NFL Notes: Von Miller, NFL Contracts & Steelers

Von Miller

Patriots general counsel/player personnel Jack Musa tells Mike Klis of 9 News that in New England, they never would have been in the current situation that the Broncos find themselves in with franchise OLB Von Miller.

Musa says that they would have either signed him to a long-term extension or traded him by now.

“You pointed out an organization philosophy of New England – which is not unique to the NFL,’’ Mula said. “It is a defining characteristic of winning organizations which is that no one player is bigger than the team. I’m going to a core level. That’s there. I lived it for a decade.

“But it’s not done in a vacuum for one contract negotiation. If and when there is a decision on whether to move on from a player it’s not done in a vacuum either.  It’s part of a long-term plan. It’s a function of your planning, your strategy and your goals.

“When they’ve moved on, you said it, they’ve traded guys away. Here you’ve got seven or eight days to work out a (contract or) trade for Von Miller. …

“I’m not saying not signing Von Miller is the wrong thing to do. I’m not saying that at all. But if you don’t and you’ve moved on from him, you certainly get something from him. You don’t have him  sitting out a year and improving his own negotiating leverage – that’s not something we ever experienced in New England but that’s a very real possibility in Denver.’’

NFL Contracts

NFLPA spokesman George Atallah explained to Pro Football Talk on Thursday that “basic math” illustrates why NFL players are primarily paid less than NBA players.

“I think frankly that’s the end of the discussion right there,” Atallah said. “It’s a good opportunity when these types of issues come up and that media want to talk about it, especially in the offseason, to describe some of the nuances but it’s also good to describe just straight up economics. One business has fifty-three employees; it’s the NFL. One business has fifteen employees per team, and that’s the NBA. So by definition the smaller business is going to be able to pay their employees more money per employee than the bigger business is . . . . I wish more of the certain members of the sports media would just do some basic math before they popped off.”

Atallah said that they would love to see fully guaranteed contracts in the NFL and noted that 60 percent of players contracts are guaranteed at signing on average.

“Well, we’d love to see that,” Atallah said. “I mean certainly we’d love to see more guaranteed contracts in the NFL but once again I think this type of discussion provides us with a great opportunity to share with anyone who’s interested that we are reaching more guarantees than we’ve ever had before in the sport.

“That’s something we’re proud of and we’re trending in the right direction but look again back to your original point about comparing apples to oranges in one sport. Our average career length in the NFL is less than four years,” Atallah said. “In the other sport the average career is well beyond that and so guaranteed contracts in each sport are by design factoring in some of those things that are unique to NFL players.”

Steelers

• Jason Fitzgerald of OverTheCap.com takes a look at the best and worst contracts for the Steelers.
• The best deal, according to Fitzgerald, goes to WR Antonio Brown, who signed a five-year, $41.9 million contract with just $8.5 million guaranteed.
• As for the worst contract, Fitzgerald gives it to ILB Lawrence Timmons and his five-year, $47.8 million deal with $11 million guaranteed.