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The player is the boss
in the player-agent relationship.
You can never lose sight of that.
So while Marcus Maye’s agent might be looking at the top safety contract, Denver’s Justin Simmons, four-year, $61 million deal, with $35 million guaranteed, the player probably needs to take control and say, “The John Johnson contract is fine.”
As we first brought up here, the deal Johnson signed with Cleveland makes sense for Maye. Johnson, a former Los Angeles Ram, signed a three-year deal for $33.8 million and $24 million guaranteed.
Sometimes it’s hard for agents to accept deals they consider below market value, because it could be held against them in recruiting future players.
But while Maye is a good player, he probably hasn’t produced on the level of Simmons, but more like Johnson.
And the Johnson deal fits in with the template of contracts Douglas likes to give out, three-year deals that are essentially two-year deals. Johnson basically got a two-year deal for $24 million, and considering Maye is already 28, doesn’t a two-year commitment make the most sense?
So while Maye’s agent’s job is to get his client the most money possible, the client needs to tell his agent, let’s take the Johnson deal.
Because if they don’t, Maye will likely end up playing this year for the franchise tag for $10.6 million. While that’s good money in real world terms, wouldn’t it make sense for Maye, who has had injury issues in the past, to grab a deal for around $24 million guaranteed? Because if he gets hurt this year while playing under the franchise tag, he’s going to have a hard time getting much guaranteed money in 2022.
You have to respect Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry, not just because he’s a superb player, but how he handled his contract situation last year. Instead of demanding the Todd Gurley or Zeke Elliot contract, he took a deal that made sense for the team and made him happy. He signed a 4-year deal for $50 million with $25 million guaranteed. So it was basically a 2-year deal for $25 million. While it wasn’t Gurley/Elliot money, it made him happy, and that is the bottom line.
The point here is forget the benchmark contract at your position, and just work out a deal that makes you happy.
But in order to do that, the player usually needs to take control.
As we have seen over and over the last couple of years, perhaps aside from that misguided Ryan Kalil contract, Douglas is is a hardnose negotiator who sticks to his guns. He just got long-time WFT right tackle Morgan Moses on a one-year deal for $3.6. Did anybody think the Moses deal would be that reasonable?
Douglas makes what he thinks is a fair offer, and usually doesn’t stray from it. It took Moses a few weeks to accept it, but after he saw how horrible the free agent money is right now, with the most teams right up against the cap, he took the money.
On March 3, Maye’s agent took to Twitter to rip the Jets:
“Yet 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). ”
The agent probably figured browbeating the Jets publicly would get them to cave. It’s worked in the past.
It doesn’t work with Douglas.
Maye should tell his agent to make a deal, like the Johnson contract, and just get it over with.
June 28, 2021
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