Kangaroo;3189831 said:
Unless a new agreement is signed we may not be able to much of anything in Free Agency. Making the playoffs and if we win a game it gets worse on what we are allowed to do the rules going in place also hurt guys like Austin he no longer is a FA because it goes from 5 years to 6 years
If I am not mistaken Austin would still qualify for FA b/c he signed his 1 year tender last season. The new RFA rule says that if a new CBA is not ratified by march, then a player needs 6 seasons of accredited years of service unless the player has completed 2 NFL contracts. He signed an initial 3 year deal (contract 1) then he signed his RFA Tender last spring (contract 2) although the RFA tender is only a 1 year deal, it's still a NFL contract. This rule will also apply to the following players: Stephen Bowen, Cory Proctor, Miles Austin, Sam Hurd. If my info is correct all of them would be UFA this year. Spears, Carpenter, Hatcher will all be RFA.
I will check with a family member of mine who is an NFL exec with another team, but I believe I am correct. I am sure that AdamJT13 could bring clarity to this.
However I may be wrong about the RFA rule, I couldn't imagine that Jerry would risk exposing Austin to the open Market unless he knew he could use the highest Tender which would result in a 1st and 3rd round pick as compensation should someone sign him. I think many teams would indeed be willing to give up that much compensation. Let's say you had the #20 pick in the draft... you certainly would expect to give up at least a 2nd or 3rd round pick to move up in the draft lets say 10 spots to the #10 overall spot in the draft. I am not looking at a point value chart, but I know that it would cost at least a 2nd round pick to get that high. Then the question is "Is Miles Austin a better WR than what you could expect to draft at the #10 spot. The Answer is not just yes, But Hell Yes he is. Probably top 3-5 talent and he is still very young. My fear is that if we don't resign him to a long term deal, and I am wrong about the new RFA deal, we will almost certainly loose Austin. Therefore I am 100% sure getting a deal done with Austin is priority #1 for Jerry. In an uncapped year I would expect a huge signing Bonus. I think he will get 6 years 54 Million $$$ 24 Million Guaranteed. Jerry can afford it!
