Jeff, how are you, man? Doing well. How are you? I'm excellent.
Thank you for taking the time to join us. I want to go through a few things that have taken place. Of course, it looked like a lot of smoke and mirrors to kind of poke and prod around. Matthew Stafford returning to LA. Do we know what that number looks like or will look like yet?
Not yet, which is surprising given how quickly this stuff usually tends to come out. I know he was asking for 50 plus per season, which he has every right to do so given the way that he's performed for the Rams and the way the market's really taken off. I don't know what they settled on, but I know, of course, the Rams were hesitant to an expansionist because he's kind of year to year at this point with retirement and sort of has been, at least from the team's viewpoint. Talking to people around the league, it was the biggest story in Indianapolis last week at the Combine. I didn't speak to a single person who thought that the Rams were ever going to move him or that Stafford was going to find the massive contract from another team that would have still enticed him to want to leave a team that just made the playoffs to go to a rebuilding situation in his late 30s when it took him basically a decade to experience playoff success in the NFL because of the start with the Lions.
It always made the most sense for the two sides to come to some sort of reasonable conclusion. I'm going to go back to the number. Am I correct to think with all the money that the Bengals have already doled out, will have to dole out, that they can do all the talking that they want in the world about T. Higgins and long term deal. This is likely going to be his final season with Cincinnati, no? The way this process has played out is extremely confusing because this is an organization that, you know, remember going into the Joe Barrow talk at those negotiations, it was like, all right, you know, they're not going to let Joe Barrow out the door like they're going to have to step up and pay this guy. But this is an organization that historically has not had those superstar contracts. And now you're going to tell me that you're going to pay Joe Barrow, Jamar Chase, T. Higgins, and we'll see about Trey Hendrickson. But we're looking at a potentially unprecedented situation if the Bengals do step up and pay T. Higgins, which if they are going to really truly follow through with this and tag him tomorrow, which it certainly looks like is going to happen, it's just it's not sustainable to keep him on that one year deal. So it just makes no sense for them to try to spread out those cap hits in the future years. The problem is they're giving T. Higgins all of the leverage in the world.
And he already, in my opinion, already had it short of the franchise maneuver. But he's going to come in at over 30 per season. And Jamar Chase is absolutely going to break Justin Jefferson's record of 35 per season.
He's going to he's going to get a whole lot closer to 40 if not break it. There's never been, you know, last season, the Eagles had Devante Smith and AJ Brown, both at 25 plus. Yeah, it worked out great for them.
There's no buyer's remorse there. But that's the exception. You know, the only other team in the league that had two receivers at 25 plus was the Miami Dolphins, and they didn't do so hot.
That model has not worked for them yet. There were I think it was four other teams that had two receivers at 20 plus. They combined for one playoff win. So now you're going to tell me you've got an organization that historically has not doled out these superstar contracts. And now you're going to try to build your team with a quarterback at 55, a wide receiver at 35 plus and another wide receiver at 30 plus for the first time in NFL history. All the while, you just those three guys, those three superstars, the quarterback and the two receivers just played as well as they could have conceivably played last season, and they still didn't make the playoffs because they had so many issues on the offensive line and on defense.
So in order for this whole thing to work, they better start hitting at very close to 100% draft rate, because they have a lot of other problems on the roster to hammer out. Maybe they're trying to break the stigma that they're a little on the cheap side. Maybe that's it.
I don't know. I mean, if there's anybody to deal with, it's certainly these three. I'll believe it when I see it. Jeff Howe joining us from the athletic, I feel the same way. We all know that teams want to try to get that rookie quarterback in and try to get him showed out before they got to pay him the big bucks. We all know about Cam Ward, Chidor Sanders.
I know that Jackson Dart got and garnered a lot of attention over the weekend as well. What are your thoughts on how this will play out with all these teams that need QBs and what has been said isn't the biggest QB draft? Yeah, it's a really tough year for a handful of teams. That's why the Stafford thing last week sort of took off, because it was like, oh my goodness. You've got all of these uncertain veteran quarterbacks who are about to hit the market in free agency or trade. And then you've got all these uncertain rookie quarterbacks coming out in the draft. And then Matthew Stafford potentially falls in your lap. Now again, we knew that he wasn't really going to move, but that was the biggest carrot on the end of the stick that teams like the Giants and the Raiders could have possibly foreseen.
But now you've got to turn your attention to what is the best scenario for your organization. And you've got a unique situation with the Raiders with Tom Brady taking over as minority owner. I covered Tom Brady for 12 years in New England. I can't imagine he's got a heavy appetite for poor quarterback plays, so he's going to try to solve that position as quickly as possible.
But how's he going to do it? Russell Wilson and Pete Carroll have certainly been connected. That was brought to my attention before the season even ended as a possibility if Pete Carroll got that job. And then you look at Kirk Cousins, the one attractive thing about him is you're probably betting on him having a better year coming off the Achilles. And because of the offset language in the contract, assuming he gets released by the Falcons, you've got a situation like Russell Wilson and the Steelers last season where you could play, if you're the Raiders or whoever brings him in, you're only on the hook for the minimum base salary.
So you're talking like 1.2 million or something like that. So that's pretty attractive if you're still in a rebuild and just trying to keep your head above water. And then you've got Sam Darnold, who for basically three months of the season looked like he was a lock to get 40 to 45 million annually. And then because the Vikings offensive line crumbled in the last two games, his market is a much bigger question mark.
