Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots March 12, 2019 - Free Agent Frenzy Take Two

Episode Date: March 12, 2019

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Hey there everybody and welcome on into a free agency frenzy installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield here in the big chair for today, Tuesday, March 12th, 2019, the NFL's legal tampering period. Odd how they phrase that, but that opened yesterday on Monday around noon we had some tremendous deals some big money some players moving to places we weren't expecting some contracts being given out to players that we might not be so sure sort of earn those deals but a ton to talk about so we're going to talk about that in the first two segments of the show maybe even a little bit in the third segment,

depending on how stuff unfolds over even the time I'm recording this show. A little bit later, we'll also go into debut a new segment titled Charlie Casserly's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad off season. But before we do any of that, just your friend,

a reminder to follow me on Twitter at Mark Schofield. Check out the work of places like inside the pylon.com, Pro Football Weekly, The Score, Matt Waldman's Rookie Scouting Portfolio, Big Blue View, Bleeding Green Nation, Pat's Pulpit, three of the SB Nation websites that I currently do work for. As I've said, if there is an outlet covering the game of football, odds are I am doing some work covering this game we all love for them. Now speaking of love, some of you out there, and I know who you are because I've seen you say it on places like the Lockdown Patriots Slack channel and elsewhere. For some of you, this is your favorite part of the year, your favorite time on the NFL calendar because this is that time when you can sort of play general manager in your mind. You can act like you're filling out a Madden roster because you can see the pieces moving around all over the place. You're envisioning new guys

on new teams and new roles. And it sort of gives you the chance to play general manager. That's why we love the draft. That's why we love this part of the season because crazy stuff can happen. Anything is possible. For example, right now, Jeff Pihau over at The Athletic Boston is still tweeting that an Odell deal is possible. Matt Miller of Bleacher Report is saying the 49ers might be in on Odell. Somebody told him that on Monday. And so it's a fun, fun, fun time of the calendar. Now, for one former Patriot in particular, this is a very fun time. Now, we assumed that Trent Brown was probably going to be gone. He comes here on a one-year sort of prove-it type deal,

plays left tackle, perhaps due to the Isaiah Wynn injury, perhaps not. Maybe the job was his either way. We didn't quite get the chance to see that fleshed out, but it seemed to be trending in that direction. Wins the Super Bowl, ran some of us, some of the craziest of ones, us, myself, that's who I'm talking about here. I'm dunking on myself. Thought that, oh, maybe he'd, you know, take another short-term deal here in New England and then go get paid down the road.

Nah. Trent Brown, excuse me, got paid. Signs a massive, massive, you could say eye-popping deal to go out west and join the Oakland Raiders. Nine minutes, nine minutes after the legal tampering window opens, it is reported that he has signed a four-year, or will officially sign, a four-year deal that will get him $66 million, with $36.75 million guaranteed. Will Brinson wrote at CBS Sports, he described it as an absurd $66 million. And I'm quoting here from his piece,

that is an incredible amount of cheese for a guy who last offseason was shipped out of San Francisco and to New England for a swap of mid-round picks. And let's sort of start there because last year, New England, they give up the 95th overall selection to San Francisco in exchange for Trent Brown and the pick at 143. That means Patriots basically go back 40 spots to get him. That's it. And what does he do? Steps in at left tackle, wins the Super Bowl, protects Tom Brady. And that offensive line, we talked about it a ton during the playoffs,

they played extremely well. And for the second year in a row, this was pointed out to me by Brian Phillips, colleague over at Pat's Pulpit, for the second year in a row this was pointed out to me by Brian Phillips colleague over at Pat's Pulpit for the second year in a row the Patriots left tackle, starting left tackle leaves via free agency and gets the biggest contract out there for an offensive lineman what does this mean?

as a threshold sort of matter if you had any doubt as to whether Dante Skarniecki is the best position coach in the league, throw that out the window. I mean, look at the evidence. Look at the results. It's to the point where if some franchise just completely lost their mind

and decided that the young offensive mind that they needed to pair with their young quarterback on a rookie deal was me, that would be crazy i admit that but if i found myself in that situation i would be making two call two phone calls immediately and for those of you who know me personally you know i hate making phone calls but these were the two i would be making right out of the gate one to that quarterback's offensive coordinator in college or his offensive head coach in college what like if it's a lincoln riley situation saying what does this guy like to run? That's question one. I mean, that's call one. Call two, Dante Skarniecki, how much would it take to get you here? And it probably wouldn't even be in that order. And so, Trent Brown, congratulations, young man. Go get paid. Hats off to you.

