More from Albert Breer: Why the Commanders Are Betting on Sam Howell This Season | Reexamining Trey Lance’s Timeline in San Francisco
The season is 10 days away, and the final takeaways of the preseason are here …
The Chiefs and Chris Jones have an under-the-radar deadline coming tomorrow. Jones’s holdout has now been going for well over a month. And as of Sunday, he’s accrued a whopping $1.8 million in fines. If he doesn’t show by Tuesday, he’ll be putting even more cash in peril.
In Article 20 of the CBA, there’s a rule that sets a deadline for five days before the end of the preseason (which is Tuesday) for a player to report. If he doesn’t, then a team can use a roster exemption to withhold game checks from him even after he reports.
So here’s how it works: At the cutdown, which is 4 p.m. ET Tuesday, the Chiefs will move Jones—if he hasn’t reported—to the reserve/did not report list. If he shows up, say, a week later, then Kansas City would likely apply for a two-game roster exemption during which the Chiefs can carry Jones without using a roster spot. And under this rule, if Jones doesn’t report by Tuesday, the Chiefs can choose not to pay Jones while using that exemption on him (once he’s activated, obviously, they will have to pay him).
Ron Chenoy/USA TODAY Sports
That means if Kansas City holds Jones out for two games to prepare him for games, it’d be entitled to keep those two game checks, which would add up to $2.22 million and add to the money Jones is already using on fines. And, sure, Jones would probably ask the Chiefs not to do that in exchange for his reporting, but it’s another leverage point for the team.
Will Jones report Tuesday? The tone of negotiations makes it seem unlikely. The sides have been at a stalemate for weeks, with the Aaron Donald number ($31.7 million average annual value) wreaking havoc on this negotiation—the Chiefs, I believe, want to give him a market deal based on where it went with Jeffery Simmons ($23.5 million AAV) and Quinnen Williams ($24 million AAV) this summer. Jones believes Donald’s outlier deal is what he should be paid. So the sizable gap (more than $7 million per year) from one number to another has left Jones and the team at an impasse.
I also don’t think whatever Nick Bosa gets in San Francisco is going to change the stance of either player or team in this case—if anyone thinks that’s the shoe that has to drop.
Bosa is going to be the highest-paid edge rusher of all time. The question to me is whether he’ll get past Donald and to $32 million per year, which would make him the highest-paid defensive player of all time.
Remember, T.J. Watt got $28 million per year two years ago from the Steelers, and it’s easy to make the argument that Bosa’s the superior player. And you can add the 24 months of inflation to that total.
That said, this isn’t—and hasn’t been—an easy negotiation for obvious reasons. But the Niners have a good history of taking care of their own and digging out of sideways contract negotiations—with the Deebo Samuel situation a good example of one that got a little ugly and ultimately resulted in zero games missed by the star receiver. So I’d trust GM John Lynch, EVP of football operations Paraag Marathe and vice president of football administration Brian Hampton to get a deal done with Bosa’s agent, Brian Ayrault.
This is, without question, a critical week to get there, and that things have remained quiet and cordial (the Niners fully understand how the Bosas have a history of being very business-minded, as a team would be) gives everyone the best shot to accomplish that.
Of course, it being the end of summer, those two aren’t the only big deals on the horizon. Among those remaining to be done …
• My guess would be Joe Burrow’s extension will get done in Cincinnati, but this one hasn’t been easy, either. Burrow said in May that he’s been clear with the team about what he’s looking for and figured something would happen before the season. The clock’s ticking. I know Burrow would like to do something that’d allow for the group around him to stay intact. And that indicates there might be some creativity in how the deal is put together. Related to that: Tee Higgins is 13 days away from playing the final season of his contract.
• The decision by the Dolphins to do a deal with defensive tackle Zach Sieler (three years, $38.65 million) doesn’t eliminate the possibility that something will get done with defensive tackle Christian Wilkins, but it’s not the greatest sign that Miami turned its attention at the position to the guy next to Wilkins, who staged a hold-in this summer. Wilkins is a really good player. Whether he’s worth what Williams and Simmons got paid is another question.
