The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Dissecting Dak Prescott's record-breaking deal & QB movement around the NFL with Mike Sando + Joel Corry on the agent's side of negotiations

Episode Date: March 9, 2021

What should we think of Dak Prescott's record-breaking contract with the Cowboys and what kind of precedent does it set for the rest of the NFL? The Athletic's QB Guru Mike Sando of The Football GM podcast joins Robert Mays to break down the details of the Dak Prescott contract, Russell Wilson rumors, and look around the league at how QB movement has changed in recent years. Then Robert welcomes former player agent and current CBS Sports analyst Joel Corry for some insight on the player and agent side of free agency negotiations.Be sure to get the best deal on a subscription to The Athletic at theathletic.com/footballshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays, and it has been one heck of a 12-hour stretch here. So the original plan for this show is that we were going to have Mike Sando on to talk about quarterback movement in the NFL and why it's happening. You know, there have been so many conversations about where the quarterbacks might go, but I really wanted to dive into the reasons behind the unprecedented movement we've seen over the last couple of years. then we were going to have Joel Corrie on from CBS, former NFL agent to talk about

how players might navigate the depressed cap and how he as an agent would advise them to navigate it. As part of that conversation, we had a long mock negotiation about the Dak Prescott contract. Well, that is now out the window. So that part of the conversation with Joel has been caught, we kept a good portion of it because a lot of the stuff we talked about was really interesting.

But Dak Prescott just signed a very large contract to be the Cowboys quarterback. So we are going to start the podcast by talking to Mike Sando about exactly that. Mike, how are you doing, my friend? I am doing well. You had that sinking feeling earlier today when your work was torn up, but this makes it fresher. You know, this is really cool. Maybe they were listening in on your podcast and got the deal done vicariously with you and Joel.

Honestly, Joel had such a good handle on some of the numbers, some of the details. So it was just weird to publish it after the fact. But if you want to go read Joel's insights on the Dact trade, you can go to CBS. He hits a lot of the actual very specific financial points that we're going to get to. So Mike, you just wrote about this. When you saw the numbers, when you saw the deal come down earlier this afternoon, what was your initial reaction? Well, the 40 million a year seemed about right. I wanted to see, okay, with the leverage he had, he needed to get some other concessions.

He needed some other wins besides just having a. APY that is slightly above what the tag would have been at 38. So for him to get the no trade clause, which everybody wants now, so if you get mad, you get a little pissy, you know, you say, hey, I'm in control of this, I'm at least

in control of where I go. And then the no tag, at the end of it is huge to me. You get the four-year structure that he wanted the whole time. The Cowboys wanted five. So I think there's two or three wins there that make this you know, I think he could have used his leverage more if he was willing to plan to tag, but he's getting a lot

of money, a lot of generational wealth, and I think he got enough wins to make it worth his while. For him to not play on the tag, I think exactly what you said. He needed a lot of wins. He needed to hit a lot of benchmarks historically and compared to guys in the league. And if you look at the deal, he did that. Three years would have been the first timeline that he wanted, right? Because he wanted a four-year deer last year. But played in the tag last year, $30 million in cash, it's pretty good. So even with that four-year deal, that's a small concession on the Cowboys side, but to get a $66 million signing bonus, which is just higher than Russell Wilson's was. So it's the biggest one ever to get a three-year cash flow

of just over $42 million a year, which is just above Watson's. So it's all of these little tiny steps up over the guys in his ballpark. And if he was going to get those wins and he was going to beat those numbers, that's where you start making concessions. And like you said, not using every ounce of your leverage. I will say, though, he used a lot of it. And this is just another example. I'll call it the Kirk Cousins line, right? Because I think that Kirk was probably on the back end of the type of quarterback and the quality of quarterback that could squeeze every drop out of a deal based on how good he was.

We saw him do that with Washington. Dak is clearly above the Kirk Cousins line. So even after getting hurt last year, he was still able to kind of put his foot to the ground, put the pedal to the metal, and get as much as he could here. He butt on himself, and I think that he was. always going to win because quarterbacks of that quality or higher typically do in these scenarios if they're willing to exhaust all the leverage that they have. Yeah, and not only that, remember cousins to do what he did had to reach the market.

So it was a totally screwed up thing with Washington and he got to be a free agent. So Dax doing this without being a free agent. And that shows that the Cowboys wanted them. They were willing to do it. They still screwed this up. And I think they're going to have a, they've had a hard time winning anyway. You think they're going to win now with him being number two and APY? I don't.

I mean, they may hang around, but I don't see them ending their drought of making major headway in the playoffs. I don't either. And when you look at it, obviously, his number is going to be a little bit depressed this year because of the way they structured it. It's technically a six-year deal with a couple dummy years on the end of it. I want to say that based on something with the bonuses, they'd be able to do a restructure next year in order to push the pro-ration a little bit further. All of that wonky stuff. One thing that I thought was interesting, I think Schaefter tweeted this. I'm curious about your take on it.

He said that the structure of it might give us some insights into when owners think the TV money is going to kick in and when the cap is going to go up. Because who would have a better understanding of that than Jerry Jones might? So when we see the numbers on this, I'll be really interested in where some of those big chunks come based on how the Cowboys think this TV thing is going to work out. Yeah, and maybe it tells it too. Jerry Jones knows how it's going to work out and that we're close, right? I mean, they've got to have the framework of something in place that gives him the confidence to do the deal. Now, I thought it might wait a little longer. It really did.

And I guess they're not going to announce it until Wednesday. But, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Jerry would be in, I mean, he invented the expanded TV revenue. It's really in my, really a column that I just filed that's either going to be up, it's going to be up here soon. You know, he's really in the Hall of Fame as much for that as for what the Cowboys have done on the field. You know, I mean, his ability to drive revenue has changed the league. So, yeah, that's right in his wheelhouse. And it looks like, I think Dak is going to hit for agency again at 31.

Yeah. Which he's going to make a lot of money playing football in the NFL as long as he stays relatively healthy. Yeah, as a fourth round pick. I mean, I just think this is awesome. I mean, he really played this well. And I think we're going to see, you know, it's interesting. We've already seen two quarterbacks do this and just about play it out. one of them did. I mean, it's not a bad way to go. If you can do this and you're good enough,

why not do what Dak Prescott or Kirk Cousins have done? I think that it's a unique circumstance for quarterbacks because for other players, I don't know if you were to get hurt how in demand you would be, what sort of market there would be for you. It almost feels like quarterbacks are circumstance proof when it comes to the cap and that gives them unique leverage, which shouldn't surprise anyone. It's a unique position within the sport in order for them to exert the power that they have, which is part of the conversation that we're going to get to a little bit later. But I just don't know if other players would be able to weaponize it in the same way that quarterbacks have here over the last five years. Totally agree. And everyone's afraid of not

having one, right? So people are willing to pay Kirk Cousins 30 million a year in Minnesota because they're tired of taking their chances on Christian Ponder. Right. I mean, they'd rather have Kirk Cousins, who's never going to win a championship with them, even, you know, their defense has fallen off. But they've been a good competitive team, and that was worth it to them, and maybe that's worth it to Jerry Jones. He's going to win at the gate. I know that. We're going to have a very fun conversation about where quarterbacks are going and why they're going there here in a second. Before we do that, though, I want to talk about a couple other guys who are weaponizing the franchise tag. Two guys who were tagged this afternoon that we should probably just hit very quickly, Brandon Scherf and Marcus May.