Maximize your value. What does this mean for New England? They game the system yet again. This is how they handle their business. They get Trent Brown by just moving back 40 slots. He slots in at left tackle. It is a cornerstone piece of an offensive line that helps them win a Super Bowl. They don't want to pay him big money because they've got Isaiah Wynn in place to perhaps slide right in and play left tackle for them.

And they're going to get a comp pick probably in the third round, probably in the 100 range, which is technically what they – you could say it was sort of what they gave up because they gave up 95. If they get pick 100 back, it almost evens it out. But they also got a year of the guy. They win a Super Bowl, because they gave up 95 if they get pick 100 back. It almost evens it out. But they also got a year of the guy. They win a Super Bowl and they don't have to pay him the big deal. As Brinson put it in his piece,

they basically create a top 115 pick in the draft out of thin air. And they'll probably do this with Trey Flowers as well. The machine stomps on. That's how the Patriots do business. Now, speaking of doing business, the Raiders, this was not the first big move that they made.

They also made a move acquiring Antonio Brown. That's right. The Antonio Brown saga is finally, finally over. Over the weekend, it came out that the Steelers and the Raiders agreed to a trade. The compensation is this. The Steelers will get a third and a fifth round pick from Oakland in this year's draft.

Brown gets a new deal that will pay out $50.125 million over the next three seasons. And this is probably the biggest part of the deal for Antonio Brown. His guaranteed cash has gone from zero, that's right, Z-E-R-O, to $30.125 million. And according to Adam Schefter, this deal could increase to $54.125 million with incentives. This now makes him the NFL's highest paid wide receiver. What was interesting watching the aftermath of the Brown deal was this. Now, I'm a former labor and employment attorney. I represented police officers here in the D.C. area for a period of time. So maybe my view of

this kind of dynamic is different. But it's interesting to me that out of all the applicable professions out there, the one where the general public at large seems to overwhelmingly side with the employer over the employee is in the realm of professional sports. Somebody gets a big payday, they leave a team in free agency, and it's, oh, that person's a traitor. Do a Twitter search for the word traitor, perhaps incorrectly spelled as T-R-A-D-E-R, when a player leaves teams via free agency and you'll see a lot of people angry, lighting shirts on fire, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Whereas in any other profession, if somebody moves for a better job to make more money,

we like that. And maybe it's partly because we have a vested, you know, rooted interest in some of these people because of the teams that they play for. You know, to paraphrase the program, you know, when's the last time 80,000 people showed up to watch me write an article? So it's a different dynamic. You have a rooted, vested interest in these teams. You spend money going to their games. You're, in some sense, paying at least part of their salary to see them walk away. Sometimes it does stand. So I understand the emotional aspect to it. But at the same time, these are employees and they're playing a violent collision-based game

in which their career could end in the blink of an eye. And think about the contract that Antonio Brown was playing under. Zero guaranteed money. Now it's 30.125. That's a big difference. And so if his career ends early next season, he's at least got that as a going away present. Football is a violent game. Careers can end in the blink of an eye. And so when I see players go out and get paid, yeah, seeing Trent Brown sort of walk away stings a little bit. You know, it's going to happen with Trey Flowers. But go get paid. This is your window to maximize your value. And let's be frank, friends.

If ESPN or somebody else comes to me and says, hey, Mark, man, we love what you're doing. Come work for us. We're going to give you a nice little pay raise. But the trade-off is you can't do locks on Patriots anymore. Well, friends, vaya con Dios. You know, I love doing this show.

I love interacting all with you, but Bill's got to get paid and stuff like that. And I don't think anybody would have a problem with me making that kind of decision. And so, it's not exactly apples to apples. It is apples to oranges. But I just find it weird,

you know, when you see the tweets, when people are, you know, trashing Antonio Brown Brown saying he quit on his team and things like that. He's got bills to pay. That line from the replacements, do you know how much it costs to insure a Ferrari? Yeah, it's a joke, but there's some truth to it. These guys got bills to pay. And especially when you look at the guaranteed money, forget the big numbers. Look at the guaranteed money when talking about these deals, particularly guaranteed money up front. That's the number to look at. And for Antonio Brown, the difference between zero and

