March 6, 2025 • 38 mins
In this episode of the Athletes First Family Podcast, Brian Murphy, along with A.J. Stevens, sit down with David Mulugheta to discuss the intricacies of Deshaun Watson’s groundbreaking contracts. As a firm that has negotiated over $1.4 billion in quarterback deals, we bring firsthand experience in navigating high-stakes negotiations. Today, we’re breaking down both of Deshaun’s deals and the unique circumstances that shaped them.
Join us as we break down the challenges of negotiating with a head coach acting as a GM, the impact of the funding rule, and the key lessons we’ve learned along the way. From pushing boundaries to securing the best outcomes for our clients, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the business of sports.
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Timestamps:
00:00:27 - Today's Focus: Deshaun Watson's Deals
00:01:49 - Setting the Scene: Deshaun's Early Career and Contract Talks
00:02:56 - Patrick Mahomes' Deal and Its Influence on Negotiations
00:04:10 - Aiming to Surpass Mahomes' First Four-Year Cash Flow
00:04:29 - Texans' 10-Year Extension Offer and Why It Was Rejected
00:06:08 - David's Negotiation Strategy and Deshaun’s Value to the Texans
00:07:24 - Dealing with Bill O'Brien and Team Leadership
00:09:36 - Securing the Deal: Making Deshaun the Highest-Paid Quarterback
00:10:12 - Deshaun's Community Impact and Leadership
00:12:30 - Unique Aspects of Negotiating with a Coach-GM
00:14:07 - Decision to Leave Houston and Requesting a Trade
00:16:41 - Narrowing Down Potential Teams and Deshaun’s Priorities
00:19:27 - Negotiating the Cleveland Deal and Maintaining Leverage
00:22:51 - Surpassing Mahomes' $45 Million Contract Value
00:25:10 - Browns’ Perspective: Acquiring a Proven Commodity
00:28:38 - The 100% Guaranteed Contract and Its NFL Impact
00:30:00 - Understanding the Funding Rule and Team Wealth
00:32:40 - Fully Guaranteed: Skill, Injury, and Cap Protections
00:34:52 - Lessons Learned: Negotiation, Adversity, and Pushing Boundaries
00:37:49 - Teasing the Next Episode: Jordan Love's Deal
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the next episode of the Athletes First Family podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
The Quarterback Series.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
I am Brian Murphy, Athletes First CEO, joined once again
by my co host AJ Stevens, one of the best
negotiators in the business.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Welcome back, Aj, Thanks Murph, Excited to be back for
another episode, another episode with David Muligeta Athletes First. On
this podcast, we talk about the quarterbacks that we represent.
We currently have one point four billion dollars in quarterback
deals on our books. Goes to speak to our experience
with quarterbacks. And today we're going to talk about the
Deshaun Watson deal deals with David.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
So welcome back, David hey Man.
Speaker 5 (00:34):
Happy to be back.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yep, No, David, Welcome back. David Muligeta.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
For anyone who doesn't know, Living under Rock is athletes
First equi partner and super uber agent Forbes number one,
and we're here to talk about the deals he's negotiated
with to Sean Watson in the relationship they created. But
because that's the Quarterback Series, right, and we're also going
to further talk about Jordan Loves deal. But David is
not just a quarterback agent, right, He's also done the
(00:58):
highest deal in NFL history for several other players, several
other positions.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Tell us about it.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Antoine Winfield Junior, Jalen Ramsey twice, Buddha Baker, Kevin Bayer,
Michael Thomas, Coleccio, Semile, Derwin, James. The list goes on
and on, right, But we're gonna talk about the quarterbacks today,
So we're gonna talk about Deshaun today. We'll get to
Jordan at Jordan Love at a later date, but we
want to dive into Deshaun's.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Both of Deshawn's deals that.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
You did worth mentioning. David asked me to mention that
he again, he did one billion dollars of deals last
year by himself, first agent in history. And he also,
you've got to mention he is Forbes number one, right,
the youngest agent ever to be Forbes number one and
the first African American agent to ever be Forbes number one.
So that was what David and sister we say. Come back,
(01:45):
So anything else you want us here.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
You keep going, ip going, good.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Awesome, all right, So I'm going to keep going. I'm
going to I am going to kind of set the
scene here. In our last podcast, we talked about you
recruiting Deshaun out of Clemson, and what a life changing
moment that us for both of you. We're going to
go to twenty and seventeen here right, and Deshaun Watson
was the number twelve overall pick of the Houston Texans.
I had a lot of success early on his career,
(02:12):
named All Rookie Team before getting injured. Then they made
the Pro Bowl in twenty eighteen, the Pro Bowl in
twenty nineteen, all in the rookie contract that you negotiated.
And so the twenty nineteen season ends three years of
the NFL, you can start the negotiations. When did those
discussions begin? Like, how did that happen?
Speaker 5 (02:31):
After?
Speaker 6 (02:31):
Yeah, I don't remember exact that it began, but you
know those discussions started shortly after his third year. Okay,
so I don't remember the exact Tom frant, but probably that.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
And this is twenty twenty, so this is the start
of COVID exactly exact.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
The world has a lot of unknowns.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
We know what the salary cap is for twenty twenty,
but we don't know what it's going to be in
twenty twenty one. Everyone's telling us that there's going to
be a drastic fall off, right, So then you know,
people are kind of speculating, like will that effect the
growth of the quarterback market or all positional markets? Right,
And so we did see one quarterback deal get done
before Deshaun's. Patrick Steel got Patrick Mahomes, and his was
(03:11):
a you know, a ten year deal. You know, on
the face of it, it says it averages forty five million
dollars per year. I want to know, you know, how
did that affect your negotiations because you still had two
more months of negotiating before he got the deal done.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
For yeah, I mean, obviously, the Mahomes deal came across
the ticker, and you know, when we first saw it,
you know, we're kind of a little taken aback obviously
for obvious reasons. It was a ten year extension of
two years left on the deal, so it was a
twelve year deal, and we hadn't seen a lot of that, right.
