The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - The best contracts in recent NFL history

Episode Date: December 28, 2024

A good contract can be a sneaky differentiator for an NFL team. A bad one can torpedo half a decade or so. On the final episode of The Money Down, The Athletic Football Show's miniseries focused on the business of the NFL, Robert Mays and Bill Barnwell from ESPN highlight the best and worst deals of the last 10 to 15 years.Host: Robert MaysWith: Bill BarnwellExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Chris FlannerySubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollw Bill on Bluesky: @billbarnwell.comFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Bill on X: @billbarnwellTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. This is the fourth and final episode of our Money Down mini series about the business of the NFL. And here to help me wrap this up, it's our good friend Bill Barnwell from ESPN. I want to have Barnwell on just because he does such a great job of contextualizing the history around this stuff. And he's done a lot of work in contracts and what sort of contracts work and don't work for NFL teams. That's what we're digging into today. We're looking at the best and worst deals from the last 10 or 15 years.

best and worse being a little bit loose in how we're defining that. This is mostly some really good contracts and some really bad contracts that we think we can learn some actionable lessons from. That's what we're trying to do here. What can we take from some of deals on either end of the spectrum as we figure out the way that teams should build and the types of contracts teams should seek out moving forward? That's what we dug into today with Barnwell.

Let's get to it. Joining us now, it's my good friend from ESPN. It's Bill Barnwell. How you doing, man? Mace, I got the business sport coat on just for you and just for this show. I'm wearing my Grantland hoodie, not because you're on. It's just a nice, nostalgic coincidence. It's mostly because I'm out of clean clothes and I was digging pretty deep into my closet.

I haven't worn this in a while. I walked into my wife's office and she's like, you look like 2017, Robert. I'm not sure if I like it. If anything screams successful business and the appropriate conversation for a podcast about business. Of course, it's Grantland. Yeah, just making gangbusters hand over fist over there. back in the day. Like you alluded to, this is the last series in our business series,

our set of business shows on the athletic, the money down. The first three shows we've done were pretty specific. You know, we did a show about the future of the NFL broadcasting, the future of NFL on TV with Andrew Marshand, chatted about the state of the cornerback market with Dominique Foxworth. I really enjoyed that show. If you guys have not listened to that one, highly encourage you go to check that out.

And we also did a show on quarterback contracts with Brad Spielberger. For this one, I want to take it a little bit wider and just talk about contracts. from the last decade or so that are on both ends of the spectrum. Good and bad, but not just pointing out the good and bad contracts we've seen over the last 10 to 15 years, but mostly the lessons we might learn from those contracts moving forward. How can you either avoid the pitfalls of the bad ones if you're these teams or potentially set yourself up to sign some of the good ones?

So are these going to be the five worst and five best contracts if you like actually do the math of the last 10 or 15 years. Maybe not. But I think they are some of the most instructive deals that we can look at. And that's kind of how we pick the pool that we're choosing from here. Yeah, obviously with NFL contract stuff, number one, no one, for like 10 people really know how contracts work. So a lot of it just kind of gets obfuscated.

So that part is important and difficult to discuss with NFL contracts. But there's also this element of rookie contracts and how they overwhelm that conversation, because the best value deals are almost always going to be rookie contracts. The Brock Purdy deal is a great example. Now, Brock Purdy is going to get paid $60 million next year, probably $65 million next year, because that's what the market will bear, because he's going to be a free agent because of the factors that go into supply and demand at quarterback. But we should have a more thoughtful conversation about that because, like, learning, okay, Brock Purdy's contract is good as a seventh round pick, great. what lesson does that teach other teams?

Draft your starting quarterback with the final pick of the draft? Really good lesson if you can pull it off, but it's not actually a meaningful way to build your roster. And so I think some of these contracts we're going to discuss here are more about what's sustainable, what's repeatable, what can you learn from the best and worst deals beyond just simply, hey, you know, land the right guy or don't sign a guy who gets hurt immediately after you sign it.

Yeah, injuries, things like that, we're probably not going to pay a ton of attention to that. There aren't going to be any rookie contract discussions here because you don't sign those deals. Those are 100% based on where guys were drafted. We are pulling from the new CBA essentially here. So about from 2011 on the last 10 or 15 years. So let's start with the bad side of things.

When you and I were building this list, when we're talking about the worst contracts of the last however long, you can't really start anywhere else than the Deshawn Watson contract. It was the first thing out of your mind. I obviously note this is a slightly different sort of conversation just because the circumstances that led to the Watson

contract were so unique. I mean, we've never really seen something like that before where a no trade clause allowed a player to dictate the contract terms in the ways that Watson did. But I still think there's something to be learned from this entire process overall. And I honestly would throw the Russell Wilson contract in here as something that's kind of adjacent to what happened with Deshaun Watson. So as you're looking at the Deshaun Watson and Russell Wilson failures and what team, those teams in the fallout they're now dealing with, what do you think were the main

the lessons that we should learn from those two moving forward. Yeah, I would throw in a lot of other contracts, frankly, May, some good, some bad, or some okay, I should say some bad. But I don't believe the Khalil Mack contract sank the, you know, Matt Nakey or Chicago Bears by any means, but that was a similar trade. You're giving up two first-round picks and you're paying a guy market value. And this is something I think people do not factor in when you consider contracts is what a trade like that, like the Sean Watson trade, like the Russell Wilson trade, like the Klamak trade, even a lesser trade. The Montez sweat trade is a good example. I'll get to in a minute. But how those trades impact how you negotiate deals. So you start by saying, okay, once you trade for that guy and you give up significant draft capital to get him, you are basically pricing in a market resetting deal if you trade a certain amount. So we even saw this with Brian Burns, right? When the Panthers turned down to first round picks for Brian Burns, Brian Burns went to the Panthers and said, hey, listen, like, that's what you pay for top of the market guys.

You have to pay me like a top of the market guy now. And the Panthers did not want to do that, which led to him being kind of stuck and his production fading and him eventually being traded for much less than two first round picks because they weren't willing to sign him to that level of an extension with Deshaun Watson, obviously because there was such a bidding war, because it was essentially a free agent negotiation with three first round picks involved in the process, Michelle Watson got to dictate what he wanted. You got to dictate, hey, I have five teams who want to trade for me. You have to get to this level to get this deal done.

And remember, the Browns were a team that were out of the running for Deshaun Watson. They had to come over the top to get back into the negotiations. And what they did was offer a fully guaranteed five-year deal at $230 million. So first lesson here, I think, is everyone who is in that position from a player side gains a significant amount of leverage. You think about a deal like Laramie Thomas. Not a bad deal, but three years, I think $66 million or in that range. But he got to sign a three-year deal that was basically fully guaranteed and hit the market again at 27 or 28, which led to another significant deal for Laramie Tunsell.

So you're priced into that. That's the first lesson. The other lesson is that you have to consider the value of those picks in terms of what you're paying a guy, because you're not signing them as a free agent. you're not just paying them what they're earning in their contract. You're paying them the cost of the picks you had to acquire that guy as well. So for DeShone Watson, obviously, what's already a bad deal becomes a nightmare. But let's think about maybe a more, a deal that I wouldn't say is bad, but just maybe a little more,

a little more difficult to make the math work on when you consider it. I mentioned Montez Sweat. So the Bears traded the 40th overall pick for Montes Sweat last year. Montes Sweat is a good player. He's had a rough year. There's been some injuries. but I don't think anyone says you don't want Montes-Swed on your football team, but you trade for Montes-Swett, and you've now guaranteed him $24 million a year.

You're not guaranteed, but you're paying him $24 million a year. That's not a crazy amount. It's a little more than you might expect, but, you know, it's more than Jonathan Greener got in free agency, for example. Montes-Swed, I think probably a little worse of a player, but in the same ballpark, we'll say. Different stylistically. I mean, the sweat's probably a better run defender, but Grant and Art is like a high-end pass-rrusher at this point, on a rate basis. But you got the idea. You're talking about a player who's in the prime of his career, not necessarily a, you know, a guy you think of as a perennial pro bowler.

If he has a great season and Greener has this year, you think he's going to be in that mix. But we're not talking about a Miles Garrett or Nick Bosa or, you know, a peak, you know, defensive player that year candidate at their best. But you're also giving up a draft pick. The Bears traded the 40th pick to Washington to get that deal done. And we look at Ben Baldwin's draft chart. The 40th pick is worth about $7 million a year in surplus value. So you're basically given the chances of hitting them on a player, this is a non-quarterback chart.

