Let's listen to a little bit
from Russell Wilson's,
press conference. Yesterday,
on the impact of salary. Cap flexibility on his willingness
to agree to a deal that only
pays in 49 million per year in new money.
I told George, I told Richard told
Mr. Perrin self. I said, you know, it's so important to me,
you know, this is the I had an amazing first, you know, decade
in my career in the next decade and really excited about. And
so
to me it was really about is
being able to win. Championships and being able to
have enough space in the salary cap. So George can to make his
magic and
we can get guys like Rihanna Gregory when he comes on
the team or other great players. No, no. And I think that we
want to make this a destination location. I think that it's
one of those things. We have amazing, traditional amazing
football team. We got a lot of amazing, new faces obviously,
and won't printer group mr. Rob one himself, Gregg Benner
carry,
you know, obviously Condoleezza Rice, mellody, Hobson, where's
Hamilton? I think the money.
I'm not sure what the money.
He's back over there, you know.
And so these are these are world-class Visionaries and
world-class executors and winners.
And so I think that then the day
you want to be surrounded on that and I think what's
important to me is making sure that you surround yourself
around amazing players, you know? And so for me,
you know, I love these guys, man, we're having a blast. It's
been an amazing journey. And so for me it wasn't really about,
you know, how much necessarily is about how many, how many
Super Bowls we can win.
Well, I mean, if that's the case, take 25 million a year in
our 49 million a year and there is a point where that becomes
a little ridiculous because he's still taking a deal that puts
him close to the top of the market. And that's always
the balance. You got Tom Brady on one end with the reputation
he had for always taking far less than he could get. If he
really wanted to push it and Peyton Manning on the other end
who never left an ounce of meat on the bone and
Attitude was it's my job to get paid as much as I can. It's
your job to manage the salary cap, and you know, where's
Russell Wilson on that scale, but he's still getting
a pretty healthy contract. He didn't push to become
the highest-paid player. He didn't push for it to be fully
guaranteed, not that. That affects the salary cap at all.
Full guarantee is just a different thing. You can give
a guy
that that enhances the perception of the deal,
the value of the deal because you know, you're going To get every
penny of it. But, you know, Peter,
I keep coming back to something that I thought would have
happened by now and a couple of players have tried to make it
happen. Kirk Cousins, tried Darrelle Revis wants tried to
do it.
And if we're going to talk about salary cap flexibility,
I still think this is the most Fair approach. Give the,
especially if you're going to sign a guy for seven years
guarantee that he's going to get a set percentage of
the salary cap every year of the deal.
Fifteen point seven, three six, two percent, whatever that
number is. Negotiate, you're always going to have the other
eighty four point three, six, seven, eight percent of
the cap. Available every dollar
for other players.
Your quarterback is protected against this contract becoming
completely obsolete. But it is a fair pre-engineered slice of
the pie that we know, goes to the quarterback. And then
the team has to use the rest of every cap dollar to put
the team around him,
that to me seems to be the perfect balance but the Teams
won't do it more
importantly, the management Council won't let them do it.
It's a clear example of collusion hiding in plain sight
by the league management Council says, don't do it. So
the team's don't do it because otherwise, by now somebody
would have done it.
Hey, look, if that's what Jimmy, Andy has them thought
they needed to do to get DeShaun Watson, they would have
done it.
But I think what what that was was basically understanding
that
the only way they're going to get them,
you know, is to pay him
on the Mahomes scale
and make it all guaranteed. That was the only way they had
a chance. Otherwise, the three Southern teams would have
battled it out and he'd probably be a member of the
Falcons today.
But anyway, be that as it may make. I agree with you that
someday. I don't know when,
but some team will feel so desperately
motivated to sign their quarterback long-term in to
keep their quarterback, that they'll agree to that
and some owner in the NFL will be disliked, maybe not
in the, in the sort of
Person-to-person fraternity
at League meetings when nobody really wants to be
confrontational,
but which is what happened is here with Jimmy Haslam. Nobody
wanted to tell him.
Hey, what a dumb contract you signed. But that's how they all
felt since. Yeah. They said behind his back instead like
everybody else.
Yeah, of course,
of course.
So but I do think one day that's going to happen.
I really do because some team will feel so desperate
to Something done and plus Mike, you know what it is at
the end of the day
it's all Monopoly money.
You know if at some point in the next few years, those shrug
their shoulders and say yeah
we're getting 350 million from TV for our media deals. Anyway,
let's just give quarterback X,
you know, a third of that, and let's just
a quarter of that. And let's just be on our way.
And
I, I understand that everybody said, oh my God. God that
you know, the foundation's, the pillars of the NFL are going to
crack. If anybody ever does that,
it's not going to happen
at some point. Anyway,
players are going to continue
to kind of build
this this quarterback wall and it's going to go up and up and
up that
how you actually disperse. The money
is really not going to be that big a deal.
