It's all about the guaranteed money in my opinion. I've mentioned before they should try and front-load as much as the contract as possible, just give him a shit ton of guaranteed money this season and next. If you think this negotiation is hard, wait until Sheldon. I would hate to see a reality where we don't have Mo or Sheldon in the future.
The thing is, I don't think he has all that much leverage because we just saw a deep defensive line draft and I think that has to be taken into consideration. His leverage was at his highest prior to the draft. Him holding out for a new deal IMO does nothing good for him or the Jets at the end of the day. He's removed options from the table. Delaying a trade only hurts his value IMO because he has to get acclimated to a new system. You do have a good point in terms of putting him up against other teams, but I don't think it did him any good.
You should NEVER EVER do a deal with a player where the player can void the remainder of the contract. That's a heads you win tails I lose situation. You're locking yourself in to give the player significant money and significant guarantees and if he outperforms he leaves and takes a better deal from someone else and if he underperforms you're stuck with a player with a significantly overvalued contract who becomes untradeable. You can get salary cap relief with a 2 year contract where year 1 is what he is getting under the tender and year 2 is an unguaranteed $20 million, which you know the jets will never pay, so they would just cut him. This is how the patriots structured their deal with Revis. The problem with this structure is that (i) you lose the ability to Franchise him next year (although at $18+ million they probably wouldn't do that anyway) and (ii) you lose the compensatory pick you'd otherwise receive when he left next year, which would probably be a third rounder.
Bear in mind that just because he has some leverage doesn't mean he (or his agent) will use it wisely. I agree with you that logically it might have made the most sense for him to sign the tender and permit a trade to someone who might do a really favorable long term deal with him now (although not necessarily the best deal) and that next year after the players that just came out have a year under their belt he may be less desirable and have less leverage. Nevertheless, the players that just came out will take some time to develop and I suspect that he'll have a reasonable value after he signs the tender, even if its during training camp. After all, Mo is primarily a one gap DE/DT playing a 3 or 5 technique, and I don't think that position changes that much from system to system. He will have to learn new terminology, but that shouldn't be too difficult. I guess we'll see how much value he has after he signs the tender. If the Jets can trade him for a 3rd round pick or better next year, then I think they will. If they cannot then they'll probably let him play out his year under the tender and let him walk and hope to get a 3rd round compensatory pick. I think they actually have a deal already worked out for either a 2nd or 3rd round pick. I think that was why they traded a 4th next year for Shell in the 5th round this year, because they figure they'll have either an additional 2nd or 3rd pick.
The reason I think a voidable deal has merit in this case is that it would do several things for the Jets: 1. It would give them cap relief this year and put some of the current tag cap hit into 2017 where they can manage it better. 2. It would give Mo a face-saving way to sign a long-term deal with the Jets without getting his huge guarantees right now. This would allow him to come in and start participating in the team's rehab program for his leg and also to not be out in the cold for the rest of the summer. It would let him feel like part of the team for 2016 instead of a mercenary still waiting on his payday. 3. There's a chance the Jets and Mo would work out long-term, albeit a small chance but it would keep the door open for a solution. Here's the real deal on Mo. He's been very underpaid over the course of his career for his contributions. That's an effect of the new CBA and being a 29th pick star in the first 4 years of the deal. The Jets can't afford to make up the difference under a capped situation at this point. However they can throw him a little extra cash in appreciation for his years of service in return for some needed cap relief in 2016. It's possible they'll even work things out long-term. It's possible nobody will bite on a huge deal for Mo next year or alternately that he won't like the places that make the big offer very much and would choose to stay for a good salary with some guarantees. This is particularly true if the Jets somehow put it all together and win it all this year. It's part pipe-dream, the entire scenario that is, however it would be good to get Mo in and turn down the volume on the various contract situations for 2016. And it is always possible that he winds up staying with the team long-term based on what he and they see in the 6 week window next year.
Voidable years are almost always for less money or for terms that the player doesn't like. You give a contract like that to an elite player whose agents demand extra years for the sake of making the contract look like a blockbuster on draft day. Those contracts are meant for players that classically value themselves more than they are worth and are a holdout risk. So, instead of a holdout, you get voided years and the lack of a PR headache. It's a win-win and not a bad tactic in some situations. It also makes them extremely tradeable if they don't exceed the level of performance in their contract. You are looking at the concept of voidable years in a vacuum. Doesn't work that way. Disclaimer: I don't view Mo Wilkerson as the type of player you use that tactic with at all.
I think that's usually a team voidable (i.e., non guaranteed) term. This isn't uncommon. This is exactly what the Patriots did with Revis. They gave him a 2 year contract with $12 million for 2014 and $20 million due for 2015, with only the first year guaranteed. This allows his agents to say that Revis got a 2 year $32 million contract or $16 million per year (which if you'll recall was always what he wanted because it made him the highest paid CB in the NFL at the time). In fact, the Patriots were never going to pay him the $20 million for 2015, they were always going to cut him and that exactly what they did. So Revis ended up with $12 million for 2014 and that's it. This also allowed the patriots to spread out the portion of his compensation paid through a signing bonus over 2014 and 2015 for salary cap purposes.
