Why the Chargers shouldn’t cave on Melvin Gordon’s contract demands
Rich Hammond, The Athletic
July 11, 2019
The calm of mid-summer, that time in the NFL calendar seemingly carved out for sightseeing and beach-laying, got jolted Thursday morning when Melvin Gordon kicked some sand on the Chargers.
Gordon, the former 1,000-yard running back, apparently does not intend to play out the fifth and final year of his rookie contract. As first reported by ESPN, Gordon will not report to training camp and will demand a trade if he doesn’t reach agreement with the Chargers on a new contract this month. Gordon is set to earn approximately $5.6 million this season under the fifth-year option of his current deal, then become a free agent next March.
This is not a drill. Two of Gordon’s agents made the national media rounds on Thursday, using terms such as “very serious” and “disrespectful” to describe Gordon’s mood and his dedication to following through on their threats. Many players’ contract negotiations are difficult, but it’s rare for agents to make extensive, on-the-record comments detailing a client’s dissatisfaction with a team and its tactics.
Specific contract offers and counter-offers haven’t been disclosed, but Gordon seems to see himself in the same tier as backs such as Todd Gurley and Le’Veon Bell, both of whom signed long-term deals over the past 12 months that pay them more than $13 million per season. Those pacts, along with the one David Johnson signed with Arizona last year, signaled a resurgence in big-money second contracts for running backs, and it’s evident that Gordon, the No. 15 overall draft pick in 2015, wants to join the club.
“If Melvin is not paid fairly, he will want to be traded,” agent Damarius Bilbo told NFL Network.
When your agent's name is Bilbo, the deal is about to go to hell before it even starts............Gordon attended the Chargers’ mandatory minicamp in June but skipped all of the earlier (optional) offseason work. He spoke to media at the minicamp and said he would “be lying” if he said he didn’t want to get a deal done before camp. Around that time, general manager Tom Telesco said the team had no firm timetable.
“I would love to have it done so that I don’t have to worry about that,” Gordon said. “I could just come into work and do what I need to do. I just don’t want any problems or anything like that. I don’t want to miss football. I don’t have time for any of that going back and forth. I would rather just get it done and out of the way. Like I said, we’ll revisit that when we do.”
That time is now, and there’s a very real chance that Gordon, a centerpiece of the Chargers’ offense, has played his final game in Los Angeles.
Gordon clearly views himself as the best running back in the NFL — he has said it directly this year multiple times — and that just doesn’t match his record over the past four seasons. The Chargers need to embrace the idea that they might be better off without Gordon.
It’s tough to blame Gordon, who is 26 with a history of injuries. He already has reached the age, and stage of his career, at which running backs are devalued. A team with a lead back in his late 20s already is eyeing a replacement, not looking to reward a back who put high mileage on his knees while playing out a (relatively) low-value rookie contract.
It’s unfortunate. A star quarterback can complete his rookie term, then sign two or three more big contracts.
A running back has, at most, one chance to get paid.
So Gordon is taking his shot. The timing is not coincidental. With less than two weeks before the start of training camp, it’s now too late for the Chargers to sign any replacement, and any trade would be a move made from a position of weakness. Gordon’s gambit is that the Chargers will panic at this late stage and pay him in order to keep intact a team that is expected to contend for the Super Bowl.
Leverage is huge in contract negotiations, and Gordon’s agents have decided to go all-in. Good for them. They’d be doing their client a disservice if they meekly sat still and hoped the Chargers’ offers improved. Perhaps it will work, but if the Chargers are smart, they won’t bend much, if at all.
And that’s a shame. Gordon essentially is a victim of a system — collectively bargained by his own players’ association — that doesn’t allow him to get paid before he has completed his most-valuable years, and he’s also suffering from some guilt by association. It’s possible that some market correction (or perhaps call it blowback) is taking place after the Great Running Back Binge of 2018-19.
Gurley signed a four-year, $60 million contract extension last July and helped the Rams reach the Super Bowl, but he also dealt with a mysterious knee ailment that might prevent him from being a high-volume back. Johnson signed a three-year, $39 million extension last August, then totaled only 3.6 yards per carry and seven touchdowns last season (albeit as part of a dreadful Arizona Cardinals offense). Bell sat out all of 2018 before he signed a four-year, $52.5 million deal with the New York Jets in March, and nobody knows how long Bell, who turned 27 in February, will be worth that type of money.
Given all that, why should the Chargers be eager to give Gordon a huge deal? Plus, where is the evidence that he belongs in the highest tier of NFL backs. At 6-foot-1, 215 pounds, he has an extraordinary combination of size and speed, and when on the field,
he’s the complete package. But there is that small matter of staying on the field.
In his four NFL seasons, Gordon has dealt with three separate knee injuries (and a hip issue) that sidelined him for nine of a possible 64 regular-season games. He underwent microfracture surgery in 2016 and has topped 1,000 yards only once. In 2018, his total of 175 carries ranked 20th among all NFL backs, and his total of 10 rushing touchdowns ranked sixth (Gurley led with 17).
Across the board, Bell and Gurley have been more healthy and productive than Gordon. Johnson is a tough comparison, given that he missed almost all of the 2017 season and was far from his 2016 All-Pro form last year, but he is three years removed from a 1,200-yard season, which Gordon has yet to achieve.
“I know my value and what I bring to the team,” Gordon said last month. “I’m sticking with that. I can’t help what Todd is paid. Todd doesn’t care what anybody says right now, him or David Johnson. They can say what they want to say; they signed the dotted line. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet, so I have to take the heat for some of the stuff that they’re going through. But I’m not them. Like I said, I know my value.”
What is it? If Gordon seeks to be paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $11 million per season on a multi-year deal, is that worth it for the Chargers?
Gordon’s absence from four games last season made an impact.
The Chargers’ offense isn’t the same without him, and if they balk at his contract demands and trade him, can they really expect to reach their potential this season, as a team in a Super Bowl window? The comments from Gordon’s agents on Thursday left open the idea/threat that if Gordon doesn’t get a new contract (or get traded) that he might sit out regular-season games.
So now is the time to figure all of this out. The Chargers must decide how much they want to pay Gordon, and if he’s not willing to take it, it might be time to move on. In the coming months and years, they must re-sign or replace major contributors such as Philip Rivers, Melvin Ingram and Joey Bosa. The Chargers can’t afford to overpay Gordon in a panic move, then risk losing one of their defensive stars.
The Chargers might be particularly equipped for life without Gordon. Austin Ekeler averaged 5.2 yards per carry last season, which was a tick better than Gordon, and coach Anthony Lynn already seemed to have plans for a semi-committee with Gordon and Ekeler. Justin Jackson flashed as a rookie last season when Gordon was out.
Teams such as the Steelers, Rams and Chiefs recently have found success when plugging in backup running backs.-----I am going to tell you here and now. We do NOT have James Connor and CJ Anderson on the roster. The first person that types Ekeler can do it for 20 games this year is going to get Banned. Replacing Gordon isn’t impossible.
Gordon risks fines of up to $40,000 per day if he skips training camp, and he also faces the possibility that the Chargers might play hardball and let him sit the full year, as Pittsburgh did with Bell in 2018. That doesn’t seem like Telesco’s style, though, nor should it be. This situation shouldn’t linger. If the Chargers and Gordon can’t agree, it’s better to let him move along and seek his big payday elsewhere.
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