• No one’s talking much about it, but the Vikings are making an effort to get wide receiver Justin Jefferson signed before the season starts. Jefferson’s kept a pretty low profile about this one, and talks, as far as I can tell, have gone fine. When I visited with him a few weeks back, he told me his absence from parts of the offseason were about endorsement opportunities, not the contract. He did call getting a life-altering second contract “a dream of mine. It’s been a dream since I was 7 years old.” But then he added, “I’m definitely not letting that contract stuff get in the way of my team. We have to be focused on getting to the Super Bowl.” Easier to do, of course, when you know, sooner or later, you’ll be paid at the top of the market.
• Brian Burns is another negotiation that’s been quiet. My understanding is the Panthers have made an effort to spark talks, but Burns’s camp has been patient and reluctant to show its cards. It’d be understandable, and even logical, if the Carolina edge rusher—who’s had a great summer for new coach Frank Reich and defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero—is waiting to see what Bosa gets in San Francisco.
Jonathan Taylor’s situation should come to a head this week. Teams have inquired about Taylor, but it’s hard, at this point, to find many suitors willing to give up both a high pick or package of picks and the kind of contract Taylor would agree to. And that leads to an interesting secondary question—does Taylor want out bad enough to play out his rookie contract for someone else?
Let’s say, for example, you’re the Eagles. And you could use a bell-cow back, and see the final year of Taylor’s deal, at $4.3 million, as doable. Figuring your second-round pick would be around the No. 60 selection, would you package that pick with a Day 3 pick for Taylor, thinking he’ll have a career year and bring back a third-round comp pick in 2025 after signing elsewhere in ’24? In that circumstance, you’d be moving a pick back a year and about 40 slots, and giving up an additional pick for the one-year rental.
It’s a fair thing to wonder about. Now, again, I think whichever team trades for Taylor would need to know he’s on board with playing out his contract. Maybe he wouldn’t be. But if he was then it’s one way that the market for Taylor could open up.
Either way, it sure does seem like the Colts would like to have a resolution to this thing right around when they set their 53-man roster Tuesday.
First and foremost, it’s good to hear Dolphins rookie Daewood Davis is O.K. This is the second consecutive week we’ve had a rookie backboarded and taken to a local hospital, and those situations are always scary. And the Dolphins and Jaguars made the right decision in calling their preseason game with 8:32 left Saturday.
That said, I’ll repeat what I said last week—I think Damar Hamlin has changed the way teams, and ultimately the league, approach situations such as these, and that’s for the better.
But where will the line be for regular-season games? It’s not that difficult to cut a preseason game short because you’re trying to be sensitive to the player injured and the mindset of the players left to play the rest of the game. A regular-season game is totally different, with the competitive aspects to it, not to mention all the different folks with financial interests involved.
My guess would be that this is something the football operations folks at Park Avenue will have to sit down and discuss over the next couple of weeks, because the post-Hamlin reaction to tough injury situations clearly is giving the league some uncharted territory to navigate.
Ed Mulholland/USA TODAY Sports
The Jets got what they wanted out of Aaron Rodgers’s debut. And I’ll put “debut” in quotes because obviously the real thing is still two weeks away.
But as the coaches saw it, there was value to putting Rodgers out there Saturday night.
The first thing they wanted to accomplish was simply having a clean operation from whistle to huddle to snap to whistle. Giving them a nice challenge in getting there, from a communication standpoint, was the presence of Giants defensive coordinator Wink Martindale on the other side. And the Jets ran smoothly with Martindale on the other side, giving Rodgers & Co. looks to adjust to. On two possessions, the Jets’ first offense had a single penalty (and that was an illegal blindside block), no negative plays and a 52-yard touchdown drive.
The second thing the staff wanted to see was the rapport that Rodgers and his receivers have shown on the practice field carry over into a game setting. And when it comes to the quarterback and his new star receiver, that box was emphatically checked. Rodgers and reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year Garrett Wilson connected for a 14-yard touchdown on a throw that was a perfect 10 and a catch that showcased Wilson’s ability to position himself to make a play on the ball.
