Maybe you’ve heard about them, since they are all the rage in this league and we’ve seen more trades, transactions and contract extensions with them the past few weeks than seemingly ever before.
There are delicate situations, and unique circumstances surrounding several young passers in this league, and there is leverage to potentially be gained or lost depending on how teams manage to handle some of these matters.
No one wants to tip their hand in a way that cedes potentially more money than necessary or scuttles a potential trade and/or gives others a read on what the club’s actual intent is regarding the draft.
I’ll expound where they, for the most part, would prefer to ascribe to the “less is more” philosophy, for obvious reasons.
Lions coach Dan Campbell, holding the second overall pick, on the need for a star quarterback in the modern NFL: “No, I don’t think you need that.
What he means: Hey, I’m also the guy who told you we’d be eating kneecaps, and you didn’t take that literally, did you? We just took on a brutal contract on a borderline QB a year ago to extract as much draft pick value as possible in return.
Chances are no one is trading up to 2 to get them, but if we make it seem like we aren’t in the QB market, maybe someone trades up to land a tackle or pass rusher and we get even more draft capital and still get our QB there? What’s that, you say I’m a dreamer? Yeah, well I’m not the only one.
What he means: It will be good for us if we can get anything in return for him in a trade that is even remotely close to what we surrendered to move up and overdraft him in the first place.
OK, anyway, so I assume you saw the one regular-season game he started, right? You think there is a way we could doctor that game film? And if I keep talking enough about our rich history of developing quarterbacks and how we managed to transition from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers, and how our backup is often better than your starter, then some GM might actually buy into that spiel and give us a 2 for this kid? Because we all know he’s not going to be cool with sitting out his entre rookie deal backing up our wacky starter.
Ravens coach John Harbaugh on the team’s ability to do a long-term deal with Lamar Jackson as he plays out his fifth-year option: “He’s a unique guy.
Jimmy Haslam is putting $180M in an escrow account just for the right to throw enough money at Watson to finally convince him to go to Cleveland.
And if Lamar doesn’t want an agent, and his focus is on being the best QB he can be and not on negotiating a new contract right now, and he’s willing to keep gambling on himself, it’s not my place to try to convince him otherwise.