$30.125 million is a big difference. And so I get it. I get it why these guys do it. Maximize your value because this career might end quicker than you think, might end quicker than you hope it to. So get paid while you can. Up next, we're going to talk some of the other guys that moved. We're going to talk a little Gronk, some Nick Foles, some Quan Alexander. A little bit later, tie up some loose ends from the

first day of legal tampering, as well as the debut of Charlie Casserly's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad offseason. All ahead on this Tuesday installment of Locked on Patriots. Mark Sofio back with you now kicking off this free agency frenzy portion of the NFL calendar. We are in the legal tampering window. We're breaking down some of the news that came out during the day on Monday,

a little bit later, some of the later stuff, as well as the debut of Charlie Casserly's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad offseason. Also, a quick reminder, friends and listeners to this show, here at the Locked On Podcast Network, we know that technological assistants are a huge part of your daily lives, whether it's Google Play, whether it's Alexa, whatever you have, they make life so much easier for you. And there's nothing better than sort of telling one of those

assistants what to do, whether it's, I use Alexa, for example, I shop in lists, whether sometimes just simple math calculations, because I'm too lazy to pull out a calculator or even do it by hand. And there's another thing you can do. You can tell them to play podcast locked on Patriot. So whether you're in your car, your kitchen, or wherever. Don't forget, use your Alexa or your Google Play to tell them, play podcast Locked On Patriots. Let's talk about a man who has had a tremendous legal tampered window, and that is Agent Drew Rosenhaus.

Because let's not forget, one of his clients, Antonio Brown. Another client of his, Trent Brown. A third client of his, linebacker Quan Alexander, who also just signed a pretty big free agency deal. A report coming out of San Francisco. ESPN's Adam Schefter as well. Quan Alexander formally for the Tampa Bay Bucs signed or agreed to terms with the San Francisco 49ers on a four-year, $54 million contract.

That deal contains $27 million guaranteed. As of right now, it makes him the highest paid linebacker in NFL history. And he might not even be the best inside linebacker available. He's 25 in August, coming off a torn ACL. He had hamstring issues in 2017, had a four-game suspension in 2015. Some people say he struggles in coverage, and he's getting a massive, massive deal.

So he's getting paid. Drew Rosenhaus having a fantastic start to the free agency period, illegal tampering window. Good for him. Also good for somebody is this deal and C.J. Mosley. Baltimore wants to keep Mosley. Baltimore wants to keep Mosley, but after Quan Alexander gets a $13.5 million per season deal from San Francisco, you can expect that Mosley is going to get paid now. Teams that apparently are interested in him according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer include the Cleveland Browns, the Washington Redskins, and the New York Jets.

So it's going to be very interesting to see where he ends up. Another Rosenhaus client and an issue in a player that is near and dear to our hearts here at Locked on Patriots is Rob Gronkowski. Obviously, we're all sort of waiting the decision that Gronk is going to make about his NFL future.

And when Rosenhaus was on ESPN's NFL Live on Monday, he addressed that. Rosenhaus was quoted as saying, I talked to Rob last night and he won't even tell me. He hasn't made a decision yet. I honestly don't know. I'm waiting to see like everybody else. Now, I don't think this is going to change how the Patriots are evaluating things because whether he comes back or not, look, they're going to have to address tight end. Obviously, it becomes more critical if Gronk

decides that he's going to retire, but they're going to have to address him. They're going to have to address the position. Now, thankfully for the Patriots, this is a tremendous draft class, as we've been talking about over the past couple of weeks. And so they'll have some opportunities to address it. Sitting here right now, I'm becoming more and more comfortable with the idea that Gronk is going to come back. If you would ask me going into the Super Bowl, if he was going to retire, chances are I would have told you, yeah, like 90%, this is it. He's done. I said that on the radio. But in some of the stuff that we've heard from him, some of the things that he's said since the Super Bowl, comments on Jimmy Fallon and other places, Jimmy Kimmel, I believe, maybe now it thinks that he's going to come back.

Still, I think he would dress tight end, particularly in this tight end class. Let's talk one more quarterback here before we hit the pause button. Nick Foles. According to Mike Silver of the.com, NFL.com, he is expected to sign with the Jaguars. And the Jaguars are cautiously optimistic that it will happen and that the contract might get as high as $22 million per season. Now, is Nick Foles worth $22 million per?

That's one question. The other question is how does this pan out in Jacksonville? Let's deal with the Nick Foles $22 million per. That's one question. The other question is how does this pan out in Jacksonville? Let's deal with the Nick Foles $22 million per. For Jacksonville, he might be worth that kind of contract. Jacksonville needs to sort out the quarterback position, number one. And from what I've been told, they're going to perhaps move on from Leonard Fournette. It seems like that marriage might be ended and ended poorly. And so they're going to need a different offensive structure. In the years past with Bortles it was built around running the football and that defense.

Well now they might have to put a little bit more on the quarterback than they asked Blake Bortles to do. And of all the options out there perhaps Nick Foles is the best free agent option. You could have made a case for a Teddy Bridgewater or Tyrod Taylor or even a Ryan Tannehill, but I think when you look at Foles and perhaps his ceiling and some of his best work, he was probably the best guy available. Now, the issue with Foles is this. He is a very high variance player.

