Joey Bosa is a name well-known to many College Football fans, but for those who may not know let us review his resume of dominance during his stint at Ohio State. During the 2015 season, Bosa amassed 51 total tackles (16 of them for a loss) five sacks, 14 quarterback hurries, one forced fumble, one interception, and four pass break-ups- all as a defensive end. While the numbers are great but not spectacular, consider that Bosa was facing constant double-teams and game plans geared toward stopping him, which makes posting those stats a lot more impressive. Many NFL and College Football pundits believed Bosa was not only the best defensive player in the draft but also perhaps even the best overall player. He ended up going to the Chargers as the third overall pick in the draft this year. So the defensive stud and potential defensive-cornerstone is out there eating up offensive lines and harassing quarterbacks left and right, right?
Wrong. He hasn’t even touched the field. The talented first-rounder isn’t missing time over failure to prioritize his values or even injury. No. He is not playing for one reason and one reason only:
Greed.
But not his own greed, no, the Chargers are sticking to their reputation of stinginess to the point of having their picture next to the word “miser” in the dictionary with the likes of Mr. Scrooge. Contract negotiations are at a complete standstill now, and getting nasty and public thanks to an underhanded move by the Chargers organization in a poor, transparent attempt to gain leverage. The fault in the failure to negotiate this contract lies almost entirely with the San Diego-based franchise and I will do my best to explain in plain English why that is.
First and foremost, the Collective Bargaining Agreement from 2011 brought with it the Rookie Wage Scale, which essentially is a chart that determines the rookie’s wage of his four-year contract based on his draft position. The higher the draft position, the higher the yearly salary. With this already determined, it is a wonder how the Chargers could alter this contract so drastically that it would lead to a stand-off with such a huge investment as their third overall pick. The issue reportedly lies with the Chargers wanting to defer part of Joey Bosa’s signing bonus to next year instead of paying the full amount by December and also include offset language.
The bonus is self-explanatory- Bosa is about to sign his contract and wants all of his signing bonus at the time he signs. Not terribly unfair to ask. The Chargers want to include the offset language in his contract, which just means that if the team decides to cut Bosa before his four-year deal is up and he signs with another team, the contract he signs for will help to “offset” the guaranteed contract money still owed by the original team. So if Bosa had 2 million dollars left on his contract and he was cut, then signed with the Cowboys for 2 million dollars the Chargers would owe Bosa nothing. Ultimately they wouldn’t save more than a 5-10 million dollars doing this (about 5 per year they don’t keep him) which is not a large sum in the grand scheme of things, especially for a highly-touted defensive end. While it isn’t a big deal to the team in the long-term, five million is a lot to a player and they could be getting paid the rest of their guaranteed contract from their original team while also making new money from their new deal, essentially doing a contractual “double dip”.
First off, the offset language is nearly pointless. 349 draft picks were chosen from 2000-2010 and only eight total players (none of which signed for over the minimum of around 600-700k) were cut before their fourth season when the offset language from the contract would apply. So the Chargers are going to risk losing their third overall pick so in the case they cut Bosa (very slim chance) before his fourth year, they can save themselves between 600k and 700k. And on top of that, you don’t want to pay the full signing bonus, you want to defer the last 1.5 million to more than half a year later. Bosa and his camp, being very reasonable, told the team that if they either paid the full bonus at the time of signing or took out the offset language that they would be happy.
They made this offer to the Chargers just at the start of training camp, expecting to have a deal done. Instead, they waited 14 days past the deadline which would have allowed them to trade Bosa to another team before they told them “no”.
Did it really take two weeks to decide you didn’t like the offer?
Then the Chargers released a public statement which said “Our contract discussions and offers to the representatives of Joey Bosa have been both fair and structurally consistent with the contracts of every other Chargers player. The offer that we extended was for Joey to contribute during all 16 games and beyond. Joey's ability to contribute for an entire rookie season has now been jeopardized by the valuable time he has missed with his coaches and his teammates. Since Joey will not report at this time, his ability to produce not just early in the season, but throughout the entire season, has been negatively impacted.”
You’re joking, right?
What is fair about refusing to budge on either saving yourself 700,000 dollars or deferring 1.5 million dollars of a 17 million dollar signing bonus? Is that fair to Bosa, a potential pro-bowl caliber defender? Is that fair to the Chargers fanbase and the team? Is it fair to try and use the public, fans, and NFL media as pawns to pressure Bosa and his camp into signing a deal that is not in the best interest of the player?
No, it’s not fair. To anyone involved. It is selfish behavior by the Chargers and it has only come to hurt them in the long run. They may not get a deal worked out with Bosa after how poorly and tactlessly they handled these negotiations, meaning that Bosa may re-enter next years draft essentially making the third overall pick from this year that could have helped bolster the franchise completely void and useless. Greed has harmed the franchise and the development of a talented, young player.
Stinginess and stiffness in negotiations is good to a point, but the Chargers methods with regard both to contract negotiations and their public handling of such matters is self-defeating and disrespectful to the Bosa and the fans.
Bosa’s ability to contribute has been jeopardized by the Chargers inability to efficiently respond (I mean fourteen freaking days are you serious?) in negotiations and then treat players like commodities (ask Eric Weddle) while smearing their public image for damage that is the front office’s fault.
Are those new negotiation tactics?
Do the right thing- swallow pride, concede a point and pay the man.
Stay classy, San Diego.
