Joey Bosa - Pro Football Rumors

Chargers’ Spanos On Joey Bosa Saga

September 1st, 2016 at 1:40pm CST by Zachary Links

Earlier this week, the Joey Bosa saga finally came to a close when the Chargers and the rookie’s reps compromised on a contract. As the talks dragged on, the tenor of the negotiations got uglier and uglier, including the Bolts’ unprecedented move of publicly releasing details of their contract offer. That press release raised eyebrows in the football world, but team president of football operations John Spanos says he has no regrets.

“Obviously, it was a difficult decision,” Spanos told Xtra 1360 Fox Sports Radio (via ESPN.com). “Any time you’re in a tough negotiation, everything you do is a difficult decision. And let me be clear: It’s certainly never our preference to make any public comments. It’s not how we’ve operated in the past, I would say, and only [on] the rarest of occasions. In fact, I’ve probably been involved in hundreds of player negotiations and contract agreements, whether it’s helping out or leading, throughout my lifetime, and that’s the first time I’ve ever said anything public.

“So that shows you how rare that is. It’s not what we prefer to do — only, I would say, when we’re forced to do it. The bottom line is if someone were to tell me that’s why we got it done, then, yeah, I would do it again, because our goal the whole time was we wanted him here. And we were going to do whatever it takes to get him here.”

Releasing the details of the offer probably rubbed Bosa the wrong way and some believe that it could give pause to rookies and free agents in the future. Spanos personally believes that free agents will not be deterred by the tenor of the Bosa negotiations and feels that sunny San Diego will continue to be a desirable landing spot for players. I can’t dispute the appeal of San Diego as a city, but I have my doubts as to whether players will turn a blind eye to the way the Bosa discussions went.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Chargers Get Roster Exemption For Joey Bosa

August 30th, 2016 at 12:51pm CST by Dallas Robinson

The Chargers announced that they’ve received a roster exemption for the recently-signed Joey Bosa, so while they technically have 76 players under contract, they are in compliance with the league’s roster requirements.

Waived

QB Zach Mettenberger (story)

Waived/Injured:

WR Javontee Herndon (story)
DT Zamir Carlis
T Tyler Johnstone
RB Dreamius Smith

Placed on injured reserve:

G Donavon Clark
RB Branden Oliver (story)

Extra Points: Bosa, 49ers, Tebow, McPhee

August 29th, 2016 at 10:55pm CST by Dallas Robinson

Joey Bosa‘s switch in lead agents helped end the stalemate between him and the Chargers, as Michael Gehlken of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes. Bosa’s camp shifted from Brian Ayrault to Todd France — each of whom work for CAA — after Ayrault rejected San Diego’s most recent offer. Because the club said it would only reduce its proposal from there, the agency decided to try a new strategy. “Good cop, bad cop,” one source told Gehlken.

Another key in ending the negotiations was the Chargers agreeing to language that would protect Bosa’s roster bonuses, according to Albert Breer of TheMMQB.com (Twitter link). The former Ohio State Buckeye will receive 85% of his signing bonus in 2016, and the rest in 2017, per Breer, which represents a compromise between the two sides.

Here’s more from around the NFL:

The 49ers could choose to put quarterback Colin Kaepernick “on ice” in 2016 in order to ensure that his injury guarantees do not kick in, as Breer tweets. San Francisco would be employing a similar tactic used by the Redskins last year with Robert Griffin III. Kaepernick’s $11.9MM salary for the upcoming season is fully guaranteed, but a report this morning indicated that the club could still cut the sixth-year QB.
Roughly half of MLB will be represented at Tim Tebow‘s baseball workout tomorrow, reports Jon Morosi of FOX Sports (Twitter link). Prior to the start of the season, Tebow reportedly worked out for the Dodgers and the team showed some level of interest in him afterward. Of course, the former NFL quarterback faces an uphill climb as he hasn’t played baseball full-time since 2005.
The Bears face a decision on linebacker Pernell McPhee in the coming days, as Rich Campbell of the Chicago Tribune writes. McPhee, who is dealing with a knee injury, is currently on the active/PUP list, and if he doesn’t come off said list by Saturday, he’d be forced to miss the first six weeks of the season. Chicago isn’t saying much about McPhee’s recovery, but it doesn’t look like McPhee will be able to contribute by Week 1.
2015 first-round pick Andrus Peat played primarily on the left side during his rookie year, so the Saints are now considering moving him from right guard to left guard, according to John DeShazier of the team’s website. If New Orleans does make the switch, veterans Tim Lelito and Senio Kelemete would keep competing for the right guard spot.

Chargers Sign Joey Bosa

August 29th, 2016 at 2:13pm CST by Zachary Links

Finally – the Joey Bosa saga is over. The Chargers announced that they have inked their first-round pick to a contract with just a couple of weeks to go before the season opener. Bosa now has 13 days to prepare for Week 1 against the Chiefs.