Shurf tagged for the second straight year, which that seems like it's going to be a lot for Washington to handle under the cap. It seems like it would behoove them to get a long-term deal done with him before the deadline in order to get that cap number down and spend in a few other areas. With Marcus May, this shouldn't be surprising. He was a really good player, and I thought that he showed off some real scheme versatility last year

to the point that that's the type of guy you want on your defense. Like them letting him walk or the idea of them letting him walk was always kind of surprising to me. So neither of these I think are shocking. I think I understand why both teams would put the tag on these guys and want them to be a part of their long-term plans if they can make it happen. You know, I would too. And I'm going to hit on Shurf a little bit because, you know, traditionally people have said, that's a guard. You know, I mean, you can find a guard. And I know you have a special love for offensive linemen, but you can find guards, right?

You can plug in guys. But I think there's certain people that when you're trying to build a program that mean something. something more. You know, I think there's a toughness for the way they play. And, you know, I was beat reporter covering the Seahawks when they let Steve Hutchinson leave. Damn it, they weren't going to pay a guard, you know, and it got little sideways. So they transitioned him instead of franchise tagging him. And he left. And they lost something in NFL history that is, by the way. That entire thing is just like, for people that don't know, for people who are too young, I mean, that is a landmark moment in NFL contracts, the way that that whole thing played out with the Vikings

and the Seahawks back with Steve Hutchinson. It was. They put a poison pill in. Minnesota did, and really, Steve Hutchinson was pissed. He's a guy who gets pissed. He played pissed, right? He was a first-round pick out of Michigan, had a head like a lion, kind of like you look at Dan Deardorf. They just make them differently out of Michigan, right? Like old USC guys. And he was a badass dude, and he was the heart and soul of their offensive line. And Walter Jones, but Steve Hutchinson was the ass kicker. He was the guy who gave him the edge. He was the enforcer. They were never the same without him. Sean Alexander never had Faird did anything after that. It wasn't all because of that. It was partly because of that.

And so they lost them. I think they lost more than just a good guard. And I'm not saying Scherf is Steve Hutchinson, but I think he gives them something. I like having him on that team as they try to build. Based on what I've heard about his standing in the locker room, what he is in that building, they love him. And we had the conversation with Lewis Riddick on the last show that we did about what rewarding players in your building, the message that it sends to everybody else. And for this to be the first extension that the Ron Rivera regime would hand out would send a message. It would say something. And I understand that on a spreadsheet, it might not be the best way to use every single dollar.

But they have a lot of cap space. And I do think that if they're trying to build a culture, there are worse players to build it through than Brandon Scherf. There's more to this than just trying to maximize every dollar you can and how you eventually move that money around. Think of this is predates Rivera. but thinking of having a team and deciding that Trent Williams and Brandon Shurf would not be kept on your offensive line. I mean, come on. That's pretty good two guys right there. All right.

So let's get to this conversation. I was very excited to have it with you for several different reasons. One, you have such a handle on where a quarterback sit within the league. You do the quarterback tiers every single year. You have so many conversations about the position. I thought you would just have such a good wide angle. view of where it is in 2021. I also, you do such a good job of walking me back when I get a little too excited about

big trends and how real they are. So you're coming at this from two different directions and that's why I was excited about. So you and I, I think both have had conversations or pose this question to a bunch of people over the last couple weeks. And that question very simply is, why do you think there has been so much quarterback movement over the last couple years? I mean, we saw a ton of guys move teams last year, and we're seeing a ton of guys threatening to leave or possibly leaving this year. So I guess the first thing I'd ask you, I know you looked at the numbers on this.

Are there actually more quarterbacks changing locales over the last couple years than in the previous five to ten? Yes and no. So take away the retirement guys, okay? There's some guys who've retired. I'm going to take them out of the equation, whether it's a lock, or we're not counting that as a change. or this offseason, if Breeze retires, I'm not kidding those as a change. But I do the quarterback tiers every year, okay? And so top tier, second tier, those are your best guys in the league.

It's usually about half the league, 14, 15 guys, okay? From 2014 to 18 in my poll, all 21 top tier guys returned. And 45 of 47 in Tier 2 returned. So just about everybody returned. And then last off season, we saw Brady and Rivers leave. in tier, they were Tier 1 the year before. Well, is that a trend? I mean, these guys are just older guys at the end of their career who were going to leave

at some point. I mean, they were going to change. I don't know that there's now a trend of 20-year starters that are going to leave teams. That's probably sort of what happens. But if Wilson and Watson changed this offseason, then that's huge. Then we've gone from 21 out of 21 to having four change in a two-year period. So that would be huge, okay? 2014 to 18 in Tier 2, 45 of 47 returned.

Okay, the only guys changing teams were like cousins and foals that one year he climbed into Tier 2 and probably didn't belong. Both very unique situations. Very unique situations. It's so hard to get to where they got to the way they got there. Last off season, all six of the Tier 2 guys returned. Now, this year, two have already changed. Stafford and Wentz. Now, Wentz maybe didn't belong there, but he was there.

Those guys changed. Rivers retired. I think now Prescott's returning. That was another one that was sort of in the mix. And I think we all know Brady, Lamar, and Ben are going to return. So you're really in a situation this offseason where two players in the top two tiers have changed already, Stafford and Wentz. And if Wilson and or Watson do, then there's something really different. Then I think there's something really different. But I don't know that it becomes as different as we feel. that it is if Wilson and Watson just stay. I agree with you, and I think that it may be a little bit overblown, but I do think that there is a lot of movement, and it's coming from a bunch of different directions. And the first thing that we have to mention is the age stuff, because that is something that won't continue.

That's not replicable. There is only one golden age of quarterbacks, and they happen to be aging out of the sport right now. So I looked at it. It was just an unbelievable era of quarterbacks. And we knew that. But if you look at it, of the top 50 seasons in passing yardage for players 35 or older since the merger, 33 of them have come since 2010.

Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. I mean, you have all of these guys, whether it's Brady, Peyton Manning even, Breeze, Rothera Rutherstburg, Rivers. All of these guys were in the sport. and even Rogers is in that category, I think. Ben Rathesberger, all of those guys are still playing or just having retired, and they're all doing it at the same time.

