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It’s a great contract . . .
NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport announced that Quinnen Williams and the Jets have agreed on a contract that will pay him $96 million over four years with $66 million in guarantees. It was a photo finish by the two NFL insiders, getting the story at the exact same second.
What an incredible job by Williams’ agent Nicole Lynn, who got the player $7 million more in guarantees than Jeffrey Simmons got on Tennessee, and Williams isn’t a better player.
And that isn’t an attack of Williams. Both Simmons and Williams are both really, really good, I just think they are on the same level, unless your evaluation of defensive tackles starts and ends with interior pass rushing.
You can’t run up the middle on Tennessee.
“Williams, who is coming off his first All-Pro season in 2022, has emerged as one of the top disruptors in the NFL, collecting 27.5 sacks, 33 tackles for loss, four forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries and 11 passes defensed in four seasons,” wrote NFL.com after the signing.
Think about that 27.5 career sack total for a second.
That is over four seasons.
12 came this past season, so that means, in his first three years, he averaged 5.17 sacks per season. Is that dominating? We leave that for you to decide.
Some might argue that Williams got that monster contract based on one dominant season as a pass rusher.
His run defense has always been middling. Man, did the Jets give up a lot of big runs up the middle the last few years. Obviously not all on him, but some of it is. He often gets engulfed by guards and centers since he’s a little undersized.
It’s a risky deal because Williams gets dinged a lot, perhaps due to not having that thick build, that body armour, like the Simmons, Daron Payne and Dexter Lawrence types. Payne and Lawrence also got paid this off-season, and Williams deal beat their deals by $6-7 million in guarantees.
Maybe one reason for the profligate deal was this factor, which the media points out ad infinitum:
“Quinnen Williams now is the first Jets’ player selected in round one to sign a second contract with the organization since Muhammad Wilkerson, whom they picked in 2011. No Jets players selected in the first round from 2012-2018 had signed second contracts with the team,” tweeted Adam Schefter.
Williams also brought this up in his press conference at the end of last season, which was a little awkward. Never heard a player bring up something like that. They usually leave that to their agent.
But that should have not played any role in what the Jets paid Williams. There were a lot of different regimes during that period, so when you have regime change, they aren’t always going to re-sign picks from the previous regime. Also, the reason they are previous regimes is they didn’t draft well, in part leading to their departures.
So that talking point about not re-signing first-round picks is a little misleading and isn’t a reason to overpay, and it might have have nothing to do with it.
The bottom line is, Lynn won the negotiation.
And good for Quinnen and his family. They have been through a lot over the years, and now they are set for life.
July 13, 2023
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