You have some incredible highs with him. Obviously, a Super Bowl run, a Super Bowl MVP, that playoff run that he had, the run that he had last year to get them into the playoffs. But you also have some pretty big lows with him. I mean, he started their season open to last year and no touchdowns a pick in that game. Completed, I think, less than 60%, maybe even less than 50% of his passes in that season opener against Atlanta. And so he's a high-variance player. And the other issue with Foles is this. The most popular guy in town for many teams is the backup.

But when you come in as the big number free agent, getting that big free agency deal, that changes the calculus. It changes how you're viewed, not just by the national media, not just by the local media, not just by the fan base, but in that locker room. And if he struggles, if he has some issues and has some games where he lays some eggs and that defense goes out and does what they've done over the past couple of years and, you know, play some pretty good games and they still lose when the defense gives up just 9, 12, 15 type points, you might see that locker room turn as they turned with Blake Portals.

So that's going to be interesting to watch how that plays out. But as we expected, Foles to Jacksonville, looking like it might be a $20, $21, $22 million per type of deal. And actually, ain't nothing like live radio here because the deal is done. Ian Rappaport, Rappaport just tweeted out a couple moments ago, the Jaguars had Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles as their top target per Mike Garofalo. He gets four years and $88 million.

And building on that, again, talking about guaranteed money. Adam Schefter, guaranteed money for Nick Foles and Jacksonville per source, $50.125 million. A quarterback who has 35 touchdowns and 26 interceptions in the regular season over the last five years, that's according to a tweet from the Falkaholic. Four years, 88 million with 50.125. Those are big numbers. And so there's your big quarterback move. That was sort of the big quarterback domino we felt was going to fall. It finally falls.

I think those kind of numbers probably preclude them from going quarterback at seven. But here's the thing. And Pete Prisco, Prisco cbs just tweeted this out too much money for nick falls in my book but i get it this is sort of the qb purgatory situation you need to get a guy if you can't get them in-house sometimes you got to overpay on the open market i do wonder who they were bidded against that That's a question posed by Matt Harmon from Yahoo. So who were the Jaguars bidded against?

We don't know. Four years, $88 million, 50.125 guaranteed for Nick Foles. Big deal for him. Up next, we're going to talk a little bit about the safety market. We're going to talk about the other big domino to fall for the New England Patriots. We expected this one in addition to Trent Brown.ino to fall for the New England Patriots. We expected this one, in addition to Trent Brown, it did fall.

So we'll cover that. And the debut of Charlie Casserly's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad offseason. All ahead on this free agent frenzy installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast. Mark Schofield back with you now

to close out this free agent frenzy installment of the Locked On Patriots podcast. And there is more Patriots news. The other sort of free agency domino we expected to fall, that did fall on Monday. It was reported first by Adam Schefter and then followed up on by Field Yates. Patriots defensive end Trey Flowers will be leaving New England. He intends to sign with Detroit.

That was Adam Schefter first, and then Field Yates followed up. His deal with the Lions is expected to be something close to $16 million to $17 million per season. Schefter then followed up again. It will be a five-year deal in Detroit for Trey Flowers. And so we expected that Trey Flowers was in all likelihood going to move on from the New England Patriots. We shouldn't be surprised that that happened. But if there is an area of perhaps frustration for Patriots fans, it should be this. This was reported first by Ordway, Mal and faria on weei they tweeted it out they had a conversation with mike giardi on monday afternoon mike giardi tells us that

patriots and trey flowers did not have any contract negotiations immediately after shack mason got his new deal in august in 2018 giardi checked back with trey one month later there were still no negotiations between the two parties, between the two camps. So in all likelihood, if that is indeed the case and the Patriots and Trey Flowers never even tried to sit down and work something out, then perhaps this was the

way this was going to end no matter what. And maybe we shouldn't be surprised by that because after all, we all sort of saw the handwriting on the wall when he wasn't tagged, when there were no contract negotiations, when we all sort of saw this defensive end edge Russia going to end up and so trey flowers just like trent brown we expected him to leave he's gone via con dios he gets to go to detroit with matt patricia and what was interesting was it was reported in the aftermath of this news that flowers really came down to two destinations for him detroit and miami his two most recent

defensive coordinators brian flores obviously the new head coach down in Miami, and Matt Patricia, obviously the returning head coach after his first year as a head coach out in Detroit, a team that he was not interested in, the New York Jets. So we've got at least that going for us as Patriots fans, which is nice. Let's talk about safeties. The safety market, we thought it was going to be crazy.