If the offensive line is right, that Jets offense is gonna be a problem. Speaking of the line …
I figured it’d be good to show to those of you that missed it what Rodgers said about his newly anointed starting right tackle, Mekhi Becton. Becton was the 10th pick in the 2020 draft and, after a promising start to his career, has had all kinds of issues, showing himself to be the generally unreliable guy he had a reputation for being in college.
Things have changed this year. He’s lost weight, he’s shown determination and he’s fought for his spot. And whether it’s due to Rodgers’s presence, being in a contract year or just plain growing up, those in Jersey have taken notice. The quarterback included.
“I told him I love him,” Rodgers said after the game Saturday night. “He’s come a long way. I’m really proud of him, as much as anybody on the team. The way that Mekhi has grown this month has been really spectacular. I don’t know if you guys had a chance to talk to him a whole lot, but I just feel like his head’s in a really good spot. And he feels like he’s a part of it [and] he’s playing well. I’m not sure what the film’s gonna show. But it felt like, out there, he protected well.
“He’s a mountain of a man. He leads on the field. It’s like old-school battles where you send your biggest guy out first, and there’s Mekhi leading us on the field. It’s really cool. But it is amazing to see, when you empower people and when you encourage people and wrap your arms around people, you see the personality start to come out. You see the confidence start to grow. And I think that’s what we’ve tried to do with Mekhi, make him feel like he’s a part of this and make him feel important.
“He’s returned that love and trust and support with a lot of really good play.”
Pretty cool message from a guy who, despite what perception might hold, has really endeared himself to his new teammates over the past four months. And it’d be pretty cool for the Jets if Becton keeps it up and Duane Brown can keep going opposite him at left tackle at the ripe old age of 38 (he’s actually 37, but his birthday is Wednesday).
Josh Jacobs did the smart thing taking the money. The franchise-tagged Raiders tailback got a nice sweetener from the team to do it—getting a new one-year deal with $11.8 million in base pay and another $200,000 available in incentives.
I advocated in July for both Jacobs and Saquon Barkley to push their negotiations to the deadline and then take their teams’ best offers. Neither of them did that, and, if there’s an injury or decline in play, either or both could live to regret not doing that.
That said, Las Vegas GM Dave Ziegler and coach Josh McDaniels did something that should resonate in the locker room, giving a player who’s so respected and productive the additional money to show up, even when they didn’t have to. And it’s something that should help them get the very best out of one of their best players, who’ll now report to the team engaged and ready to roll. All of which set up Jacobs to make the right call this time around.
Here’s the thing—it’s nice seeing these guys stick up for each other and those who’ll come after them at the position. But there’s also a finite amount of time they have to make that sort of money. That time is even shorter for running backs than it is for anyone else. So the right thing, for them, almost always is to get what you can while you can get it.
Jacobs did after not doing so in mid-July. The good news is if he forces the Raiders to tag him again after the season, he’ll wind up with a two-year take of almost $26 million, which is really good money for the position.
I wouldn’t expect an active trade market, outside of Taylor, this week. But there are a couple of interesting things to look for, just in case a few players are jarred loose by teams pursuing deals.
The first is that it’s no mystery why early minor moves—Kevin Dotson being traded from the Steelers to the Rams, Tyrone Wheatley Jr. and Vederian Lowe being traded from the Steelers and Vikings (respectively) to the Patriots, and Josh Jones going from Arizona to Houston—involve offensive linemen. This is now a yearly thing. There aren’t enough offensive linemen to go around. More contenders than you realize have offensive line as a swing factor (Cincinnati, Buffalo and the Jets, to name a few).
So teams are out there paying even for guys who have a little potential and project to be the seventh or eighth player within their unit.
The second is that some of this has spilled over this summer to the defensive linemen, with teams looking for help on the interior. That’s why I’d expect teams such as the Jets, Eagles and Bengals, which have depth up front, to get calls on their backups. And it’s a matter, again, of there just not being enough of those guys to go around.
Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to say the NFL’s got an issue finding big men right now. But it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that those have become the hardest spots to fill.
Rich Storry/USA TODAY Sports
I’m starting to feel for Tua Tagovailoa. And it has nothing to do with his spat with former Steelers safety Ryan Clark, though his sensitivity to what Clark said, I think, is indicative of a quarterback who is sick of everyone litigating everything he does—and rightfully so.
Between his catastrophic hip injury his last year at Alabama, his concussion issues last year and all the injuries in between, Tagovailoa has to hear everyone playing den mother over his life, and life choices, as if he doesn’t know the risks he’s taking. I’d imagine that it’d get to you, if you’d worked your whole life to get to the level you’re at, only to find thousands of people telling you whether you should keep pursuing your dream when you get there (remember, it’s his life, not yours).
And now this situation (full disclosure: I really like Clark and, based on what I know, don’t think he was trying to be malicious) rears its head and, well, if Tagovailoa decided enough was enough, I wouldn’t blame him for it.
It sure will be interesting to see how he plays after all this.
We have some quick-hitters for you, as usual, to wrap up the week. Let’s go …
• The writing’s been on the wall for a few weeks on C.J. Stroud—he started all three of the Texans’ preseason games and has gotten the majority of first-team reps in practice—so it was a surprise to no one that new Houston coach DeMeco Ryans named him the Week 1 starter during postgame Sunday. Stroud’s gotten better every week, and against the Saints he played fast and confident, looking like a different guy than the one who looked like he was doubting himself and what he was seeing against New England two weeks earlier. Now it’s on the Texans to do enough to support him. Also interesting is that his first game (in Baltimore) will come against coordinator Mike Macdonald, who was on the other side (as Michigan’s 2021 DC) of perhaps Stroud’s worst game as a collegian. Should be interesting.
• Stroud’s affirmation as starter also means every first-round quarterback (there are three this year) will start Week 1. It’ll be the fifth time it’s happened since 2000. The other four: ’08 (Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco), ’12 (Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, Brandon Weeden), ’13 (EJ Manuel) and ’15 (Jameis Winston, Marcus Mariota).
• Geno Smith’s path back would be a good one for Trey Lance to study.
• All the best to Buccaneers center Ryan Jensen, who won’t play this year due to complications arising from last year’s horrible knee injury. Here’s hoping, whether it’s retirement or trying to play again, Jensen finds peace in whatever’s next. He has been a heck of a player and was a real anchor for Tampa Bay’s 2020 championship team.
• I’d say it’s O.K. for Browns fans to be optimistic on Deshaun Watson. Sure sounds like he, Kevin Stefanski and offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt are in a good place.
• Don’t look now, but the Steelers’ young offensive core, from Kenny Pickett to George Pickens to Diontae Johnson to Pat Freiermuth and Najee Harris, looks like it has a really bright future, especially if first-rounder Broderick Jones is a hit at left tackle.
• I’ll be interested to see whether Eli Ricks makes the Eagles’ roster. He was an elite recruit out of high school who started as a true freshman at LSU. Things went off the rails a bit from there, and he wound up transferring to Alabama and going undrafted this year. But, clearly, there’s talent there, and Philly’s proved to be as good a place as any to harvest that.
• Having to trade for Josh Dobbs two weeks before the season isn’t a great sign of where Arizona is at quarterback.
• It will definitely be interesting to see Tom Brady show up at the Raiders-Cowboys game in Texas.
• Speaking of Brady, Baker Mayfield always made the most sense as his heir for a veteran Buccaneers team. But Kyle Trask carrying the competition into late August isn’t something to ignore. He did a lot right to keep himself alive for that long.
• Jalen Carter, if he can keep his off-field affairs in order, could be a monster, and right away. After the Colts-Eagles joint practice Wednesday, I saw a Philly lineman explaining to an Indy counterpart how hard Carter is to block, showing him a move Carter uses to throw his opponent. The two then laughed about how freakish he is (for whatever that is worth).