So the idea that Rivers and Breeze happen to be changing over, that's just timing. I don't think that speaks to any larger trend other than quarterbacks are playing longer than ever, and we're coming out of the most productive quarterback era of all time. Yes, I think the things that are happening are, there's a few things. The idea that some might play it out in the tag wasn't something that happened before. We've seen that a couple times now. You know, DAC got close. Cousins did it. So that's maybe an avenue, I think, that could be explored on occasions. Certainly,

you make so much money on that tag that you're secure. It gives you the option to make a decision that maybe you wouldn't make otherwise. There's insurance policies. Dak, I'm sure, probably had one, right? So I think there's something going on with that. I'd like to look at this a little more closely. Other events today intervened, affected my research. But, you know, you were talking about how, okay, the middle class of quarterbacks doesn't exist, right? There's this, you're either earning nothing or you're earning a ton. I think as you have more quarterbacks who aren't great, that are earning great money, you'll see teams willing to move on from them, right? You're not going to, that's Carson Wentz. He's making great money. They paid him like he was Tom Brady. And then he didn't

play anything like Tom Brady for whatever reasons. I mean, there's team components to it too. So then they're willing to get out of it. They're willing to have his contract count 33 million on their cap to not have him be on their team. Well, that wouldn't happen if Carson Wentz was playing for 14 million. That's exactly. You know what I mean? Yep. I totally agree. So if you're going to be all in on a guy who you like but don't love, and that's what the VAC situation is, they like deck. He's a real success story for. for a quarterback taken in the fourth round. And there's some people, most of them are in media, not in the league, who think he's

a top five quarterback in the league. But I don't think the Cowboys think that. And I think that's why otherwise they would have paid him earlier. I think they're kind of torn. They don't want to make one of these mistakes. They like their guy. But to keep the guy you like, you got to pay him like you love him. And that doesn't always work out well.

It hasn't worked out well a couple times very recently. So if you look at the numbers, They're striking. In 2021, the quarterback spending throughout the league, the gap in the middle is unlike anything I've ever seen before. There are three teams in the entire NFL allocating between five and a half and 13 percent of their salary cap on quarterbacks. Three.

All right. Who's your three? Who's your three? The Browns, who is the former number one pick and they have one of the league's most expensive backups. So that's a weird situation. Yep. The Texans, because this is the last season we're to show.

Sean's salary is compressed before he's about to hit $40 million next year. And the Rams, because they just traded for Stafford and it's only his base and they're paying peanuts for their backups. That's it. Those are the only three teams. Everyone else is either a rookie quarterback contract or somebody making at least 13% of the cap, their quarterback room. It's never been like this. So if you look at it, some of the numbers are misleading because if you look at it from last year,

there's a much bigger chunk. I want to say 13 of the teams fall in that. range. But there's a lot of wonky cap stuff going on there. Like the Falcons are in there because Ryan renegotiated his deal. There's a lot of that. But if you go back and look at years where there's not as much maneuvering happening, there is a quarterback middle class.

And the one I always go to is that stretch where Dalton, Kaepernick, and Tannahill got those deals all in a row. So if you look at that Dalton contract that was handed out, I want to say in 2014, in 2016, which is smack dab right in the middle of that, So it kind of gives you a decent idea of how it rose and fell year by year. He was making $13.1 million, which counted for 8% of the salary cap that year. Those contracts just don't exist anymore. Hypothetically, let's say James Winston wanted a contract worth 8% of the salary cap from Tampa Bay

as he was hitting free agency. That would have been a $16 million per year deal on his extension. Those contracts don't exist in the league. if James Winston was willing to take a $16 million per year extension from the bucks, they might have done that. There would be more teams who would be open to that idea. But I just think that the turnover is happening more and more because that middle option just doesn't exist for some of these guys.

Yep. And so they get paid out of their, they can't back it up always, you know? And so you're in that position as a team where maybe you're going to be willing to move on. And look at tier three. this off season. We've got some guys like that like Garoppolo. He may be back, you know, but he may not. He's sort of, I guess, what, $25 million right now?

I mean, it's not terrible, but it's high enough to make you think, okay, what do we got? And the other thing about the middle class part of it, and it's similar to Dak and the cowboy is paying him. Is there going to be a team that looks its quarterback in the eye and says, here's $18 million a year, that's the number, take it or leave it? We haven't seen that happen. No. And in some cases you're like, let's just look at Jerry Jones.

You know, I think we always evaluate these moves based on what we think they mean from a football standpoint. And that's not what owners look at always, right? I mean, they don't want to not have a quarterback. They're a much more marketable team to their fans with Dak Prescott playing for him, as opposed to being in the looking for a guy, not sure if he's your guy. And then, oh, shoot, we have to pay him $20 million anyway. You know, later in the off-season, I think there's just a component of safety of, hey, we know our guy, we like him enough, and that's worth something to us. And in all likelihood, and a few years down the line, you're going to be disappointed as a team.

But it's not Jack Prescott's fault. It's Jerry Jones's felt for probably not getting into a better deal earlier. The one that I keep looking at, and I hate to do this to Brown's fans because they just had such a nice season and I don't want to make them sad. and this is not something that I'm trying to bring on anxiety with. I think Baker Mayfield is going to be a really interesting test case. Because when he comes up, do you think, no matter how, let's say he's the same guy next year that he was this year, which allows the Browns to be a top eight passing offense by efficiency? Is that enough for you to say Baker Mayfield is a $35 million a year quarterback when you know what the offense is doing for him and for those numbers?

I just think it's really difficult, and I like Baker Mayfield. But I think he's going to be a test balloon for this entire thing. Absolutely. I would definitely wouldn't enter into it now. You know, and I think you've got to wait as long as you can. And it's tough, though, because what if they go 11 and 5 this next year and he is looks good, but not great. You know what he is. You know, do you want to then, do you set back your program by?

And the marketing of your program, like you said. If he's the face of your franchise and you're winning and do you want to really start over, when does Ownership get involved. There are just so many things to take into account. Yep, absolutely. And it's real easy from afar. For us, it's really easy for me to say, I shouldn't pay DeKest Kratkot 40 million a year.

Okay, well, what are we going to do? Right? You know, because we can get a lot worse than DeK Prescott overnight. So I think that that alternative question is an important one. Because one of my other theories here is that we've had a resurgence of options available in the draft. So if you look at that stretch you were talking about where there wasn't much movement, let's go back to Andy Dalton again, right?

Yep. Andy Dalton was solid, you know, in that 2013, 2014 rage right before he got extended. But if you're the Bengals in that moment and you're looking at Andy Dalton and you're looking at the alternatives, that decision is informed by the guys that are available in the draft, the pool of guys you could possibly get to replace Andy Dalton. 2006 to 2015, I think Chase Stewart for Football, perspective, he deemed it the lost era of quarterbacks. There's no one.

There is no one from those drafts that ended up being successful and that's still on a team. Lindsay just did a piece about all of the breakup stories with those guys. So if you're the Bengals in 2013 and you want to move on from Andy Dalton and you say he's just not good enough. We need somebody better. Your options in that drafter, E.J. Manuel and Gino Smith. And Andy Dalton, during that time, his contract never ranked higher than 13th in the league for AAPY. It was 13th, 18th, 21st, 18th, 20th, 18th.

That's really good for a quarterback signing a quote-unquote new big contract. And I think in that stretch, it's a totally justifiable way of approaching the position. But let's fast forward that six years to right now. I think Teddy Bridgewater is an interesting comp in that kind of class of guys. The Panthers are sitting there with Teddy Bridgewater. they know he's not good enough. And part of the reason they know he's not good enough is that there are five quarterbacks that they could possibly get in the top 10 of the draft that they think are theoretical

upgrades over Teddy Bridgewater. When Andy Dalton was kind of toiling her in the middle of the league, those options weren't existing in the draft. But I think what's happened over the last three to four years is that there are teams looking at what's happened with the chiefs, the Texans, the bills. even Justin Herbert with the Chargers and saying, well, we need one of those guys. If we don't have one of those guys, where are we going?

