So, all three Bear 2nd RDers are locked up. Only Burden negotiated a fully-guaranteed contract, but that seems to be what the market dictated.
NFL is a deadline driven business. No coincidence all the dominoes started falling right before camp started. I’m sure every team acted independently in nearly a 24-hr window[wink wink].
Maybe the agents received extra lap-dances to close the deals.
However, just as one drama is closed, another possibly opens.
Apparently, Jaylon Johnson is not content with his current contract and didn’t report to camp. [edit. JJ now now on NFI list. Won’t be expected for a few weeks].
If you dig into the numbers, you can understand JJ’s gripe.
I’m all for players getting paid, but even for me it’s hard to get behind players ‘holding out’ after they signed the dotted-line. A part of me grumbles, “You signed the fucking contract. Play it out.” though I know the opposing argument always follows, “Oh, and it’s ok when GMs dump players before their contract’s over?”
I suppose the easiest solution might be [shorter?] fully-guaranteed contracts.
Say 3-yr fully-guaranteed.
Players take on the risk of injury, but the payoff is that 3 yrs later, the market will pay more.
An extreme version of this was Derrell Revis who, if memory serves, basically signed one year deals [for like three seasons] betting on himself and made out like a bandit.
Of course the flipside to that is a player’s achilles going out or an awful season, then next year his market value won’t be as high, which is why most prefer those longer 5 year deals.
The GMs tend to protect themselves in the last two-ish years of such deals, so if they cut said player, cap penalty is minimal.
That’s the GM-Agent dance as of now, but maybe that model needs to change.
Either way, it seems most of the team is reporting for camp, so that’s great news for the Bears and if Jaylon Johnson shows up to camp, it’ll be much-a-do about nada.
As always, stay tuned…