With a little less than a month remaining until the July 15 deadline for franchise-tagged players to sign extensions, there doesn’t appear to be much hope that the Rams will convince cornerback Trumaine Johnson to sign on the dotted line. According to Adam Schefter and Josina Anderson of ESPN.com (video link), it’s a “long shot” that Johnson will agree to a long-term deal with Los Angeles in the next four weeks or so.
[RELATED: Rams working on extensions for Jeff Fisher and Les Snead]
Nonetheless, Johnson will be well-compensated for the 2016 campaign, as he’s already signed his franchise tender, guaranteeing himself a $13.952MM salary for the upcoming season. Per Schefter and Anderson, both the Rams and Johnson are comfortable playing out the year with that cost — neither the club nor the player feels an immediate need to reach an extension, as both sides are content with the roughly $14MM figure.
As Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports wrote earlier this year, Johnson is particularly unlikely to agree to a multi-year pact given that his former Rams teammate, fellow corner Janoris Jenkins, landed a mega-deal from the Giants in free agency, securing a $12.5MM annual salary and $28.8MM in guarantees. Both of those charges likely represents a floor for Johnson, and unless Los Angeles is willing to match or exceed those numbers, Johnson is probably unwilling to sign.
Johnson, 26, had just 20 career starts on his NFL résumé prior to 2015, but he established himself as a reliable starting cornerback last season, picking up 71 tackles, seven interceptions, and 17 passes defended, grading out as the No. 17 CB in the league, according to Pro Football Focus.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
There’s the franchise tag for 2017 too and a long term deal can be done then so let’s see if Trumaine Johnson can put up these numbers again!
True, but at that point, you’re talking around $30MM fully guaranteed. The Rams might as well extend him at that point.
If these guys don’t want to play for $15 million a year,let em go pump gas!
He’s not holding out and he’s not saying he doesn’t want to play under the franchise tag. This article is just saying the Rams and Johnson are probably not going to get an extension done before the deadline. That’s probably because he wants be paid like Janoris Jenkins just got paid but the Rams probably don’t want to give that much yet.
Owners and league making money, why not the players. NFL contracts are bells and whistles. Need guarantee money, baseball and basketball has it and less dangerous
Cause there’s this thing called salary cap
Rams are going to lose another good player. Rams are about to be a farm team. They barely develop any players and it seems when they do they are leaving… smh…still a trash organization