The Chargers gave Bosa the largest upfront signing bonus in club history, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets. The two sides compromised on cash flow in years 2, 3, and 4 while the Chargers got the offset language they were seeking. The Chargers and Joey Bosa agreed to a four-year, $25.8M contract, a source tells NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport (on Twitter). He gets a $17MM signing bonus and it is all fully guaranteed.

“We look forward to having Joey join us and getting him prepared as quickly as possible for the 2016 season,” said GM Tom Telesco in a press release.

The Chargers selected Bosa with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2016 draft. The Ohio State product was widely projected to be a top 10 pick in this year’s draft, but few pundits saw the Chargers pouncing on him at No. 3. While teams traded into the top two picks to select quarterbacks, the Bolts were more than happy to stay put and grab Bosa. Although it is common for the first two or three teams on the board to discuss contract quirks with prospective picks, the Bolts apparently did not do that with Bosa or his CAA reps.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Reaction To Joey Bosa, Chargers Dispute

August 26th, 2016 at 8:00pm CST by Dallas Robinson

NFL general managers are “laughing” at the Chargers’ handling of the Joey Bosa contract situation, reports Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report, who says that nearly every source agrees than San Diego is to blame for the current mess of negotiations. “If Joey Bosa ended his dispute tomorrow, he would barely get something from his rookie year,” said one GM. “But it won’t end tomorrow. It could be weeks. So effectively, the Chargers threw away the rookie year of their own high draft pick.” Another GM estimated a 20-30% chance that Bosa could sit out the entire year and re-enter the draft in 2017, and a source close to Bosa told Freeman the chance of that scenario coming to fruition “is slim but growing every day.”

Let’s check out some more reaction to the Bosa squabble:

The Chargers are preparing as though they’ll begin the regular season without Bosa, a sentiment that head coach Mike McCoy confirms, according to Michael Gehlken of the San Diego Union-Tribune (Twitter link). “We’re going to win with whoever we have,” McCoy told reporters today, and general manager Tom Telesco echoed that statement, per Eric D. Williams of ESPN.com. “There’s not really much you can do about it,” said Telesco, although Williams argues that San Diego will likely pick up a few extra defenders in the coming weeks, either through free agency or the waiver process.
The dispute is a bad look for both the Chargers and Bosa, opines Peter Schrager of FOX Sports (all Twitter links). The stalemate hurts the organization as it tries to build a new stadium in San Diego, but it also affects Bosa’s agency, CAA, as other agencies could use this situation to poach clients. At least one NFL executive expressed shock to Schrager that the friction was still ongoing: “Is THIS the hill you want to die on?”
The NFLPA has contacted Bosa and his camp, according to Tom Pelissero of USA Today, but a grievance is considered a “last resort,” says union spokesperson George Atallah. As Pelissero writes, San Diego would be able to decrease their offer and still fall within the contract requirements outlined by the CBA, meaning that Bosa could only argue that the club had refused to negotiate in good faith.
As evidenced by the Chargers’ statement on Wednesday, Bosa has seemingly agreed to a large deferral of his signing bonus — but that deferral isn’t quite significant enough for the team, writes Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
In case you missed the rest of the drama earlier this week, Chargers president John Spanos called Bosa’ holdout “absolutely asinine,” while Bosa’s agent accused the club of “manipulating facts.”

Joey Bosa’s Rep Attacks Chargers

August 24th, 2016 at 7:09pm CST by Connor J. Byrne

First-round holdout Joey Bosa‘s agent, Brian Ayrault, has issued an acerbic response to the Chargers’ Wednesday statement concerning the lack of progress in contract talks between the two sides. Via Adam Schefter of ESPN:

“It is unfortunate the San Diego Chargers have decided to manipulate facts and negotiate in the media. The team surely is not strengthening its relationship with Joey Bosa by taking this stance and making their position public.

We have decided that we will not engage in public negotiations or discuss numbers and/or terms in this negotiation.

We will say, that it is ironic that the team now takes issue with the timing of Joey’s arrival, since the Chargers unilaterally decided to remain silent for the first 14 days of training camp instead of replying in a timely fashion to the proposal we made on the eve of training camp on July 28th.

At this point, all we can do is continue to fight for a fair contract on behalf of our client, as we do for all of our clients. The Chargers can focus on trying to sway public opinion, but our focus will remain on our client and securing a contract for him that is fair and consistent with his draft position.”

We learned earlier Wednesday that the Chargers pulled their latest offer to Bosa off the table after the third overall pick declined it. Chargers president John Spanos later went on to refer to Bosa’s holdout as “absolutely asinine” and implied that neither the defensive end nor his agent have been reasonable in negotiations.

The Bolts and Bosa have been at loggerheads for months over signing bonus distribution and offset language in the 21-year-old rookie’s prospective contract. According to Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Chargers’ since-tabled proposal included an 85 percent payout of Bosa’s bonus in Year 1 of the deal. While Ayrault has budged from his insistence that Bosa should receive the entire bonus up front, per Michael Gehlken of the Union-Tribune, the Chargers’ increase from 61 percent to 85 percent wasn’t enough to lead to an agreement.

