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The usual opinion regarding the extension of Russell Wilson's contract is that it is a victory for both parties. Wilson is now the highest paid player in the NFL and has secured strong guarantees, the largest signing bonus in history, as well as fast and important cash flow …
… while the Seahawks did not have to move about how they structured the markets. In accordance with Seattle custom, all fully guaranteed money will be payable in the first year. As a result, Mr. Wilson will not get a percentage of his salary related to an increase in the salary cap or the quarterback market, as he would have requested. Such a structure would have broken the mold of drafting contracts with the NFL, setting a precedent for other players. That's why, from a macro point of view, the real winner is the status quo.
Do not thank Wilson for accepting the big payday. That's a lot of money! And he stands up to collect most, if not all. But if players want to break the mold of the friendly contract system of the league, it will begin by ensuring that players of Wilson's stature use their powerful leverage to achieve it. The precedents are important, although Wilson's strong position is currently only available to very few players.
"Would it act from a generalized precedent? No, not at this stage, J.I. Halsell said. "But could this be a starting point, so that now, when you talk about players entering a phase of free competition, where you have several contenders, then you have a certain level of skill? 39 leverage, and then you can [say]"Well, I want the same percentage structure as Russell Wilson."
Halsell, who previously worked on both sides of the issue as an agent and senior capitalization analyst in Washington, explained that a similar global approach highlighted the real impact of Kirk Cousins' fully guaranteed deal. Compared to last year.
"Hopefully a player at another position that has a leverage can point Kirk Cousins and tell him," Hey, I want a fully guaranteed contract, "Halsell told me." You must create this precedent as a starting point.
according to Illustrated SportsAndrew Brandt (just like Halsell, former agent and former member of the team), players such as Wilson have "an extreme leverage". And here's the riddle they face: to improve the league's system in place, one would have to risk leaving real money on the table for the greater good. Le'eon Bell tried this by rejecting the Steelers offer and jumping on a second consecutive franchise label (as well as the $ 14.5 million guaranteed that went with it). As I wrote last month, it would probably have been better for Bell to accept the Pittsburgh offer for a variety of reasons. He misconstrued the Steelers' tendency to pay much of what was due to local players in multi-year, no-contract business. But also, as a half-league with a surplus of younger and cheaper halves, Bell was ineffective in recovering what he had lost by staying out of the way, not to mention innovative solutions.
Wilson, on the other hand, is one and the same more elite category: an exceptional quarter in a league in which even simple well quarterbacks are rare and earn a lot of money as a result. If he really wanted to set a precedent, the only factor that played against Wilson was the timing. He still had a year to go on his previous contract, but he also faced the prospect of the franchise label, which removes the earning capacity of players directly and indirectly. Aaron Rodgers was in a similar situation last summer, while he still had two more years left, as well as the threat of etiquette – and Rodgers finally took a conventional and upscale contract. If Wilson had been scored twice, he would still have collected between $ 83.75 and $ 85.66 million over the next three seasons – an amount comparable to that of the cousins - in the amount of $ 27.9 million. $ 28.85 million in AAV – with the ability to hit the market with unfathomable leverage in 2022, at age 33. That's what Cousins did. But, like Rodgers, Wilson "could only push the envelope in the meantime," said Brandt, "but [the] the money was too good to wait.
Here again is the puzzle for those who have "extreme weight". As one agent told me in Bell's report: "The idea of giving up large sums of money almost guaranteed by a revolutionary structure is not wrong, but at the base. At the same time, if we get guaranteed contracts, wages will increase. "
The precedents can be the most cursed things. The "fully funded" league rule, which stipulates that all fully guaranteed money must be placed in escrow at the time of signing the contract, has long been the subject of good teams to avoid paying substantial guarantees, or fully guaranteed contracts. But a contract that would link the salary to a percentage of capitalization, to take into account the growth of capitalization and changes at the top of the market? It's so bad that Brandt, in his IF column, said she "had no chance" in Wilson's case. Former ESPNer member John Clayton, who still has an ESPN radio show in Seattle, thinks the league's board would not even approve an agreement with this type of structure. As Clayton told his listeners at the beginning of his show Tuesday:
"Some of the silly ideas – I know, we talked about it yesterday with Peter King – are:" Oh, why can not they set some kind of ceiling percentage to be able to do it? Well, two things did not go with that. First of all, I do not think that the board of directors will approve it one day, and I do not even know if the association of the players will approve it. Because remember, they are in a collective agreement and that would change the structure of how transactions are concluded, and when you try to go too far to make an ABC, it's not going to go – and it there was no reason to do it. "
First, league and NFLPA representatives met once. So it is a little exaggerated to say that both parties are at the bottom of the CBA talks or any near resolution (the current agreement will expire in March 2021). Second, why would the players' union oppose a cap-and-hold contract because the current collective agreement does not provide anything to prevent it? In an email, Clayton acknowledged that the rules do not prohibit a ceiling percentage agreement, before explaining to the managers of the team with whom he has been simply kept from wanting it.
"Setting a ceiling percentage would be too complicated," Clayton said.
"It sounds like collusion," Halsell tells me, repeating what he had tweeted after someone told him what Clayton had said on the radio. "There is no formal rule in the collective agreement – and that nothing I've seen indicates that this is not possible in the ABC – then, if the league and the board of directors do not approve of this mechanism, it looks like collusion. "
Collusion, of course, is hard to prove. That's why, like Halsell and others, like Jason Fitzgerald of Overthecap.com, have suggested that the NFLPA might want to aim for a shorter path to free will in the next ABC.
It's hard to blame Wilson for cashing as he did. But that's one more reason why he had a unique opportunity to wait to get things moving, from the point of view of structure: his before career gains. The extension that Wilson accepted this week is his third contract, and his second alone would have paid him $ 87.6 million by the end of 2019.
"It's the kind of player," Halsell told me, "who should have the means to lobby for it."
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