So it would be even higher if we consider quarterbacks. But basically, that pick is worth $7 million a year versus what it's being paid. So I think, I don't know the exact amount, but I think it's like maybe, let's just for the sake of example, it's, you pay $2 million a year, that pick is actually worth $9 million a year. So by giving up that pick, by incurring the opportunity cost of not holding on to that pick and getting a young player, and by the way, Cooper Degin was the player who got picked with that selection. Great. now you're giving up $7 million a year as well that's going to Montes Sweat. So now you're paying Montes Sweat, really $31 million a year. And at that point, now he is the second highest paid pass rusher in all of football. He's only getting paid less than Nick Bosa. And I think even most

Fares fans would say Montes Sweat is not that caliber of player. So it doesn't make that a bad trade. And the Watson trade, of course, now we're talking about $60, $65 million a year for one of the worst players in league, which is a nightmare. But you have to consider that math and how much you're giving up in terms of opportunity cost. How much you're paying to acquire that guy when you factor in the cost of these contracts. And that makes a lot of these deals where you're giving up two first-round picks. Not impossible. It doesn't mean you can't make it work.

Jalen Rams, you trade worked out fine for the Rams. But it is a lot harder to make that math work. The Jamal Adams trade comes to mind. So they trade two first-round picks from Jamal Adams. It's a $70 million contract. The sweat thing is mildly frustrated to talk about because in the moment, this is kind of, these were my, this is my apprehension about it. you're going to struggle with that extension and giving up that pick to get value from that deal.

There's a good chance you landed a good player. And there's value in that. There's value in having good players on your roster. But you and I have talked about this a ton over the last 10 years. When you sign a deal and it is impossible when you make it to win the deal, that's tough. And when you start making those over and over and over again, you put yourself in a really difficult position as a team builder. It's not important to win every deal.

At a certain point, you just need good players on the roster. I think the Lions, even though they've gotten a little bit lucky in how some of this is gone, they're a good example of this. They haven't tried to win every single positional value, surplus value conversation we've had over the last three or four years. They've found a lot of good players who fit what they want to do. If you feel good about this is a veteran player, even if we have to pay a little bit of a tax at a premium position that's hard to find,

I'm willing to do it. But you have to do that. knowing going in that it is going to be really, really hard for you to extract value from the choices that you just made. If you're okay with that and you're only doing it here and there and you're kind of cheating a little bit every so often, that can work for you. But if you're making too many of those moves, that's how you put yourself in a pretty tough spot. Yeah, I mean, this is going to the restaurant and buying like the most expensive thing on the menu. Yes, you may have a really good meal and you may really enjoy yourself. but chances are that was probably not the best use of your resources if you only have a certain amount of money to work with.

I mean, listen, you can go to a steakhouse and get a great steak. You can also go to Costco and buy the same steak for a reasonable price. It doesn't mean that you should not go to that steakhouse and get that steak. It is worth it sometimes for the experience, for the food, for the decor, for the ambiance. But you can't do that every single day. You have to be thoughtful about how you spend your resources. And I think what makes that so frustrating for the Bears is that they ran into this exact same problem. in the prior year with Chase Claypool,

had it go disastrously, missed out, by the way, on Joey Porter Jr., another young franchise cornerback, and then decided, you know what, let's run that back again. And I think so I'd say better player than Claypool. I think it's worked out better than Claypool did, of course.

But again, this is something you just have to consider when you're making these trades because it is not just how much the contract's for, but also what the contract costs to get there. My biggest issue with Ryan Paul is outside of the coaching decisions, in terms of a team builder. Yeah.

My biggest issue with the job that he's done so far is that there are moments where you can tell he has an idea in his mind. And when he gets one, it's impossible for him to let it go. It's like, I need this. Like I have now seen this and I need it. You saw it even with being willing to trade up for Roma Dunezai. Ryan Bates is another one. It's like he gets these little kernels of ideas and he refuses to the walkaway prices are not there for him. And I think that has become somewhat of an issue as we look at the moves in totality over the last few years.

The last thing I'll say about the Russell Wilson deal, I feel like the Rams are going to be, they're going to loom large in this discussion on both ends of the spectrum. Yes. The Russell Wilson contract for me, it's not a direct response, but I definitely think it is a downstream decision from what happened with Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford. And the key difference with Tom Brady and even the Matthew Stafford deal that worked out, Tom Brady was a free agent like you alluded to. Signing Tom Brady to be the final piece to the puzzle as a veteran quarterback is a lot

easier to justify if you're the bucks because you're not giving up any draft capital to go get him. Matthew Stafford works out beautifully for the Rams, but I think that we're going to look back at that 2021 Rams team and we're going to realize how many bad decisions they inspired because of the needle they threaded in the back half of that season. We'll get to another war here in a second. So the Broncos look at the Tom Brady thing, the Matthew Stafford thing, and say, well, listen, why can't we do that with Russell Wilson? And I remember being at Broncos training camp, I've told the story before, but it's worth saying again. I remember being at Broncos training camp the year that they traded for Russell Wilson and signed that extension. And I was talking to a member of their front

office on the sideline at camp. And I was like, did you have any sort of apprehension about signing him to that deal based on kind of the overall trajectory of how it was going in Seattle? Like the idea that he might be at the start of a decline. And they were just like, no, not really. And I think back on that now, it's like, maybe they should have. So I think that's something that's also worth reviving. visiting is that trying to look at other deals that may have some of the same parameters and broad details as some of these contracts, you can learn some bad lessons if you're trying to paint with too broad a brush. And I think the Russell Wilson contract is actually an example of that coming on the heels of what happened with Stafford. Not just the Russell Wilson deal

that year, but wasn't that the same season the Raiders traded for Devante Adams? Wasn't that the AFC West Arms race? Or it's okay. Well, Patrick Mahomes is Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, Justin Herbert. That those theories were in the postseason, if I'm not mistaken, or maybe they were getting towards the postseason. I forget exactly where they were. I think it was. 20201 or 22, yeah.

Broncos, we got to get our guy. We got to get Russell Wilson. And then we're just like, oh, well, crap, everyone else is getting a guy. We have to get a guy too. And they got Devante Adams. And that is a really difficult thing, I think, to avoid if you're in the building on a day-to-day basis. I think if you are an NFL executive and you're just a lot of the day-to-day basis, I think if you are an NFL

executive and you're just sitting there like, man, our rivals are getting better, man. How do we, how do we compete with this? We don't have Patrick Prohoms. How on earth do we compete with Patrick Prohams? I'm not saying those moves were good. I think the Russell was, I think, when I liked at the time and obviously it did not work out. I was much more skeptical of the Devante Adams move, and I don't think that worked out for the reasons that we've seen in terms of where the Raiders were versus where they thought

they were. But I do think it is difficult to not look at what the Rams did as an NFL executive and say, okay, maybe that's a path for us. I think it is so difficult to make a big jump or make a big swing that I think you sort of have to copy because you're limited in some ways by what you can do in the course of one off season. Yeah, and I think that we always want to make these decisions in a vacuum and we want to separate ourselves from the consequences and the circumstances. And that's not possible. You know, these guys are making decisions to save jobs for job security. If you feel like there's a certain level of urgency going into a season, that's how.

some of these mistakes get made, but we're allowed to sit back here in these chairs and talk about it from a little bit of a difference, a distance. So that's what we're going to do. Talking about the bad deals that we can learn from, let's stick with the quarterbacks. You wanted to throw this one on here. And this was on my short list. So I was glad that you mentioned it. The Nick Foles, four for 88 million deal that the Jaguar signed back in 2018, walk me through why you think that the Nick Foll's contract is one of the worst ones of the decade and something that we could potentially learned from. Okay. So the Jags had Gardner Minshu the year before. They were moving on from Blake Bortles, who they had signed to a brief extension and then cut almost immediately afterwards.

And their idea was, we saw Nick Foles win a Super Bowl. We saw Nick Foles play well in the postseason the following year. What they neglected was that Nick Foles had not played well outside of Andy Reed's fear and Andy Reid has made literally, to my knowledge, every single quarterback who has had significant time, look better with him than look better with anybody else. And I guess you can count Doug Peterson as part of the Andy Reed tree. But, you know, you're then looking at a deal where it's a lot of money for a guy who had not been a starter for several years who had struggled as a starter. He was almost out of the league. Yes. Who's always out of the league. Who I mean, okay. Let me clarify what I'm saying with. Nick Fultz. I feel like I was made it too simplistic. Yes, he had that one season with Chip Kelly. That was a season where they were running a very gimmicky offense at the league caught up to very quickly. He did a lot of success in the Andy Reed tree, but he had struggled as a starter with the Rams. He'd struggled elsewhere. He was a guy where if you want to sign him, okay, I could see that. But what came out afterwards about that deal, do you remember what the reporting

was after Nick Foll signed with the Jaguars? I remember some of it. I remember there was some very silly reasons they went to the lengths that they did. The argument was that they had to pay him that much because he would not otherwise be respected in the locker room, which that's a lesson we can learn here. That is a bad reason to sign somebody. If someone's skills do not dictate that they will be respected in the locker room, that is a big mistake.

