Why are big contracts so hard to negotiate 2024?

[KingCorcoran]

He’s made billions off of our following but here some are calling him the idiot

I said he’s a genius.

 

[America's Cowboy]

All sound information by everyone.

It still doesn't excuse CeeDee sitting out. He's simply being greedy and likely wants to be highest paid WR in the NFL.

 

[JoeKing]

Negotiating a contract is hard when you lack the money to pay for the talent.

 

[Aerolithe_Lion]

Well, if you think it’s not difficult, then please become Cee Dee’s agent.

CeeDee and Dak’s agents are playing hardball with the Jones’s because they know it already worked for Dak, it just worked for Zach, it worked for Zeke, it worked for Amari, it worked for Dez…

Agents don’t do that to Veach because they know he doesn’t play like that. He’ll dump Tyreek, he’ll let Orlando Brown walk, he’ll keep his WR carousel going as to not interrupt the fang shui of the rest of the roster. He’ll pass over L’jarius Sneed if his asking price is even a little higher than they’re comfortable with.

The moment Haason Reddick wants a raise, Eagles make him a New York Jet. The cord is cut in Carson Wentz not two years into his deal. Evan Mathis tried to be a training camp holdout and got cut. Malcolm Jenkins tried to be one and ended up having to show up because he got nothing for it. Jalen doesn’t hold out, AJ Brown doesn’t hold out, Devonta Smith doesn’t hold out because their agents are conditioned to play nice with Howie. So they sign early for smaller AAV than they could have weaseled out of Jerry.

Bill Belichick was trailblazing on this for years. Jamie Collins wants a new contract? Get rid of him. Lawyer Milloy is heading into a contract year? Get rid of him. Richard Seymour wants an extension? Get rid of him. Vince Wilfork out-aging his deal? Get rid of him. Wes Welker? Randy Moss? Asante Samuel? Bye bye bye.

It is not a coincidence that all of this has, is, and will keep happening to Jerry. Because he lets it

 

[Praxit]

Are you worth $13 billion?

.... I think he's worth, $15 billion... .

 

[John813]

Are they hard to negotiate or does the team just wait till they are ready to get deals done?

IIRC with Cooper, his agent wanted to test the market to see what other teams were offering.
He came back at 20mil AAV, but IIRC the Commanders offered 22mil AAV. Friendly guarantees to the team in that deal.

Trevon Diggs and Steele were re-signed at the start of training camp and right before week 1, respectively.
Diggs took a deal that had favorable terms to the team, while his AAV was up there with the top corners.

Quarterbacks are a whole other dilemma in the NFL, as that's the #1 position that holds most cards in these negotiations.


Stephen and Jerry have mentioned watching the leaves fall and other sayings when it comes to contracts. They may just be content waiting for camp to start to get serious, unless the agent blinks first. The team may simply be waiting for this and next week to get serious.

 

[John813]

Agents don’t do that to Veach because they know he doesn’t play like that. He’ll dump Tyreek, he’ll let Orlando Brown walk, he’ll keep his WR carousel going as to not interrupt the fang shui of the rest of the roster. He’ll pass over L’jarius Sneed if his asking price is even a little higher than they’re comfortable with.

Chris Jones held out all of camp and week 1. The team re-negotiated his deal and he came back week 2.

I think each GM has a make or break value on each player. Chris Jones was worth it and considered part of their core.

Tyreek Hill was obviously talented, but the Chiefs didn't want to guarantee a high amount of money to him. Miami said they would, and a trade was made. I think if he was a model player/person they may of done it as the dude is a great player, but a diva and had/has some off the field issues.
Sneed wanted big money and possibly had a long term knee injury risk.

IMO in Dallas, the Front office falls in love with their players, at times can't think rationally and since they rely purely on the draft, they can't exactly be trading proven players for another draft pick. And when they do want to move on, stories get leaked and trade values seem to plummet.

 

[Aerolithe_Lion]

Chris Jones held out all of camp and week 1. The team re-negotiated his deal and he came back week 2.

I think each GM has a make or break value on each player. Chris Jones was worth it and considered part of their core.

Tyreek Hill was obviously talented, but the Chiefs didn't want to guarantee a high amount of money to him. Miami said they would, and a trade was made. I think if he was a model player/person they may of done it as the dude is a great player, but a diva and had/has some off the field issues.
Sneed wanted big money and possibly had a long term knee injury risk.

IMO in Dallas, the Front office falls in love with their players, at times can't think rationally and since they rely purely on the draft, they can't exactly be trading proven players for another draft pick. And when they do want to move on, stories get leaked and trade values seem to plummet.

Jones one way a bit different because they still resisted giving him the extension. They made it clear it wasn’t going to happen until they were ready for it to happen. They upped his guarantees only for that year so he’d report; Comparatively, that’s not relatable to CeeDee, Dak, et al.

As for the other scenarios, yeah you can add context to each one to give them certain narratives, as you can with each of Dallas’ guys. But it still coincides with their recent history of making those happen, both for KC and Dallas.

 

[zrinkill]

That’s the thing that I wonder about. I mean he’s worth $13 billion so he’s no idiot.

Albert Einstein would have probably failed at running a football team.

 

[dogunwo]

Because contrary to popular belief, the owners don't have all the power and leverage that fans think they have. There's a strange feeling among a lot of fans that players should just be grateful that the players are offered anything, so they should just accept whatever. Ironically, no one here feels like they should just be grateful their own employer offers them a job, and should not be able to negotiate their own salary.