And that urgency is informed by the availability of those guys and the fact that they exist. Because for about a five-year stretch, there were none of those guys. So I think it was much easier to be complacent with the acceptable option you had at the position. It's interesting because even though it's easier to find an acceptable quarterback than ever, right?

it's easier to find a baseline tolerable level of quarterback play. There's still a huge advantage to having a really good one. And I think that's what we've seen with teams like the Rams and the Titans to an extent. The Titans going out and getting Tanna Hill and the impact that had and the Rams looking at what they had with golf and saying, we need something better than that and making that big play for Stafford. So it just seems like, again, it's coming from multiple directions. Teams know they need a good one, but teams know. they can find a decent one.

And that's just leading to more turnover than we've seen. I think that to me is the biggest driver, is that the overall competency of quarterbacks and the number of decent ones out there has gotten bigger. That number has grown, in my opinion. Yes. I think the question to answer, too, is, okay, are we in a situation where there's really only four or five of those really difference makers? And then the other guys that are in tier two and tier three are basically the same.

I mean, they look like tier two when it's good around them. They look like tier three when it's not or even worse. worse, and really people are chasing this dream of our guys going to be one of those really special guys, and they really never are. You know, I think about that a lot of like, what's really the difference between Dak Prescott and Carson Wentz and Kirk Cousins and all of these guys, which one, should any of them be paid at this level, you know? And I think that that question and whether or not there are more acceptable options

available might end up informing what's happening in Seattle and Houston. This was 10 years ago, and you had two guys who are top five to six quarterbacks in the league, it wouldn't matter. They would be on your roster. Nothing else would matter because you'd be so afraid about finding a tolerable replacement. But have we gotten to a place where you can stumble into a guy that's workable and there is a price for these guys? I don't know the answer to that, but I'm intrigued by the idea. You can stumble into a guy. You just can't control when you're going to stumble into a guy.

You can't just say, you know what, this offseason we're going to stumble into a guy. That's true. You might stumble into a guy. And that's Dak Prescott, right? I mean, they wanted Pax and Lynch. That's who Jerry Jones wanted in that draft. And they couldn't get him. And they were so pissed. They settled for Dak Prescott in the fourth round. And here they are. You know, it's really hard to just take a flyer and hope we're going to get lucky with the guy. That's how you get fired. So speaking of the Sean Watson and Russell Wilson, you and Michael Sean Dugar and Jason Jenks did a great piece about kind of the situation going on in Seattle right now. First of all, I just want your kind of feel and temperature of the Russell Wilson situation. If you had to kind of put a, where's the thermometer at? Is it like, is it 98.6 or like we over like 103 here?

I feel like, you know, definitely the situation in Houston's way high. I mean, you know, way more acrimony. I think Wilson has some issues with the team and has conveyed that and has successfully put some pressure on them, you know, to improve their offensive line. There's going to be scrutiny on the moves that they make this offseason. I don't think that for sure he wants out of there or he hates it there or he can't coexist with Pete Care. I don't think it's quite to that level, but it's, it was jarring to me. What he said after the Super Bowl was like a next step. You know, there was always, there was always like things swirling around.

And the closer you were to the team, you sort of knew what they were. But they're kind of things that are always probably swirling. If we've gone back to the Bill Walsh 49ers, Joe Montana was upset about this or that. You know, it's just the way that it is. Bill Walsh was a psycho. Bill Walsh would say anything in the media. He used to burn his guys all the time. He would bench Joe Montana to play.

He'd play Stephen. He did. He benched Joe Montana. So, yes. But, you know, that, this escalates. The temperature went up with that. And it caused me to sort of assess, okay, you know, to ask the question, what does Russell Wilson really want? You know, because is he trying to break up without actually saying it?

You know, that entered my mind. So, you know, it's got me thinking. I feel like the clock is ticking a little bit. Not that I really think they're probably going to trade in this offseason. I would think he's more likely to stay with the Seahawks. But I feel like there's a decent chance he doesn't get to the end of his contract in Seattle. And that's shocking in itself when you think of it. how good he's been.

So an extension of this, one of my other kind of pillars of this, one of the things that I think might be informing some of the movement or the threat of the movement, is that there has been an increase in player power and autonomy. It's not the NBA, but there has been some increase in it, in part because of the way that players can shape the conversation, in part because I think where some of the goodwill publicly lies compared to where it might have lied 10 years ago. And this is something that I think your perspective is useful on. So do you think I have to walk that back a little bit or would you agree?

Do you think that there is more player power in the league now than there might have been five to ten years ago? There's no question there's more power to get your message out unfiltered. That's totally different. You know, I can remember covering teams, you know, 20 years ago with the really the only source of information was coming from the team. Yeah, yeah, the agent could say something, but there's no one there to talk to them. You know what I mean? Everyone's talking to the head coach on the field after the game after practice every day. day. I think that is totally different. Now, there's always been quarterbacks and other players

making power plays when they've had power and leverage. I mean, shoot, Philip Rivers, or I mean, Eli Manning wasn't going to play for the Chargers. John Elway wasn't, you can go back Fran Tarkin and force this way out of Minnesota. I mean, there's always been power plays by people who've had leverage. I think this is a little bit of a different time in terms of your ability, like you said, to get some momentum to have a public opinion go sharply against the team. I think that that can happen a little bit more. That is different. I think there's also, when the money gets greater for the players, you're empowered. I think it feels like we've seen more people decide, you know what, I'm just going to retire a little bit earlier. Or, you know what I mean?

I think there's a greater awareness of the power that you do have and that, and much less of a sort of military mindset of the player. You know, I think the psychology of playing, has changed. If you go back 40 years, they wouldn't give you water in training camp. The coach to jump, you said how high. It was much less of an empowerment. Now, you got to work with the players.

They do things much more on the players' terms. The players don't really want to play in the Pro Bowl. You know what I mean? They're all friends. They don't hate the guy on the rival team. I mean, some of them do if they really got into it. But these guys are all hanging out. They all know each other.

You know what I mean? They're on each other's side. They're not on their team's side. They're on each other's side. Do you think that's going to, that contrast is going to become even more apparent as we walk into, I guess, what you can deem a post-Patriots NFL? Yeah, I do. I mean, I think the, I mean, how many teams are doing it like the Patriots, though? I mean, how many have been?

I think very few. Very few, but yeah. And even fewer have succeeded that weren't the Patriots. So the fact that that approach hasn't been successful outside of New England. And then I think, I mean, what's on my mind right now is it's laboratory conditions. You watch Tom Brady go from New England to a situation in Tampa where he has a ton of power, a ton of control. It's much more lax. And they win the Super Bowl.

So are we going to see more situations like that where other quarterbacks like Aaron, Roger's Russell Wilson are watching what's happening with Tom Brady as he gets into a scenario with a less controlling coach and has a little bit more say and say, well, why don't I have that? And I think that might be the case. I think you've got to really play great to make that happen, you know, and I think Brady is a special case with all those Super Bowls. And yes, he had influence over where we want to sign this guy or that guy. But you've got to be willing to cause a disruption to really enforce that, right? And Aaron Roger, was upset and stuff, but he still showed up and played and played well and didn't disrupt. And so I don't know that everybody's going to be willing to do that or that teams will be willing to accommodate that. But I do think, look, look what happened when Tom Coughlin came back and went to Jacksonville. Jaylon Ramsey's not going to play there anymore and gets his way out.

