The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Aaron Wilson on Laremy Tunsil Contract - He Has All The Leverage

Episode Date: March 31, 2020

Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle joins Matt and Ross to discuss the ongoing contract negotiations between Laremy Tunsil and the Houston Texans

With masks, a case of Lysol, and fruit-flavored hen sanitizer. Mmm, peach. Wait a minute, no watermelon. Ah, Granny Smith, Apple. Yep. The Houston Sports Talk continues on Sports Talk 790. Long time NFL writer, friend of the show, newly engaged, Aaron Wilson, Houston Chronicle on the Matt Thomas Show at 1230. Aaron, thanks for the time. Question number one.

How many times have you dealt with player negotiations where the starting point of that negotiation puts that player in the number one salary spot at his position in the NFL? Because that's clearly where Larry Mantonzel is right now. Pacing back away, you know, when you start talking about negotiations like Ray Lewis, guys like that, big contracts, that type of contract. That's when you're talking about someone like that. And so it's an honor for a Laramie Council with one Pro Bowl selection to be at that point, to be at the $18.5 million initial offer. So, yeah, it's a big milestone for him, and it's more than Lane Johnson's $18 million per year,

which is the current benchmark for tackles on their average per year. And that's what people care a lot about when they talk about measuring contracts. average per year and guaranteed money. So, and look, as I was asking you the question, I was thinking, well, clearly quarterbacks are falling that category a lot. We just don't see that a whole lot with left tackles. How can he screw this up, Aaron? I mean, unless the asking.

He can't. And I don't think he will. You know, he has, he's doing it untraditionally. He's not hiring an agent. His plan for now is to not hire one. And he does have advice from a group of financial advisors. and they're very experienced in the football world. So with the oversight you have from the union,

every contract that's over $2 million has to be reviewed by the NFL Players Association. It's kind of a fail-safe where their research department would look at it. They would help people. There's a significant amount of help on some of the bigger deals even where they're helping the agent. In this case, they're helping the player, but he has, you know, people that are well-versed in financial matters. And, of course, he has a lot of people still trying to get his business. A lot of people in the industry are trying to contact him and have met with him and that sort of thing.

And at one point, I thought he was going to go with LeBron James' firm, but he met with them and decided not to. So he had a different decision. That's the agency that has Chase Young and Jeff Okuda, the two Ohio State guys. And also, Melvin Gordon. But yeah, he made his decision and, you know, fired a agency CAA and it's been a lot of business with the Texans. But it doesn't matter. If they want the player, they don't care who they negotiate with. It could be you or I doing the negotiation.

There's still going to be a ton of money, Matt. And Aaron, we've seen this before where it's just his time and the guy gets paid, the highest in the league. But we've also seen the Houston Texans and Bill O'Brien say, just because this is conventional wisdom and how teams operate doesn't mean that's how we're going to operate. So, I mean, what do you think about the way Bill O'Brien is going to go about this? Because, I mean, Laramie Tunsell is not the best tackling in football. That's just, it is the way it is. But he's going to have to get paid that way, I guess.

But do you see Bill – I mean, he has a first-round picks. Right. So he has all the leverage because you're saying when you trade two first-round picks, you're saying publicly and to him, this is how we view you. We view you as this. And you have that leverage. And a lot of people have criticized and said, well, why I wasn't a contract?

immediately. And I don't think they're being realistic because they don't understand about that aspect of it is. He hasn't even met these coaches. So, you know, while the money might be great, he has to have a comfort level that this is where he wants to live and work for three, four, five years. So it's a big decision. And just to say, well, who cares?

Money is money. What if he doesn't like it? You know, I think, and this year he did like it. He does feel comfortable. And the good thing is he wants to resound with the Texans. He wants to do a deal. It's just very expensive. And they budgeted for this.

And that's the thing with Watson, the quarterback, and with tons of the left tackle, they're trying to have these guys in place for many years to come, have them to be a big part of their foundation. But it's going to cost a total, I did the math. It was about 300 million in my projections for what it could wind up. costing total, not per year, but the length of the deals.

So it's very expensive. And so I think Watson, you know, it's going to be the second highest-paid quarterback in the NFL? Yes, I think Mahalves will be the highest and he'll be the second highest. And I think clearly Laramieman-Consul will be the highest-paid. When that deal will happen, I don't know. They're in just the preliminary stage where they've exchanged initial contract proposals. And then, you know, he came in significantly higher.

and at some point they'll meet in the middle and find some common ground, or they won't. I predict that it will happen, but yeah, for now, I don't think any deal is imminent, and I'm expecting it to take some time, and if it takes too much time, who knows? I mean, Bill of Ryan, I can't predict how he'll react, but I don't think that they'll just sit there forever with that as a standing offer. He's going to want to have an answer and some closure to it, and so will tonsil. So it's a wild card because you're negotiating. You're negotiating with a traditional agency kind of thing.

You're doing something different. But the numbers are the numbers. Yeah, visiting with Aaron Wilson from The Chronicle. So put it this way. You've got Zach Cunningham as a guy that's on the verge of needing a new contract. Deshawn Watson's in that position. Laramie Tunsell is in that position. How many of the three of them will get their deals done in your opinion by the time that we ever get this season started will have deals?

Do you think that? Well, remember, they negotiate in the season. now. So that's a departure from the strategy that Rick Smith, Brian Gain, and Chris Olson had, and now deals can be done any time of the year. It doesn't matter if they have a game that week or whatever. Basically, it's open season. And that's Bill O'Brien.

