On Friday, Barry Petchesky of Deadspin made an excellent observation regarding the manner in which the NFL media provides meaningful details about contracts and offers. For the most part, the NFL media doesn’t provide meaningful details.
Total value of the deal and length of the deal, especially for the larger contracts, doesn’t really matter because the team has the right to flush the contract down the commode whenever it wants. Likewise, generic “guarantees” don’t matter because that number lumps fully guaranteed amounts in with amounts guaranteed for injury only (i.e., not fully guaranteed amounts).
Some in the NFL media praised Petchesky’s observations, but frankly anyone who frequents this rancid back alley of the NFL media knows that, for years, we’ve been banging the drum about the BS that routinely appears in the initial reports of contract value. When it comes to assessing the quality of a contract, all that really matters are: (1) signing bonus; (2) full guarantee at signing; and (3) cash flow through the first three years of the deal.
On the heels of Petchesky’s item urging members of the NFL media to find a better way to describe player contracts came the news that the Chargers and receiver Keenan Allen (who missed most of his third NFL season with a lacerated kidney) have agreed to a four-year extension. It was the perfect opportunity for the members of the NFL media who would be reporting on the contract to insist that “sources” (i.e., Allen’s agents) provide truly meaningful details.
More than 12 hours after the news broke, however, all that has emerged is the standard, meaningless stuff about full value ($44 million over four years) and generic guarantee ($24 million) -- with much of that coming from members of the NFL media who publicly praised Petchesky’s article.
It’s hard to blame them for posting whatever they can get. It’s a very competitive business, not only among media outlets but within them. Reporters have to take what they can get so that they can show their bosses that they’re reporting something, even if the something they’re reporting is essentially nothing.
Presumably, folks are still trying to get the meaningful details about Allen’s deal. There’s a rule of thumb among agents that if 24 hours pass without the real details coming out, the real details are nothing to brag about. So we’ll see if the real details on Allen’s deal emerge in the next 12 hours.