And yet, May's, I almost think the next deal Nick Folles signed is worse than that one. Because after three or four games, the Jaguar's benched Nick Folls for Gardner-Minshoe, he did not play again, still had $15 million guaranteed the following year. That is an underwater contract. And yet the Bears, and Ryan Poles' predecessor, Ryan Pace, not only traded a mid-round pick for Nick Foles, but gave him a new contract, a three-year deal with $17 million guaranteed. They had to make sure that everyone in the locker room respected him.

Because he knew Matt Nagy's scheme, which was apparently so hard to come by that they had to pay him. that, to me, is a worse deal because you have a contract that is underwater. There should not be a significant market for Nick Foles. He's already guaranteed a significant amount of money. That should be an opportunity for you to extract value. Get a draft pick to pick up that deal. That's what would happen in the NBA. That's what would happen in baseball.

And yet, that did not happen here. The bears were happy to pick up this deal because, and this is one of the lessons we're getting to, the rules for quarterback seem to be different than the rules for any other position in football. And as I think about the Kirk Cousin situation, like that deal should be an absolute underwater fiasco right now. I would not be shocked if the Falcons were still able to trade Kirk Cousins. It eat some money, but not eat even maybe half of the money that he's owed next year just because quarterback. I believe it's $25, $30 million in dead money if they trade him before June 1. And I think the trading team has to pick up like $30 million in base salary.

The $30 million in base salary, you can play with that if you want to. You can convert some of that. You can put some of that in the future years. It's literally just the cash. And I assume people would be willing to do that. There will be a team that, oh, you can talk yourself into it, come a year off of the Achilles, what's a better option for us? There are absolutely teams this spring.

They're going to be looking at their quarterback situation, looking at the landscape, and land at a place where they say, Derek Carr is better than what else we would be able to do. Kirk Cousins is better than anything else we would be able to do. If the Saints or Falcons want to trade those guys this spring, I would be shocked if there was not a market for them. Yeah. And that's different for quarterbacks than it is for anybody else. I mean, good players at other positions on the wrong side of 30 are not getting deals in free agency.

Quarterbacks in their late 30s who are playing poorly, whose contracts are a mess, are going to have a trademark at this off soon. I think that we've gotten a little bit better with the quarterback deals still. I think we're slowly learning because a few different things. the fact that we now seem to have some tiers developing and how we pay these guys, I think ultimately is going to be good for the sport and for the league. What happens with Donald will be fascinating to me?

Because if he's going to get $50 million from some team, that to me is a bridge too far. But if he's going to get a deal that's somewhat similar to what Baker and Gino have gotten, and we're really establishing that middle class of quarterback contracts, that is an interesting place to land. I think that's a good thing. And I think some of the darn, going back to the deal Donald signed this year, I feel like we're going to get to a place where that's the aisle that teams are comfortable shopping in.

The contracts that like Jimmy Garapolo signed or even the one that Gardner Minchu signed this off season, it feels like those are going away. It feels like teams are not going to be willing to go to those places just for some semblance of quarterback certainty that isn't really quarterback certainty. Like those deals are never good. The Mike Lennon contract to me is a good example of that. Like that, those types of contracts have never worked out for the teams that sign them. If you're not going to pay for a guy who's in the Gino Baker tier or more, pay $10 million or less for one year. Like, there's absolutely no reason to commit any further than that.

And it seems like every team but the Raiders right now is slowly learning that lesson. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm being too gracious to the rest of the league. I mean, Kirk Cousins is going to get $85 million for one year with the Falcons. That one's different, though. at least Kurt Cousins had played at like a top eight level at times over the last couple years. I don't think you can make that argument about Jimmy Garapolo or Gardner Mitch you over the last five years. No, of course not.

That's true. I'm just teasing. But what you're saying it sounds like is backup quarterbacks are going to get paid more to be backups, but less if they're put into starting roles. Like that that like tier of like quarterback 28 to quarterback 36 will make less as a starter and more as a backup, which makes sense. And that's honestly a, probably a smart way to approach that position. I think the Donald market is going to be fascinating this year because I was talking Greg Rosenthal about this. He thinks there's like a 90% chance Donald stays with the Vikings.

And really talk me into it. Kind of talk me into it. At the very least, I would be surprised if he didn't franchise him. And if you franchise him, you're setting the bar for his compensation at like $42 million a year. We talked about this a couple weeks ago. I can see it two ways. If you're concerned about what J.J. McCarthy coming off of injury will look like, and you think that you are a ready-made contender is currently constructed, I understand how it's hard to walk away from something you know. You know what the team looks like with Sam Darnold. There's a level of certainty there that I think is appealing. At the same time, like, is anything about the way that Quasi has worked over the last three or four years, would that lead you to believe they were willing to veer off the course that they have chosen in the way that they want to build this team? That's hard for me. me to get my head around. But that's the thing. Again, quarterbacks are different. If you have a quarterback you think is really good, I think your path changes. I think your process changes with the giant. But do you think they think he's really good? Or do you think they believe that their infrastructure is really good? And that's why they're willing to do what they did with Kirk. They might think both.

And again, speaking to the moral hazard here, if they're wrong, if Sam Darnold is actually good and J.J. McCarthy is not, they're going to fire. And that is a very scary thing to change. change your behavior. I mean, I think Kevin O'Connell, Quisha dofameta, are smart people. I think they can see the small picture and the big picture, and I think you need that in this situation. But to your point, again, with Sam Darnold, if he goes to them and says, hey, listen, I want to stay here. Like, I can make more money elsewhere, but I believe in the situation. I know it's the best thing for me. And I'm willing to take the Gino Smith contract, which is much less than when I think San Bernard would get on the open market where he a free agent and less than the franchise tag.

I think the Vikings kind of have to consider that. And that might put them in the same situation they were in with Kurt Cousins a couple years ago. I think there was a reason to avoid that. But if you think Sam Donald can be a top 12 quarterback and he's not that far off from that right now to me, I think you kind of have to at least be serious about considering that possibility.

I don't disagree with that. The one thing I feel like is important to acknowledge, it's not just about whether Sam Donald is going to be better than J.J. McCarthy for your offense. It's whether Sam Donald is, going to be better than J.J. McCarthy and the two starters that you could add with the money that you're going to pay to Sam Darnold. If you feel like that is the case, okay, roll with it. But if you don't, then I think that it becomes a little bit more complicated

of a situation. All right, before we move on with some of the other bad deals that we want to talk about, let's take a quick break. Let me get to my first one here. This one was obvious to me. You could pick any big cornerback contract over the last 10 years. Like, there's so many examples that you could choose from. So I guess the lesson here is, beware the big cornerback contract in free agency. Let's just pick J.C. Jackson to the Chargers. And I know there was some personality things going on with that,

and it wasn't just a football mistake that the Chargers made when they gave J.C. Jackson a five-year, $82.5 million deal with $40 million guaranteed. But Corner, I think for a lot of reasons, is the position where we've seen the most pitfalls in free agency. I think that's for a couple different reasons. One, situationally, cornerback play changes depending on what sort of system that you're in. So two other good examples of this to me.

Byron Maxwell going from the Legion of Boom to the Eagles and what happened with that. Namdi Asimwa, going from what he was on the Raiders, where he was the best man coverage corner in the league, to a very different system in Philadelphia. Josh Norman, going from that system he played with in Carolina to Washington to being very, very different. William Jackson going from what he had to do with the Bengals to what they were asking him to do in Washington. Trey Waynes is another good example of this. I know he was banged up, but there are so many examples of this that like if you feel, here's the rule that I would establish. The one big time cornerback contractor, the two that I think you could argue worked out in recent years, were Stefan Gilmore going to New England and when DeRal Rivas signed that short term contract in New England.

So if you are the Patriots and you are signing one of these guys, that is acceptable. If you are any of the other teams that are not Bill Belichick and you are signing one of these guys, I think that you should think twice before you sign that massive quarterback contract. You name six guys and did not even name the person who came to mind for me, which was Tramane Johnson going to the jet. That's right. That's right. He went from.

The man tagged twice. Yes. Excellent with the Rams. Out of football after two seasons with the Jets. I don't think there were even significant injuries there, if I'm not mistaken. Your point about the difference in styles and difference in roles is really thoughtful, and I think really important. And what makes the JC Jackson one so difficult is that I think from the Chargers perspective, they saw him as being someone who transcended that, as being a guy who could play man-to-man coverage across the field, play in the slot. I think they saw him as, oh, no, this is the exception to that rule.

