The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Aaron Reiss What The Mahomes Deal Means for Deshaun Watson's Future Deal

Episode Date: July 8, 2020

Aaron Reiss What The Mahomes Deal Means for Deshaun Watson's Future Deal

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It is the Matt Thomas show. We are happy to be joined here by a gentleman that joins us throughout the course of the football season. Hopefully he'll do that again, provided we actually have a football season. Aaron Reese is with us from The Athletic, and Aaron J. Reese is his Twitter account. Great information. good behind the scene stuff on your beloved Houston Texans. Aaron, your initial reaction when you heard that Pat Mahomes was a half-billion-dollar man, the very first thing I thought of is Sean's got to be loving this.

Yeah, honestly, I thought he kind of deserved more money, which I know sounds crazy, but I guess that's not quite my initial reaction. My initial reaction is half-billion, it's an insane amount of money, but when you actually look at the way the contract is set up and stuff, and all that. Like, I think he could have probably pushed for more money because what is the, there probably is no price that Chiefs wouldn't pay for him, right? I mean, or anything for that matter.

He's a transcendent, transcendent talent and stuff. And so I thought he could have made a little more money. He obviously opted for kind of establishing a floor of a half million dollars over the next 12 years, which is not bad. But, yeah, and then from a Texan's perspective, I think obviously it informs what happens now with Deshaun Watson, although I'm not, I don't think. the contract will look quite the same. Yeah.

Originally we had seen he was hoping to get three years, maybe four. Do you think the long term of the deal with Pat makes Deshaun think twice about that? Maybe he'd go for a little bit of a longer deal, especially if there's a lot of guarantee money involved in it? Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting. You know, like I think this applies to Dak Prescott, too. like, you know, on one hand, I think Mahomes did raise the kind of average annual value for now, right? It's probably at 40 million at least, and he's going to make 45 million per year with the life of the deal or whatever. But a lot of people said it's kind of like two deals, the 40 million or 40 million and 50 million on average first five and back five.

So, you know, I think it raised kind of the average annual value and it obviously, and so in that sense it helps the quarterbacks. But in the other sense, like the length of the contract, I think helps the teams, negotiating from position of, well, like the market setting guy, the top quarterback, he agreed to this 10-year-long deal. So I don't imagine that Watson will want a 10-year-long deal, but I do think it does give the Texans a little more levered than saying, you know, three years, how about you do four instead? Or five, maybe. So, you know, I think there's something to that, but I don't know if Watson's going to be too influenced by the idea of Mahomes signing this mega deal, so he needs to sign for the same amount of time. I think he's kind of in a position where he has more to accomplish.

and the ability to kind of leverage himself and make more money. If he isn't able to win a Super Bowl or anything or win an MVP or something like that after new TV money comes in in a few years. Do you think there's anything that is holding back the Texans at all? I mean, they've never said anything but publicly about how much they love him and they appreciate him and they think he's a franchise and is so good. Is there any hesitancy you think in the organization for really signing it? Is there anything that he's got to still prove to Bob? not Bob, to Cal, to Bill and the Jack to say, all right, we're going to put a lot of guarantee money in this guy's piggy bank for the next handful of years.

No, I don't think so. I mean, I think he's going to get paid. They're going to sign him to do a contract. I mean, it's just a matter of when, basically, and what the final terms end up looking like. But, I mean, you know, they've accomplished the hardest and most important task in the sport in finding a quarterback. So you kind of, you have to pay him, and then you move on from there. I think, you know, whatever they pay them in a few years, it could look like a bargain because, you know,

these guys are constantly resigning and setting new standards and stuff. But what's interesting with Mahomes is if he's going to have kind of blocked or set the ceiling for a while and no one's been able to pass them for a while and what that kind of does with the market. But no, I think they know they're going to pay them. It's just a matter of what the final numbers end up being. But he's their guy. Aaron Reese with us in the Athletic here on the Matt Thomas show.

Aaron, is there anything that scares you about, in theory, such a large part of the salary cap being tied up into J.J. Watt, Laramie Tunsell, and then ultimately, DeShahn, or is that just par for the course with most NFL teams? No, for sure. I mean, it's definitely a consideration. I mean, Bill Bryan himself will tell you it was a consideration as to why they didn't sign DeAnder Hopkins. And I think that's really kind of been the problem with the Texans plan is that at the end of the day, they're, they're, they, they're, They signed, you trade up to get the quarterback, and that's worthwhile if the quarterback ends up becoming a franchise guy. They found that guy. That's great. But then you have to kind of rebuild your cupboard of picks by trading back potentially after you trade up to get a quarterback one year. But they didn't do that.

Instead, they, you know, they traded more first-round picks, more premium picks to get Larry Tunsel. And so, you know, you've got the quarterback, and you've got a guy who's going to protect them and you need that. You need a lot of tackle is really important considering how long lost it all done to the ball. But you're not put in a position where you don't really have a lot of people. fix to supplement that talent and kind of built on the margins. I should have given you more time to answer this, but I'm going to just throw up one at you. Who is the best value right now in the Houston Texans? Is it Deshaun because he's planning out that rookie contract or is there somebody else?

Maybe I should exclude rookie deals. Who's the best value in the team right now? All right. Well, if we're excluding rookie deals, that's hard. Let me think. I mean, I guess, you know, it sounds crazy. but I would kind of say, I think you could argue Brandon Cook, at least just for this year. I think his cap hit on the Texans is only about $8 million because the Rams are paying a lot of it.

