Who will earn 2021’s biggest new contract?
Who will earn 2021’s biggest new contract?
Plus, management tips from Bruce Arians and the next HUGE offseason quarterback drama
The 2021 offseason will be more uncertain than most. This year’s salary cap shrank from $204 million to an estimated $180-185 million— better than we’d expected early amidst the backdrop of a global pandemic, but still enough to force several teams into a budget crunch. The easiest way to drop under that spending limit is through the draft, but there will be no NFL Scouting Combine this spring. Assessing young talent will be harder than ever.
That’s going to put a lot of pressure on the proven stars in a potent class of free agents. This year is heavy on top-flight wideouts, play-breaking safeties, and space-creating linemen. Teams with plenty of cap space like the Jaguars, Colts, and Jets will be major players in this open market. Others, like the Saints, Eagles, and Falcons, will be stuck sifting through the bargain bin after landing themselves prime locations in Cap Space Hell (™).
(The Patriots, who have $62 million to spend, will pluck from both Column A and Column B in true Bill Belichick fashion.)
This means lifestyle-altering contracts are still in play, even with revenue down. There may not be as many nine-figure deals as there would have been in a typical year, but with the league’s future cash flow looking sunny as usual, teams will still jump at the chance to sacrifice future cap space against immediate production. Several players will earn the cash needed to form lifelong opinions about the capital gains tax. Who will get the biggest contract this spring? There are a handful of prime candidates. Let’s talk about them.
Dak Prescott, QB
2020 team: Dallas Cowboys
Prescott will earn the highest new salary of 2021. The question is whether it will come as a cap-bending megadeal or as a second straight season under the Cowboys’ franchise tag.
The five-year veteran spent the first four-plus weeks of 2020 proving, once again, that he was one of the best young quarterbacks in the NFL. Disaster struck in October, however. A broken ankle ended his season and gave Jerry Jones a bit more ammunition in his raging quest to deny Prescott the $175+ million contract he deserves.
News that his bum wheel required multiple surgeries this winter could keep Dallas hesitant to hand him a long-term deal. Prescott has insurance against any loss of mobility, though. He’s developed into the kind of high-usage, big-number pocket passer who can excel in the league’s evolving offensive landscape even if his lateral movement suffers slightly. He’d averaged more than 422 passing yards per game before getting hurt, all while putting up a 9:3 touchdown-to-interception ratio in those four weeks.
Still, the Cowboys’ future cap sheets are clogged by the expensive commitments handed to players like Amari Cooper, Ezekiel Elliott, and Demarcus Lawrence. Jones may decide he wants to keep his flexibility and saddle his stud QB with a one-year, $37.7 million franchise deal that gives him an extra year to assess the engine that’s powered his offense the last half-decade. If the Dallas owner changes his tune, something in the Deshaun Watson range of four years and $156 million would make sense for a 27-year-old franchise quarterback.
Chris Godwin, WR
2020 team: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Godwin’s production fell as Tom Brady spread the ball among a stacked Tampa receiving corps, but executives across the league know exactly how dangerous he can be. He averaged 95 receiving yards and an uber-efficient 11 yards per target in the final season of the Jameis Winston era with the Bucs. He put together a 65-catch, 840-yard, seven-touchdown season in only 12 games in 2020. That included a career-high 77 percent catch rate thanks to the upgrade from the human JUGS machine that launched passes at him the first three years of his career.
Godwin will turn 25 years old in two weeks — the same age Brandin Cooks was when the Rams signed him to a five-year, $82 million contract extension in 2018. That deal looks … not great in hindsight, but it’s a useful tentpole here. Godwin is significantly more productive and he’s got three years of inflation to bring to the bargaining table. His asking price will likely start somewhere in the five-year, $110 million range, eclipsing the five-year, $100 million extension the aforementioned Cooper signed in Dallas.
He might not get it. The Buccaneers can franchise tag him and work on their negotiation throughout the spring. They’d prefer something more manageable in the $18-20m salary range, especially with decisions to be made on fellow free agents Shaquil Barrett, Lavonte David, and Leonard Fournette. Either way, he’s due a massive raise over the $2.1m base salary he earned while winning a Super Bowl last season.
Allen Robinson, WR
2020 team: Chicago Bears
Robinson has earned more than $46 million in his seven-year career and a very real claim to the best hands in the NFL.
What he’s never had — not on Sundays or at Penn State — is a top-level quarterback who can take his ceiling from Pro Bowl to All-Pro. That could change in 2021, but if he’s going to carve out a spot with a club capable of spending big this offseason, he may have to settle once more for a questionable QB room.
The five teams with the most spending room to start 2021 — the Jaguars, Colts, Jets, Patriots, and Football Team — all have QB concerns. Reuniting with Jacksonville and presumptive No. 1 overall pick Trevor Lawrence may be the best situation among this group, though teaming up with whichever veteran signal caller joins Frank Reich in Indianapolis (Matt Ryan? Jimmy Garoppolo?) could be tempting as well.
Anyone looking to attain his services will need to be prepared to spend big. Robinson, at 27 years old, has more mileage on his engine than Godwin but remains in the prime of his career. At 6’2 and 220 pounds, he also has the kind of build that suggests he’ll continue to produce even if his athleticism wanes. He’s another $20m+ salary guy; the question is whether he’ll get five years on his next contract or only four.
Of course, the Bears could always just franchise tag him and keep him in quarterback hell for at least one more season.
Trent Williams, OT
2020 team: San Francisco 49ers
If Williams were 29 and not 32 years old, he’d rank higher on this list. But rather than reset the left tackle spending curve that Laremy Tunsil absolutely shattered last year in Houston, he’ll have to settle for merely a whole bunch of money.
