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How Will Eagles Be Impacted If NFL Makes Changes To Salary Cap Management? · Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Inside the Birds is back. What's going on everybody? It's
• 0:15
  Jeff Mosher. Adam kap would hope everyone enjoyed their July
• 0:20
  fourth holiday weekend. And Adam, you know, once you get
• 0:23
  past July fourth weekend, that Eagles training camp is right
• 0:27
  around the corner. We're gonna have some really exciting content
• 0:31
  leading up to that, and then pretty soon we'll be
• 0:33
  into training camp and the season and my gosh, that's
• 0:36
  it's hard to believe it all just right around the corner,
• 0:38
  just a couple of weeks away.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when a club wins to Super Bowl, in this
• 0:41
  case the Eagles, I mean, they're off season shorter and
• 0:44
  that's kind of where we're at with them. But yeah,
• 0:46
  the league, it's funny, within a week, some teams are
• 0:52
  actually reporting earlier. They're starting tip a little earlier than
• 0:57
  the other teams. There's some teams that are starting week earlier,
• 1:00
  week earlier than the majority of the club. So that's
• 1:03
  that's where we're at. Yeah, training camps are right around
• 1:05
  the corner. We're looking forward to.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: It all right, and I think we did a pretty well.
• 1:09
  First of all, let me just thank a lot of people.
• 1:11
  We got a ton of feedback mostly positive from fans
• 1:17
  all around the NFC East. For our NFC East preview
• 1:21
  series that we do every year with Greg Cosel. We
• 1:24
  just break down the have Greg breakdown the tape, We
• 1:26
  give some intel, you know, we try to keep an objective.
• 1:29
  I mean, when teams babb we'll call it. But it
• 1:31
  seems like Giants fans and Commanders fans, even Cowboys fans
• 1:34
  thought it was very fair and balanced. And we got
• 1:38
  a ton of listeners outside of the you know, Philadelphia
• 1:42
  fan area just reaching out to us. So I appreciate
• 1:44
  everybody who shared it maybe in the media for us,
• 1:47
  and you know, it's it's one of the series I
• 1:50
  think that we're most proud of just because we do.
• 1:52
  We're really we take the scalpel and the four steps
• 1:54
  of these teams and we really you know, perform surgery
• 1:58
  and the tape breakdown is really fast from Greg. Yeah.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: The funny thing is the Giants one got the most play,
• 2:03
  and it's fun Most were not only complimentary, they felt
• 2:07
  that that they learned. And then there are a couple
• 2:09
  and you're gonna get this no matter what you do. Oh,
• 2:11
  we don't know we're talking about we're idiots. We're morons.
• 2:14
  Russell Wilson is going to be great. You don't know
• 2:16
  what you're talking about.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: I've put out a lot of information on Russell Wilson
• 2:20
  the last couple of years. Not all, if it's positive've
• 2:22
  told the truth. He's not easy to at a coach,
• 2:25
  good person, but in terms of football, he wants to
• 2:28
  do things his way. He's got clashes which are no
• 2:32
  surprise Sean Payton others over the years. And you know
• 2:37
  there's there's some giants, fans or delusional thing. Oh, all
• 2:40
  that stuff doesn't matter. You're not You're not right about that.
• 2:43
  You don't know what you're talking about. All this stuff, Well,
• 2:45
  then why does.
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: He keep moving on? Folks? Gone, If you're great, please
• 2:50
  get do the math. It's good.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What Adam is specifically referring to is as someone
• 2:55
  wrote like a fifty five paragraph dissertation for Russell Wilson
• 3:01
  that I only made it through about eight lines of
• 3:04
  So this person was.
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: That's great. I mean, it's a lot of it.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: It's factually incorrect, but I the guy was it was
• 3:11
  took the time out to to uh to to type that.
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: I don't know, I don't know where he got this information.
• 3:16
  I just was laughing.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: It's funny, how like you as you know, when fans
• 3:21
  read either bloggers who are not plugged in or the aggregators,
• 3:26
  they don't know where they're getting the information from. They
• 3:28
  just say, oh, well this must be true. Then they
• 3:29
  don't they don't question anything, right of course. Anyways, It's fun.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: But that was so that was a great series and
• 3:37
  returned the page and listen. This podcast was interesting. This
• 3:40
  is Adam's idea and I thought it was a really
• 3:41
  good one because, in a very strange way, some big
• 3:46
  news in the NFL that does have impact or tentacles
• 3:49
  that extend to the Eagles sort of got glossed over
• 3:52
  and it was you know, it first came to light
• 3:54
  with Pablo Torri, NFL reporter, used to work for ESPN.