I remember the aftermath of the Watson contract, JC Treader,
the nflpa president posted an essay at the nflpa website,
urging agents
to push for fully guaranteed contracts
in
more settings and for more quarterbacks, in other players
and you can push all you want. If the teams just aren't going
to do it, if they are going to band together, if they're
going to Red Rover, the situation and lock arms and
And they're not letting anybody through
it doesn't matter,
and that's how they reacted to the DeShaun Watson situation.
The Watson situation was a unique example of a player
having maximum leverage. Why? Because
he basically created a free agency tour for himself.
Somehow had four teams at the table told one of them.
Thank you, but leave and that team became determined to do
whatever had to do to get him.
And they did with a fully guaranteed contract. So
everybody else Huff's and puffs and they blow down the house as
it relates to fully guaranteed deals because they just refuse
to do it. Michael bid will refuse to do it with calamari
the Walton. Penner group refused to do it. If Russell
Wilson, even asked for it and steep, Richard is going to
refuse to do it with Lamar Jackson. There's no way Mike
Brown is going to do with Joe borrow because he's not going
to want to or be able to put that kind of money in escrow
under the stupid-ass funding rule that
That was put in place to protect players and is now
being used against them to keep these deals from being fully
guaranteed. So you know it's going to take Peter to your
point. A really unique set of circumstances where
a quarterback has maximum leverage
to get a percentage of the cap
and then everybody else will say
it is stupid and we're not going to do it and they'll
refuse to do it and it won't happen again until there's
a unique situation with a planets line up just right. And there's
an owner who's willing to Buckle in order to get that
player. That's the only time this stuff is going to happen
and it's never going to become the trend that the nflpa may
want it to be. It's just not going to happen because there's
always going to be the 31 other teams that say we're not going
to, we're just not going to do it.
You know, the other part of it like
is that I don't sense any great solidarity
among agents
to die on that Hill.
It's just it's not there. It just isn't there, you know why?
Because they have their clients saying,
I'm not going to get cut.
Don't worry about it. And, you know what? If I do get cut,
there's going to be three or four. Suitors out there to sign me
like, Jared golf's not going to say that.
But Russell Wilson is
mostly Mike, you said it exactly correctly about
the guarantee money earlier in the segment and that is that I'm
not saying
What does Russell Wilson care? That's a little bit too.
That's that's to say it blithely.
But all I'm saying is Russell Wilson has enough confidence in
himself
and that confidence
is basically born of
out of his performance in the first 10 years of minute of his
NFL career
and how quarterbacks more even even the quarterback. So you
don't necessarily think of
Is it playing into their 40s? Look at all the quarterbacks
were playing great
into their late 30s.
Drew Brees did Aaron Rodgers. Did you watch Matt Ryan this
year? I think he is going to play very well.
Look at what Philip Rivers did
you know, is he went down the road,
there aren't that. Many players Ben Roethlisberger who,
you know, is not the Paragon of Fitness,
you know? But but their husbands back on diplomat.
Attic.
There are a lot of guys my who basically say listen don't
don't, let's not go crazy about the guarantee,
just give me the best deal. You can
give me fifty five million upfront or whatever the number is
that I can put my bank account tomorrow
and then we'll all live happily ever after.
To me, smart, quarterbacks are going to do that because they
know that, even if this team
after three years,
Some, there's going to be a Payday somewhere else.
One last Point, quick story. And then we had to take a break
because you hit the nail on the head.
Mark Rogers makes not one extra Penny on this deal, if it's
fully guaranteed.
Assuming that Russell Wilson doesn't get caught in the next
seven years. He's still getting X percent
of 296 million over seven years.
If it's fully guaranteed or not, it doesn't change what he gets.
And I think that's one of the reason why the agents don't
push for it. It doesn't get them a higher fee based upon
one to three percent or some percentage point of that in
between
that they negotiate with the client as their
as their fee. That's why the agents don't do it, I believe
and it reminds me of a story. I once heard you may have heard
this to always love this story.
There was a discussion between a front office type and
an agent about
Trying to place a player a certain way, which team and
hey, you want to try to get your guy in position to win
a Super Bowl, don't you?
And the response was why I don't get 3% of the ring.
And
that, that is a motivator for a lot of Agents.
How do I get paid?
And how does pushing for this or that
affect my percentage is one of the realities everyone's got to
have their eyes open about it when we do these negotiations
because there are biases.
Along those lines. But
for the agents, they don't make another Penny if it's fully
guaranteed. So why not push for more dollars instead of a full
guarantee because they get paid based on the full dollars?
Alright, let's go ahead and take a break.
Speaking of dollars, Jimmy, G taking far fewer than he was
supposed to. We met with reporters yesterday about his
decision to stay put with the 49ers, will talk about that
next on this Friday edition of pf2. I
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