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Going to leave the echo chamber on this one . . .
It came out last week that Jets defensive end Carl Lawson took a paycut.
Lawson’s salary was reduced to lower his cap hit from about $15 million to around $3 million. He will now make about $9 million this year, and he can earn back $3 million in incentives. He basically took a $6 million paycut.
So now what about linebacker C.J. Mosley?
The 30-year-old is due to count $21.5 million on the Jets’ cap for each of the next two seasons.
Wow.
Is he that kind of player?
Good player, but $21.5 million a year for the next two years?
The profligate contract Mr. Coffee gave Mosley is still hurting the Jets’ cap.
In March 2019, the Jets gave Mosley a five-year deal for $85 million deal with $51 million guaranteed, kind of crazy money for an inside linebacker at the time.
The offer was so over the top, that Mosley had no choice but to take it. Reading the tea leaves, you got the sense at the time, that Mosley would have preferred to say in Baltimore, where he was a team leader and pillar in the community.
But reportedly the top Ravens offer was around $13 million a year. For the sake of his family, how could he possibly turn down $4 million more a year?
So he came to the Jets.
Good for him and his family, but not a pragmatic contract, considering his position. You see teams in the NFL that just won’t spend big money on inside linebackers. They figure they can find guys there, and spend their money elsewhere in a cap sport.
But how into being a Jets was he the first few years, including one he opted out for COVID-19?
Interesting headline from the Birmingham, Alabama paper today in Mosley’s hometown – “Would the New York Jets release linebacker C.J. Mosley over money?”
Writer Mark Inabinett wrote in this column – ‘The only way New York could convince Mosley and his representatives to agree to a pay cut would be if the Jets would release him if they didn’t.”
That is a great point. That is where the leverage is here.