• 3:58
  I think he has his own podcast now, is that
• 4:00
  I don't.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he's a general reporter. He's really not an NFL party.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: He's a general reporter, right and who used to be
• 4:06
  ESPN And yeah, him and Mike Flora did this great
• 4:09
  podcast just talking about on the document that Pablo he
• 4:16
  was able to acquire and it's this sixty one page.
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: Ruling or.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Document from a neutral arbitrator who talks about that. And
• 4:33
  this is the quote from system arbitrator Chrishner Droni, who
• 4:35
  was the one who ruled on it. Quote, there's there's
• 4:38
  little question at the NFL Management Council with the blessing
• 4:40
  of the Commission, and encouraged the thirty two NFL clubs
• 4:43
  to reduce guarantees and venteran contracts at the March meeting
• 4:46
  in March twenty two. That one was at Palm Beach.
• 4:50
  I was at that. I'll we'll get into that a
• 4:51
  little bit later, which I never thought I'd be thinking
• 4:54
  about this again, this is in the back of my mind,
• 4:55
  but I didn't think it really would matter. But wow,
• 4:58
  this is interesting and it really is pointing to the
• 5:01
  Deshaun Watson contract, which, as you know, was ridiculous, but
• 5:06
  you know what, someone was going to give it to him.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: We'll get into that in a minute.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: But this, this document was put together and Drony's ruling
• 5:17
  or statement was put out in I believe January of
• 5:20
  this year, and it just this is the way it is.
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: It's just funny.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: How and I guess Florio wrote about Mike Flora wrote
• 5:27
  about it. How You're not hearing a lot of comments
• 5:31
  from agents or anyone, and some of the media are
• 5:34
  not doing it. I'm like, why would you not. I mean,
• 5:36
  the the CBA is not up until March of thirty,
• 5:40
  twenty thirty one. I mean, obviously the two sides could
• 5:42
  start working on earlier. This is a big story. This
• 5:45
  is a big deal. Now obviously the NFL, you can
• 5:48
  understand why they don't want it out, don't want anyone
• 5:50
  talking about it because of this. This document where a
• 5:54
  system arbitrator is the title of Chris Drone Christopher Drone
• 5:59
  that says that at the Management Council, which is, by
• 6:02
  the way, the body that the NFL has that overlooks
• 6:06
  every contract and had a lot of money issues and
• 6:11
  they strongly encouraged the NFL to reduce guaranteed contracts.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: That's a big deal. Yeah.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So so just for let's try to put this
• 6:20
  in layman serns, because a lot there's gonna be a
• 6:22
  lot of you know, wonky language. You started to say
• 6:26
  that this arbitrator Truney Judge JUNI found that the NFL
• 6:34
  attempted to or or I guess the freezing of it
• 6:37
  was that encouraged teams to not give out, you know,
• 6:41
  guaranteed contracts. However, at the same time this this arbitrator
• 6:46
  ruled officially that there is despite the encouragement of the NFL,
• 6:52
  that there was not enough evidence to actually conclude that
• 6:56
  the NFL owners did in fact collude. Okay, so that's
• 7:01
  two interesting things here. One, there was an attempt at
• 7:04
  coercion or persuasion into it, but in the end there
• 7:08
  was not enough evidence of it. And that's sort of
• 7:11
  largely why I think it's kind of gone under the radar,
• 7:14
  is because the case is well, it's not that the
• 7:17
  case is closed, but they were the NFL was not
• 7:19
  found guilty of collusion despite some pretty I don't know,
• 7:23
  interesting evidence that was presented in the case. And how
• 7:28
  this involves the Eagles, as I understand it, Adam, and
• 7:31
  we'll get to sort of the vibe when you were
• 7:34
  around that meeting in twenty twenty two is that it
• 7:40
  wasn't just quarterback contracts. It was coming out of COVID
• 7:43
  that was the big one obviously, but teams when the
• 7:48
  salary cap went down coming out of COVID for the
• 7:50
  first time, smart crafty teams started to do things that
• 7:55
  you see the Eagles do routinely now, which is take
• 7:58
  non guaranteed money and turn it into galleranteed cash that
• 8:03
  you spread out over time, which is now what the
• 8:06
  Eagles do routinely. It is a form of giving non
• 8:11
  guaranteed money and turning it into guaranteed money. And as
• 8:15
  I understand it, part of that presentation from Jeff Pash
• 8:18
  of the Management Council of the NFL was just an
• 8:21
  overall concern by the NFL Management Council therefore the NFL
• 8:27
  that there was too much guaranteed money now starting to
• 8:30
  be given the contracts, not just the quarterbacks, but these
• 8:33
  big contracts, and that was opening up the door for
• 8:37
  a slippery slope into the future. And I think that's why, Adam,
• 8:43
  you're starting to hear about it more. We heard from
• 8:46
  Roger Goodell in the last I guess owners meetings that
• 8:49
  one of the discussions going into the future will be
• 8:52
  the integrity of the salary cap and how certain teams
• 8:57
  are maneuvering. I mean, they might as well just out
• 9:00
  and said now, the Eagles are doing business right right.
