It's cold blooded how teams can just manipulate a guy's career. I guess he can try and force his way out if hes really upset.
I was thinking I fee "bad" for him, even though he ain't broke by any means, because of the continuous franchise tag.
How much is that going to cost them? $30 mil?
The NFL has to be the worst major sport to play for. The players association is a disgrace.
It's up there. I'm not sure if this is his second or third.
Patriots and Commanders really wanted him.
Isn't it more if you get tagged a second of third time though?
Oh you're right. I forgot he was already paying on the tag. 120% of the previous amount
Spielberger who is almost always within 10-20% of the actual contract amount has him at 2y $12.5M AAV. I think he's a great pass rush specialist in theory but apparently Dennis Allen needs his DEs to be over 260 lb. so maybe Reddick is the opposite direction he wants to go in.
The weird thing is that players seem to usually be more than willing to re-sign early if they get market value. Free agency tends to be kind of crappy. So the need to force people to stay on a team doesn't seem to be very high right now. Higgins problem is he's usually banged up... so sitting on these one year deals is probably not ideal for him.
I dont really agree the free agent class is that bad. People say this every year. The only positions that are atrocious in FA are rb, te, and qb. There's going to be a ton of decent wr options available even without higgins
Bears (and most teams) have too many holes to find permanent solutions at every single position. FFS the Bears need 3 new starting iOL and then the depth behind it, they arent going to get the 4-5 long term solutions it would take to just replace the iOL this year. Smith is obviously the shiny new toy of iOL Free Agents but Day 1/early Day 2 Rookie + Dalman/Kelly + Fries/Scherff/Zeitler would be a pretty big upgrade over Curhan+Shelton+Pryor that they ended the '24 season on.