And exceptions to the rule are dangerous games to play. Sometimes you do land that exception. And we'll talk about one on the good contract side, I think, later on. But it has been such a difficult position to nail. And I think it is so, I think it really speaks to, number one, how dependent, you know, cornerbacks are on scheme and how few transcendent cornerbacks there are and how few of those transcending cornerbacks actually hit the open market. I think you'll get the Jalen Ramsey deal, a deal that worked.

out for the Rams. That is kind of the counterpoint of, you know, that was not a free agent signing. That was a you have to pay extra to get that guy. And that, because he is one of the top three or four cornerbacks in football over the last decade. What is interesting to me when you were bringing up those guys is I thought about how many of the second tier cornerbacker, third tier cornerbacks contracts actually worked out. And think about someone like DJ Reed going to the Jets where he had a very limited track record, you know, obviously great defense around him, but played really well after getting there. Chedobie Ousier, going. from the Cowboys to the Bengals.

He was before the ACL tear really good. Even Mike Hilton, you could throw in there. Mike Hilton is a great example. Yeah. I mean, and you don't have to. There's two things there. Number one, you're not expecting as much and you're not paying as much. And so the threshold for success is very different.

Now, a lot of those guys you mentioned failed miserably. And so that is a different conversation. But, you know, I do think there's so much more when it comes to the scheme that goes into play there than people are suggesting, and when we saw that play out with, it's so many. many of those bad deals, not panning out in new places. And J.C. Jackson, I mean, probably the worst of the bunch, I would say. That's a tough, tough competition. I mean, there are a lot of of these guys who were out of the league, essentially. He got benched before he tore his Patella with the Chargers. That's how bad things got for him even before his serious career altering

injury. The other part with Corners is, and we alluded to this in the corner show that we did with Dominique. It's just a volatile position. The Volatile. of the position makes it really hard to invest at this level. And I think the point that you had about DJ Reed and those guys is a very good point. And I do think that since you and I started doing this, I remember vividly, I remember where we recorded the show. We were doing like a free agency reaction. I was in my ex-girlfriend's apartment in Milwaukee.

And we were talking about that Jags free agent class with like Jeremy Parnell and all those guys. And you look back on that era of free agency. And two contracts, one contract really sticks out to me. the Juan James contract. And I know that that didn't work out for the Broncos because he got hurt. But that idea of taking a second or even third tier player and making that guy the highest paid player in the league at his position in free agency solely because he was hitting the market,

we see less of that now. That doesn't happen nearly as often. But who's the Broncos right tackle right now, Maze? But he's not the highest paid right tackle in the league. he was like one of the three or four highest-payer tackles when he got that deal no like michael glitch those happen less often for me i think that we've learned those lessons a little bit like the andrew norwell contract that contract isn't happening as often these days where you have a guy that you know outplayed obviously he was undrafted he like he definitely outplayed that but then

he becomes the highest paid guard in the NFL when he hits free agency i feel like we've been able to exhibit a tiny bit more self-control and there's a lesson that's been learned where you want to shop in that second or third tier. You want to pay a corner that's the 18th to 20 second highest paid corner in the league, not the third to fifth highest paid corner in the league. Those deals feel like they're a little bit happening a little bit more consistently right now. And I think it's an indication of some of the lessons we've already learned about this. Well, again, I'm thinking about the Raiders this offseason signing Christian Wilkins to a massive deal.

The Panthers. The Raiders are not a part of this conversation. I think they're a part of the worst side of the conversation in a lot of ways. I mean, Mike, I think teams are smarter, and I think they're less inclined to make those huge free agent splashes, but we still see desperate teams make desperate choices here, right? Yes. Yes. The Christian Wilkins example is a very good example.

Christian Wilkins is a good player, but you're making him the highest paid player, one of the highest paid players in the league at his position. You're paying a premium there in free agency that's often not worth paying. But even more Carolina with Robert Hunt and Damien Lewis, where I think if you gave truth serum to the Panthers executives, they would not say Robert Hunt is one of the three best guards in football. He's not the best guard in football. But they were so desperate to prop up their quarterback that they basically ignored what they know to pay an absolute premium to get those guys in the building. And I think to me, we still see desperation play out, but we see a play out not just with free agency, but more with trades as well. And I think that was something that was not the case a decade ago. That is the case. case now. Stick with desperation here and get to my next one. I don't think this is one of the worst contracts that's been handed out recently, but I do think it's,

it points to an important lesson that I think teams should keep in mind as they're thinking about how to build. The Von Miller deal to the bills. And again, this is, the Rams, again, coming up here kind of tangentially over and over again this conversation, Von Miller was awesome with the Rams during that Super Bowl stretch. Sure was. And the bills are sitting there after falling short.

I believe that was after the 13 seconds. Yeah. Right? So you and again, I think Brandon Bean is a very measured person who has done a very good job as the general manager of the Buffalo Bills. Yes. This is a reminder that no one is immune to this sort of thinking when the opportunity presents itself. Yes. Not just that people script make bad decisions, but this was a decision that went so at odds with everything about how Brandon Bean had built that football team of the prior few seasons.

When they were using free agency, which they had done, and you and I have talked about this, and we'll talk about it again a little bit later here, they did a better job of using free agency to build that team than any rebuilding team I've ever seen. But when they were using free agency to do that, it was all mid-tier signings that they were using to kind of create the connective tissue of the roster in certain position groups. They get into that off-season and they say, we're so close. We're so close. We need one thing to put us over the top.

And no matter how close you think you are, no matter how complete you think your roster is, you are never one player away. You are never one move away from pushing yourself over the top. It's just not how football works. And the fact that Brandon Bean, who again, I remember talking to him early in his tenure and be like, yeah, we just think that free agency is a mechanism to fill holes with starters. So if I can use $20 million to pay four starters, that's how I see free agency. So the man that explicitly would be willing to say that, going out and doing this with Von Miller and giving him guarantees into the third year in order to make this happen, it's just a reminder that anyone is liable to this sort of decision making when the moment strikes. And when that comes, just pull back just a little bit, just that little extra bit of self-restraint is probably going to benefit you. Seeing Gabe Davis catch four touchdown passes in a game and lose, that may make a lot of us make irrational choices.

I think the Jaguars might have made that irrational choice three years later to sign Gabe Davis after that four touchdown game. I mean, there's two factors here in play that I think we have to talk about with this conversation. Number one, could you not make the argument that the Rams felt like they were one player away when they traded a second and third round pick to get Von Miller in the first place. I said that earlier, though. They threaded this needle that was so thin that any lesson you think you can learn from that is probably not an actual lesson. I mean, I don't know if that's the lesson necessarily that they learned, but I think there was a element of, it wasn't just a one-year deal, right? It wasn't just like a rental the way the Vine Miller deal was for the Rams. This was a, we have to go over the top to get this deal done.

We gave him basically three guaranteed seasons to do this. And I know Vine Miller tore his ACL had, you know, two thirds of the way through his first season. He had eight sacks. He had 12 knockdowns for 11 games. Not, you know, good number of sack totals, not, it wasn't like he was playing at the same level. And this sort of goes back to your cornerback conversation. Like, edge rushers are more plug and play than cornerbacks are, no question. But playing next to Aaron Donald's, who got Leonard Floyd paid, got Dante Fowler paid,

that is going to make you look a lot better. And the Von Miller we saw in Denver was good, but I don't think Brandon Bean gives Von Miller from the Broncos that deal if Von Miller does not go on a deep playoff run. And that is just a, that is being a human element. And that is something that grew reality. I don't blame the bills. I understand why they did it. but it just did not work out.

Let's stick with the Rams here for your next one. You had another RAMs-centric contract you wanted to point out that you think fits this conversation. Todd Gurley. Okay. So this is to me a very difficult problem to have your building a roster. Todd Gurley is. I've got some tough, tougher seats out there on the Todd Gurley contract. There are some skeletons in my internet closet with the Todd Gurley contract.

There's some early, very, very good Minichai mistakes about Todd Gurley and the early contract that her in her Hall of Fame case early in her career. Todd Gurley, I think people forget at this point, which is scary because it was only a few years ago, like how freakishly good Todd Gurley was at his peak and how how dominant he was, how widely regarded he was as a transcendent running back, not just a running back, but a transcendent running back receiver. He was the exception to so many rules. But the tough part is not just the medicals, because we can.

couldn't have seen that Todd Gurley was going to be done after two years. But the question of what sort of runway do you have to work with? What is your contract situation like? And how are you factoring that into your negotiations? So many times when teams are signing players after three seasons because they're former first round picks, they're signing them because they have two years of cost control runway left. You're getting a better deal from that because those players are two years further away from free agency. Look at someone like T. Higgins, for example. T. Eichens is going to get a better deal now than he would have a couple years ago, not only because the cap has gone up, but because he is closer to being a true unrestricted free agent. Same thing that

