In today’s NFL, it is exceedingly difficult to field a great defense without a prominent free safety who can patrol the deep third of the field and take away all manner of vertical passing concepts. It’s why guys like Eddie Jackson, Kevin Byard, Devin Mccourty, Earl Thomas, and Anthony Harris make all kinds of money.
This is also why it’s highly curious that current Panthers safety Tre Boston was unable to find a long-term contract for his services from 2016 through 2018. Selected in the fourth round of the 2014 draft out of North Carolina, Boston quickly turned himself into one of the best deep safeties in the NFL for Carolina until the Panthers mysteriously waived him in May of 2017. There was a salary escalator that bumped Boston’s pay from $791,000 to $1.9 million for the 2017 season, and the Panthers saved $1.8 million in cap room by releasing him, but that’s a relative pittance for a player who had two sacks, two interceptions, 38 solo tackles, five tackles for loss, and just 12 receptions allowed on 27 targets for 178 yards, no touchdowns, and an opponent passer rating of 35.7 the year before.
Even more mysterious was the inability of the NFL to realize Boston’s value. The Chargers signed him to a one-year, $690,000 deal in 2017, and in that season, per Pro Football Focus, he allowed just three receptions on 12 targets for 19 yards, two touchdowns, five interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 39.6.
Then, the Chargers selected Florida State safety Derwin James with the 17th overall pick in the 2018 draft, and Boston was once again a free agent. He signed a one-year, $1.5 million deal with the Cardinals for the 2018 season, and once again excelled, allowing 18 receptions on 30 targets for 189 yards, two touchdowns, three interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 61.0 for one of the league’s worst-coached defenses.
The Cardinals weren’t interested in a reunion — instead, the Panthers, who had transferred ownership of the team from Jerry Richardson to David Tepper, game Boston a one-year, $2.125 million contract. Yet another “prove it” deal for a player who had consistently proved it for multiple teams and in multiple schemes. And in 2019 for his first NFL team, Boston allowed eight receptions on 16 targets for 125 yards, two touchdowns, three interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 76.3.
It wasn’t until the Panthers finally coughed up a three-year, $18 million contract last March that Boston got any level of professional security, though he’s still radically underpaid for both his position, and for the excellence with which he’s played it over the last half-decade. You can count the number of deep-third safeties with this kind of consistency on one hand and still have a few fingers left.
As I watched Boston play for all these teams, I kept wondering what I was missing (here, here, and here):
Somebody explain to me why no team has signed Tre Boston to a multi-year deal in the last few years. Explain it to me like I'm five.
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) March 15, 2020
How can a guy this good somehow miss out on the kind of contract he clearly deserves?
As it turns out, there may have been another reason for not only Boston’s release from the Panthers but also the inexplicably soft market he’s found over the last few years.
In 2016, as Colin Kaepernick was ramping up his own protests against police brutality, Boston and some of his then-Panthers teammates wanted to make their own thoughts public, but it was discouraged by then-owner Jerry Richardson, as Boston recently told Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network on the “RapSheet + Friends” podcast.
“In 2016, we saw a world that… even with peaceful protesting with Kap, we saw a world that didn’t understand, and was not willing to listen or hear what we were trying to say,” Boston said. “It was hard times. We were screaming back then, ‘Help.’ We need help. How can we help out our community so that we’re one? And it’s tough when you hear from the top down that the people who watch football come here to get away from that stuff, even though we had protesting going on the day of the game. So, to hear open-ended promises — them telling us to do nothing, we’ll get you in the community. Then, the next week comes around, the week after that comes around, and nothing’s been said to you. Nothing’s been brought up to put you in the community. They did what they wanted.”
“You know, it’s not like that anymore. I’ve been assured, when I first came back, that it wasn’t like that anymore. I’ve had phone calls with owners and our coaches now, who have called me and told me how much they appreciate what I’m doing, and that they would love to help. Tepper calling me and telling me how much he appreciates that I was out there with the guys. It’s a 180 from what we used to be. When I was thinking about coming back, I wanted to know — did I have the stability in my job to be who I am as a man, as a black man, as a very intelligent University of North Carolina alum? They assured me that they believed in everything I believed in, I was allowed to be myself, and I was allowed to stand up for things that were right.”
It’s great that Boston is now with a team, and with a team owner, who believes in the rights of his players to free expression — in fact, Tepper has been quite vocal about that.
“These are some of the most patriotic people and best people. These are great young men,” Tepper told CNBC’s Scott Wapner in 2018. “So to say that [they aren’t patriotic] makes me so aggravated and angry. It’s just wrong, it’s dead wrong.”
The Panthers didn’t just sign Boston to a multi-year deal under Tepper; they also signed safety Eric Reid, who experienced his own “soft market” after he knelt with Kaepernick when both men played for the 49ers.
It will take more owners like Tepper, and fewer like Richardson (whose time as the steward of the Panthers ended in disgrace), for the kind of paradigm shift that has long been overdue in the NFL. Tre Boston should have been paid far more than he was for a long time, and while he’s still underpaid for the quality of his work commensurate with the market, it’s good to see that he at least has the environment, and the rights, he should have been given all along.