Justin Houston is a case study in a player betting on himself, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. Houston turned down a solid deal in October and went on to nearly set a new sack record. Now, he has himself a new six-year deal worth $101MM. Here’s a look at some of the reactions to Houston’s new deal..
- Unlike the other tagged players, Houston had leverage in his negotiation, Jason Fitzgerald of Over The Cap writes. The Chiefs had the most difficult cap situation remaining in the NFL with just slightly over $500K in cap room remaining, a figure that included Houston on a $13.2MM tender. They needed to bring his cap figure down by at least $4MM to function this year, which gave Houston some extra juice in the talks.
- When asked if he would have showed for camp if he didn’t get his long-term contract, Houston said “probably not,” according to Adam Teicher of ESPN.com (on Twitter).
- The Chiefs were convinced that Houston was serious about his threats to miss games, Jason Cole of Bleacher Report hears (video link). They were comfortable giving him the deal because he erased many of their concerns in 2014.
- On a conference call, Chiefs GM John Dorsey said the team still has the flexibility to do other deals, Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk writes.
- The Houston deal provides a template for what it might take for the Broncos to secure Von Miller long term, Troy Renck of The Denver Post tweets. Miller will be eligible for the franchise tag after this year. Joel Corry of CBSSports.com (on Twitter) adds that the Houston deal should mark Miller’s salary floor.