Atlanta Deck Prescott getting massive contracts from the Cowboys when they were not willing to give out those deals the prior seasons. So Todd Gurley was signed for two years when the Rams gave him an extension. He had $2.3 million guaranteed the following year. And then this was back when the fifth year option was not guaranteed, about $9 million for a fifth year option that the Rams could have picked up if they wanted. They picked it up, but they still could have cut him if he did not for some reason live up to the expectations. They instead gave him $34.5 million over those two years. And that is just, you cannot make that math work. You cannot make the math work of, we have this guy signed to a bargain deal and we're going to pay him an exorbitant amount

over that. I mean, the top of the running back market at that point, I believe for over three years is about $26 million. And they gave Todd Gurley $40 million. I am all four paying players. We're going to get to a very good running back contract. I think I want to talk about on the good set of things that's there for different reasons. The Rams didn't have to trade for Todd Gurley, but you saw this with a lot of their, the guys they signed there for three years. They signed Tevon Austin to an extension after three years. I say now Oakle Tree to an extension after three years. That can be a good thing for you at the right times, but you have to get some kind of benefit in return. If you have a guy signed for a bargain deal for two years, you have to extract some concession. You have to

get a better deal on the back end. You have to get a team-friendly guarantee structure. And that came back to bite the Rams when probably one of the worst case scenarios played out for Gurley from that point forward. By the time the extension was even going to begin, they cut him to avoid having guarantees trigger into the future. And that is, again, you can't see that coming. But as a GM, as a roster builder, as someone who's constructing a contract, you have to prepare for that possibility and have to consider that and make that part of your negotiations to get a more team-friendly deal in that process. I think signing guys early can be a good thing for you. But the entire point of signing a guy early is you hope in a year or two years that looks like a bargain compared to the rest of the market.

If you're blowing out the top of the market as part of that process, then you're taking that off the table. And that's what was happening with the Todd Gurley deal. Yes. In the moment, I supported it. And that's those are the skeletons I have in my closet because I'm not looking at. I don't want to trash the player. I want to trash the context that led to you.

the situation. This is more so just that when they signed it, I was definitely, I was drinking the Kool-Aid of he's different. He's different. It's worth rewriting the running back market because of what sort of player he is. And I think that's a lesson in it of itself. As tempting as it might be to say that stuff, because in the moment that guy looks like it, the history exists for a reason and the market is settled where it has for a reason, paying exceptions and treating them like exceptions. Every once in a while, you're going to be right. And sometimes it's worth treating players that way. But I think more often than not, when you're making exceptions for how you're paying certain positions and going outside of the way that the market has trended, it's a dangerous place

to live. And I think that the Todd of a early contract is a good example of that. Not only that, but there was also that conversation that pops up with these teams, especially at that point where they hadn't paid a lot of their players of, okay, we have to reward the locker room. We have to show the locker room, hey, we believe in a guy. And that's great. And there was something to that. But did the locker room feel great when Todd Gurley got cut two years later? Did the locker room feel good when they didn't sign Aaron Donald until he was done with his fourth season? Like, they moved on from Jared Gough and basically abandoned him a couple years after he signed his extension. So like that feeling of we have to tell the locker room we're going to reward you. I understand that.

And you have to find a balance between those things. But like the locker room is going to react if they personally get paid and if you're winning. I don't think anybody signed with the Rams or the Rams got better because they paid Todd Gurley. And I think if you want to make a case that he's a transcendent player when you sign him, I'm willing to see that case. But again, because you have the financial runway, because you have that cost control, you have to account for that and get a better deal than what the Rams did. And that is what I think the issue is not the player, not believing in the guy, not wanting to sign him. Those are all fine. but they signed a bad deal based off of the leverage they had to work with. They basically threw out that leverage and gave Todd Grovey exactly what he wanted,

and that came back to Biden. Do you want to do Alan Robinson or do you want to get to the good ones? I want to get to a good one that is a running back contract for different reasons. All right, let's get to the good contracts that we want to talk about. These are the best contracts from the last 10 or so years that we think we can learn a lesson from. What's the running back one you want to talk about? You didn't put this in the notes. No, this is a secret one I brought up that I wanted to surprise you with.

I like it. All right. Let's do it. It's Saquan Barkley. Yeah, that one works. Sequin Berkeley. And here is why. Obviously, this has been a 99th percentile Seekoine Berkeley season.

And I don't believe even the Eagles could have anticipated it would work out this well. But when we talked about free agency earlier, we were talking about paying those guys who are, you know, paying like you're a top three guy, a top five guy at your position because those guys never hit the market. You never see a guy who's in his mid-20s in his prime. playing well hit free agency. That was not the case with Seacquon Barclay. Seacquon Barkley is, you know, again, we're talking about it with the hindsight of seeing what he did this year, but on talent, based on what we saw over the prior two seasons, would you say Seacquant Barclay was one of the three most talented running backs in football

heading into free agency? Potentially, yeah. I mean, I just think that some of the injuries and running back is so... But even just from an efficiency standpoint, I think that we're going to... There's going to be a lot of revisionist history for what the... those giant seasons looks like. And I think that here's the difficulty. Trying to pull apart a running back's production from the situation is so difficult that I

think for somebody like me, I'm fully willing to admit this, watching Sequin Barclay behind that offensive line, I think it was hard to ascertain just how good Seyquan Berkeley could be if you put him in the right circumstances. That's why I'm not Howie Roseman. Yes, yes. I think at the very least you could say, we think he will be better going from Daniel Jones and that offensive line to Jalen Hertz and this offensive line. Think they were right about that.

They think it turns out they were pretty accurate. They're going to have two old pros from their free agent class, which is a pretty good free agency to work with. And like two guys they're going to finish in the top five in defensive rookie of the year voting. Turns out how he rose been pretty good at this stuff. Don't fire him every couple of years, Eagles fans. The other part of this, though, May is that, again, guy in here.

his mid-20s, certainly, if you want to say top three, top five, tough eight, I'm fine, but certainly upper echelon talent. But the price you are paying relative to the market, if you think he is a transcendent player, was a bargain. With Todd Gurley, he was getting paid in exorbitant sum of money. One of the bad contracts I brought up was Charles Clay, who the bill signed as a restricted free agent from the Dolphins. And they gave him basically what Mike Wallace got paid the first two years of his deal, that

same offseason as a free agent. Charles Clay is not that caliber of player. It was not that caliber of player. Even Mike Wallace was disappointing. Not turned out to be that caliber of player when he got to the Buffalo Bills. But you were paying Sequan Barkley less than Gabe Davis paid.

You were paying him about the same as Gabe Davis. You're paying him less than Christian Kirk was making as a free agent. You were paying him less than Odell Beckham got from the Ravens the prior year. Like you had the ability because the market had not adjusted because the market had so significantly corrected to the point where,

nobody wanted to pay these guys, you had the opportunity to pay Saquan Barclay, a top five talent in the prime of his career at his position, which does not happen very often in free agency, probably like mid-tier wide receiver two money. And that, that combination, that confluence of events, is a positive thing. So I think the logic that led to the Saquan-Barkley deal, even though it's worked out better than I think anybody could have expected, I think that logic in taking advantage of that opportunity makes that an excellent deal. I totally agree with that. And the conversations we were having about the Eagles heading into this year and when they made that move, I thought it was pretty simple. And talking to people there, I think there were some structural things in mind where they thought our ecosystem is so good for a running back. And the guys that we had last year were not getting all of the meat that was on the bone. If you're trying to separate running back production from situation where it's yards after contact, etc., they were down near the bottom of the league. And so I think that Howie Roseman, as he was envisioning this, was thinking, if I get Sequin out on the edge and I get him room to work, what he's going to be able to do compared to with DeAndre Swift is an entirely different zip code. And he was right about that.

But even outside of the environmental and like football-based things, if you're looking at it from like a purely economic perspective, my entire thing about this was they bought the dip. They looked at the way the running back market went and said, this is too far. When Seyquan is getting the same contract Darno Mooney got this offseason, we have taken this. And Darne Mooney is good for the Falcons. Yeah. Yeah, but he got the same deal adjusting for cap that Lamarge Miller got from the Texans five or six years. That's insane. So Saquan on this deal was making a little less than $13 million a year.

Todd Gurley, on the extension that you're talking about from 2018, was at $14.4 million. So six years ago, Todd Gurley was making. more on an average per year basis than Sequin Barclay is making on his current contract. Yes. And Sequin was a free agent. Literally anybody could assign to him if they wanted. Tag Early could only negotiate with one team and he was four years from unrestricted free agency. That is a, that to me, I think is a thing.

And again, it's so rare to see this happen that it's tough to encounter this. But to me, if you're going to pay a guy that level of money for his position, there has to be a really good argument for why he's out there. on strictly just his old team didn't want to sign him. I think about someone like Julius Peppers, where that was a big money contract. I think the bears are pretty happy with how it turned out, but there were cap reasons why they could not bring him back. And I think at that point, they got sick at him. With someone like a Tramaine Johnson, okay, he was franchised twice, but was he ever portrayed

as like a top three cornerback at his position? Was he ever thought of as like the best guy in a vacuum in his position? No, that was never the case. With Peppers, it was the case. with Berkeley it was the case. Those guys hit free agency so rarely that when you get the opportunity to sign them, I think that's a point where you have to then break your rules. Someone like, Nadam Kinsu with the Dolphins.

