If you really look at this from the business lens, the Jones' mishandled these negotiations with their public statements. (i.e. JJ saying they are all in on Dak as the franchise QB, Amari will get his money after his big game against the Commanders; and SJ saying that Zeke's contract starts at Gurley money).
Also, IMO they waited too long; if they really believe this core can take them to a championship, they should have tried to lock them up before other teams secured theirs. Letting them 'play this out' was the wrong play, IMO.
Is SJ dumb, of course not, but that doesn't mean they didn't mishandle these negotiations.
And before you ask, yes I have an Engineering degree if that's your litmus test to opine on SJ's business skills.
No, I don't judge business or football management skills strictly by having an Engineering degree.
- However, having a real Engineering degree from a fully accredited University (not online & not engineering technology) establishes that he has a reasonably high IQ.
I understand why you would say this about comments to the media; however, I disagree that it's an issue.
- The agent already knows that Dak is going to get a big contract.
- The agent also likely knows that Cooper is going to get a big contract.
- Both Dak and Cooper have only 1 year remaining under contract. Zeke has 2.
The problem appears to be that they offered Zeke a contract well below what his agent is seeking.
- That gave the agent a 1 or 2 year advance notice of what the team has in mind with regards to the contract.
- They could have
implied that they plan to give him a super-mega-contract, but not until 2020 or 2021.
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Once they made an actual offer, they lost the ability to make that implication.
- Would the agent have Zeke holdout if the agent thought a super-mega-contract was on the horizon for 2020 or 2021?
Having said all of the above, that's based on how big time legit agents would likely see the situation.
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Zeke's agent is a low level agent and Zeke's rookie contract appears to be about half of his total dollars under contract.
- That's about 50M under contract vs over 1 billion for the Agents of Dak and Cooper.
- It appears that Zeke's agent (Arceneaux) is small operator trying to get into the big boys league.
- Arceneaux has lured guys like Marshall Faulk in to working with him by offering to train them to be agents.
- He used Faulk to recruit Zeke because apparently Zeke was know to be a fan of Faulk.
- Arceneaux also has a history of shady dealings with regards to covering up player crimes.
The motivations of a bottom feeding type agent might be completely different than the big time agents.
- He might just need the money now.