It looks like Marcus Mariota will be staying with the Raiders after all. The quarterback is expected to sign a reworked deal with Las Vegas that will drop his salary to $3.5MM, sources told Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter link).
We heard last week that the team was going to “move on” if he refused to cut his compensation, either through a trade or release, and that a divorce was “likely.” It was reported at the time that Mariota was reluctant to cut his deal because he felt like he had options on the market, but perhaps seeing a few more quarterbacks get signed made him less confident in having those options. Now, he’ll sign a one-year deal worth $3.5MM that can be worth up to $8MM with inceentives.
Rapsheet writes that “it was up and down the last few weeks, but he recently made the call to stick around.” In a follow-up tweet, Rapoport notes the original pay-cut offer was for $3MM, and that Mariota negotiated up and got himself some upside. He had previously been scheduled to take home $10.725MM, a hefty price for a backup to Derek Carr.
Mariota appeared in one game in place of an injured Carr last season and showed fairly well against the Chargers on national TV, completing 17 of 28 passes for 226 yards a touchdown and an interception. He also added 88 yards and another score rushing.
Mariota is now on a very trade-friendly contract should a team come calling. We heard around the Super Bowl that there was legit interest in the former second overall pick, but then that interest reportedly cooled significantly.
Mariota spent his first five years in the league as Tennessee’s starter, but was benched by the Titans in favor of Ryan Tannehill midway through the 2019 season. Jon Gruden added him as his high-level clipboard holder last offseason. The 27-year-old will enter free agency next spring.
Wow dumb move. Even if he wasn’t signed to be a starter he could make more than 3MM on another team
He will now once he gets traded
Other teams should take note – thus guy is content to be a back-up. That tells you all you need to know about his leadership potential.
Mr Mariota understands that the only way to get into a possible starting job was to restructure. He is not content to be a back up and is probably well aware of his potential landing spots.
The only head scratchier to the situation is that WFT instead of going with the $10 Mil incentive gave Ryan Fitzy a guaranteed $10 Mil deal.
That’s a bit of a reach there. He was content to take the sure 3.5m versus gambling on the market.
Do I think someone would have paid him more? Absolutely. Aren’t we all just speculating though? At the end of the day none of us have to pay his bills.
A_O I hear you and I agree with you. I also believe that it would be a different situation if the Raiders hadn’t decided that a less then 100% Carr was the better option in week 16 after the groin injury.
I agree with this take
Smart move. The way his contract was set up no team was going to trade for him and teams spent their salary cap space already
I like this move a whole lot for the Raiders. The $11M was way too high, but this seems cheap in comparison. One game is almost no sample size at all, but he look like a legit NFL QB.