As other leagues like the NBA, MLB, and NHL begin to prepare to play, the NFL is about business right now and, as my readers know, that is what drives all decisions in sports and business. In fact, as it was written in this space weeks ago, if the NFL’s decision to play or not, as well as that of other sports leagues, was based exclusively on health and safety, nobody would play at this time. But the economy matters, and the sports business always wins.
With that in mind, let’s examine what is happening in the league and union negotiations, what I believe will be the future problems with Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs, and the continuing cloud hanging over the Washington football club.
Running the clock
My constant refrain about the NFL’s “top speed ahead” approach to the offseason and the 2020 season, despite a contagion that swept across the nation, has been this: They were lucky, having had the gift of time. and the ability to view driving tests from other leagues. And, as we all thought at the time, the virus would surely be much less virulent and transmissible in late summer. Much for that. Things are not better; They are worse. Much worse.
In this context, the NFL and NFLPA participated in a repeat of the Major League Baseball and MLBPA negotiations a month ago, the two-part negotiation of 1) health and safety protocols, and 2) an economic restoration ( translation: players doing less). In baseball, they were able to figure out health and safety protocols, which included not spitting out even sunflower seeds, but they were never able to complete a deal on economics. Commissioner Rob Manfred simply imposed a 60-game season on players. Now the NFL is currently wrapping up the “easy part”: health and safety protocols, including daily tests and [a reported offer of] no preseason games, before reaching his own economic restart ahead.
You know my line: deadlines spur action, and both MLB and NFL owners have strategically used a moving target deadline to intimidate MLBPA and NFLPA into coming forward and playing on their terms. The majors’ owners extended their negotiations to be unable to play more than 60 games when they were resolved (players wanted many more games). NFL owners have been following a similar strategy that first lacked answers about testing and quarantine, and will now take a hard line to cut player pay, proposing tens of millions of reduced limit charges between this year and the next. It seems to me that the NFL is using the MLB plan: running out of time to make the opponent start to panic about preparing to play.
Maybe the NFL deadline for a deal with the players is this week, maybe next week, maybe not until mid-August or later. No matter when, the owners’ primary interest is to protect the season, and they know that players will be there, without a handful of casualties. The owners were here six months ago, negotiating a team-friendly CBA for 11 years, granting them an additional game starting next year, waiting for players to approve the deal by the smallest margin for free agency to get started. Now they seem determined to wait for the players to approve the deal so that a minimum of training camp can begin. They could have “given” about health and safety issues to focus on the money ahead, a family game plan for their negotiation that dates back to CBA 2011. And they’re on it again.
Even in the midst of a pandemic, it is the number one business in the NFL.
Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
Chief concern
As is often the case in the football business when a mega-contract is signed by a star player, the masses are looking for the large number, and the large number of Patrick Mahomes’ expansion is a marvel: $ 500 million! I certainly respect that many have no further interest in the contract, but feel compelled, having negotiated NFL player contracts both as an agent and as a team executive (including negotiating the then-massive $ 110 million Brett Favre deal) to explain why this was a somewhat better deal for the Chiefs (too good a deal) than for Mahomes. And know this: Whatever you’re saying, the agent community, and some team executives, have been saying much worse.
I know what you are saying: “Andrew, how can you criticize a $ 500 million deal?” I understand that, but now that I have delved deeper into “guarantee mechanisms,” which require only a one-year commitment to a 12-year contract, the deal strikes me as troubling. Guarantee mechanisms are not guarantees; The Chiefs can “get out” after below-market compensation for six years, while Mahomes is essentially committed throughout his entire life in the NFL.
Here are some numbers that jump off the page:
• First-year cash flow, including signing bonus, is less than $ 11 million, a surprisingly low number in a $ 500 million deal. Here are some players in a similar situation, with shorter contracts and cash in the first year: Jared Goff ($ 57 million), Carson Wentz ($ 56 million) and Jimmy Garoppolo ($ 42 million). Dak Prescott, on a franchise tag, will earn $ 31 million this year. Even Russell Wilson’s contract five years ago had first-year cash of more than $ 30 million. The number of Mahomes is staggering; Attributing it to COVID, for an organization worth $ 3 billion, is not right.
