- 5 months ago
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Why are you bothered by holdouts? Not just you, everybody. Why are you bothered by holdouts?
00:08And I get it if your answer is no, I just don't like holdouts because it means players not playing.
00:13But in general, whenever I hear, I feel it's very selective when we get upset at a player for a holdout.
00:23And yes, maybe it's just because of the emotion around our team.
00:27Like if you are a 49er fan, you're upset.
00:31I can't tell you, how many calls have we taken from people who are like, dude, you signed a contract.
00:36Show up. You signed it. So did Terry McLaurin.
00:41He was not on a rookie deal.
00:43Terry McLaurin had already been paid millions and millions and millions of dollars.
00:48But he didn't want to go to camp this year, and he didn't, and he got broken off again.
00:52Right, you think a Washington fan was upset about that?
00:55I mean, I have no idea. I didn't hear much of that.
00:59McLaurin is a fan favorite out there. I saw him at camp every day, and instead of practicing, he was signing autographs.
01:04Right.
01:05I bet the fans were thrilled with it.
01:07There are levels to this, and that's partly...
01:08That's what I want to know.
01:10There's levels.
01:10Who's the bad guy?
01:12Jawan Jennings, is he not good enough?
01:15Was it because the deal was just last year?
01:17Like, what is it?
01:19Yeah, it's both of those things.
01:20Because they're all under contract. They all signed a contract. All of them.
01:24Right. They all signed a contract. If not, they're free agents in football.
01:28And, you know, when you get to the Trent Williams situation, and he's a first ballot Hall of Famer,
01:33one of the best left tackles in the history of the game,
01:36he gets a certain amount of gravitas that Jawan Jennings has not earned off of one good year.
01:42And part of it for me is also the fact that he signed a contract, an extension, last May,
01:48that was, at the time, that was a very nice extension.
01:51He hadn't yet earned, I don't think, that level of money.
01:55He'd been good third in Jawan.
01:56Yeah, they liked him.
01:57There's a reason why he didn't get more money last offseason.
02:00It's because that is about where his market value was.
02:04Brother, he might have been the MVP of the Super Bowl had they won it.
02:07Sure.
02:07He might have been.
02:08Like, you know what I mean?
02:09I mean, I think that, like, is there a little bit of a Draymond Green thing in there
02:13where it's like, oh, you never put up huge stats, but if you're a Niner fan, you know.
02:16And you knew before last year that he was good.
02:19Sure, he's good, yeah.
02:19We didn't know he was that good.
02:21He's better than that.
02:22I mean, I didn't think he could be a 1,000-yard receiver.
02:24And he wasn't, and I know it's semantics because he would have been,
02:27but if you want to rank all the receivers in football, and this is not using fantasy stats,
02:33he's the 45th highest paid receiver.
02:36Is he a top 20 receiver?
02:38Probably not.
02:38Is he top 30?
02:40I am maybe.
02:42I put him in that 31 to 40 range, and so when you look at what he's making,
02:46he's making the 45th most money on average annual, and, you know, Tutu Atwell is making 10 million.
02:53Do you want to bump him up to 10 million?
02:55He's better than Tutu Atwell.
02:56Well, Tutu Atwell is better at, you know, going deep and being a vertical threat for that offense,
03:01and this is where it becomes difficult because every offense needs different receivers to do different things,
03:07and the Niners need Juwan Jennings to be physical, to block in that, you know, the two wide receiver sets that they run a lot of.
03:15So replacing him is going to be hard, but for me, it just rubs me a little bit the wrong way when you sign a deal just, you know,
03:23basically 16, 15 months ago.
03:26I get it.
03:26And now you want to come back and get more.
03:28I get it.
03:29But then again, like, and here's my thing.
03:31I'm not taking Juwan's side.
03:33I'm just taking neither side.
03:35Like, I don't blame him for asking, and largely it's because of culture.
03:40This is the NFL culture.
03:42The league set this up.
03:44Every time someone goes, hey, is the team allowed to not pay you if you don't play well?
03:49Yes, they are.
03:50They're basically able to get out of these deals whenever they want.
03:54They're not guaranteed deals.
03:55So, yes, this is the way an NFL player fights for himself when he does outplay his deal,
04:04knowing that, unfortunately, this sport does not allow for the idea of, hey, I just signed a deal,
04:12and even though I outplayed it, I'm going to bet on myself,
04:15and we'll do this again next year when I'm a free agent.
04:18Well, you know what, your ACL may be in tatters.
04:21Like, it's too physical.
04:24So that's the reason I support a player at least asking.
04:28Now, I'm not saying he should miss games.
04:30I don't think he will.
04:31That's reserved for the Trent Williams of the world who completely went to war with Washington,
04:36and I give him an extra sort of flyer on that one because Washington's owner was one of the worst human beings
04:42on the face of planet Earth.
04:43Yeah, different situation.
04:44So it is a different situation.
04:45But in general, this is how business is done in the NFL when you outplay your deal
04:54because it's the same way that the teams handle it when you underperform.