• 9:03
  So this does even though the Deshaun Watson thing really
• 9:06
  doesn't involve the Eagles because they never really truly got
• 9:09
  into it. Once the negotiations came down, you know they're
• 9:12
  out by then. But this thought process by the NFL
• 9:17
  owners and the NFL that there's just too much guaranteed
• 9:21
  money going out and too much, too much manipulation of
• 9:24
  the salary cap. That is a threat to how.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: The Eagles do business in the Yes, yeah, in the future,
• 9:30
  you talk about years down the line. It's how could
• 9:31
  be a factor in the next couple of years, but
• 9:34
  it could be like think about it, right, Let's say
• 9:37
  we get to twenty twenty nine, twenty twenty eight and
• 9:41
  they're doing a five year structure. They're doing a five
• 9:43
  year deal, and then by then, because we're getting now
• 9:48
  is generally the bit the best players are now getting
• 9:51
  three years fully guaranteed.
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: We're not getting five. The only one who got five
• 9:53
  with Shaan Watson.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Or you might get a little bit of fully guaranteed
• 9:58
  in money in year four, but you not get all
• 10:00
  all of it guaranteed for the guaranteed a year four. Well,
• 10:03
  let's say you get to twenty eight, twenty twenty nine,
• 10:06
  and the fourth year that deal is after the CB expires.
• 10:12
  That becomes a slippery slope because how are you going
• 10:15
  to structure that deal?
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: Things could change, That's the thing that you worry about.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: The next couple of years are not a problem, but
• 10:21
  when you get to twenty and twenty nine, it becomes
• 10:23
  a big problem. And you're absolutely right. The Eagles are
• 10:25
  a team that's being targeted. It's not their fault or
• 10:29
  There are a couple other teams who do similar structures
• 10:32
  like the Eagles. Very few of them do because they
• 10:35
  don't want future dead money if it doesn't work out
• 10:37
  with a player. Eagles have made smart bets on their players.
• 10:40
  It means signing guys early, making sure they don't make mistakes,
• 10:44
  make sure you identify the right players to extend early.
• 10:47
  A lot of teams aren't willing to do that. Look
• 10:49
  at what the Cowboys have done. It's cost them way
• 10:52
  more money because they continue to wait. Eagles don't do that.
• 10:54
  They identify a great player, a very good player. If
• 10:57
  you get it done early. They take on the burden
• 11:01
  early in the contract, but they get boy, do they
• 11:03
  get a bargain and structure. How much is fully guaranteed?
• 11:06
  Its signing comparabvely to some other deals that are going to
• 11:08
  get done because they're doing it.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Early, all right, right, So it feels like the Eagles
• 11:12
  are getting penalized for being smart. But in the end,
• 11:17
  in the end, the NFL is strange because I know
• 11:21
  that an arbitrator once ruled that they are thirty two
• 11:25
  independent businesses and that's how they get away with not
• 11:31
  you know, being behold into certain anti trust laws. But
• 11:35
  they work together under a salary cap that is collectively bargained.
