Why Joey Bosa's mom feels they should have 'pulled an Eli Manning'
San Diego Chargers first-round pick Joey Bosa is nowhere close to training camp, his agent and the team haven’t spoken in several days and panic is starting to set in on both sides.
Now you can start to see why Bosa’s mother posted a comment on Facebook saying she wished they had “pulled an Eli Manning,” via the San Diego Union-Tribune by way of SD Bolt Report, which wrote about the post first.
Cheryl Bosa’s full comment on Sunday, writing to a friend: “It bums me out for him so much. Wish we pulled an Eli Manning on draft day.”
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Not brushed up on your NFL draft history? Well back in 2004, the Chargers held the first pick in the draft, and Manning was considered the favorite to go first. But the Manning camp, including Archie Manning, stood behind Eli’s decision to not play for the Chargers. It worked; they picked him first but ended up trading him to the New York Giants in a whopper of a deal.
Bosa’s contract negotiations have stalled completely at this point. Bosa’s representation wanted one of two things: a contract with no “offset language” (more on that below) or a full-cash payout in the form of a roughly $17 million signing bonus for 2016. No dice, the Chargers said.
It’s the franchise’s long-held standard of practice not to do either thing, and they were said to have made this known right from the start. And yet other picks in Bosa’s range — this year and historically — have received similar benefits. So you can see why each side is dug in here.
Offset language is protection for the team drafting players. For instance, it means that if the Chargers got the offset protection in the deal and were to cut Bosa inside of the first four years of his contract, they’d receive dollar-on-dollar credit, so to speak, once Bosa signed with another team. Without the offset, Bosa would be able to — in agent parlance — “double dip” and get payment from two teams. It’s one of the few sticking points in deals these days, and some early examples of players caving following the 2011 CBA ratification has led to the handful of holdouts in the past six years.
But few have gone this deep. Seeing a player miss valuable training camp time is rare now.
Hardly anyone feels sympathy for the team in these cases, even one whose local future is as shaky as the Chargers’ situation is. They drafted Bosa for a reason with the third pick, keeping their love for him a giant secret throughout the draft process, and kudos to them for that.
But based on the reports of Bosa looking good in offseason workouts, that should have only hardened their belief that he was a strong part of their future. He turned 21 less than a month ago and appears primed to have an impact right away — should this stuff get figured out, which at this point … who knows?
Right now, the Chargers are most likely to cave first. Local support is at risk now, with the potential funding of a new stadium hanging delicately in the balance, and the team has a coaching staff and front office that both could be cleaned out after another poor season coming off a 4-12 campaign in 2015.
Bosa should have one or the other — no offset or close to the full bonus payment up front — given to him at this point.
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