Photo courtesy of Pro Football Rumors’ Instagram account.

Spanos: Bosa’s Holdout “Absolutely Asinine”

August 24th, 2016 at 5:18pm CST by Connor J. Byrne

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.

Chargers Issue Statement On Bosa Conflict

August 24th, 2016 at 1:13pm CST by Zachary Links

The Chargers issued a pointed statement regarding their contract stalemate with 2016 first-round selection Joey Bosa:

Our contract discussions and offers to the representatives of Joey Bosa have been both fair and structurally consistent with the contracts of every other Chargers player. Our offer included:

An initial signing bonus payment that is larger than any player in the League has received in the last two drafts.

More money in this calendar year than every player in this year’s draft except one (QB Carson Wentz).

The largest payment and the highest percentage of signing bonus received in the first calendar year of any Chargers’ first-round selection since the inception of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (2011).

We gave Joey’s representatives our best offer last night, which was rejected today. The offer that we extended was for Joey to contribute during all 16 games and beyond. Joey’s ability to contribute for an entire rookie season has now been jeopardized by the valuable tie he has missed with his coaches and his teammates. Since Joey will not report at this time, his ability to produce not just early in the season, but throughout the entire season, has been negatively impacted.

As a result, we will restructure our offer since Joey will be unable to contribute for the full 16 game season without the adequate time on the practice field, in the classroom, and in preseason games.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Chargers, Bosa Still In Stalemate

August 24th, 2016 at 1:04pm CST by Zachary Links

We have an update on the Chargers and Joey Bosa, and it is not a positive one. The Chargers proposed to Bosa what they made clear is their best offer, a source tells Michael Gehlken of U-T San Diego (on Twitter). That offer was declined and subsequently pulled by San Diego. Two sides remain very far apart as the season opener creeps ever closer. The Chargers offer to Bosa included the second most Year 1 cash behind only Carson Wentz, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets.

The contract stalemate between San Diego and Bosa is centered around offset language and payout structure, as Bosa and his camp want the entirety of his ~$17MM signing bonus to be paid in 2016. San Diego, meanwhile, prefers to pay a “significant portion” of the bonus next March. The Chargers’ offer to Bosa is reportedly similar in nature to the deal agreed to between the Cowboys and fourth overall pick Ezekiel Elliott. Elliott will receive roughly 61% of his signing bonus during this calendar year, so using the same structure, San Diego wants to delay the payout of about $6.6MM of Bosa’s signing bonus until next March.

The deadline for the Chargers to trade Bosa’s draft rights have come and gone. If Bosa does not sign by the Tuesday after Week 10, he will be ineligible to play this season. In that event, the Ohio State product can re-enter the draft pool for 2017, though it’s unlikely that he’ll go No. 3 or higher.

Photo courtesy of PFR on Instagram.

Chargers Preparing To Be Without Joey Bosa

August 23rd, 2016 at 9:36am CST by Dallas Robinson

The Chargers are preparing as if No. 3 overall Joey Bosa won’t be with the club when the regular season begins, according to Eric D. Williams of ESPN.com. San Diego opens the season against the division rival Chiefs on September 11.

“We’ll have a plan for him whenever he’s here,” head coach Mike McCoy said of Bosa. “We’ve talked about it over time, from the very beginning of camp. So we’ve got a plan for when he’s in the building. But I’m very pleased with the other 89 guys in camp at this point in time.”

According to Williams, second-year pro Darius Philon figures to see the most snaps in place of Bosa. Philon, a 2015 sixth-round pick, appeared in eight games for the Bolts last year, playing on about 14% of the club’s defensive plays. McCoy also praised the performance of backup Tenny Palepoi, while Zamir Carlis, who was signed two weeks ago, could also factor into a rotation.

The Chargers, who began talking with Bosa’s camp again last week, have been insistent on Bosa accepting offset language in his deal that would take them off the hook in the event that he would be released before the scheduled conclusion of the deal. The Bolts are also pushing for part of Bosa’s signing bonus to be deferred. Bosa’s reps say that they will not accept both of those terms, particularly since four of the players to go in the top 10 of this year’s draft will receive most or all of their signing bonuses in 2016.

In order for Bosa to agree to offset language, agent Todd France reportedly wants the Chargers to pay all ~$17MM) of his bonus this year. San Diego, meanwhile, would rather wait until next March to dole out a “significant portion” of the bonus. At last check, the Chargers want to give Bosa roughly 61 percent of his signing bonus during this calendar year, which is the same payout schedule the Cowboys agreed to with fourth overall selection Ezekiel Elliott, who was Bosa’s teammate at Ohio State and went one pick after him.

Photo courtesy of Pro Football Rumors on Instagram.