The four-year, $72 million deal that the Jacksonville Jaguars gave to Christian Kirk in March shocked most of the football world, including even Christian Kirk, apparently.
In an episode of a podcast called “The Room” that dropped Thursday, Kirk told Houston Texans quarterback Kyle Allen that he was “in shock” after his agent told him what the Jaguars were prepared to offer.
Kirk, 25, told Allen that he was on a family vacation in Bermuda when he got on the phone with his agent who had said he had big news to share.
“He’s like ‘The Jags are going to offer you four years, $72 million, and I’m like, ‘What?'” Kirk said. “So backstory on this, a lot of the teams that my agent was talking to … they were in the $14 to $15 million range. So, that alone in itself, was like where I had hoped to land. Anything in the $14 to $15 [million] plus, I was gonna be blown away.
“So when he said that, I was like ‘Wait, what?’ … He’s like ‘They want you, you’ve been their top priority, everything they have in place, they want you to be the guy.'”
Kirk said he told his family the news and both his parents started crying, but he didn’t because he was “still in shock” and was still somewhat “in denial” because the deal wasn’t official yet.
Eventually he signed on the dotted line and, so far, it hasn’t looked like a poor investment by the Jaguars. Through the first three weeks of the season, Kirk was eighth in the NFL in receiving yards with 267 and behind only Stefon Diggs in touchdown receptions.