• 11:39
  So while they don't always operate as a monolith, there
• 11:42
  are times that they do right. They're united against the
• 11:46
  players when it comes to the CBA and vice versa.
• 11:50
  So it causes interesting because whenever something happens where one
• 11:55
  or two or three teams do something differently that the
• 11:57
  other teams doesn't like, then it starts to disrupt the
• 12:02
  the overall feeling of unity and solidarity that is sort
• 12:06
  of not supposed to be there in the first place.
• 12:08
  And I think the big I've always known about it,
• 12:11
  but as a reporter, what was the year where the
• 12:15
  uncapped year? Was that from COVID? Right? That was similar
• 12:18
  right coming out of COVID. Remember that the NFL punished.
• 12:21
  I think the Cowboys, the commanders at the time are
• 12:26
  Washington Redskins at the time and some other teams for
• 12:30
  violating there was sort of unwritten rules about how much
• 12:33
  money teams were going to be allowed to spend coming
• 12:36
  out of that. You remember that when the cowbation, I
• 12:37
  knew the NFL punished them for doing that. So that
• 12:41
  was an example of where a couple of teams went
• 12:44
  rogue and then everybody had to get in line and
• 12:46
  the NFL came down on them.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: Right now, see no team look there.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Cadell could talk about closing loopholes like Eagles are a
• 12:56
  major cash over cap team. We've talked about this for
• 12:58
  a number of years and we brought it to lay.
• 13:00
  Talk about the option bonuses inside the contract. Typical Eagles
• 13:05
  contract for a veteran will be five years. They'll have
• 13:08
  the first there are the first couple of years of
• 13:11
  fully guaranteed options, and then the future like yours, four
• 13:13
  and five have of option bonuses, but they're not guaranteed.
• 13:18
  Clubs don't like doing that because it creates future peroration.
• 13:22
  They're worried about the longer you get and all of
• 13:24
  these players get, the more hurt they get, and then
• 13:26
  your your zapp with dead money. Eagles are willing to
• 13:29
  Eagles don't seem to care about dead money like other
• 13:32
  clubs do. It's it's the way it was explaining me.
• 13:34
  It's generally overrated because if you're good, if you're a
• 13:36
  good drafting chamber, good signing team, it is not a
• 13:39
  factor except for teams don't like the Saints. But anyway,
• 13:44
  most teams don't want to do contracts like the Eagles,
• 13:46
  and they're they're definitely We typically roll our eyes that
• 13:49
  when people say the Eagles are being discriminated against, but
• 13:53
  this is a clear situation. Eagles are really good at something.
• 13:56
  Other clubs will complain and trust me on this. This
• 13:58
  stuff is going on for decades with clubs being jealous
• 14:03
  of each other.
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: That's just the way it is. They are thirty two.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Individual clubs and a lot of owners can't stand each other.
• 14:09
  That's the another thing for another time, for another discussion.
• 14:13
  Is you know they're they're i mean top of the
• 14:16
  knives being out. I mean they are some hatred between
• 14:18
  some owners against each other. They they're nice to each
• 14:21
  other publicly when they seem the owner's thanks, but behind
• 14:23
  the backs they're pulling their knives out.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: It's so it's like it's like you could see it
• 14:27
  in a movie. It's like it's well and you can
• 14:29
  understand how it is. I mean, these are thirty two
• 14:31
  very wealthy individuals, and they're also very competitive. They're all
• 14:35
  trying to kick each other's ass on the football field,
• 14:38
  and they will have no issue finding any loophole, whether
• 14:41
  it's contracts or player development, anything to get the edge. However,
• 14:45
  how quickly these owners who can't stand each other, who
• 14:49
  are competitive, not all, but you know, you know what
• 14:51
  we're talking about, how quickly they will become unified when
• 14:55
  it's the players asking for like two point two percentage
• 14:58
  points more of the overall pie, and then all of
• 15:01
  a sudden, the owners get together and then you have
• 15:03
  lockout situations and everybody is within solidarity. But that is
• 15:08
  sort of the nature of the business. You have thirty
• 15:09
  two extremely wealthy p I guess not technically thirty two
• 15:13
  because the packers have a president and there are some
• 15:16
  teams that have a board. But you know what I mean,
• 15:18
  probably right are who are very competitive and like most
• 15:23
  business owners, are willing to stretch certain rules, Like a
• 15:27
  lot of business owners will stretch tax rules right for
• 15:29
  the benefit of their own and then when other competing
• 15:34
  owners do something better or more, or when they get
• 15:37
  jealous or they want to call them out. You see
• 15:39
  this at every level of business, and it's just funny
• 15:41
  when it comes to the forefront. But I want to
• 15:44
  circle back here how this is not all about Deshaun
• 15:49
  Watson but became about Deshaun Watson even more so the
• 15:52
  meeting where I believe Jeff Pash of the Management Council
• 15:57
  encouraged the owners to not start really giving as much
• 16:02
  guaranteed money as they are. They were noticing the trend
• 16:04
  and encouraging owners to rein it. In was twenty twenty two,
• 16:08
  which was sort of coming out of of COVID and
• 16:10
  everything when they were showing numbers. But the Watson contract
• 16:13
  was twenty twenty four if I'm not mistaken correct now,
• 16:17
  but I might. What's twenty twenty two? I have my
• 16:22
  my dates mixed up. When did Watson sign that deal?