I don't think that. I knew this is going to come up. But that's an example. That was a, our cap is such a mess. And we've decided to keep Calvin Johnson and Matthew Stafford that we had to let a all-pro caliber player in their prime risk career leave. You don't see that happen very often. But when you do, I think that's when you have to make the exception. Those Lions teams, that's like a lightning strike in the history of NFL team building because they had all of those top three picks in the final years before the new CBA was introduced.

So you have three guys in Matthew Stafford, Calvin Johnson, and Dama Kinsu that you drafted in a four year period. 07, 08, 2009, 2010. So three guys drafted in the top two of the NFL draft in the previous CBA where if you were drafted in the top two, you are instantly one of the highest paid players at your. position. So if we're looking at just the bad breaks the Lions have gotten, the fact that they got all those picks right before the CBA changed and they weren't allowed to keep all of those guys, just one more log on the lion's shit fire that's existed here over the last 50 years. Even the Rams.

I mean, obviously it worked out better for them in the long run, but the Rams getting all those top picks with Sam Bradford being the last pre-CBA change where he got a massive money. Matthew Stafford, I think he got the most guaranteed money of any point. player in football history when he signed his rookie deal. The game has changed. The game has changed when it comes to these guys. But obviously, I think the logic still applies. I'm talking right here with the top tier free agents of just, you know, you have to be able

to ascertain the difference between why a guy is a free agent and what are the mitigating circumstances that may make him an exception to paying those guys significant amounts of money. You mentioned Zach Bonn indirectly talking about Take 1. In fact that he's going to be an all pro. That's another one we could throw in here. And I think the lesson from Zach Bonn is, if you see. a role for a guy that he didn't previously play and you can get that guy at a discount,

you have the opportunity to just explode when it comes to value. Hassan Reddick is a good example of this. Have a guy that was miscast and now you put him in a different role and he can just be an entirely different player. I want to stick with kind of bargain pass rushers here over the last five to 10 years because I think there are several examples of them. And the lesson to be learned, I think, is pretty simple. Rate stats for pass rushers are worth paying attention to when you're thinking about potential values and free agency. The best example of this, Shaq Barrett signed a one-year $5 million deal

with the bucks in 2019. That year, he had 19 and a half sacks and 37 quarterback hits on a $5 million one-year deal. And so if you go back and look at his numbers in 2018 when he was with the Broncos, obviously that team had dominant pass rushers. So he's a little bit further down the pecking order, but he was 11th in the NFL in PFF pass rush win rate in 2018,

the year before he signed that deal with the bucks. So if you're looking at the rate stats and that guy only wants $5 million, that's a bet worth making. And it is a bet that certainly paid off for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But there are a couple examples of this. Trey Hendrickson, before signing that deal with the Bengals, it's not a small deal. It's $15 million a year.

But on a per snap rate basis, he was the third most impactful pass rusher in the league in 2020, and $15 million is not top of the market money. So those deals, yes, Darius Smith's a very good example of this. Hassan Reddick's deal with the Eagles that he signed coming off. His situation was interesting because he took a slight step back in the numbers when he went to Carolina. But if you look back at what he was doing in Arizona, I think there's a signal that he's the type of guy who might be worth it if you move him into a full-time role.

So we've seen that a lot with pass rushers specifically here over the last like five. five, six, seven years where if you can pay those guys at second or third tier type of deal, but you're comfortable in the rate stats, that's where some hits can come from. I'm sorry that I'm smiling. I feel like a real jerk, but you know who I'm thinking of up right now? Is it counter to this? Bryce Huff, who signed in the same Howie Roseman class as two all pros. The linebacker, Zach Bonner placed was Devin White, who Howie Roseman gave like $5 million

to and then never played in an Eagles uniform. I think that is the example of you can be really good at this and still have hits and misses in the exact same offseason. And it does not mean that you're a genius or stupid, but the overall process that goes into these decisions and the broader big picture stuff with Howard Westman tells us, he's pretty good at this, not perfect, but everyone can make mistakes. Everyone can sort of be, fall into these traps. I think with Bryce Huff, it was a, it's tough because it was a small sample, but so was the case with Hendrickson. So was the case with Sedaria Smith. Those guys have really only been super productive for one year in their prior stops before getting those big deals and succeeding elsewhere. And Bryce Huff, by the way, might be good next year.

Like, I'm not writing off Bryce Huff as like a bad football player because he's had a rough first season with the Eagles. But I do think you're correct to say this. I think you're correct to also consider how these guys' roles are expanding, right? I mean, another example of this, not a edge rusher is someone like AJ Brown, where you look at what he did with Tennessee. he was playing 70% of the saps. He was not running a ton of routes because... The Figgs is the same thing. There's a lot of examples of this.

Yeah, right. But I think it's a extreme example because he was in such a run-heavy offense and he was so incredibly efficient. Like he was the best receiver in football on a wrap-by-rap basis for several years in Tennessee. And some of that is your player usage. Some of that is you're running play action. You're running very high percentage. You can adjust for that.

It's the perfect system. It's the perfect system to... juice your like yards per route run numbers. Yes. We know that 12 personnel receivers and play action offenses juice yards per route run numbers. That's exactly what Tennessee's was. But at the end of the day, those numbers were a sign of what AJ Brown could be if you increase the volume. Yes.

And by the way, it's not like if you watch AJ Brown on tape, you're like, oh, that guy is a gimmick. That guy is not going to catch more past. That guy is a freak. Like the idea of let's take player who touches, who plays 65% of snaps. and play him 90% of snaps and see how that goes, that's a good idea. And it worked out really well for the Eagles. And so I think the same thing applies to edge rusher,

where you have guys, maybe they're used situationally. Maybe they are playing a cross-ramist star. I think you have to be thoughtful about the tape and what it says in terms of how that guy's winning. You know, is he winning because who's the guy with the Ravens? Arthur Millett last year, the cornerback, who had like a 70% pressure rate for the Ravens.

It's like, no, Arthur Millet is not winning one-on-one against tackles. He's winning because the scheme is winning him stuff. But how is this guy winning? How is he, you know, how many times is he being double-teamed? How many times are protections being shifted away from him? All that stuff you can account for with analytics. You can account for with film. You can do that the due diligence.

And then if you do that and you have a guy who has some meat left on the bone, I think it does make sense to go out and pay him like he can be that guy because you're going to give him that opportunity. And we've seen with guys at Kendrickston and Serious Smith. Like, who deals? By the way, I hated at the time about those contracts. they both worked out incredibly for those two teams. The one you want to hit now is a quarterback contract that at the time it was signed is the biggest

contract in the history of the National Football League. Yeah. I'm wondering how you're going to spin the Mahomes contract as like some sort of value proposition for the chiefs. He's making $45 million a year in a market where Dak Prescott's making 60. Fair. Okay. It's an easy argument.

He was making $45 million a year when Daniel Jones was making $4,000 a year when Daniel Jones was making $40 million a year. That seems like a good way to go about it. But I think with Mahomes, obviously, it is such a unique situation that I think the specifics are hard to copy. You're not going to hand out 10-year deals to everybody, but the structure of that deal, where it was so long, gave you so many chances to restructure. And instead of having huge guarantees up front and instead of having a structure that forced

you to restructure immediately. they're structured immediately, but I think they did not have to pay out a huge number up front because they're willing to give so many practical guarantees. They're like the first like six or seven years of the Malmes contract. They're guaranteeing next year's deal now. So like Mahomes in this year for 2024, his 2025 roster bonus, which is, I don't remember exactly what you're just like $40 million, let's say, is already guaranteed. That's a dangerous game to play with the vast majority of other players because you're scared of that guy getting hurt or him losing his ability to play. or his production going way down,

and you being stuck having to pay next year's guarantee a year in advance for a guy you don't want. And the Deshawn Watson contract might be an example of that. It was even a less friendly structure. But with your absolute top-tier players, with a quarterback who has had a track record of keeping himself healthy, who has the ability to avoid saxes way Patrick Mahomes does, the way Josh Allen does in Buffalo,

where he signed a very similar kind of contract, it does make sense. And I think as you think about a team like the Niners, one of the ways they might try to make the property contract work is to give him a longer contract with that kind of guarantee structure where they're guaranteeing a year in advance, but they're keeping the numbers down. They're keeping a lot of ability to restructure. I think being creative with the structure of a contract for a truly transcendent player is something that you can apply, even if you're not necessarily doing a 10-year deal for $450 million. It's going to be interesting the way the quarterback contracts have unfolded over the last year or so, the fact that we've gone back to shorter now. And now most of these deals are $450 million. year deals, how that's going to shape the top of the market. Because with Mahomes and Allen, I assume that Allen will sign an extension before next year starts because his contract is very outdated. If Mahomes wants to force that, he probably could.