So it's like, what are you going to really do here? And then if you go all in on the draft, Cam Ward physically has a lot going for him. He's got to have better tape. He's made a lot of mistakes against substandard defenses. So the big question is, how quickly is he going to be able to adjust to the NFL? Chidor Sanders, I think there's a gap between those two and Jackson Dart might even be catching up to Chidor Sanders.
Beauty's in the eye of the beholder with these guys. But the other risk here is more of a hidden risk is that the 26 draft class is supposed to be dynamite with the quarterback. If Arch Manning comes out and there's a handful of other guys who have teams really excited. So if you draft a guy in the top five and you whiff, you might also be taking yourself out of the running for a quarterback in 26.
So this is a really, really tough decision for these teams. And then you have the fact that everybody knows how desperate the Giants are to get a quarterback. But you've got Joe Shane and Brian Deval, whose jobs almost certainly hinge on getting the right quarterback in town and getting immediate success out of them.
And Jeff Howe was joining us on the J.R. sport brief show. When you talk about these these quarterbacks who are available and who might be available next year, we know Travis Hunter also helps, I don't want to say complicate what this draft looks like. But we know he can be selected as a corner and have a package of plays at wide receiver.
Where do you think he's most likely to end up knowing that some of these teams may just say, hey, let's let's let's tank and try again next year? Yeah, I mean, that's the thing I can't get out of my head is when the Titans were starting their off season process and they said they weren't going to pass on a generational talent at number one. And, you know, I know they have people there who really like Cam Ward. I strongly believe Cam Ward is under consideration for the number one pick in Tennessee. But when you say generational talent that early in the off season before this scouting process is really anywhere close to completion. I mean, Travis Hunter is the name that jumps out at me. And, you know, I really like Abdul Carter, but calling him a generational talent, you know, I'm not sure I would make that leap.
I think he's got a chance to be an elite defender. So I think Hunter could go as early as number one. And I know the Browns really like him, too. So I don't see him lasting on the board very long.
It's just these teams have to figure out like if it's still the quarterback musical chairs is just it's going to take a while for that all to settle. If the teams I talked to, by and large, thought that Hunter was going to be a corner of a full time cornerback who could play maybe upwards of 15 snaps a game at wide receiver. And, you know, to Travis Hunter's credit, he hasn't walked into these meetings with teams and been like, oh, I only want to play this one position. It's like, hey, you know what, you draft me, you play me where you want to play me.
And that's a really cool sign of his character, because, you know, I was looking at the numbers the other day. You average out the top five average annual value, average annual value contracts at wide receiver somewhere around 32 million dollars. Again, if you're a top five wide receiver in the NFL, if you're a cornerback, it drops 10 million per year. So think about the amount of money that he's leaving on the table if these teams really do want to draft him a corner and have him as a spot receiver, which I do believe is the most conducive way to have some are the most the best path to have some success at the NFL level just because of the workload and all that other stuff. But the fact that Travis Hunter is not saying, hey, you know what, I want to be a receiver exclusively when you're that talented enough to do that.
You know, that shows that's a really strong example of the great high quality character that he's bringing to the table. Oh, Jeff, we know that the NFL has certainly televised and made this more of a of a prime time exhibition during the combine that it has been in recent years. We also know that teams don't necessarily send out as as much scouts and talents as they used to. We don't see some of the top guys performing so they don't lower their stock.
Has the draft lost a little bit of its luster without the big names competing? You know, it's always fun to watch these guys compete, especially the quarterbacks, you know, when they have a chance to share a field together. But I also see the other side of it, like from a business sense, the amount of money that these guys have on the table, the amount of money that they're starting to make in college, too. It doesn't make as much sense to go out there and Indy where the equipment's a little new. Sometimes the field can be slippery in this type of environment and you're throwing the guys that you basically just met. Whereas you can do this whole thing in a controlled environment in your pro day. And they've got they've all got these QB gurus, you know, speaking of that position specifically.
But, you know, the other positions have it as well. They've all got these QB coaches who are able to script 60 to 75 passes and they are able to go through this script day after day after day. So by the time their pro day comes around, you know, they've been going through this for two weeks. Or maybe they want to maybe they have a late edition, like a day or two before.
And I'm talking about like one or two plays. But like these guys have this thing down to the science. So I absolutely understand why they're pushing it off to the pro days.
And you know what? The other thing, like people are going to watch the combine. It's going to do ratings no matter what. I think you could also make I'm not sure I'm not trying to advertise for the league here.
That's not my place. But like the other thing is now you're you're adding a lot more TV interest for the pro days because you can just turn on these workouts in mid to late March. The more content the merrier. We see the NFL is good at that.
That salary cap continues to rise and rise and rise every year. Hey, Jeff, I appreciate the time. Where can people follow you and all your work with the athletic? I'm at Jeff P. Howe on Twitter. I'm I keep telling myself I am on Blue Sky somewhere.
Same name, but I keep forgetting that I have it. So I'm trying to keep all this stuff straight. You can find me on the athletic under under my author bio, all the stories and stuff that we put out.
And yeah, I'm probably not I hope I'm not too hard to find, but I appreciate you guys having me tonight. Of course. Of course. I know things will be busy over the next, well, forever.
This is where the NFL runs and does business. Now, Jeff, appreciate the time. We'll catch you soon, OK? All right. Thanks a lot. Appreciate you.