You know what I mean? So I think the days of overtly my way or the highwaying are really hard to come by. And I think that's a little bit of an unfair characterization of Belichick. I mean, I think a lot of people who leave New England think highly of Belichick. But it took Tom Brady helping to enforce that too, right? It took a real special mix to do it that way. I don't know if it's even that he's like a hard ass or in practice or stuff like that. I just think that they have a very cold way of dealing with player value and how they interact with players and just the way that the culture is.

So I think that's the thing that may be a little bit different. I also, and this is somebody with the team told me the other day that it's just impossible to deny the idea that quarterbacks have say or should have say. When they're getting paid as much as they do, it's inevitable that they're going to have an elevated position in the locker room. And the fact that we have this massive gap between one group and the highly paid group, it's almost guaranteed that if you end up paying a guy, he's going to have more say. So the growing gap and the growing salaries among that group of quarterbacks

increases the number of guys who are going to have a bigger standing in the locker room, if that makes sense. So it almost like feeds into one another. It does. I think the question though that I'm wondering about is how many of those guys are going to be willing to then publicly complain? And that's what Wilson did. I mean, Wilson publicly complained.

I think that a lot of quarterbacks and team leaders have been consulted when somebody is going to be signed. A big free agent is going to be signed. It doesn't mean that they get a vote or they're in the personnel meeting or they're going to say, hey, this guard from Arkansas is the guy we got to take and then they agree to take it. I don't think that happens. But I think when they're going to say.

sign a receiver or somebody, they do talk to the quarterback or they do run it past him. I think what it would be different is if then the quarterback said, it's not the guy I wanted, or we need to do better, or keep the coach in check. And Wilson doing that is still the exception. It's not what everybody's doing. I think the Watson thing is a different situation where their organization was so screwed up that he's had it. And we'll still find out how serious he is because I think they can make him wait. The one thing, the one factor that I thought might be a part of this that everyone I talked to said, pump the bricks.

That's not true is how the increase in the cap might cause an uptick in teams willing to take on dead money cap hits like the golf thing and the wents thing. Pretty much everyone said the Rams operate in a way like no other team does. Don't let their choices and the way they do this become a trend in your mind. And two, the Eagles did not want to do this. it's not as if they were like, oh, we'll eat it because the cap is going up. They desperately didn't want to do this. So they wanted to treat the Gough and the Wentz willingness to kind of take on that money and move on as exceptions and not something that we'll see more of in the future. I don't know how you feel about that.

Yeah, I feel a little differently from this standpoint. I think that people make a mistake when they say, wow, trading Carson Wenz produced a $39 million cap hit. No, no, no, no, no. He was going to count, well, he's on the roster counting 33 or whatever. So the change in his status produces of $6 or $7 million, or his was only negligible. He's 33 either way, right? So once he stops being a useful player to them, he's already dead money on the roster. Yeah.

Once the team has decided you don't want to be there, then the only disincentive to moving you is if moving you produces a huge charge on top of that. Okay. So Antonio Brown was going to count whatever, about 20 million bucks on the Steelers cap, whether he was on the team or not. Now, if that number would have gone to 40 by cutting them, they wouldn't have cut him. But because he was dead to them, they were done with them. They were willing to move him and have the cap number be relatively the same. That's what I see happening with Wentz. Russell's like a $32 million charge. Well, it's 39 if they move them. So there's a $7 million difference, not a $39 million difference of moving him. I think that's how we have to look at these deals.

What does the change in roster status mean in terms of a change of the hit? Because they were willing to move Carson Wentz and absorb $33 million when it was about the same as if he was on the roster. Once they decided he wasn't going to be their quarterback, I think that's a distinction worth making. I totally agree. And I also think that if we do see teams that are a little bit more hesitant, to give out some of these close to top of the market deals to their quarterbacks, are we going to see fewer mistakes like the golf and Wentz trade extensions ended up being? Yeah, at the very least wait.

I would rather, now that's easy to say, this deck, right? You wait. Exactly. And you get things can spiral out of control. But wait if you're pretty sure your guy's not the guy, if he's not that type of a player, right? I mean, I just put it to you this way. I'd rather not enter into a top of a market deal at all than the deal. do it too soon, you know?

But at the same time, aren't you going to eventually save, even if you, if you're 80% sure he's the guy, is the savings you're eventually going to get by signing him early worth that 20%? When do you know? That's the big question. Well, I agree. So what is that percentage in your mind on Baker Mayfield right now? To me, I like, I feel that's why he's a perfect test case.

I feel 60% sure that he's not going to be that. Wow. Don't you think? I mean, I don't think there's like a differentiating traits with him. or something. I'm not like, wow, this guy is the CEO of the offense. This guy makes amazing throws. And I think he's pretty good. I don't see like the special physical, do you? I think he has a nice arm. I think he makes some throws that make me sit up a little bit. But I tend to agree with you. I think he's like right in the middle. You could nudge me either

way on him. And that's why I think he's such a fascinating case here. Would you do it with Josh Allen right now, top of the market? Yes, 100%. See, I would do it more too. do it more with him. I think he has special special traits. I think that we saw what he could be last year. And I also think that he is exactly what they've tried to build there as a program. They love him there. And the guys in the locker room love him there. So with him, I think you just get in as as soon as you can. Maybe he's never as good as he was last year again. But I still think he could be a top eight quarterback for the rest of that contract that you handed out to him. So you think there's a very small chance he becomes a wents like case where it just comes off the rails.

Or would you have said the same thing about wents? I was never a huge wince guy. I think what Josh Allen did last season is much more impressive than anything Carson Wentz ever did. Yeah. I think I'm with you. I feel like well, Carson Wentz, when he was doing that well, had a lot around him that was making that easier. I totally agree. And I think that there was some third and four down success that was a little been unsustainable. When you look at just the throws that Josh Allen was making in the wow plays, significantly more of them than there were with Carson Wentz.

And I think that the situation in Buffalo is very good. I think that Brian Daibble was the best offensive, maybe the best offensive play caller in the NFL last season. I think the supporting cast there is excellent. If you extricate Alan from those factors, maybe he's not as good and that's something you'll have to consider. But I also think that his talent alone is enough to bet on and we've seen him produce.

You could. It's amazing, though, how fast the league changes. You could plausibly in a year and a half have Dayball be the head coach somewhere else. Now you've got a defensive head coach and he doesn't quite find the right guy. And then Stefan Diggs gets a little sideways. He wants to go to the top of the market now because these other guys who aren't even close to where he's been the last two years at the top. And now he's upset and he doesn't feel quite so good, right?

I don't think that's a reason. Mike, that's why I would never hire a defensive head coach. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, look, there's risks in all of it. I feel for the most part, you better be sure if you're going to go really high. I think that the draft options, it's impossible to overstate how powerful that is. Because I don't think David Tepper would be sitting there if guys like Josh Allen and Justin Herbert and Lamar Jackson and Deshawn Watson hadn't didn't exist. Not even Watson being available, but even if he was in Houston. If that, if that group didn't exist, I don't think you would have. somebody like David Tapper saying, I can't have another year of Teddy Bridgewater. Yeah. And so, you know, what dovetails with that really is the continuing evolution of the NFL to be more friendly to the college game and the college players, right? I completely agree. I think that's one of the reasons that dead period exists.

