Tag: Brock Osweiler

Jets were willing to eat money in Le’Veon Bell trade, but injury guarantee scared teams

The Jets were reportedly willing to eat money in a potential Le’Veon Bell trade, but teams were scared off by an injury gurnatee for 2021.

As they did in the Leonard Williams trade last season, the Jets were willing to eat money in a potential Le’Veon Bell trade. Even with that, opposing teams shied away from making a deal with Gang Green because of Bell’s injury guarantee for the 2021 season, according to ESPN’s Rich Cimini.

Bell was cut on Tuesday night.

The Jets tried desperately to trade Bell this week after his frustrations reached a boiling following New York’s 30-10 loss to Arizona in Week 5. Bell returned to the lineup after missing three games with a hamstring injury. He had 13 carries for 60 yards, but just one catch on one target in the passing game. That didn’t sit well with him.

Bell refused to speak with the media after the conclusion of Sunday’s game. Instead, he went on Twitter and liked tweets that suggested he was being used improperly and that the Jets should trade him.

While Joe Douglas made his best last-ditch efforts to trade the former All-Pro back, Cimini reports that the biggest deterrent for teams was Bell’s $8 million injury guarantee in 2021, not his remaining $6 million 2020 base salary.

Bell has clearly lost a step and has dealt with various lower-body injuries since signing with the Jets in 2019. It’s understandable why a team wouldn’t want to trade an asset for such a risk. The Jets likely would have had to attach a draft pick, much akin to the Texans shipping Brock Osweiler and his $16 million guaranteed salary with a second-round pick to the Browns in 2017.

Given how poorly structured the Jets roster is, there was no way Douglas was going to part with a valuable asset. The Jets found no takers for Bell, so they eventually opted to release him on Tuesday. His release leaves behind $15 million in dead cap for the 2020 season and another $4 million in 2021, per Spotrac.

Bell will now likely sign with a contender who won’t have to worry about an injury guarantee next season.

Broncos offered Brock Osweiler a 3-year, $39M contract in 2016

Brock Osweiler received a massive contract when he left the Broncos in 2016. If he could go back in time, he’d probably re-sign with Denver.

After spending the first four years of his career as Peyton Manning‘s backup and coming off the bench as an injury replacement in 2015, former Broncos quarterback Brock Osweiler became an unrestricted free agent in 2016.

In a recent interview with Sports Illustrated‘s Greg Bishop, Osweiler looked back on that offseason and his (lack of) negotiations with Denver.

Osweiler was advised by his agents to not take any calls from Broncos general manager John Elway after a certain cutoff date leading up to NFL free agency. Osweiler listened to their advice but he now regrets doing so, according to Bishop.

Elway made a three-year, $39 million offer to Osweiler’s agents, the former QB told Bishop. That deal would have averaged $13 million per season. The four-year, $72 million deal that he later signed with the Texans averaged $18 million per season, but he didn’t finish it.

Houston guaranteed Osweiler $37 million over three years. That’s less than what he could have earned with the Broncos if he had fulfilled the entire proposed three-year deal from Elway, but that wouldn’t have been guaranteed.

Financially, it made sense to accept the contract with more certainty. Osweiler made over $41 million during his seven-year career in the NFL, according to Spotrac.com. He’d probably be willing to trade some of that money now to go back in time and get a chance to finish his career with the Broncos instead of leaving the team and Gary Kubiak‘s system.

Things didn’t work out in Houston and he lasted just one season with the Texans before bouncing around with four different teams — including another short stop in Denver — before ultimately deciding to retire. If he could do it all over again, Osweiler probably would have re-signed with the Broncos in 2016.

“I would have called John two weeks before that [offer] and told him, ‘Listen I want to be a Bronco until I die. If you want me, let’s get this done,'” Osweiler told Bishop.

“We might have won the Super Bowl the next year,” Osweiler said.

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