04:59When you underperform.
05:00I get that.
05:00He got 8.4 guaranteed at signing.
05:03The only money that's not guaranteed are the $3 million, $3.5 million in escalators
05:09based on how much he plays and how well he plays this year.
05:12So I'm sure at the root of this is Jawan looking at that $3.5 million that he has to work hard to earn.
05:20He probably wants that guaranteed and maybe a little bit more.
05:23I don't know what the details are.
05:25But you look at what he actually did get, and he got $8.5 million, and he went out and outperformed it.
05:32So, sure, come back, ask for more money.
05:34You're always allowed to do that.
05:36I will put some of the blame on the Niners to this point, which is the notion that they have to win every deal.
05:43And we've known that for Bosa, stretched it all the way out.
05:46Overly competitive, yes.
05:46Ayuk all the way out.
05:48They want to win the deal.
05:50And, again, we don't know what he's asking for and what the team is countering with.
05:54The team might be saying, you get nothing, like they did to Mooney Ward.
05:58Mooney said, I want what they're having.
06:00And they said, nah, we're not going to do that.
06:02And so he was in his feelings all year, and he ended up going elsewhere.
06:06So we don't know where this is on that line, that timeline.
06:11But I do know this.
06:12The Niners have found a way to have a lot of these stretch out into late August and early September.
06:17And I don't think that's a win for anyone.
06:19Like, Jawan's not going to miss games.
06:21He's not going to sit out games.
06:22There's not enough money at stake here.
06:24That's just a terrible, terrible, if he does that, his agent, Drew Rosenhouse, is a moron.
06:29So he's not going to do that.
06:31But he can stretch it all the way to week one and make it, you know, disadvantageous for the 49ers on the field.
06:38And that's just not.
06:39Well, we're already at that point, I would say.
06:41Let's go to John in the city here on Willard and Dibs.
06:43Hey, John, thank you for the call.
06:45What are you doing?
06:47Hey, guys, what's going on?
06:49What's up?
06:49Hey, so, Mark, am I understanding correctly that, like, what you're thinking is if one guy gets to do it, then that's the precedent that any of the guys get to do it.
07:03Is that kind of like your take on this?
07:06No, my take is, like, I mean, the cat's already out of the bag on that, John.
07:11This is how NFL players do it.
07:13It happens around the league all the time, and it's based on non-guaranteed deals and an overly physical sport.
07:20So, again, I'm not taking only the player's side.
07:24I'm just understanding that when you have, when you see leverage, you strike, you try.
07:30So, I have no problem with him asking, but, like, I don't know what he's asking for.
07:36I said that yesterday.
07:37I don't know whose side to take until I know what he's asking for.
07:41I'm just not going to blindly come down on the team side, though, just because someone signed a contract.
07:47That's all.
07:47Sure, and, like, I think that the deals that get prolonged in training camp, these guys rarely then go out and have a better season than what they're negotiating on.
08:01But I was listening to a podcast recently that Lou Williams was on, NBA player.
08:07Yeah.
08:07And he was talking about he was on a team with Kevin Olley, a former UConn coach who was in the NBA, who was his vet.
08:13And Allen Iverson walks in the gym, late, whatever, and Kevin Olley pulls Lou Williams aside and says,
08:22Hey, young guy, the rules aren't the same for everyone.
08:26The rules that he plays by are not the rules that we play by.
08:30And I don't think the idea that Terry McLaurin or these other guys sitting out gives someone like Juwan Jennings,
08:37it's just not the same for these middle guys.
08:39Like, they shouldn't pay him.
08:40He shouldn't be sitting out.
08:42And they'll be fine without him.
08:43The difference between Terry McLaurin to the Commanders and Juwan Jennings to the Niners is vast.
08:49And I just don't think the rules are the same for these $30 million a year guys.
08:53That's an interesting take, John.
08:55I actually don't.
08:56Here's what I'll say.
08:57I'm buying it, John.
08:58I agree with you that Terry is a better player, a more accomplished player than Juwan.
09:02But I actually don't agree with the statement you just made there that his importance to the Commanders is vastly ahead of Jennings' importance to the Niners.
09:10The Commanders can play without Terry McLaurin.
09:12They've got Debo now.
09:14They've got some other receivers that they really like who are up and coming.
09:19McLaurin is very good.
09:22But he's not a superstar.
09:24He's not Micah Parsons.
09:26So, yes, there are levels to this.
09:28Right.
09:28But I also, I just want to point out that what I hear a lot of people say is, dude, you signed a deal.
09:35And I'm like, that's true for all of them.
09:37Well, there's like 20 other guys who are going to be free agents next year.
09:40And he's the only one of the Niners on all this list.
09:43He's the only one who's asking for more money.
09:45Yeah, he's probably the only one who vastly outperformed his deal.
09:49And his positional market happened to go absolutely crazy over the last couple of years.
09:55So, I get it.
09:57Yeah.
09:57But, yeah, I'm not on his side.
09:59I want this thing done.
10:00I want this thing done.
Be the first to comment