The Raiders and 18th-year kicker Sebastian Janikowski are locked in an impasse over his contract, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reports, and this matter could be resolved as soon as Tuesday.
Oakland’s brass has asked the 39-year-old specialist to take a pay cut, and thus far, Janikowski has declined, per Schefter. Janikowski is owed $4MM in base salary this season. A small portion of that figure ($238K) becomes guaranteed at 3pm Tuesday, per Schefter (via Twitter), who adds the rest of that salary will be fully guaranteed if Janikowski’s a part of the Oakland roster on Saturday.
This would explain the Raiders bringing in kickers to work out earlier Monday. Oakland auditioned Mike Nugent, Josh Lambo and Marshall Koehn on Labor Day. Should Janikowski stay on the team, it will be his 18th Raiders season. The former first-round pick has played in more games than any player in franchise history.
The Raiders are also concerned about Janikowski’s back injury. The back trouble caused the kicker to look “awful” today, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reports (Twitter link). Lambo, in particular, stood out during the workouts, Rapoport reports (on Twitter).
Janikowski has one season remaining on his latest Oakland contract, and the cap figure ($4.41MM) sits only behind the Patriots’ Stephen Gostkowski among kickers in 2017. One of the strongest-legged kickers in NFL history, Janikowski has one Pro Bowl (2014) on his resume and has made a 63-yard field goal. Playing in 268 career games, the veteran kicker has missed just one contest since the start of the 2002 season.
The former Florida State kicker said earlier this summer he would like to kick for the Raiders through their move to Las Vegas, which could be as late as the 2020 season. He will be 42 by that point. A Janikowski release would surely cause other teams to consider an 11th-hour addition.
Pack your bags.
Still a d good kicker
Best kicker ever
Best lefty ever
Morten Anderson would like a word then
The dumbest thing I heard since Skip Bayless said Jimmy G would be the 2018 starter for the pats.
Just to name a few Justin Tucker, Vinatieri, and Gostkowski all way better FAX
Will lutz is the best kicker
Looking at his stats. Im shocked how bad he is. They should move on 80% isnt good enough for 4 mil
80% career isn’t terrible. mott anderson 79% hanson 82% vinatieri 84%
under 40 yds he is 94%. and under 50 yds he is 86%. I bet if you take out all the times they had him kick from 60+ he would be closer to the mid 80% overall.
Keep in mind how many LONGGG field goals the Raiders made him attempt between 2004 and 2014…
Janikowski is the all time points leader on the Raiders he deserves every dang bit of the 4 million he is making.
Yes and no…he’s been around long enough to deserve the money but at the same time it’s not uncommon for a vet to restructure their deal in order to help the team…if he wants to kick into their move to Vegas he should try and restructure his deal to where he can do that while helping the team make a few Super Bowl runs in the mean time
Wasn’t Janikowski a Pro Bowler in 2011? Not 2014?
1st round for a kicker? #wow
In his case it was a stretch but he’s been around long enough to make it worth it…Robert Aguayo in the 2nd round to the Bucs…not so much
Sign Lambo and save the money. They’re going to need it to pay the young players like Carr and Cooper anyway.
Janikowski’s deal is up at the end of the year so there’s nothing to save and they have millions in cap space for this year. Nice try though.