Rubbish, he went for most money he could get (he's now in the top 10 NFL career earning of all time) ......he'd be more receptive to taking less IF HE VALUED WINNING OVER MONEY.
There’s a large difference in the leverage you have when facing two tags vs when you’ve played through them and are close to free agency.
The team could have gotten better terms and a longer deal if they had acted sooner.
The team had the cards, they used the system to play him, he waited it out, then the leverage shifted to him, and has stayed there since.
Yep, this last deal was all about the money for him, but let’s face it, does 60m vs 55m really make much of a difference?
Point is….the team had leverage and let it shift to him, and if waiting for him to ‘prove himself,’ I suppose was the point in waiting, what exactly did he prove, other than he was good, not great, and they weren’t likely to find anyone better, which they should have known two years prior.
Jerry probably didn’t want to write the signing bonus check because he could take that cash and invest it elsewhere for two plus years and pay for a good portion of the entire deal. The Joneses don’t care about cap space as much as overall cash flow and business. It’s a conflict of interest and the likely answer to ‘why do they wait so long to sign players?’