But because they already have so many years left on those deals, it doesn't really matter what the length is because we're just going to be tacking on four years to three that already exist or whatever it is. But with these guys who are not in that situation and they're either on the final year of their deal or they're a year out from hitting free agency, signing these four-year deals leaves these teams less wiggle room. And the Brock Purdy one to me is going to be the best example. He has one year left on his deal after this year. Is it going to be a four-year deal? Is it going to be a six-year deal? How much leeway are the Niners going to have after signing that

contract is absolutely something that's worth paying attention to? Yeah. And you even saw this offseason how the specter of that deal affected the Niners, right? Because you saw Brendan Ayuk, who would have been a trade candidate it'd say, hey, no, I want a new deal right now. You saw Trent Williams, who would have been a possible trade candidate and say, hey, no, I want to deal right now. I want to cut the line because I don't want to be the guy who's sacrifice for this Brock Pretty contract. And we're going to see John Hargraves' contract was restructured this during the season. Like he's going to be a poster in first release, I would be surprised if Debo Samuel is back there next year. Do you might not seeing something in the details of the Debo deal?

Isn't the, like, the restructure they did with it? It's really they can only June 1st him now because of the way that they move money around, correct? I believe so. Okay. That was surprising to me, because I had always just assumed that they were going to move on from him after this year, given the other investments that they've made. But some of the ways that they touch that contract I think are going to make that a little bit more difficult. Am I wrong about that? It depends.

I think it depends on maybe it gives him more flexibility to less flexibility to trade him, maybe. I'm not sure. Maybe they don't think there's going to be a huge trademarker for Debo. I think there would be some kind of trade market. But to my recollection, I think that was designed to make it a post-June first release. That makes sense. They do a good job with their cap. They're very creative in the way.

They handle things in the way that teams like the Eagles and the Browns are. I mean, I always give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the financial aspects of it. But it also makes it harder. It's like a game of three card bonte where it's very hard for me to pay attention to what's happening because there are a lot of moving pieces to the way that the Niners structure these things. Yes, but I think about someone like C.J. Stroud where I know it hasn't been the best year, but like I don't think anyone is skeptical of C.J. Stroud's talent and his ability. Oh, I don't know. There are plenty of people that seem to be skeptical of it.

Of C.J. Stroud? I think so. I'm not in that group. but I think those people exist. I am skeptical of Bobby Sloick. I think Bobby Sloak might be a fake sharp is what I think we've discovered this year. But if you're the Texans and you love CJ Stroud, this is a question for you to have.

Okay, are we giving him the four-year, at that point it'll be got, what, $290 million extension or something crazy? Or are we going to give him a seven, eight, nine-year deal? And even if we're only guaranteeing three or four years within that deal, can we structure that in a way that is more team-friendly to help us build that? I think that is a real question and something that I think teams are looking at the home's deals and Allen's deals.

And if they have a guy, they love that much, trusting that they can build that kind of structure into their contract. Before we get to the best deals that we want to talk about, let's take one more quick break. Next guy I want to hit is somebody that played with Josh Allen, but I actually want to talk about the deal he signed before he got to Buffalo. The deal that Stefan Diggs signed, the extension he signed in 2018, five years 72 million. It was after year three. The Vikings did a lot of this. And we alluded to this a little bit with the Todd Gurley contract where sometimes signing guys early can be a bad thing. Sometimes you get a little bit too far ahead of yourself, especially if you're blowing out the top of the market to do that.

But the Diggs deal in 2018 to me is a very good example of this, where you sign a guy early. And after they sign that contract, a year later, Diggs was wide receiver 14 in terms of percentage of the cap after that deal was signed. There's another guy on those same teams that I think you could put into this contract. A bigger example to me, Adam Thielen, where he was on a four-year $19 million contract. Adam Thielen is a good example of this. And DeNeil Hunter, the first contract that DeNeil Hunter signed was one that very, very quickly, it looked like a bargain based on how the market shifted after they got that contract done. It was such a good deal that DeNell Hunter got mad. Immediately.

He got mad immediately. And that's, listen, this is always going to be part of being somebody in the general manager chair. you don't want to win these deals too much. Yes. Because you want to keep guys happy. So there's a balance to be found. And I think the best example of somebody who has done this well is getting back to Howie Roseman.

I remember a conversation I had with Howie, God, it's probably been like seven, eight years now. And we were talking about the lessons he learned from the Dream Team Eagles, which was kind of the last shot he had as the general manager before he got banished to the other side of the building. And he was younger then, right? He was younger in the job, younger in his understanding of the dynamics. We all were.

Jesus. And when you're giving out all these deals to guys outside of the building, but you're not rewarding players inside of the building, that can with your dynamics. Like that's just true. And so I think his first set of priorities when he got back into the general manager role was to reward a lot of the in-house guys that had deserved it. Zach Ertz, Lane Johnson, people like that. Sure.

The Jordan Milata contract is a very good example of this to me, where they sign him early. they sign him before he kind of breaks out totally, and the deal immediately looks like a bargain. But the Eagles have consistently been willing to go back and tweak some of this stuff when the situation calls for it. So I think understanding, it's good to win these deals in the moment

because you're going to get some value along the way, but also understanding, you want to work with these guys, you want there to be a certain, you want it to be copacetic with both sides. So going in and tweaking them when the situation calls for it, that's okay too.

But I think the Biggs contract, the Hunter contract, the Milata contract, even some of the other deals that the Eagles signed are good examples of the benefits that can come with getting a little bit further ahead of this stuff. Yeah. And I think it's also, it's kind of like the scheduled maintenance on a car. Like, you know, I think there is teams who operate until the car is about to fall off or break down before they offer a new contract. I think with someone like Gillian Johnson is a good example. Even with AJ Brown, right? AJ Brown's already signed another extension to his prior deal with the Eagles, which I think other teams would have done that. but they gave Devante Smith a new deal and AJ Smith, or AJ Brown,

not the Chargers Journal Manager from the early odds, but AJ Brown. You know, with AJ Brown, yes, he's earned a raise, but yes, you can also do that in the middle of a deal and have it be a more palatable deal, have more control over the structure because he is further away from free agency, have the ability to take, okay, the money we've already guaranteed you. That's maybe the money that you're not guaranteed in the rest of your deal. We're going to guarantee that, which you're already happy paying because it's already playing really well. and guarantee you a little bit more.

And instead of having to give him, you know, a three-year deal and then a five-year deal where you're guaranteeing six years, maybe it's two three-year deals and you're only guaranteeing four years and actually retaining some flexibility. But to get back to your Vikings point, what I think is important here that we haven't, we sort of hints at that, but haven't actually outwardly said it, is the positions we're talking about matter. And with running back, yes, with Sequin, it was the right time. But these positions where you're getting out-sized value by signing and Guy in early, these are the premium positions in the NFL right now. It's left tackle. It is edge rusher. It's wide receiver. Those are positions that have escalated dramatically, even with quarterback, with Patrick Thomas Josh Allen.

Those contracts became so valuable because quarterback escalated so rapidly. And part of your job as a GM, and this is something that I think people don't talk about enough, you have to not only see what talent is out there. Not only with the market bears for those guys, anyone can do that. I could do that. I'm not qualified to be a GM, but seeing, okay, this is where the market is going in two years for this position, seeing, okay, wide receiver, because we're seeing more receivers on the field, because we're seeing true top-end talent come through with the college level, those top-end guys are going to get paid more. We're going to see the market reset in two years when Justin Jefferson Science's deal, which is Mark Chase signs his deal. And having the perspective to know that and give out a relatively modest deal to A.J. Brown that Tennessee, by the way, was not willing to give, made Howie Oatham look like a genius, because he ended up getting a very reasonable price on A.J. Brown relative to what

guys who were less talented made that very off season or in the off season to come. And if you make that bet at a position you feel is going to grow, like you might be wrong, but I think that is the right place to make those bets. You contrast that to someone like the Jamal Adams trade we talked about earlier. Like, yes, Jamal Adams signed a record-setting deal for a safety because of what they traded for him. Safety did not grow. Safety actually lost money over the cost. of the next few years. And that made that deal even worse because there were so many other

safeties you could have got at that price tag or so much you could have done by signing a safety for less who was similarly talented and having more money to spend elsewhere on your roster. And so that perspective of where is the market going positionally, where is the league going schematically positionally is a very important role to play in this process. And by the way, now that Howie signed Seqquan Berkeley to a good deal, the next free agent contracts for running backs are going to be worse and you're going to have a better player on a better contract than the guys who are going to be signed over the next couple of years at running back. It's a great point.

Being able to see where that stuff is going and the growth that's on the horizon is a huge part of this. And I think that that's what the good front offices do. The good front offices are operating two or three years down the road as they think about how these things are going to grow. The best example to me or the worst example if you're a Cowboys fan is, Dallas refusing to sign back Prescott to that markup on the Russell Wilson deal at the time is just hilarious to me. Just understanding, like, all the guys who were going to be coming up for contracts. Yeah.