• 16:25
  He signed in March March or twenty twenty two.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: The so what happened was the within a week we'll
• 16:32
  see it just so happened, Okay, just so happened that
• 16:35
  the owner's beings was in a week in Palm Beach.
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: I was there. Let's get to that. Let's move by that.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: This is a five year deal with forty six million
• 16:42
  per season, five years fully guaranteed to two hundred and.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: Thirty million was the total value of the deal.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Just remember, did did take place after that that contract? Yeah?
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Within like a week? Yeah, it was like late March. Yeah,
• 16:54
  that's the craziness of it. Now you bring up Jeff
• 16:57
  Pash who I believe he retired.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Did he?
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: Did he not?
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I think there's someone else in charge of the
• 17:02
  Manamager Council at the moment.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right, just an attorney. You've talked to Jeff
• 17:06
  over the years. Look, he the guaranteed money thing. Is
• 17:11
  the reason why clubs, the commissioner, others are right about
• 17:16
  the fully guaranteed money it's signing is because of the
• 17:17
  injury factor. Right, if guys are not available, they don't
• 17:20
  want to be in the hook for future cash. That's
• 17:22
  I get that. But that's the nasuer to the business.
• 17:26
  And there's got to be somewhere you can meet in
• 17:28
  the middle. And that's the fundamental issue is that neither
• 17:31
  said the NFLPA and in the NFL cannot agree on
• 17:33
  what the guaranteed money should look like and for how long?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Right? What I meant to say was it was the
• 17:38
  Kirk Cousins contract in twenty eighteen. That was the first real,
• 17:42
  fully guaranteed one, and it didn't it didn't shake the earth,
• 17:46
  but that preceded COVID, and then COVID happened. Then the
• 17:51
  cash to cap thing started to go on as teams
• 17:54
  were scrambling, and then then the Deshaun Watson contract happened,
• 18:00
  and that sort of made the NFL really start to
• 18:03
  say in the NFL as an umbrella company management council
• 18:06
  start to give this presentation to the owners. And what
• 18:09
  I find interesting is that the arbitrator ruled. I guess
• 18:12
  they obviously did an investigation, right, And a lot of
• 18:15
  the owners said they didn't even remember that meeting or
• 18:17
  what was said, which was part of the reason why
• 18:20
  they couldn't prove collusion. All of a sudden, owners couldn't
• 18:23
  remember that meeting, Like, was that that really happened? You know?
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: So comical?
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I do too, because you contrast that with what you said, right.
• 18:32
  Everybody at the owners meetings, the owners were upset about this.
• 18:36
  I mean you could you could probably read it in
• 18:37
  their body.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Hey, let me tell you something, let me add to that.
• 18:40
  So in pomp Beach there at the I believe it
• 18:42
  was the breakers. I just want I was so blown
• 18:46
  away by the Watson contract because this is so not
• 18:50
  what like the Cousins contract that you talked about was
• 18:52
  three years fully guaranteed. Okay, first time ever anyone got
• 18:55
  three years fully guaranteed since then, by the way, see
• 19:00
  it's tricky with Trevor Lawrence's deal. It's four years fully guaranteed,
• 19:04
  but the money in your four isn't very big.
