suitable for the game – and you can call it a strike or a boycott or whatever you prefer – the money guaranteed in their contract is in danger of voiding. That’s a huge financial risk in a league where the average player lasts for about three seasons.
It appears that veteran players with league and union ears are more interested in things that can lead to action, such as using political leverage to hold police officers accountable for violating human rights. a person. I’m not saying it’s a ‘we got down on our knees’ thing like Jay Z said of Colin Kaepernick last year, but players seem to understand the risks of sitting down to a game as than an individual and focus more on using their power. and influence to influence change.
If there was a widespread movement in the league not to play in Week 1, the sources would be in turmoil. At the moment, they are not. Plus, the ABCs are crystal clear about a potential strike.
“[N]neither the NFLPA nor any of its members will engage in a strike, work stoppage or any other concerted action interfering with the operations of the NFL or any club during the term of this agreement, ”it reads. Article 3 of the ABC.
As a source told me, if a large group of players planned to strike without the protection of the CBA, they would rely on the team owners and the league office to do what the NBA did and ” look the other way ”. Make you think it’s likely?
It is possible for a player to pass without playing, and that is absolutely his right. But he will not be immune to the potential professional consequences of this decision.
The Ngakoue perspective
Perspective matters when it comes to examining Yannick Ngakoue’s deal with the Minnesota Vikings.
It’s easy to look at the $ 17.78 million franchise tag he could have signed in Jacksonville, then look at the $ 12 million deal he signed in Minnesota and realize that including taxes, he left over $ 6 million on the table. But Ngakoue had decided he wouldn’t play Jacksonville for any money, so what Jacksonville offered didn’t really matter to him. A source from Jags described him as “a man of supreme principle”.
“It doesn’t matter what they gave him. He wouldn’t be coming back,” a league source said.
Ngakoue believes he will continue to be a sack machine in Minnesota, where the Vikings have had a double-digit sack performer every year since George Edwards took over as defensive coach in 2014 and finished in the league’s top five in sacks three of the past four years.
Barely 25 years old, Ngakoue believes he will have a year of career in 2020 in a new city and that he will be ready to break the bank the next offseason with good faith negotiations with general manager Rick Spielman.
Testy rugs
I had planned to leave my exchange Wednesday with Panthers owner David Tepper on Twitter. I wrote about layoffs / time off in this space two weeks ago and felt Tepper’s answer to my question spoke for itself.
But then I heard from a handful of people in and out of the building who wanted to respond to Tepper’s comments, so I decided to do so here.
To recap: In June, Tepper laid off 10 employees for what the team called performance reasons. Last month, more than 20 people were laid off or made redundant due to issues related to the pandemic. The 20-plus-years have worked primarily in hospitality, ticketing, marketing and entertainment, and the holidays are expected to last until the end of January.
When I asked Tepper, the 101st richest person in the world with a net worth of $ 13 billion, how he justified the 30+ layoffs / time off during a pandemic when she overtook the next NFL owner closest, here’s what he said:
“You are making a mistake when you speak this way. And you did not listen to my previous answer. I make these decisions based on what is good for the organization and what is good for the individual. It’s not good to have an individual sit idle for a year, a year and a half, or two years with nothing to do in an organization. OK? They might think that and that’s not good for a person And it’s not an easy decision, okay? But it’s the right decision I think you are basing it only on a financial question, it is a human question, and every individual is an individual.
“So I don’t know I’m answering other than that, OK? I believe that. It’s not like these things were done lightly. You think that was an outright answer, OK. was not. And sometimes the tough decisions are sometimes still the right decisions. It may seem like the right decision to everyone involved at that time, but they are still the right decision. “
But those I spoke to said some workers (but not all) were far from inactive. Employees had been duplicating fledgling MLS and NFL franchises for months with salaries and potential increases frozen due to COVID-19. As it became clear that the fans might not be at the games and Tepper decided to push Charlotte FC’s inaugural season by a year, he fired some of those workers who not only had dual duties and were actively working, but also looking for more work.
Although the holidays are to last until the end of January, employees can get their jobs back before that date if incomes improve and supporters are allowed to enter the stadium. Employees on leave still have to pay their premiums to keep their health insurance, and neither have they been able to cash in an unused PTO that resets at the end of the calendar year of the season. If they ultimately do not get their jobs back in early 2021, it is unclear whether they will receive severance pay, and it is likely that they will not if they are able to find another job in the city. the next months.
Of course, Tepper didn’t get rich by donating money. And he can run his business, as the sole owner of the franchise, as he sees fit. But I found the idea that it is “good” for those workers – the majority of whom are five figures who worked hard for the organization in previous months – not to have a paycheck for more than five months. a pandemic. objectionable. And others too.
