Harry Palmer wrote:Rapaport has added some detail on the Bosa negotiation. Apparently the Niners are already offering him more than Watt’s deal, and the holdup is how they evaluate Donald’s. Niners are supposedly right around, maybe slightly over Donald’s per over 5 years, but Bosa’s camp is pointing to a 5 million bonus for ‘not retiring’ that Donald got spread over 3 years. So that’s apparently where the 2 million/year gap is coming from, and according to Rap neither side is making any sings of budging.
Not assessing blame, but I do seem to recall as the season ended it was conventional wisdom that Bosa would become the highest paid defender ever. Rapaport is emphasizing that Bosa’s camp is being inflexible, but if they are trying to pay him less than Donald got I’m not sure who has more blame. But the fact that Rapaport is heavily emphasizing one side is imo yet another bad sign that faith has been broken about this whole agreement not to play this out in the media. I guess maybe if you’re looking for a glass half full side, the fact that the Bosa’s are all about the Benjamins is maybe an indication that breaking faith will not bother him as much as it would with a lot of other guys.
If they have an offer north of Donald $ on the table, then Bosa and his camp need to get over themselves and put ink to paper already.
Nick is undoubtedly an elite player, easily a top 3 defensive player in the league. But if he won't sign a contract that would make him the highest paid non QB in history, then he's honestly being kind of arrogant. He only has 2 years on his resume of providing top shelf impact. That's not to say, he won't sustain his high end production and perhaps even get better. But come on man, that contract literally puts you at the top of the mountain. At some point you would hope he considers the team's ability to maintain the talent around him, after giving him that contract.
This whole situation just furthers solidifies that contract structuring and negotiation strategies are easily the worst thing about the NFL in my opinion. All this hold out, hold in, restructuring, I want to get traded, delete the team from my social media profiles, etc etc is just incredibly annoying. The NFL is the only major north american professional sports league you see this in. Of course that is because the NFL is the only league that doesn't do guaranteed contracts, and that is the very reason you see all this crap. I know its not likely to change anytime soon, But I wish they could find a better system. I mean Bosa here for instance is still currently on his rookie contract. So teams aren't even guaranteed to have a guy for the duration of their rookie contracts. Which is asinine to me. Also as far as restructurings go, you will never see it go the other way and have a guy restructure his contract to a lower amount if he underperforms on his current contract. But if a guy outplays his contract, hold outs are a coming.
Anyways, if the reports of the offer on the table are accurate then Nick needs to get his ass in the building. If his camp is griping about an alleged "not retiring bonus" written into Donald's deal that they want accounted for when making Bosa the highest paid guy ever, write that significantly small amount of money into an incentive bonus of something like 20 sacks, another DPOY award, Super Bowl win, etc. Make that money available to him, but make him hungry to earn it if he wants it so bad.