With the Chargers and first-round defensive end Joey Bosa embroiled in the ugliest contract dispute the NFL has seen since introducing the rookie wage scale in 2011, team president John Spanos expressed frustration about the situation Wednesday.
“I’m highly, highly disappointed in the path we’ve had to take,” Spanos told Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “It’s so overly clear we had no choice. It would have been more difficult if I felt they were being reasonable. But when you’re dealing with someone who isn’t reasonable, it makes it easy.”
Spanos’ words came in response to the decision Bosa’s camp made to reject the Chargers’ latest proposal, which was the best one the franchise has put forth in the three-plus months since drafting him third overall.
The Chargers offered to pay the ex-Ohio State star 85 percent of his $17MM signing bonus this year (up from the previous figure of 61 percent), according to Acee, but he turned it down and the club then pulled the proposal off the table Wednesday. Bosa’s agent, Brian Ayrault, is no longer requiring the Chargers to pay the full bonus up front, sources told the Union-Tribune’s Michael Gehlken, though it’s unclear how far he has come down from that demand. Not nearly enough, if you’re to believe Spanos.
“What you do is you compromise,” he stated. “We moved and we moved and we moved. They weren’t moving.”
Notably, this type of dispute isn’t foreign to the Chargers, who were in a similar dust-up with first-round quarterback Philip Rivers in 2014, as Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio writes. Then, on this date 12 years ago, Rivers signed. He remains the Bolts’ signal-caller to this day, of course, proving that a contentious holdout doesn’t have to ruin a relationship between the player and team.
Bosa’s fight with the Chargers goes beyond the payout of a signing bonus, as the 21-year-old and the organization have also been battling over offset language. If a player with offset language in his contract is released midway through the pact, the original team is only on the hook for the difference in salary between the two deals. Without offset language, the player can effectively collect two paychecks. Naturally, there are many agents – including Ayrault – who are disinclined to forfeit that potential earning power.
“I’m blown away. At all costs I wanted to avoid going down this road. They made it overly clear we had no other option,” continued Spanos, who referred to Bosa’s holdout as “absolutely asinine.”
Despite the acrimony between the two sides, they’re stuck with each other through the current season. The Chargers had until Aug. 9 to trade Bosa’s rights, but they opted to retain him. If Bosa doesn’t sign by the Tuesday after Week 10, he won’t be eligible to play at all this season. San Diego would then control Bosa’s rights up to next spring’s draft, at which point another team would be able to select him and try its luck in locking him up.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Go get him Cowboys!!
Would the Chargers recoup any kind of compensatory draft pick if they don’t agree to terms with Bosa?
I’ve been trying to get an answer to this same question, but can’t get anyone to answer it.
Nope and Bosa won’t recoup any money he could have earned this year
nope. just a lost draft pick. third pick in the draft and they get nothing
He looks as smart as he sounds.
Should of traded him and his mom.
Personally I don’t think he’s going to be that good…average at best…I wouldn’t give him more guarantee up front and he haven’t played a down…it’s a privilege to play in the NFL not a right…if you think you’re that good then the money will follow but first “PERFORM”
Just give him the money, my word the Chargers are being ridiculous. I’m sure Bosa’s reps have made mistakes during the process, but my word how stupid does an organization have to be to go through with this. The Chargers have all but guaranteed that drafting Joey Bosa won’t work out for them, and for what? The ability to pay some of his guaranteed money in the offseason instead of now and to have his contract offset if he busts. Seriously??? He’s the 3rd overall pick! They should have just signed him and be done with it. This kind of nearsighted stupidity and pride produces nothing but mediocrity and contempt. Good for Bosa
Opinions like that, is the reason why the average Joe doesn’t handle multimillion dollar organization’s finances. The NFL is still a business at the end of the day, and with any business, there will be negotiations. Just because he was drafted number 3, doesn’t make him a lock to be a even decent NFL player, let alone a cornerstone player. If he were a QB, at least the situation would make a little more sense,but he’s a DE, and not even the best overall DE coming out of the draft; he just didn’t have the baggage other guys had with injury concerns and off field stuff. The deal they offered him was good one, he should have took it; now if he does ever get on the field, if he does anything other than JJ Watt type numbers, he’ll be considered a bust.
This idiot would rather not be paid at all for the entire year, and not get a single dime until July of next year, then get 85 percent of his signing bonus now, and 15 percent of it in 6 months. You can try to change the culture in the NFL and a teams payoff structure all you want, but at the end of the day, it’s get some now or nothing for another year. It’s not like they’re screwing you over. How do you think the other Chargers players will receive this guy when he hasn’t even played a down in the NFL and he’s essentially saying he’s the best draft pick the Chargers have ever made and deserves to rewrite the rules? Joey Bosa is a freaking joke.
You are an awful person…
This is a SD thing they do not want to pay upfront like most other teams do for the rookie. So if i was Bosa go back to school, tell the charger to F off and get drafted next year. Its so funny when the team wants something they have a tantrum if a player wants something the team does not care. Whatever stuckup team owner and president pay him like he wants he is not asking for more money or lose him pretty simple
He can’t go back to school. If he doesn’t sign, he has to sit out the entire year and not play. Even if he sits out, he for sure isn’t a first round pick next year. He stands to lose millions of money by sitting out. He has even less wiggle room in contract demands as a later round pick.