Yes. So if you're a, if you're a team thinking, shoot, you know, if we got a guy we like, we can structure our offense in a way to have success with him. Because you know what? that's what we're doing with Kirk Cousins anyway, right? I mean, we're play actioning it up and, you know what I mean? And he's making $30 million. Why not have a guy making $8 million or whatever and bring some athleticism to it and set it up friendly to him? And yeah, he's not going to be Patrick Mahomes, but we can win with them and then have

enough resources elsewhere to be good on defense. Because when you look at the teams that are winning, there are teams that win with highly with overpaid quarterbacks basically top of the market guys who really aren't in the top eight overall they win but they have top five top eight defenses in order to do that you better have some resources usually i think it'd be hard to pin down an exact moment where it happened but i think the start of it or one of the most important moments to it was what happened with kyle shanahan and rg three in washington in 2012 where he said all right what did you do in college, how can I synthesize that to make it part of our offense?

Not, I don't care what you did in college. You're going to do what I want you to do. I think as more and more coaches started embracing that idea, and I think it really started taking hold in like 2016, 2017, when Carson Wentz went to Philadelphia, when Patrick Mahomes went to Kansas City. And now I think that there's been a new wave of offensive coaches that isn't saying, I'm going to do this because this is the way Bill Walsh did it. and they're going to say, what is the best route for me to succeed?

And I think that's why there's a bigger group of younger quarterbacks that have succeeded, because I think that that group between like 2008-ish when like, like the 2011 class, for example, right? With Jake Locker and Blaine Gabbard and all those guys. I think that when that was happening, there was a bit of a disconnect for how NFL coaches were trying to use these spread guys. Now I don't think that disconnect exists anymore. I think that there's less square pegging around holes. And it even exists in the evaluation.

Remember when Bill Pullian got caught in the middle and said Lamar Jackson wouldn't be good? Because he's picturing him in an offense from 2010. Yes. He's like, this guy would be a wide receiver. No, no, no, no, no. Not if we play offense this way, he'll be the MVP of the league. Not that we knew he'd be the MVP of the league, but he'll succeed.

And that wouldn't have happened. He would not have succeeded before. They would have tried to get him in a certain system. And he might have been okay, but he wouldn't have been nearly this good. And I just think that you have more and more coaches who are willing to sit there and say, how can I help my guy succeed? You're going to have more young guys succeed.

And if you have more young guys succeed, are you going to have more teams say, I want one of those super talented young guys, get me out of this middle-of-the-road stopgap option that would have been my eight-year, 10-year quarterback if this was 2012. And I think that's informing a lot of what's happening right now. Yep.

So do we not see Kirk Cousins happen again? That's the type of a thing, $30, $40 million for, good, not great. It's that I said before about deck. It's the Kirk Cousins line. I think anybody above it will be okay. I think anybody below it might be in trouble. Yep.

It's fascinating, isn't it? It is a really interesting conversation and one that is not going to go away. I will say this. If we have all of this sound and fury as it relates to Watson and Wilson and none of them get moved, this becomes a different conversation. But if they do, then we're really off and running. I think those will be very important kind of watershed moments in this discussion because I think the structure of the league and the way that players are coached and deployed is pushing this a little bit. But I think the player empowerment part of it could really shove it over the finish line.

I think there's some owners who really don't want to see Deshaun Watson get traded. Don't you think? I mean, I absolutely think so. I mean, I think there's an old school element here of like, you know, hey, crush them, make them retire, you know. you know, and we'll see if we'll see what they do. Mike Sando, always great to talk to you. Thank you very, very much for doing this. It's 10.30 p.m. Central time right now.

We're doing some late night podcasting. Thanks to Dak Press scouting and the Cowboy. So appreciate you sticking around, man. Thank you. My pleasure. All right. I am thrilled now to welcome CBS analysts, former NFL agent and a guy I consistently go to for insight on the financial side of the NFL. Joel, Corey. Joel, how are you doing, man?

Oh, I'm doing great. How are you guys doing? I am doing great. I sincerely appreciate taking the time to do this. So we've talked about this in a few of our other shows. We're trying to hit free agency from all the angles we can this year. And one that we haven't really talked about at length quite yet is how agents would be approaching this

and kind of informing and helping their players through this process in what is a very strange free agent year and a very strange NFL offseason. So if you were representing guys, and I know it's different for guys in different, situations. But if we were just taking kind of a template of player X, a middle tier, middle class guy that you were representing, how would you lay out the financial realities for your clients? How would you try to explain to them what the market is going to look like here over the next

month? Well, first of all, the top guys get paid regardless of the cap environment. So remove them from the equation. Now, I think the first thing an agent has to do, they're doing their clients a disservice and some don't necessarily do this. You have to tell a player what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear. Sometimes agents are reluctant to do that out of fear getting fired because there may be someone else in their ear telling them they can do X, Y, and Z when that's not the case. But if you have a strong enough relationship for your players, you can do that. So I would first map out, here's the climate for 2021. It's different than any other year and here's why. Cap's going to go down at a minimum probably almost 14 million could be down to 180.

So we're talking you're almost 20 million down. So teams aren't going to be spending as much money as they would in the past because they're trying to be cap compliant and just be under the cap because of unusual circumstances with the pandemic. Then you look at the players, what he did, his body of work. Okay. Now, who might have interest in you? That's one thing that I always used to do when I remember.

represented clients regardless of the climate was try to figure out teams which would have a need at his position start going through them with the player then do you have any connections from your past because familiarity brings comfort of who what coaches you played for like like you did not front office so forth whether it's a position coach is now a head coach or your position coach is someplace else or someone who's in the front office that really liked you and the reason I first got into that was I remember there was this player John theory. There was a top 10 pick, I think, in 94. And he had a coach Bob Slowick. And I remember his agent saying, wherever slow goes, John goes. So I started doing that with my own guys. And you'd be surprised at how much did the connections play to Roland who would have interest.

So I would start mapping those out as well. Now, age is going to factor into it as well. If you are a younger player who is in the prime of his career, you're probably looking at a one-year deal if you can't find the long-term deal you want because it's better to sign the one-year deal and come back up again than sign a mediocre subpar long-term deal and be unhappy. Now, if you're an older guy who's made a lot of money or you now aren't going to chase wings, it could be a different calculus for you. but you're going to see a lot of guys who don't get paid and it's definitely going to be a buyer's market from a simple supply and demand economic equation because you're seeing guys getting cut left and right that's going to continue for the next week or so. And when you have extreme supply and demand is down, then that's not good for the players. So you've got to take all that in consideration. and if you can't get something you find satisfactory as a long-term deal and you're young enough, you probably want to put yourself in a position to reassess it next year,

whether that means you take the best one-year deal you can find or you go to that place which gives you the best opportunity to play and put yourself in a position to showcase yourself for next year. So I think that's really interesting. So guys, I think perfect example of that would be somebody like either Hassan Redick or Romeo Acquara this year who had big years, big kind of bump years last season. season, but they're one-year blips. So when you're looking at a guy like Redick and you're trying to balance the opportunities you're going to have just in terms of net snap count with the situation that you're in

with the other help on the defense, how do you try to balance that? Yeah, we saw guys who've done that successfully and unsuccessfully. Well, Jay Van Clowny keeps playing on one-year deals. And that sees a little bit different case because he had priced himself in a much different stratosphere. And then the injury set in. And last year, the pandemic, it was not conducive to him because you're going to have to visually inspect him because of the surgeries. And you couldn't do that for the longest time.