 

[blueblood70]

It's not always because of the team or even the player.

In some cases player agents know that another similar quality player's contract is coming up and they want to wait to see what that player gets before setting an amount they want for the player they represent.

In other cases, new media deals may be coming up for renewal with the NFL which will increase the salary cap so they want to wait until those deals are completed and future salary cap predictions come out based on it before signing a contract.

In other times, it's simply because the player wants X years and the team wants Y years.

There are also other factors that come into play for teams such as existing dead money, other upcoming big contracts that they deal with, etc. and for players there are things like wanting to wait based on current coaching staff extensions or upcoming coaching changes, other players receiving extensions that may impact the team's performance, etc.

It is never as simple as fans think it is though a lot of people love to simplify the process down to "team is being cheap" or "player is being greedy".

all 3 play part in it but fans take sides..meh.. jamar chase not signed, tua not signed, aiuyk not signed, etc etc etc but sure the jones are at fault last year Chris jones hung out until the week before game 1 Jones is at fault somehow I'm sure, this just in Jones is at fault for Love holding out!!

 

[blueblood70]

Because contrary to popular belief, the owners don't have all the power and leverage that fans think they have. There's a strange feeling among a lot of fans that players should just be grateful that the players are offered anything, so they should just accept whatever. Ironically, no one here feels like they should just be grateful their own employer offers them a job, and should not be able to negotiate their own salary.

 

[Creeper]

Only Jerry understands his strategy I think. But I remember a few years ago when the optimistic thought was that the new TV contracts deals would boost the CAP so high, paying top players would not be a problem.

So what have we learned? Not matter how high the CAP increases, contracts will rise accordingly, and teams will struggle with the CAP just as before.

 

[John813]

Jones one way a bit different because they still resisted giving him the extension. They made it clear it wasn’t going to happen until they were ready for it to happen. They upped his guarantees only for that year so he’d report; Comparatively, that’s not relatable to CeeDee, Dak, et al.

As for the other scenarios, yeah you can add context to each one to give them certain narratives, as you can with each of Dallas’ guys. But it still coincides with their recent history of making those happen, both for KC and Dallas.

Nah, not saying they are comparable to Dak and CDL, as who knows how this will ultimately play out. Just a guy who was willing to hold out for a new deal, but the front office didn't ship him off as they knew he was too important right now to lose. There's tiers of players that I think the Chiefs wisely stack for importance. They had to have a good feeling the overall team wouldn't be worse if they traded Hill or Sneed.
Eagles do the same thing.

I wish Dallas would do the same. If the guy isn't in your long term plans and you don't want to pay market value, ship him off early in the offseason and then find their replacement.
The way they handled the Dez offseason was terrible and caused them to then overpay for Cooper.

 

[Aerolithe_Lion]

Nah, not saying they are comparable to Dak and CDL, as who knows how this will ultimately play out. Just a guy who was willing to hold out for a new deal, but the front office didn't ship him off as they knew he was too important right now to lose. There's tiers of players that I think the Chiefs wisely stack for importance. They had to have a good feeling the overall team wouldn't be worse if they traded Hill or Sneed.
Eagles do the same thing.

I wish Dallas would do the same. If the guy isn't in your long term plans and you don't want to pay market value, ship him off early in the offseason and then find their replacement.
The way they handled the Dez offseason was terrible and caused them to then overpay for Cooper.

Yeah Dez was the worst. The way they handled Cooper wasn’t horrible as he was new to the team and they were playing out the dynamic before deciding… but it was complicated because he had the 1st round pick price tag over his head. If he played 1.5 years and then went to Washington that would have been a disaster. The Dak stuff probably mostly has to do with his agent who’s been like this before, but CeeDee shouldn’t be unsigned this late.

 

[CyberB0b]

Because today's players have gotten super greedy. Always wanting to be the highest paid.

Yeah, we have to protect those poor billionaire owners.

 

[kskboys]

After pondering for months, like the rest of us, I still don’t understand why they don’t try to get out ahead of these contracts (Lamb, Prescott, Parsons) and get them signed. To us laymen, it doesn’t make sense. The question begs, “how could they be so ignorant?”. I mean they did with other players like Diggs and some others so why not with these guys? It’s an interesting question and one in which I have no answer. The easy answer you see here daily is, “they’re a bunch of idiots, etc.” But could it be more than that? The GB GM stated how hard these big contracts are and how they take time. Tua may sit out. Aiyuk still unsigned and others. Cowboys aren’t the only team having big contract settlement issues.

It’s going to take someone way over my pay grade who knows the inside and out of NFL contracts 2024 and the CBA. Is there anyone here?

Because these big contract players are all wanting huge money which makes it almost impossible to build a team.

So, in essence, extreme greed.

 

[Cowboys93]

Yeah, we have to protect those poor billionaire owners.

Always makes me laugh how it’s the players who are the greedy ones lol

 

[kskboys]

Are you worth $13 billion?

Wealthy doesn't = mental acuity. Very weak response.

 

[kskboys]

Yeah, we have to protect those poor billionaire owners.

No, we have to protect the NFL. An uncapped market is only good for like 3 teams, and everyone else suffers. All businesses need limitations, no exceptions.