Re: Depends on one’s definition of “leverage”, I guess...

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dzrams
I play a little chess myself. It's only checkmate when you have no more moves.

His biggest move would be refusal to play once his contract expires.

His refusing to play and demanding a trade is a credible option if he thinks it would force the Rams into trading him to a team willing to pay what he's asking.

And only he and his agent would know if there were any teams out there willing to get close. One thing fans don't realize often is that there are a lot of "illegal" talking that happens. Agents get a good idea of what kind of money is out there.

That's why when the Rams offered JJ $9M, his agent knew he could get nearly 40% more. Sure enough, he got it with $12.5M.

And when the Rams offered Watkins a "significant amount", his agent knew he could get much more. Sure enough, he got substantially more at $16M surprising everyone....but the agent of course.

This whole idea of, 'we know more than agent despite only having about 30% of the data', is stupid and arrogant. Just one man's opinion...

As for CeeZar's thread, it's a very incomplete analysis IMO. I'm not wasting any time with it because it's foundational premise that players that holdout and demand a trade rarely get traded seems factually unsupported to me. The rest of it seems like typical Rams fans wishful thinking assumptions that a player getting traded is going to necessarily end up in a worse situation.