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As you know by now
ESPN’s Adam Schefter announced that the Jets are putting the franchise tag on Marcus Maye and it will be worth around $10.5 million.
This gives the Jets until July 15 to work out a long-term deal. If they don’t make a deal by that date, Maye will have to play for $10.5 this year, if he signs the franchise tender.
Clearly the two sides are far apart on a long-term deal, and the Maye camp is frustrated by that.
“(The Jets) refuse to take care of their best player, captain, & team-voted MVP in his prime, who had several All-Pro votes, and who played out his entire rookie deal and even changed positions on his contract year (after they got rid of last years All-Pro safety),” tweeted Maye’s agent Erik Burkhardt.
You can debate what “take care of their best player” truly means.
You often hear talking heads on TV or columnist saying, “pay the man” when there’s a contract dispute, but that I’ve always found that a little disingenuous. It’s not as as simple as that. You just don’t “pay the man.” The contract needs to make sense.
Based on the top safety contracts, you would have to think Maye wants something in the $14-15 million-a-year range. Washington’s Landon Collins, Tennessee’s Kevin Byard, Arizona’s Budda Baker, Chicago’s Eddie Jackson and Kansas City’s Tyrann Mathieu all have contracts in that ball park.
The highest guarantee went to Collins at $44.5 million.
You could make a strong argument that the Collins contract was profligate. He signed with Washington in 2019, and over the 22 games he played for the Football Team over that time, he has 1 interception. No question, he’s a good run support safety, but his play in coverage is average, so the kind of money he got was probably a little over the top.
And guess what happened in the middle of last season? He got hurt, blowing out his achilles tendon, ending his season.
That’s the biggest risk with giving safeties mega-deals. It’s a brutal position and guys at that position get hurt all the time. Maye’s had issues staying healthy in college and the NFL, though to his credit, he’s played all 16 games the last two years.
But he just turned 28. You need to be careful. Joe Douglas knows that.
To me, a contract like Adrian Amos got from Green Bay last year, which averages $9 million a year, makes the most sense, but there is no way Maye and Burkhardt are going to take that looking at what Collins, Byard, Baker, Jackson and Mathieu got.
The Jets might not have helped matters by recently running a story on their website with the headline –Â “S Marcus Maye is Jets’ top-rated free agent, according to ProFootballTalk.”
Surprised to see that. Some teams wouldn’t do that.
Burkhardt might use that against them.
But Douglas probably won’t care.
He doesn’t govern by public opinion polls.
And while Douglas wants to pay Maye, he’s not going too crazy. It’s not his responsibility to care about benchmark contracts at the position, like Jerry Jones did with Dak Prescott, at $40 million-a-year. Is Prescott worth that kind of money? No way, but that is the benchmark.
Where is it written where you have to meet these benchmarks?
You should make a really nice offer to Maye, but you don’t need to re-set the market with his deal.
March 9, 2021
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