It got even crazier. Even crazier. Because first, Landon Collins, we expected he was probably going to get a big payday when the Patriots decided that, look, they're not, I mean, not the Patriots, the Giants decided that they were not going to re-sign him.

He inked a deal, or at least will ink a deal, according to Ian Rappaport, with Washington. Six years, $84 million. Now I said earlier in this show, if you're going to follow these deals, look at the guaranteed money. Rappaport followed up. The Redskins deal for Landon College is a six-year deal worth $84 million with $45 million guaranteed. So there's the top line number. And is it upfront? Well, it is paid out over the first three years. That sort of gets to the cash on hand situation. That is a huge, huge deal that sort of starts to set the safety market.

Now, I know I spent a few moments last week talking about whether Landon Collins would be a fit in New England. It wasn't going to be a fit at that kind of money. Another safety sign-in. The Titans are signing safety Kenny Vaccaro to a four-year deal worth $26 million with $11.5 million in guarantees. He had signed a one-year approved deal last year. That seems to have paid off. The next big name to sort of fall,

Earl Thomas. Apparently he wants sort of a $30 million deal over two years. I think those were the numbers that I saw. The safeties are starting to move. The craziness in these numbers being thrown out is something to behold. And so that's where we sit right now on sort of day one of free agency.

Before we go though, it is time to unveil a new little segment here at the Locked On Patriots podcast. Charlie Kass released terrible, horrible, no good, very bad offseason. And I was going to do this anyway. We have two things to talk about here. I was going to do it based on the first one,

which we'll get to in a moment. But then he went down a second road. He was on NFL Network, and this was a clip that was tweeted out by Mike Renner of The Bachelor and Yes Pro Football Focus. And he tweeted out a clip of Cache really talking about the Cowboys offense last season. And he said that Cole Beasley didn't get enough touches because Dez Bryant got the ball thrown to him too much. The same Dez Bryant that was cut by the team in April

before the season started. So that was somewhat interesting. But more importantly to what I wanted to talk about was he went on again to blast Josh Rosen. Now let's think for a moment about the Charlie Casserly timeline of the offseason. He first made some news when he blasted Kyler Murray and his meetings out of Indianapolis for the combine, basically saying that his whiteboard sessions were awful. He didn't do the work.

He didn't prepare. Never mentioned the fact that he sort of runs a program helping people prepare for these meetings. But let's put that to the side for a moment. So he blasts Kyler Murray, but then he tries to sort of backtrack by saying that Kyler Murray still has tremendous talent and all this great stuff, and that the Cardinals are actively shopping Josh Rosen, which they would only do if Kyler Murray at least aced that meeting. So that was interesting.

And, of course, it prompted the tremendous response from Kyler Murray's agent, Kevin Burkhart, who basically came out and hit him with a 1-2-3 combo of Heath Shuler, 18-46, and Belichick's quote about meteorologists. So Charlie had already had a bad offseason going. Then he has this Dez comment, and there's also the stuff he's now doing, blasting Josh Rosen. He was on the NFL Network saying,

quote, doesn't work hard enough, doesn't study enough, doesn't connect with teammates, goes off the game plan. That was the first series of quotes from charlie casserly on josh rosen he then continued and basically said this and basically said this is a quote josh rosen when you go to your new team you find out what time the janitor comes in then you come in and open the place up now this was sort of immediately contradicted by somebody who covers

the cardinals for the athletic basically said this is not what immediately contradicted by somebody who covers the Cardinals for the Athletic. Basically said, this is not what I've been told. This is not the Josh Rosen I've come to learn about while covering this team. And so it begs the question yet again. First, you've got Casterly somewhat perhaps tanking Kyler Murray's draft stock

or at least trying to. Talk about the meetings. And now he's trying to go out there and crush Josh Rosen a little bit. You can't help but wonder what is going on here as this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad offseason rolls on. Now, we could just say that he's passing along what he's been told and that people feel this way. But every time he comes out and goes off on a ledge like this,

he's immediately hit, sometimes pretty hard, with some pushback. So we will continue to monitor Mr. Casterly, who seems to be having the roughest offseason of all. Except for Bill Polian, who announced his retirement for ESPN, and in a great tweet, Luke Easterlin of DraftWire, said that maybe he should have moved to slot receiver. That will do it for today though i will be back tomorrow what we're going to talk about on wednesday it's kind of up in the air if

there's big news we'll break it we'll talk about it if not maybe we'll talk about a quarterback i don't know we're kind of making it up as we go here because things move fast here in the offseason in the legal tampering period until next time everybody keep it locked right here to me mark scofffield, and Locked on Papers.