Gumbo
Well-known member
- Mar 19, 2019
- 1,987
- 0
Getty Images
Free agency begins a month from today. The unprecedented array of available quarterbacks means that, in many respects, the process already has begun.
Agents who need to place quarterback clients and teams that need a quarterback are actively considering their options and, at least from the perspective of the folks who get paid a percentage of the contracts they’re able to negotiate, agents are actively trying to influence the market.
Last week, for example, some thought the Matthew Stafford trade-talk report came from an agent with a quarterback client trying to get other agents with other quarterback clients to not try to put those quarterback clients with teams like the Colts or Buccaneers or Chargers, the potential destinations for a Stafford trade that isn’t happening. This week, the motivation for Monday’s biggest eyebrow-raiser is a little easier to process.
Per a league source, the notion that Teddy Bridgewater‘s market will be in the range of $30 million per year comes not from his own agent but from other agents trying to get teams to consider other quarterback options.
As noted when addressing the suggestion that Bridgewater and his six starts since 2015 would get more than Jimmy Garoppolo or Kirk Cousins, Bridgewater’s agent gains nothing from creating an unreasonable expectation as to Bridgewater’s eventual contract. Indeed, if/when Bridgewater gets something more like $24 million (or maybe even the $22 million that Super Bowl LII MVP Nick Foles received in 2019, despite far fewer veteran options in free agency), it will be regarded as a failure.
For those spreading the $30 million-per-year notion for Bridgewater, the goal isn’t to set Bridgewater and/or his agent up for being perceived as failures but instead to make their own efforts to place their own quarterback clients successful by scaring teams away from Bridgewater.
Again, it’s all a very low-tech, simplistic approach to manipulating the market. Teams that are interested in Bridgewater, for example, can easily get to the truth by contacting his agent. But that isn’t stopping some agents from flooding the market with B.S. in the weeks before the market gets flooded with more cash than ever before, given the various quarterbacks who are in play.