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: And plus it's.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Based on its fifth part of it is combining his
• 19:11
  fifth year option. Well, when you do that, it's really
• 19:15
  not the structures. The agent did a very good job,
• 19:17
  I gotta be honest with They did the best job
• 19:19
  that they possibly could. But it's really it's not quite
• 19:22
  the deal that you think it is. But the bottom
• 19:24
  line is it was kind of like I remember one
• 19:28
  cap manager for a club who I've known.
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: Forever twenty some odd years. I remember, I'm paraphrasic. It's
• 19:35
  not like got wrote down.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: He goes the audacity to the Browns to do this
• 19:37
  for a guy who had major allegations against him, and
• 19:40
  Watson of all people to give a five year deal to.
• 19:44
  And I said to the guy, said, dude, if it
• 19:46
  wasn't going to be the Browns, somebody else is.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: Going to do it. Come on, it was a quarterback.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: It was a unique situation.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And remember the Panthers were out. They didn't want
• 19:55
  to do the structure. They were very public about it.
• 19:57
  Falcons were in on it to a degree. A couple
• 19:59
  other teams, the Eagles, as we know will they really
• 20:02
  were very interested in Watson. If Wats wanted to be
• 20:05
  an Eagle, that could have been something different. But that's
• 20:08
  a thirty for thirty. But the bottom line is to
• 20:12
  move this along here. Clubs have not the quarterback position,
• 20:18
  despite it being the most important sports, and it's not
• 20:21
  advanced to the degree that it should. In terms of structure.
• 20:25
  You're not getting fully, true, fully guaranteed money in a
• 20:28
  big number thirty to forty million a year. Four nobody's
• 20:31
  doing that. The only team that did it forty six
• 20:34
  million a year, forty six millionaire.
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: No, it's come close to doing that.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: Sky Motor Cars and guess there was a different building
• 20:40
  dealers all the taxsas one look with their highline pre
• 20:43
  owned vehicles.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: But people all over the country.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: What the owner of bread Shoulder make sure you don't
• 20:48
  spend the time with your money before you've purchased the car.
• 20:51
  Sky Motor Cars allows you to make all the decisions
• 20:54
  regarding your next vehicle. At sky Motor Cars, you never
• 20:57
  have to spend more than necessary. It's got motorcornes dot
• 21:01
  com today for called six step nine to one, eight,
• 21:04
  seven through five.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: And so the NFLPA tried to really hammer home this
• 21:11
  their point. And here's what surprises me the most. I'll
• 21:14
  get to that in a second, But they tried to
• 21:15
  hammer home their point by a couple of years later,
• 21:18
  when Russell Wilson was a free agent, when Lamar Jackson
• 21:21
  was available because he had a contract dispute going on
• 21:24
  with the Ravens, and when Kyler Murray was doing his
• 21:27
  contract that none of those three were able to get
• 21:29
  guaranteed money. How did this? How does Deshaun Watson get
• 21:33
  guaranteed money? But these three quarterbacks who were you know,
• 21:36
  accomplished and did what they did, couldn't. But the end,
• 21:39
  the arbitrator did not find enough evidence in that and
• 21:43
  the other stuff we talked about to really say that
• 21:47
  that is a definitive form of collusion. So that's where
• 21:51
  the NFLPA wasn't able to to That was I felt
• 21:54
  the nflpa's strongest argument, especially Lamar Jackson, but it just
• 21:57
  didn't It wasn't enough for the arbitrator. And so here
• 22:04
  you have a situation where I guess what surprises me
• 22:08
  is this was pretty quiet, like nobody knew about this
• 22:12
  arbitration ruling until Pablo Torri and Mike Florio brought it
• 22:15
  to light. I'm I'm a little surprised the NFLPA did
• 22:19
  not be the louder voice in the room. Yes, representing
• 22:25
  the players, if you firmly believe this is happening, and
• 22:27
  you should be smearing the owners every you know in
• 22:30
  baseball exactly, the MLBPA takes the owners and rakes them
• 22:36
  under the coals about as hard as you can do
• 22:38
  it anytime they think right under the o the col
• 22:41
  sorry about any time they think the owners are colluding,
• 22:44
  which the PBA pretty much accuses the owners of colluding
• 22:49
  every five, six, six years, so and they're very loud
• 22:52
  now spoken about it. I'm very surprised the nfl PA
• 22:54
  didn't beat the drum harder. And I can't figure out
• 22:56
  why not.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: It's funny because I'm reading the quote where the system
• 23:01
  arbit trader says encouraged.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: Wouldn't you say struggling couraged? Though?