• The three-year cash flow is $ 63 million, the same amount that Teddy Bridgewater will receive from the Panthers and well below the $ 91 million that Ryan Tannehill will receive from the Titans. Yes, those players were free agents, but they are inferior players. As for players in a similar situation, the three-year cash flows for Goff and Wentz, in deals that are already one year old, exceed $ 80 million. And if Prescott does nothing more than play under a franchise tag this year and next, he’ll make $ 68 million in two years, $ 5 million more than Mahomes will earn in three years.
• The six-year cash flow is $ 183 million, an average of $ 30.5 million per year that is still below the one or two year contract extensions for players like Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan and Russell Wilson. And those are contracts that will expire before Mahomes has reached the second half of his deal.
After six years, Mahomes’ numbers have risen to a level that he hopes will be the first on the market by then. But the limit may be $ 300 million instead of $ 200 million, and hope is not a plan. My concern is that the market will continue to pass Mahomes.
This is personally difficult for me: I have great respect for Leigh Steinberg, Mahomes’s agent, and his career of over 40 years at the top of the business. But ultimately, I have to be authentic with my readers / listeners / viewers, and this is not a suitable contract for this level of player. As for the notion that Mahomes “wanted to be a Boss”, a player can you want to stay on the team you’re with, and he still has some option in his career; They are not mutually exclusive.
The biggest problem with this contract is, in my opinion, for the Chiefs. I learned something the hard way by negotiating contracts for the Packers – unequal treatment will always bite you again. Players see and hear about the passing market and resentments develop. Deals like this may come back to haunt. They just signed the most valuable player in the sport for a contract that has (1) first-year money similar to what alternate quarterbacks like Chase Daniel and quarterbacks like Tyrod Taylor have received; (2) three-year cash flow equal to Teddy Bridgewater and surpassed by the best young quarterbacks, not to mention Ryan Tannehill; (3) six-year cash flow, not even at the top of the 2020 market, and (4) a 12-year term that assigns the team risk to the player.
DC dysfunction
As noted in this space earlier, I grew up as a staunch Washington fan, appreciating the times with my father at RFK Stadium seeing his sustained success in decades past. And once, as an agent negotiating a contract for running back Timmy Smith (who won more than 200 yards in the Super Bowl), I interacted with former Washington owner Jack Kent Cooke. Cooke complained that I was duplicitous (she had heard that Cooke memorized a new word every day, that must have been the word for that day). Despite his eccentric nature, Cooke had a majestic character that led him to the team’s large fan base. That was then, this is now.
I can’t count how many once loyal fans I’ve come across, including my own family and friends, who have lost interest in the team primarily due to owner Dan Snyder’s dislike or mistrust. In fact, it seems like a lot more people have a problem with the owner than the nickname. And, as pointed out here in my last column, Snyder chided a friend of mine, whose daughters are friends of Snyder’s daughters, for calling Snyder “Dan”, demanding that he be called Mr. Snyder. Who does that
Now with the Washington Post Report widespread sexual harassment under your watch, there’s more than aversion to Snyder; There is disgust.
When a report came out last month that three of Snyder’s limited partners, with a total team share of 40%, had hired an investment bank to offload their interests on the team, I was wondering Why in the world would they do that? This is a meager $ 3 billion asset that is only appreciating in value and the team’s name change was happening, removing that future hurdle. Why would they want to go out? Now we can know it; They may have wanted to disassociate themselves from the brand as soon as possible.
As for the issue of Snyder being forced, pressured, or forced to sell the team, that seems unlikely. While former Panthers owner Jerry Richardson was pressured to sell after a Illustrated Sports The investigation yielded reports of a similar atmosphere, Richardson was directly implicated in the behavior, while Snyder was not, although he clearly tolerated it. And now, according to the game plan of so many organizations affected by reports like this, in sports and others, the team has hired a lawyer to carry out an internal review. We can predict the outcome, with suggestions for inclusion and diversity, etc., but the law firm is not going to tell Snyder to say goodbye. As usual, There are lawyers.
Amid so much uncertainty about the NFL, even if we will have a season, there is consistency about the Washington football club. The brand has long since faded, and a name reset won’t elevate it anytime soon.
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