Examining the Cases of the Four NFL Players Who Still Haven't ReportedBy ANDREW BRANDT August 21, 2018
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The superstar that’s negotiating
The Los Angeles Rams’ front office has been quite active this offseason: making trades, acquiring free agents and, most importantly to this discussion, securing contract extensions for young and rising stars such as Todd Gurley, Brandin Cooks and–just this week–Rob Havenstein. Still not part of that activity, as of this writing, is a contract extension for one of the best players in the NFL: defensive tackle Aaron Donald.
While the Rams have received criticism for prioritizing Gurley and Cooks (and Havenstein) before Donald, I can defend them here, having been a team contract negotiator for a decade. The Gurley, Cooks and Havenstein deals were “ripe” to be done; the Donald deal, for a variety of reasons, has not been. And you do the deals that you can do. The Rams and Donald’s agent have not been able to reach common ground despite almost two years of negotiations.
The two sides are naturally mum about their talks, but my strong sense is this negotiation is about Donald wanting “free agent money” while being under contract another year (at $6.9 million). What may be the most discussed data point in this negotiation is the six-year, $114 million contract signed with the Dolphins in 2015 by Ndamokung Suh who is, ironically, now playing next to Donald. The $60 million guaranteed that Suh secured at signing is still the gold standard for all defensive players and, to complete the circle, the same agency that represented Suh with the Dolphins—CAA—is representing Donald.
I presume Donald is seeking that level or above and the Rams are resisting, telling Donald’s agents the obvious: Suh was a free agent when he got that deal; Donald has a year left on his contract. Despite the peanut gallery yelling: “Pay the Man!” the Rams do not—and should not—want to pay free agent prices for a player under contract for another year, with the possibility of the franchise tag(s) after that. This is where I see the rub of this negotiation.
Although nothing appears imminent, one does get the sense that a deal is closer this year than last. However, as I know so well, the last stages of these negotiations are always the hardest. As with Bell above, we may have another Groundhog Day situation with Donald reporting without a contract, like last year, and the Rams again forgiving all the training camp fines as if this six-week interlude never happened.
In any case, you know my saying: deadlines spur action. A deal (or no deal) will happen (or not happen) very soon.