And I am optimistic that Brandon Cooks will be pretty good in Houston. I mean, I think you could look at a lot of the numbers that would indicate his problems or a more a result of kind of everything around him falling apart with the Rams. And now he's going to be paired with, you know, one of the best deep ball throwers in the league in Watson and a guy who also is going to buy time and let his guys get open deep. So I think Cook's has the potential to have a really, really good season here in Houston, and if he does so, he'll do it at a relatively low cost. Because, and that's why I think the Brandon Cook's acquisition is going to make a lot more sense

is because the Rams are picking up a lot of it. And if he's good, you keep around for next year, I think he's, what, $12 million next year? That's still pretty good value for a guy that would be one of your main go-to threat. So, again, it's still a lot of money for a guy that's got concussion issues. But of all the things that have been done, I think the way, one that I at least hold out the most optimism is that Brandon Cooks might be the best acquisition of all of them so far and this is what has turned to be a very busy off season for the team.

Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, I think Cobb, you could look at the rest of the market and they probably overpaid for Randall Cobb. I think, you know, Eric Murray, we'll see what he offers. They'll get to play more than he's probably ever played anywhere else. But I don't think anyone's getting too excited about that move, and it wasn't a super expensive move for them. So I think Cook is kind of the probably the one that does make sense.

So one thing I would say is, you know, you said if he's good, he could come back next year. I think if he's not good and then they end up getting rid of him after one year, there would be no dead money left on their caps and, you know, no guarantees left for him. So it wouldn't be a problem from a cap perspective. But it would look pretty damning, I think, to trade, what was it, the 57th pick, second round pick, and a really deep wide receiver draft for basically one year of Brandy Cooks. And I say that even those rookie wide receivers tend not to produce a lot, Still, I mean, this is not a, this is not kind of a one-year thing for the Texans.

Sean Watson is still on his rookie deal. He's still in his mid-20s. I mean, I think you've got to be playing the long game a little more than they're playing now. And that will be interesting to see how kind of that unfolds in the future as they navigate this continued problem, not having picks and having expensive players. And that's the thing, Aaron, I wanted to bring up, is that if you're going to spend crazy amounts of money on a handful of players that take up at least a half of your salary cap, you've got to get value. you from your draft picks because they're on the cheap, they're on rookie contracts, they don't make the multi-millions of dollars. Don't you feel like with all the draft picks have been given up that the Texans are

playing a very, very dangerous game that every one of their free agent acquisitions has to be good. Every one of their remaining draft picks have to work out because they're not going to be able to rely on first, second, third round guys on rookie deals because, frankly, they'll have those picks available to them. No, I think you're absolutely right. You know, I look at just one example of this, right, is if you look at the defense, you know, in the pass rush, so they haven't really added any pass rushers through for agency.

This was a unit that obviously looked pretty terrible once JJ Watt was gone. I think you have to at least consider the idea that you're not going to have JJ Watt for a full season again. I mean, just past history hasn't played more than eight games in the past four years. And so basically what the Texans are relying on for this unit to be better is that Ross Blackwell, block is going to be impactful as a rookie, despite not having any off-season training practices. Charles Menning, who's going to take a step up in a second year, and Jacob Martin, who was a, rotational rusher, is probably going to play more and presumably be better than he was the last year. I think all those things are possible, but like you're saying, I mean, that is a, that's kind of a,

a lot of those things ride, a lot of rides in all three of those things happening, and I think the chances that all three happening are pretty low. Last question for you. You work with a lot of people in the NFL circles. Are you a little alarmed at the lack of we're coming together, we're going to make this happen, the protocols. I know there's been a manual. There was a visit yesterday with all the coaches in the NFL. It feels like they are up against the clock, and I don't feel any panic coming from them.

And the rest of the sports world certainly is right now. Yeah, no, I definitely agree with you. I think it's, you know, they continue to say things are going to run on time, We'll see. I mean, I think I've kind of thought for a while that how stuff unfolds with baseball would be pretty informative of how things would happen with football, just because it's, you know, similarly not in a bubble environment and stuff like the NBA, and obviously there's even more players and whatnot. So, you know, I mean, I think it is interesting. You know, speaking of this, Randall Cobb just yesterday, I think he was tweeting that there's, you know, there's so many more kind of questions and answers about this stuff right now, and he doesn't see any way that camp happens on time. and I think that's kind of a lot of people are just in a wait-in-sea mode, and the NFL continues to act like everything is just okay,

but I think we can just look at the numbers around us, and it's not okay, right? And if we had to shut down all these sports at the very beginning of the coronavirus, now things are worse than they were going to bring them back. It doesn't really make a ton of sense. All right, well, leave it at that, Aaron. Thank you very much, my friend, for the time. We really appreciate it.

Look forward to your insights throughout the course of the football season, whenever there is. Thanks again, Aaron, for the time. I really appreciate it. All right. I think I just, I can't hear Aaron for the last second. I apologize, and hopefully he got, I think we got him. Thank you very much.

144 on Sports Talk 790. Brandon Riley and Joe George are having a fantastic conversation in the background, but that's all right. Funny things can happen on microphone sometimes. We'll come back and tell you about Pat Mahomes and things he can't do. That's right. Pat Mahomes can certainly throw the football for Kansas City. what