We saw Dante Fowler do that. Yep. He signed the one-year deal and it worked out for him. Then we saw Vic Beasley do it and inexplicably. I still don't know why he was AWOL at the beginning of the year when it was a mandatory fine. And that allowed his guarantee to avoiding the Titans part of Ways. of him during the middle of season. So you probably look to try to get a semi-lucrative one-year deal and go someplace else. Reddick in particular, if I could stay put and make decent money,

I know they turn down the fifth year option with JJ Watt. That makes it a little bit different calculus in terms of what they may be able to pay. But what they did of Watt's deal is they added three dummy voiding years, so it's cap numbers four nine, so it's lower this year. So if you can be in a position where you're playing with J.J. Watt on the line, you've got Chandler Jones. And if you're the other pass rusher, you got one-on-ones. And we saw that once Jones went down last year, and they made him a pass rush instead of trying to make him a complete linebacker, he thrived. So I would, if I could stay put and make decent money, I'd consider that. If not, I'm going to a scheme where I know they're going to let me go forward, rush the passer. I don't have to worry about dropping in

coverage and do all those stuff. I couldn't do well my first three years and go from there. How do you play the game where opportunities versus situation? Because even if you're on a defense with JJ Watt and Chandler Jones, you're going to be getting some one-on-ones, what if your snap counts aren't as high in those moments and your raw numbers are going to be a little bit lower? Are you worried about efficiency or are you worried about how many sacks you can actually stack up? Because that's, I think, kind of a balance. Because how many guys are blocking you versus how many times you're on the field, that's probably something you have to way. Yeah, well, in that case in particular, I want to know, am I the other guy?

Sure. If I'm not the other guy, that's a less attractive spot. If I'm going to be on the field and I got those two guys who are going to attract attention, kind of like what Fowler did with the Rams, you got Aaron Donald. So if you can't eat, that's on you. So if I got J.J. Watt and I got Chandler Jones and I can't eat, then maybe I'm not that good. But yeah, that's something. We saw that album from Leonard Floyd this year.

I almost called him Leonard Little, but that's that whole different guy. But we did play for the Rams. He thrived playing of Aaron Donald. So if you got marquee guys around you and you're the guy that's not the focal point and you're on the field, you should be in a pretty decent position. Then it becomes, let the other teams make you a buyer beware proposition if you go out and have a very successful year. That's on them to decide whether it's you.

or you're a product of the players around you. And typically you put up numbers as a pass rush. You're going to get paid. So when you look at guys that maybe are going to get cut, so not guys that are looking for jobs, the guys that have jobs now, I'm sure you've had players that you anticipated were going to be released. So when you have that,

and that's kind of on the horizon, how do you go about that as an agent? How much communication are you having with the teams? How much do you let your client into kind of understanding what the situation is? what's the back and forth when it comes to something like that. That comes into being honest if you're client again. And if I had a guy I thought might get cut, I would tell him, look, you're vulnerable.

And here's why. And if he really wanted to stay, then I might be proactive and approach the team about a pay cut. Sometimes a team doesn't want to take a pay cut. I've done that before. And now we're good. So it means they really didn't like him. A couple of times we've been able to play ball and work something for him to stay. Because this year in particular, with the.

the amount of guys are going to be on the open market and you're a guy who's not coming off a strong year, it's not going to be a pretty situation for you. But then if you've got a guy that you know has played well and a team needs cap space, then it becomes a whole different situation. Kind of like, well, JJ wanted to be released, but a guy who has that type of cash, we had a guy like that previously one year when the cap was tight with the Minnesota Vikings years ago. that they approach John Randall for pay cut. So what a savvy agent does in that situation is you have hypothetical conversations with other teams,

which are technically tampering. And you get the lay of the land of what the landscape would be if you are on the open market. You're out on the street. And then you determine, okay, if money is the primary consideration and staying put, sometimes players get affinity to ask to take a pay cut. They're kind of like, well, if I can get something close to what I was making, I'm out. So in John's case, we knew that Seattle was going to make him whole. So we're like, we're not taking the pay cut.

You can just release them. We're like, please release them. And they did. And he instantly signed up Seattle. So that's something which factors in the equation as well. If this is the opposite, we're like, man, nobody really likes this guy. Yeah, let's work on the best pay cut we can get where we can potentially be made whole through not likely to be earned incentives.

And when you are having those conversation with teams, is that usually driven by relationships you have or an understanding about where a player would fit or a combination of the two? It's a combination of both because if you've been dealing with the team, you have a pretty good relationship with them. And particularly back then when the cap, the way they used to do TV money, it'd be one big spike. And then the cap would be relatively flat. And for the remainder of the contracts instead of how it was in 2000. after the 2011 CBA, where they phased it in slowly and the cap steadily rose 6 to 8% each year. So also back then, teams hadn't gotten smart enough to put automatic conversion rights and contracts. So it became an actual negotiation to get a guy to restructure a contract where now if you don't,

the team has a right to do it. And if you don't sign a new contract reflecting how much they want to convert for a restructure, you're in breach of contract. So you'd have to have a negotiation over that. So you interacted with certain cap people negotiators and on a yearly basis. Because I used to joke when we say every deal is a one-year deal that has to be renegotiated because they didn't have the conversion rights back then. So, yeah, it's really a balancing act.

But in a situation like I was just describing that, yeah, you kind of look at the totality situation before you decide what's probably what you think may be in the best interest of your client. So you talked about the Wad deal in the dummy years, and I feel like that's going to happen all the time here. We're going to see so many gymnastics because teams are trying to get cap compliant. Is there a downside? Because I can't think of one. Is there a downside as a player to one, either having some of those conversions happen

where you're getting some of your money up front and then it gets prorated, or having dummy years on the back end of your deal? Is there any sort of treachery there on the player side or is just whatever, I'm getting the money, it doesn't really matter. matter. Here's one thing about the conversions I don't understand from the players side now that you have the automatic right to convert where there's no negotiation. That now when they convert, they convert the money into signing bonus. And then it's usually structured where your signing bonus gets paid on the same schedule as it would have been if it was still based salary. Now,

what I used to negotiate when you had to actually get consent was, hey, if we're going to do, you a favor to create cap room, then I want the money now. So you turn in a signing bonus. Give me half of it today because I'm doing you a favor. And even why teams have the conversion rights is we had a guy with the team which had done the restructure thing a couple of times. And your cap number starts to get high. So that's where it can become a problem if the cap stays relatively flat. And then the next time I was like, look, try to do any of your favor. If you want us to help you out, then you got to give us something. So I was like, give us a nominal increase. That does not go over well. So that's why you have teams who put the conversion rights, which is most teams. And now

with the dummy years, that's really a team mechanism to kind of quote unquote cheat the cap because you're going to have lower cap numbers while the guy is playing on on the contract. But then there is a cap charge when those years void. Like in JJ's year, he's got a $12 million signing bonus spread out over five years as opposed to two. So in 2023, because it's going to, I think, void like the last day of the 2022 league year, 2023, they're going to have a $7.2 million cap hit. So if you can stomach the dead money for getting the lower cap number now, then that's all

well and good. But we have seen this year with things going in reverse because people were probably thinking and maybe 210 is an estimate of what the cap's going to be, and we're going to be $25 to $30 million down. That's why the saints are in the trouble that they're in. But typically you can outrun those types of things if the cap goes up 5, 6, 7, 8% each year. So if you're looking at guys that are going to be cap casualties this year. Let's say Kyle Van Nuoy, for instance, if you were representing him.