I'm not proposing using the voidable thing as a tactic. I'm proposing it for the Jets to get some cap relief this year and Mo to get a little bit more money for giving them that cap relief despite effectively being under the tag. I wouldn't expect Mo to be back next year under the deal but it improves the chances that he might be. It would also give him a bit more guarantees in terms of a potential injury with the $10M guarantee for 2017 if he chooses not to void the contract. Incentives are good when you want something.
I don't agree with your proposal. If Mo plays poorly this year or gets hurt badly we'll be stuck. In that case we'd have been better off keeping him on the tag. I wouldn't mind that risk if there was something in it for us if Mo plays well. But if he does he'll opt out and we'll end up with a 9M hit this year and 8M next. That's 17M total which is more than the 15.7M tag. Also if we try to re-sign him after he opts out the new contract will be on top of the 8M dead money. It would end in disaster for us.
The alternative appears to be to have him play under the tag, at $15.7M on the 2016 cap, and then leave at the end of the year. I'd rather have a chance at retaining him. Even if he plays poorly/gets hurt next season the Jets would still have him under contract for 2018 and 2019 at $10M a year at their option after he decides not to opt out in the 6 week period. However the plays poorly option is extremely unlikely to occur. The injury is always a risk but there's nothing you can do about that.
That Cox deal redefines the non-QB market. Average salary of the top defensive players are going to get silly over the next couple seasons. I told people to lookout for the Cox deal months ago and it's here. Mo is one of the better lineman in the league. We will need to give him at least 65M guaranteed. We might tag him again next season too. At 6 years, I bet that year to year cap hit won't be as bad as people think.
Another bad team makes another bad deal with one of it's players. It's just how the NFL goes. It's the Raiders signing Asomugha that makes Revis unaffordable for a good team (the Pats paid him $12M to play CB, not the $16M Aso got from the Raiders in 2008). It's the bad deals for people like Cox that make good players like Mo unaffordable for teams that want to really compete. This was the end for the Jets and Mo or it was the end for the Jets and being a competently run team. We'll see which case is true. You can't mirror the moves of a bad management team in dealing with your own players. Some times your hand seems to be forced but even then you need to find a way to duck the problem or it will bite you over time and keep coming back for another nip just when you think you've got the problem behind you. Thankfully the Jets have 2 other DE's and that is not an issue for us.
We should probably see the year to year cap hit before jumping to conclusions. The progressive expansion of the salary cap is in effect. It's just like every other league. Cox was one of the best interior lineman in the league, you can't let great 2 way players just leave, they have too much of an impact. Given our history of 2nd round picks, I would rather overpay Wilkerson [65M guaranteed] then to trade him for a 2nd.
Find me a record-breaking contract on defense that has paid off under your ever-expanding salary cap scenario. Then if you can find it, which I doubt, prove that the deal was not just an outlier. I posted a list of the highest DL contracts at this point and they are all on .500 teams or worse. You just can't pay one of your players 10%+ of your cap and survive in the NFL. Even paying your QB like that is risky unless he's an all-time great and capable of playing at a very high level.
Then you're going to be happy watching a mediocre team for the duration of that contract. We've had Mo under bargain terms now for 5 seasons. What the hell have we won because he was playing for us cheap? Now you want to pay him like he's mana from heaven? What's wrong with you?
The cap went from 143M to 153M in 1 year. NFL owners HID money from the players, you really think this salary cap increase is going to stop any-time soon? If they add 5 to 10M again next season, Jets will have so much space they'll HAVE to spend it and who else deserves it more than Mo? The scenarios you see now are proof. The ENTIRE NFL market is being redefined whatever the Jets like it or not. You either stay with it or stay irrelevant. Jets will need to pay one of these lineman.
Find me the team that is doing what you're talking about and is any good. You won't find them because they're not there.
I think it all depends on who the Jets pay going forward and when. Extend them early and don't extend the Jeremy Kerley's and the Mark Sanchez's. Even if it's a 2 or 3 year extension. To me, I want to maximize the player's value and trading Mo for a 2nd round pick is not doing so. I would rather keep him on the roster this year under the tag and attempt to win with the roster we have. Of course you have to worry about next season with Mo, but that's next season. Things change, players want security, if we threaten to tag him again, he may just take a long-term deal for the security aspect. These negotiations work both ways. If Mo walks, then whatever he walks and we get a 3rd. That's my stance on it. I believe in the players we have, if we can just limit the turnovers on offense and Gailey maximizes the talent on offense, we can make some noise. We just need a ticket into the playoffs.