That's a shift with him as general manager. I think, will they both happen this year? Yeah, my prediction is they do. That's counsel will happen first. The timing of Watson's deal is tied close to Patrick Mahomes. and so there'll be a lot of watching and people paying attention to Mahomes' deal. And what I think will help Watson the most is to wait for Patrick to get done and then get as close to him as possible.

And so if he's at 40, maybe Deshawn's at 38. Wow, crazy, crazy money spent on just a handful of players. I'm just curious. How often do you ask to speak to Bill O'Brien? is that something that is a protocol, the member of the Pro Football Riders Association? Where are you on? Why haven't we heard anything publicly from him yet? Oh, interesting.

No, I haven't, you know, that's as involved as much, but I haven't really been in touch with him. I haven't spoken to him. Yeah. Yeah, whenever there's a press conference or something like that, I'll be all ears and happy to talk to him. But yeah, it hasn't, you know, been a lot of communication or anything other than that one statement, just that they couldn't talk about deals of the team release. So, yeah, I think the requirement is that they do something before the draft. I would expect him to, you know, maybe do, like, one press availability before that.

Always had his Randall Cobb, and I expect at some point there would be like a David Johnson conference call, but I don't think that bill will be on that call. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. I mean, the deal is being universally panned, and he probably doesn't want to sit out and whether be in front of a conference call or not, take verbal beatings. My understanding is that, yeah, he's not blind to the, you know, the optics or anything like that. And, yeah, he's aware of it. But I don't think that's his, you know, concern.

He's not trying to explain or anything like that. I think, you know, he's just more like, let me just keep my head down and do my job. But, yeah, he knows that he's getting, you know, they're not, you know, they're head in the standing. They understand the perception. But I don't worry about that. their thinking is different. It's more just like, yeah, do your job, do your work, and don't worry about what people are saying.

All right. Last question. I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm just saying that's what it is. Yep, I understand that. Again, we'd like to hear from him, but maybe more for just talk show fodder than anything else. Last thing on Laramie, if they don't get something done before the start of the season,

you've talked to him a handful of times. What do you think the impression will be in that locker room and with the way Laramie conducts his business if they can't get something done before the end of the start of the new season. Interesting question. Yeah, it's hypothetical. I tend to think the locker room, they'll be fine. They're not going to be too worried about another guy's negotiation

and where's your money, that kind of thing, because it's not going to them. They're not giving anything out of it. For him, I think he's going to make $10 million either way. So he's going to make the most money he's ever made. He's going to have some really big checks. but this is something that he's put his holopsies into and, you know, it's the biggest thing that's happening with him right now. So, yeah, I think it wouldn't like it, but if he felt like it was going in the right direction and it was still going to happen and he wasn't going to be like heading to a franchise tag situation next year, I think he'd be good with it.

It just depends. You know, he's not really an anxious type of guy. I mean, he's a fairly laid-back person. but yeah, this is a lot of money. This is his life. I mean, there's things he wants to do. He wants to take care of his family. He wants to do a lot of things.

So, yeah, I'm sure it would be stressful, but I think he can handle it. But ideally, you never get to that point. And again, you're assuming that we're having football. And, you know, I'm not the CDC or the president or anything like that. Tell me a scenario, man, where we could have football, would these guys have testing every week when there's not enough tests for the rest of the country? Would you, there's not going to be some vaccine. You know, they're saying that's 12, 18 months.

So how would it be safe? Even if you had no fans there, let's see, have no press there, you just have the games and maybe you have a camera. I just don't understand how it's supposed to work. Well, the one is goofy for me. You don't know who's a carrier who, you know, doesn't have symptoms. Let's say everybody's healthy. You have 53 guys.

You don't have a training camp or, you know, what's the quality of playing going to be like? I just, I'm skeptical. I think the league is going to have to make some very tough choices and if we don't get the numbers down not to get off on a tangent too much but I wonder

are we going to have any football? Yeah, because we were talking yesterday about the report that was out there about sending everybody to the Greenbrier and building a bunch of fields and all that. I mean, you're then essentially asking for about 3,000 people to be in one community for a certain length of time and that

just doesn't make any sense either. Also think about the PR aspect of this. So they're saying that you know, what if there's preferential treatment? I mean, there was already a lot of criticism when all of those people from the jazz were treated, you know, were tested so quickly. And there's a lot of citizens out there. And their lives are just as important and just as valuable. You know, it's definitely favoritism at the very least.

I think it's a very real thing for people and the NFL has got to, you know, keep this in mind that there are more important things than football. I know it probably sounds like blasphemy, but in Texas, I'm being, you know, facetious, but the fact is there's a lot of health issues and there's also a lot of, you know, how do things look? Yeah, let me tell you. If it's not safe, the number one thing is going to be safety and the number two things got to be, can you logistically do it? Yeah, we have a lot of questions about both.

Yeah, all of us that are listening to this show right now, the people that are working on it, we love sports. It is our, it is our lifeblood, but in the big picture, it just doesn't matter. We've got to get our country and our world free of this before we start worrying about whether or not they can have training camps and whatnot. So point well understood. Thank you for the time and information. Great reporting on the Laramie-Tensile stuff. We look forward to reading more of your stuff on the Chronicle and, of course, cron.com slash sports.

Aaron, thank you for the time, as always, my friend. Thanks, buddy. You've got out. Aaron Wilson from the Houston Chronicle.