Would your approach be similar to what it would be for normal free agents? Is there any sort of different considerations you'd have? a guy was cut versus just hitting free agency in terms of how you try to rebuild his value? Well, he played reasonably well. It's just surprising they're cutting him. In his case, he's already won rings in New England. So that's not necessarily, you didn't have to go a ring chasing. Two, does he want to try to be made whole? If that's the case, that's a whole different calculus, or is he comfortable playing for someplace where he's familiar? Like maybe if it's go back to New England and they got a ton of cap room, maybe you can be made whole.

So I wouldn't be surprised if he returned. I think he said he's open to it. Or you look around who has, who does he have some familiarity with if he has a good experience or relationship of Nick Casario? I don't think free agents want to go to Houston, given the quarterback situation. Since he knows Casario, he could be a different story or the Giants historically have not had linebackers for quite a while. He's good ones that Joe Judge is up there that was in New England.

So, because that's how he got to Miami to begin with. Brian Flores. That's how you saw a bunch of patriots who were in Detroit, Patricia and Bob Quinn. So that type of stuff just factoring the equation. But it's all going to depend on what he values most to determine where we go for a guy like him. So let's say it's two or three years somewhere else at a lower per year value versus a one-year pay that's a little bit higher. So your question to him would be, are you trying to get the most possible money over a two-year stretch?

or are you trying to rebuild your value as quick as possible and cash in next year? That's a question you would ask him. That's part of that initial conversation. Yeah, exactly. That's part. Yeah, because I know what I might do, but it may not be what he wants to do and you work for your client. Obviously, there's some things your client may want to do where you're like, that makes absolutely no sense at all. And then you push back really hard.

It's like, that's not something you should be doing. In most cases, the player is going to be deferential to the agent. You do have some guys who are micro-managed the process. Like when Peyton Manning was released, he kind of handcuffed Tom Condon, because I still think that he may have been able to parlay that, at least being the first $20 million per year quarterback, which didn't come until later that summer with Drew Brees. If you believe what the reports were of Tennessee, he could have gotten $25 million per year. But instead, what Peyton did was he picked a team and then negotiate as opposed to talking to everybody and leveraging all these. teams against each other to try to get the best deal you could have gotten in Denver. So it all depends on how your client and what his marching orders for you are.

Does the fact that a team might be a contender factor into the conversation all just in terms of visibility? Is that part of the equation or is actual opportunity is more important than the type of success you'd have as a team? It's going to depend on where the player is in his career. if he's a young guy who's coming off a rookie contract, you're not overly concerned about that. You're just trying. I've always jokingly said, if you had a team in Siberia, if you pay guys enough money, they play there. It's called Green Bay. That's pretty close.

But they haven't been a team which has been a big player in free agency up until recently at the Smith brothers. I'm sure Aaron Rogers are wanting to go out and get a wide receiver like maybe Will Fuller this year, but that remains to be seen or keep Aaron Jones. But yeah, if he got an older guy who's been on a perennial loser, he may start going, hey, I want to try to win. That's how the Tom Brady, Bill Belichick Patriots were able to get guys to come in to kind of ring chase because they've seen what the worst part of the NFL is. Maybe we want to experience a better part of it. But for the younger guys, they're really thinking money. If it's their first opportunity for a payday, they're not really thinking, yeah, well, can we win? that's something you start thinking about

as you get a little bit older, most likely. So it's funny because I've heard the same thing, the money really does drive a lot of this stuff. How much would you, how, what percentage of the time? See, that's why I'm going to stop for one saying. That's when a guy says that it wasn't about the money. It was about the money. Whenever, whenever he says that, I'm like, yeah, it was about the money.

What percentage of the time would you say that the highest offer is the one a player usually goes within free agency? If it's a second contract for a younger player. Oh, probably 80% or more. It could be a situation where you have the marching orders that, hey, I like it here. If it's close, I'll take a little less to stay put. But if we're talking apples and oranges, I'm out. Sometimes the guy coming off of his rookie contract takes a position.

You know what? You've had me for my entire Ricky contract. you had a whole year to get an extension done. If you couldn't figure it out by now, I'll give you a courtesy call to let you know where I'm signing so you don't read about it or see it on social media. So it's really two different. It depends on that particular mindset of a guy.

But I had free agents who had that last point where they're like, look, they've known me. We could have had this thing done. Bye. I'm out. I had a couple guys that didn't even want to tell the team. I was like, I got to do that. just I'm trying to preserve my relationship.

So I'll let them know before it becomes public. But guys, guys are funny. Guys are a little bit. You never know how sensitive they can be. But it's all a business. And sometimes teams get sensitive if they lose a guy. They think they really should have kept. And it's like, hey, that's on you.

You've had every opportunity to do it. This is what the client wanted. And even beyond that, if there were two teams, that were not the original team kind of vying for a guy in free agency. How often were things like location, quarterback, were those usually secondary factors to money for the most part? Yeah, well, if you're an offensive guy like a receiver, quarterback will play more of an important role than anything else.

Then if they're too close situations monetarily, you start looking at the other factors. And one which starts coming into play more so nowadays than it used to is state income tax. Like if you, let's say 49ers, tax rates 13.3%. You got several states that have no state income tax. Like you got the Tennessee Titans, no state income tax in Tennessee. There isn't one in Florida. It's one in Texas.

Isn't one in Washington. Now, the AFC South is pretty appealing because you go to places and you play because you get taxed on the road as well. Multiple teams in that division. Only Indianapolis has, Indiana, has. a state income tax. So that becomes a secondary consideration because one thing you're starting to see agents do is they'll do a net analysis. Okay. And offer a gross offering California needs to be this to equal. So we can be an equal place net wise in a state which has no state income tax.

Awesome. Joe Corey, thank you very, very much, man. It's always good to talk to you and get your insights about this stuff. I sincerely appreciate the time. Please go read Joel's work on CBS. you guys will not regret it. And I'm sure we'll catch up down the road, my friend. Sounds good. Thanks for having me. All right, guys. That's all we got today.

Thank you so much to Mike Sando for stopping by talking about quarterback movement. It was a fascinating conversation. Thank you to Joel Corey. It's always great to get his insights. He has such a unique perspective on how agents weighed into some of these scenarios. Always great to talk to him. We will be back tomorrow with Jason Fitzgerald from Over the Cap. I'm very excited to talk about a free agency in a little bit rosier of a light.

than we typically do. Until then, thank you guys so much for listening. Please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform choice. I'd sincerely appreciate that. And please subscribe to The Athletic. Theathletic.com slash football show. So much good free agent stuff on there right now. We'll be back tomorrow.

Until then, thanks for listening. Talk to you guys later. This was the Athletic Football Show.