At the time, Deshaun Watson, Mahomes, Josh Allen, everybody. It's fact, like, yeah, you know what? $35 million a year. Just a little rich for our blood right now. You know what the best part is? They didn't give Doc Prescott $40 million a year. He turned his ankle 180 degrees in like five games into a season. And then they gave him $40 million a year.

What changed about that Prescott? His ankle was pointing the wrong way. That led you to get that. deal done, like, it is just so short-sighted and not seeing the big picture at all in such a frustrating way. Talking about premium positions and signing guys a little bit early and the potential benefits that come with that, you wanted to talk about Max Crosby and how his deal kind of fits this discussion. Speaking of well-run franchises and getting ahead of the picture, like, sometimes bad franchises make good, I mean, the Bears traded for Caleb Williams. And, like,

you know, sometimes bad franchises make sense. We'll see whether that's a good or bad thing. I think it's going to work out okay relatively for what they got. Max Crosby, four years, $94 million. And this is a thing where I think it combines some of the things we're talking about. You have to bet on some of your guys at times. Max Crosby was the best player on that Raiders roster at that point. One of the few draftees from the Gruden era, yeah, he was the Gruden era.

Maybe the only draftee from the Gruden era who really panned out. But you're paying a guy at a position where there is exponential growth or certainly significant growth at the top of the market. And you're betting on a guy getting better. And you have the ability when you're signing your guys to get that possibility. For Max Crosby, that was less, or probably the same amount that Bradley Chub got when the Broncos, the Broncos traded into the Dolphins. The Dolphins signed him to an extension that same year later that year.

You're placing a bet on a guy who has been very productive, who has grown dramatically over the course of his time in the league. And you're not, you're not paying an exorbitant amount to get there. And I think Max Crosby has panned out better than the Raiders could have hoped when they signed that deal. But not having to trade a second round pick to get that guy, not having to trade a first round pick to get that guy, the way the other teams did with sweat and with Chubb and the similar price tag, you doesn't have to be as reliable. It doesn't have to be as successful. It's worked out great for the Raiders.

But I think making those bets on players at premium positions, because you don't have to be as reliable. because you can't find those guys elsewhere, makes those deals, has a floor for those deals that I think is valuable. And then with a guy like Crosby, obviously, he's at a much higher ceiling that I think most of us would have expected. Yeah. I mean, talking about getting value from these contracts, and the moment that you signed it, is there any way you can extract value from it?

The Crosby contract, when it was signed, it was one of those like, oh, yeah, this is going to look really good. This is going to look really good in six months to a year. I also really respect somebody, an organization buying a low on somebody that's been sober for a while and figuring out how. That could be a little bit better for them in the long run. So I respect that part of it in the Max Crosby Raiders relationship here. Yes.

You and Darren Waller, a player who's in your situation. And that ended up being a very good deal for the Raiders for a couple of years. Last one I wanted to mention here. I think we can talk about two specific, two teams, three examples for the last kind of contract I wanted to point out here. We talk about this a little bit with the bills. The deals that the bill signed in 2017 for Micahe Hi. and Jordan Poyer. To me are some of the most influential free agent deals of the last decade.

So when they sign those contracts, and it's interesting because you have a front office coming in in year one, right, where they're trying to reshape something. And typically, Eddie, you want to spend a lot of money in free agency in year one, like you don't really know who you want to be or where you want to go. So the fact that the bills came in and signed these guys almost immediately, if you look at cap percentages of the contracts signed for both of those guys in 2017, Jordan Poyer, was 39th in the percentage of the salary cap he was making among safeties when he signed that deal.

Micah Hyde was 21st. So again, these deals that are in the second, third, even four tier at the position, being the ones that ultimately are going to bear fruit for you in free agency. But what these two did specifically, this reshaped who the bills were. Like, their identity on defense was rooted in these two contracts that they signed. So this ability to not only find value, but how. have that value, dictate your identity on one side of the ball, is remarkable. And there was a deal signed a year later that I actually think is similar in how we would talk

about it. And so they deal that DeMario Davis signed with the Saints. When DeMario Davis signed with the Saints, he was 27th in the percentage of the cap he was making among linebackers. DeMario Davis and what he can do in the middle of that defense reshaped who the Saints were. Him as a blitzer, him in man coverage, just him as the center. of that scheme in a lot of ways.

So those three guys in back-to-back years, I think really a symbol of what free agency can do for you if you're shopping in the correct range of free agency. Yeah, and there's the opportunity to get surplus value, right? I mean, Micaheheide and Jordan Poyer were not superstars in their prior stats, but they were solid players. And I think there's also an element here of knowing what you do best and paying accordingly because you have the possibility to make those guys better.

Joe McDermain is an awesome defensive coach. And he needed those safeties to make his defense work because they wanted to do so much about, you know, not letting teams get over the top on them, not letting teams, you know, hit big plays on them. And you need great safety play to make that work. And you had a guy who had the ability to make safeties play better, who had been a defensive coach in the past in multiple places, had done great work in Carolina with free agent safeties like Mike Mitchell. You know, there had been real development of not just young players. we saw by Milano and Trudevius, white guys like that develop, but also veteran players as well. And I think the flip side of that, when you pay too much for a guy like that, and this is unfair because he got hurt, but Jared McKinnon with the Niners, where Jared McKinnon was making over $10 million a year when they signed him and he had been the Vikings backup. And there's nothing wrong with Jared McKinnon as a player even before the ACL tears, obviously found a valuable role with the Chiefs.

But what do you do well? What can you get the most out of if you're Kyle Shanahan? You can make running backs better. You can, you know, certainly Christian McCaffrey got better when he got there too. But like, paying a guy for what you think he can be is very different than paying a guy thinking we can make him better. And with Poir and Hyde, they were not getting paid like they were top 10 safeties. Sean McDermott made them into top 10 safeties based on the talent they had and his ability as a coach. So paying for what you think a guy is now and they can get him better is a very big difference.

And I think that is what led to those deals being so viable. With Mario Davis, that was a guy who had been bouncing around the league. been with the rounds, the Jets, he went back. He'd really only had one very productive season where he felt like he was a much better player. And he even said, like, there's been a question around, like, you know, I think he rededicated himself. I think some of the stuff he maybe would lead on as, like, kind of pro athletes talk.

But, like, clearly he had been much better that final season with the Jets before he went to the Saints, that he was a, he's been one of the best free agent signings for the last six years since then. I also think that with guys at those positions specifically, linebacker being the best example. Let the league figure out who's good. Let let the league figure out who's good at linebacker rather than you spending a first or second round pick on a linebacker. If you look at the positions where we've had some real hits over the last few years, I think safety and linebacker are good examples because it's hard to project those guys as prospects because it's difficult. Like,

there are just the demands on, even when you're watching tape of like a linebacker or safety in college, like what you're at seeing them do in coverage, et cetera. So letting the league figure out who the good safeties and linebackers are and you kind of swooping in in the second stage of this and paying those guys out of pocket as stopgap starters for you, but making sure you're, not even stopgap starters, but just mid-level, mid-tier starters, that to me is the right formula for how you're seeking out free agents, these positions that are hard to scout at times, but if you just want starting level pieces at that second or third tier in free agency, that can benefit from you if you want to shop in that area.

Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. all right that's all we got those are our lessons from the best and worst best and worst in quotes those are our lessons from some good and some bad contracts here over the last 10 or 15 years barnwall always appreciate the time sir especially during a busy time of year uh please let people know where they can read listen engage with the stuff that you're doing ESPN dot com is the written stuff and then my podcast bill barnwell's show and then occasionally on tv with at Sports Center, around the horn, all that stuff. So, yell at me because I did not like your free agent signing.

And it actually turned out to be a great move, which happens every single off season. Yeah, I'm sure no one will be upset about anybody on this list. As always, guys, sincerely appreciate it. Again, this is the last episode in our Money Down series examining the business of the NFL. If you've missed any of the other three, I encourage you to go check them out. Again, first one was about the state of the cornerback market with Dominique Foxworth. Really enjoyed that discussion with Domino. He has such a fantastic perspective on just the league in general.

But that topic, obviously he has a fluency in that that very few of us possibly could imagine. We also did one about the future of NFL broadcasting with Andrew Marchand from the athletic, just discussing the streaming future of the league, what we've seen from Tom Brady so far this year. And then the state of the quarterback market and how we're seeing that shake out, some of the tiers that have started to develop and where the top of the market might be going in the next couple years with our old buddy Brad Spielberger from Grand Central Sports

Management. So you guys want to go check those out. We would sincerely appreciate it. We will be back on Monday with the Week 17 recap. Until then, sincerely appreciate it, guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.