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Come on, I had a meeting and basically said let's
• 23:07
  not do this.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: All right exactly, so all right to close this.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: There are a couple things I want to add. So
• 23:13
  the Russell Wilson contract, and what's funny about it? People
• 23:16
  forgot about this. It's the same exact year, six months
• 23:21
  after Watson signed his contract. Wilson signed his with Denver
• 23:25
  in September of twenty twenty two, five years, forty nine
• 23:29
  million a year, but the guarantees were far less.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: One hundred and sixty five million. He had leveraged.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Now, Mark Rodgers, I'll give him his agent credit for this.
• 23:38
  I don't know the guy I know with Seattle, he wanted.
• 23:42
  The initial talks with Seattle with Russell's extensions were we
• 23:45
  wanted to do a fully guaranteed contract. They basically told
• 23:47
  him to get lost. It got contentious in the beginning.
• 23:50
  They were not doing that, and the Seahawks went back
• 23:53
  down and Rogers did already could he's a baseball agent.
• 23:57
  But you could say the Pa could be mad at
• 24:02
  Rogers Hall. Why couldn't he get the same deal. The
• 24:04
  reality is nobody's doing it. That's why we're talking about
• 24:07
  this today. It's because of the injury factor. It's just
• 24:11
  they don't They're worried about later in a contract guy
• 24:15
  gets hurt and the clubs don't want to be the
• 24:17
  hook for it.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: If you own a business and.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: If you know your employee will not be available for
• 24:22
  a long period of time, you got to pay him
• 24:23
  no matter what because it's fully guaranteed, you feel like
• 24:26
  you don't want to deal with it.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: And that's that.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: And for a future show, this is where I want
• 24:32
  to discuss down the road what it could look like,
• 24:35
  what could be approached by the NFLP. That's a discussion
• 24:38
  for another point. And of course the legal will not
• 24:40
  want to do it. And that's where we are right now.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean to, I guess emphasize your point and
• 24:46
  put it in an Eagles perspective. If you look at
• 24:48
  the aj Brown extension that he signed, obviously there's he's
• 24:52
  making a lot of money, a lot of isn't those
• 24:54
  option bonuses correct that we talk about, And there's also
• 24:59
  the history of that knee, so that if he wound
• 25:01
  up missing significant amount of time because of the knees,
• 25:04
  the way the contracts structured, Eagles could probably get out
• 25:08
  of it without you know, obviously they're going to take
• 25:11
  on some ted money, but there's ways that they can
• 25:15
  maneuver around it. As opposed to if the entire contract
• 25:19
  was guaranteed and he had a problem, would be really stuck.
• 25:22
  In fact, look at Bryce Huff. If that entire contract
• 25:25
  was guaranteed when Bryce Huff signed it, the Eagles would
• 25:29
  be in real of trouble right now and he would
• 25:31
  still be on the team and it would be pretty
• 25:32
  difficult for them. So a lot of what they do,
• 25:34
  how they structure contracts, how they use option bonuses, is
• 25:38
  because it gives them a little bit of wiggle room
• 25:40
  that ordinarily a lot of wiggoom. Actually that would not
• 25:43
  exist if contracts were guaranteed.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: For instance, okay, the AJ Brown contract which goes through
• 25:49
  twenty twenty nine, the final three years are not guaranteed.
• 25:53
  The full guarantees expire after twenty six. That goes on
• 25:56
  what you were just talking about. They took on the
• 25:58
  early risk. The late risk is on the player, and
• 26:01
  this is why agents try to keep going back to
• 26:04
  the club. Hey, we're now in year four, we have
• 26:07
  two years left. Let's try to get my client done.