The Niners freed Williams from the gridiron purgatory of the Washington Football Team for the relatively low cost of two mid-draft picks. They’ll have the inside track on re-signing him after his San Francisco debut ended with an eighth straight Pro Bowl invitation and his lowest blown pass-block rate since 2016. Keeping him in burgundy and gold is a priority, but hooooo buddy does GM John Lynch have a lot to figure out this offseason.
It’ll likely cost somewhere between $18 and $20 million annually to retain Williams’ services. That’s less than either Tunsil or David Bakhtiari are slated to make, but more than guys like Taylor Lewan and Garett Bolles. Williams’ play may decline as he ages, but the recent mid-30s returns from similarly lauded tackles like Andrew Whitworth and Jason Peters suggests a front-loaded four-year, $75 million deal wouldn’t carry as much risk as it would have a couple decades earlier.
Justin Simmons, S
2020 team: Denver Broncos
Let’s wrap up on the defensive side of the ball. Simmons has built himself into stardom amidst a Bronco team that’s been lost at sea the past three years. However, a down season in 2020 struck at the worst possible time and may prevent him from resetting the league’s safety market.
Simmons was an absolute eraser in 2019. He allowed just a 43.6 passer rating in coverage, notching four interceptions against only one touchdown in 53 targets.
While his interception rate rose last fall (five in 54 attempts), his coverage waned. That rating jumped to 102.2 and he missed more tackles than he had in either of the prior two seasons. Still, he’s valuable as both a free-roaming safety manning centerfield *and* as a run-stopping thumper who can get to the line of scrimmage in a hurry to provide second-level support. He’s also reliable as hell; Simmons hasn’t missed a single defensive snap the last three years.
How much will that be worth to his next team? The top safeties in the league clock in at just under $15 million annually. Simmons is only 27 years old, and something like a five-year, $75-80 million contract would set the curve at the position … until Jamal Adams reaches his upcoming extension with the Seahawks. — CD
Management 101, from Bruce Arians
Last week before the Super Bowl, I discussed my affection for Bruce Arians, particularly his efforts to build a diverse staff and how he goes to bat for both his coaches and players.
Something I didn’t quite realize then is how he’s not just a great teacher but also an excellent manager. Take this example, via the LA Times, for how he handled Tom Brady (and Gronk), who had only ever known Bill Belichick’s “No Days Off” mantra:
“Early on,” Arians continued, “I’d say, ‘Hey, are you taking a day off?’ And he’d say, ‘This will be the last day I ever take off.’ But after a while it was like, ‘Do you mind if I take off Wednesday?’”
Soon, the other new additions to the team caught on.
“Even with Gronk I’d say, ‘Dude, you’re not practicing on Wednesdays. I need you on Sunday. I don’t need you on Thursday,’ ” Arians said. “And he was like,'Oh, man, I’ll be fresh. I’ll be like, super.’ I told him that if he ever needed a day off, he should just let me know. Because he never had days off before.”
I’ve never had any formal training in managing others, despite it being a big part of my job for many years. Everything I learned about it came from watching how people I respected managed, and a lot of trial and error. And one lesson I learned was not everyone responds to the same kind of direction. Another? Everyone needs time off to decompress or else they’ll burn out.
That Arians understands the same is true in a highly competitive environment, and helped his 43-year-old quarterback finally understand that too, says a lot about his leadership style and emotional IQ. So if you have to manage anyone at your own job, you might want to study up on Arians’ approach. — SH
What about Dak?
While the Eagles do their best to turn off all potential suitors for Carson Wentz, the most important quarterback situation in the NFL right now to keep an eye on—outside of the ongoing stirrings of Deshaun Watson and Houston—is what’s happening in Dallas with Dak Prescott.
Unlike the Eagles and Rams, who signed their very meh quarterbacks to massive deals in 2019, the Cowboys have for some dumb reason delayed giving their much better signal caller the contract he deserves. Prescott played out last season under the franchise tag, and there’s a chance he could do so again, which would cost the Cowboys about $37 million, just for 2021. Worse for Dallas is that another one-year deal would likely mean the end of Dak’s time there.
I personally don’t care about the Cowboys one way or another. I’m mostly just stunned that they can’t seem to get this right. Sort of. Terrible management is a hallmark of the later Jerry Jones years, so we probably shouldn’t be too surprised.
Dallas couldn’t hash out a long-term deal with Dak when his less capable fellow 2016 draftees were signing mega deals back in 2019. They reportedly offered him a contract that had $90 million guaranteed and averaging $33 million annually—Goff got $110 million guaranteed and $134 million overall. Prescott supposedly wanted something more in line with Russell Wilson’s $140 million deal, and apparently the two sides couldn’t find a place somewhere in the middle to agree to.
And here we are.
Another factor complicating things is his fractured ankle. Prescott is said to be on track to being healthy and ready to go for the season ahead after it was revealed he had a second surgery. It’s still a tough spot. Recovery in sports happens on a spectrum, and a players who’s all healed up from their injury can sometimes need months of adjustment, especially since they’re missing swapping rehab efforts for offseason workouts aimed at keeping them in game shape. If I were a Cowboys fan (and I most certainly am not), my biggest concern is that the team that was hesitant to pay up to extend Dak when he was healthy might be even more cautious now, putting the two sides too far away to find an agreeable deal.
Dak’s name is not going to be on the market this year. He’s going to play the 2021 season in Dallas. The only question now is whether or not it’s his last one there. If he gets the tag, it most certainly is. That gives us yet another huge offseason quarterback sweepstakes to follow in 2022, which maybe is the scenario we should be rooting for anyway, because I gotta admit, I’ve never seen anything like the quarterback drama unfolding this spring, and I love it. —RVB