• 26:10
  Now he's very worried about the fun and two years
• 26:13
  of the deal for injury. Reason that that goes stricle
• 26:16
  on what you're talking about. That's why it just like
• 26:18
  to get They don't want to do that the long structure,
• 26:21
  but if they have to, they want to redo it
• 26:24
  after year three.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: There you go. All right, So here's what I think
• 26:28
  eventually we'll finish with this. I do even though the
• 26:32
  tousch push never got banned. I do think fundamentally we
• 26:36
  are correct and saying when Roger Goodell wants something, he
• 26:39
  typically tends to get it. And when he's already sowing
• 26:43
  the seeds of salary cap inauthenticity or disingenuity or whatever
• 26:50
  term he used, you know, then he's sowing the seeds
• 26:52
  for a reason. And I don't think it's going to
• 26:54
  take a whole lot to convince owners right to come
• 26:59
  together in a non coclusive way to make sure that
• 27:02
  the cap is not maneuvered the same way that it
• 27:05
  is now and that there's more integrity, because that's going
• 27:07
  to help all of the owners in the long run.
• 27:09
  So when did you say the CBA is up in
• 27:12
  two thousand and March.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Twenty thirty one. By the way, a just one final
• 27:15
  point on what you just said. It's the halfs and
• 27:18
  have nots.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: The Colts, the Bengals, particularly the Bengals, are not a
• 27:22
  cash rich team.
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: Okay, right.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Eagles are a cash rich team, so are the Cowboys.
• 27:27
  Some other clubs are very rich. The No Washington ownership
• 27:30
  group with Josh Harris, they have plenty of cash. So
• 27:35
  it's not that those teams the team the clubs that
• 27:37
  have a lot of money, it's not their fault. But
• 27:41
  this is your big MLB guy, this is the this
• 27:43
  is disparity. While the Marlins and some other clubs Washington,
• 27:48
  the Nats, they don't spend money because they don't have it.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Hirates, especially yes.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Pirates, Oh my god, it's disgusting. It's not fair to
• 27:54
  the fans. Well, this is the system that you have
• 27:57
  right haves and have nots. What are you going to
• 27:59
  do about it?
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah? And then there's always that in between these these
• 28:02
  owners have money, like the Pirates owner nutting, he could
• 28:05
  spend more. It's just his decision to play victim and
• 28:08
  say we are the smallest of the small markets and
• 28:10
  we can't operate like the end.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: There's money to that.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Also, yeah, there's also some some victim I guess taking
• 28:19
  on that that victim mentality too that they don't have
• 28:22
  to have.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, absolutely, Carl Pickens about that, our friend
• 28:27
  Karl Pickins, who was great with us when we did
• 28:29
  our interview.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: That's exactly what happened.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: But I like this because this felt very inside the
• 28:34
  data ish, and I hope that everybody did catch our
• 28:36
  recent inside the data with Sam Finkel, and we did it.
• 28:40
  It was an awesome episode. We sought to answer the
• 28:43
  question what happens when Jalen Hurts is asked to throw
• 28:46
  the ball at or above the league average, which is
• 28:50
  around thirty three attempts per game? What happens to his numbers?
• 28:54
  Because there's perceptions and then there's reality, and I think
• 28:58
  everybody should go and make sure they check it out
• 29:01
  so they can be informed on what those perceptions are
• 29:04
  and whether they're correct or not, or whether the reality
• 29:06
  and what the reality is. It's a really good send
• 29:08
  them an excellent job of crunching some numbers. Comparing them
• 29:11
  to other guys. And it's one of our one of
• 29:13
  the best inside of the Data mailbags that we've ever done.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: So love it, Love it real quick. So we'll file
• 29:18
  this show up today. We're in the part two of this.
• 29:21
  We're going to take a look at what contracts could
• 29:23
  look like in the future. I've talked to agents about
• 29:25
  this say some wild suggestions, one that I absolutely love,
• 29:29
  but I can't see the way the end the league
• 29:32
  would agree to it. But we'll do that on the
• 29:34
  future show before training camp.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: By the way. Awesome, All right, well, that is going
• 29:38
  to do it for this episode of Inside the Birds,
• 29:40
  the Leading podcast and Eagles Intel And as always, we
• 29:44
  thank you for flying with us Inside Ubber. Be sure
• 29:51
  to check out our friends at phlsports Nation dot com.
• 29:54
  They're enhancing the fans experience with their coverage of all
• 29:57
  Philadelphia sports teams. For the fan, by the Fan is
• 30:00
  their motto, so make sure you check them out at
• 30:03
  PHL SportsNation dot com and on Twitter at pH L
• 30:08
  Sports Nation.