I think the most recent deals in the marketplace might
were around four years or so, some four year deals.
I think there might have been a couple five year deals.
(03:44):
But for us, you know, we you know, we took
time to kind of break that deal down. As you
stayed on his face. It was I think it was
a ten year, four hundred and fifty million dollar extension.
But as we kind of looked into it, you know,
we realized, you know, that wasn't the average over the
entire deal, right, it was.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
I think the average of.
Speaker 6 (04:02):
The first four years, you correct me if I'm wrong,
was around thirty eight point nine million, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Is that right?
Speaker 6 (04:06):
Yeah, I'm getting old, but not too old, But yeah,
it was about thirty eight point nine million. So for
us going into it, you know, obviously we think, you know,
the world of Patrick and you know, phenomenal football player,
you know, arguably one of the best to ever do it.
But for us, we felt just as positive about Deshaun
you know, you know, we knew where his arrows pointed.
Phenomenal football player, phenomenal person. So for us, it was
about trying to figure out what was the right deal
(04:28):
for DeShawn Right.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
And so if I'm the Texans and I see the
mahomestill get done, I'm probably putting together a ten year
proposal to send to you.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Did they do that?
Speaker 5 (04:37):
Of course, yeah, we got it.
Speaker 6 (04:38):
Shortly after the Mahomes deal gets done, we get a
ten year offer, a ten year extension offer from the Texans.
Obviously that was not something that we were interested in
for obvious reasons, and you know, the salary cap continues
to grow up, go up every year. So for us,
it was about, you know, we wanted to stay within
that four or five year range, but also maximize what
he was able to get.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
So we like, as I said.
Speaker 6 (04:58):
Earlier, we kind of locked in on that first four
year cash flow for Mahomes, which was thirty eight point
nine million dollars a year, and decided our goal would
be to surpass that right to say, okay, we plan
on doing a four year deal. If we can make
more money on average over the first four years, we
consider that a win because then we'd get back to
this table, you know, sometime before year four and then
over the same amount of time, we were very certain
(05:20):
we'd make more money as opposed to doing a ten
year extension and locking that in currently got it.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
So in the negotiation, you're kind of segmenting out the
Mahomes deal and saying we're only going to acknowledge the
first couple of years and completely disregard that the team
has control of his football rights for another six years
after that and say we just want to beat.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
That correct, correct, correct Texans Probably a jan and I
talked about this probably throughout the Drew Bloodsoell Athletes first
president where we did a ten year deal with them, right.
You know, I wonder if Nick Sarah was even there
at the time when we do that deal, But yeah,
I know. So, I mean, so you have uncertainty everywhere, right,
you have COVID, so you don't know exactly what the
salary caps could be, which is a pretty important variable
(05:58):
in the negotiation. You have this new ten year extension
twelve year deal for arguably the best quarterback in the league.
And then that's like they're going to want to use
that they're off making ten years, but like you're not
going to use that. So you got to say, hey,
you know, they're like, it's good enough for Patrick, should
be good enough to Shawn. You're like, no, it's not that.
That's what we're going to do. So you have actually
and this is the first big quarterback deal you're working on, right,
(06:19):
the rookie deal. But so, so how are you feeling
are you kind of confused by all edge, Like why
is it so difficult? Or just focus in and work
with you and the team and figure out what to
Sean want to.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
Well, no, I mean for me, it was a matter of,
you know, I kind of look at every negotiation individually,
right and you know, what does this Shawn specifically bring
to the Houston Texans. And that's kind of how I
approach every contract negotiations. You got to understand your leverage,
you got to understand the team's leverage, and then you
got to understand how you want to kind of game
plan to get to the end result that you want.
So for me, again, I didn't you know, I wouldn't
(06:52):
say it necessarily matter to me that it was my
first quarterback deal. Obviously there's a different type of leverage
you have when you're dealing with a quarterback, especially with
one as good as the Shawn. So again, we figured
out what our end goal was, which was we wanted
to be the highest paid quarterback in the history of
the NFL. Patrick had just done his deal. We had
zero interest in doing a ten year extension because again,
like we said, we knew the cap continues to go up,
and you know at some point if you do a
(07:13):
ten year extension, you're going to be underpaid. So for us,
we locked in on the four year deal, which was
thirty eight point nine for Mahomes and decide, okay, we
want to be above that number and kind of just
worked our way backwards on how to get there.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
And who are you dealing We were dealing.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
With mostly Bill O'Brien at the time.
Speaker 6 (07:29):
Initially Bill was obviously the coach there, but he had
taken over duties as a GM as well, which kind
of you know, made the negotiations at a little different
than normal, right, because normally you're dealing with either general
manager or a team's contract guy, and the head coach
normally stays out of that because obviously he has a
very personal relationship with the especially the quarterback, right, they
(07:49):
talk every day. Bill O'Brien's offensive minded head coach, so
he obviously is in the room with DeShawn at all times.
So normally those type of guys want to stay out
of those conversations. So initially the conversations were with uh,
with Bill, and uh, you know, they progressed, and I
think as we started getting more into the nitty gritty details,
(08:11):
he decided that it probably made the most sense for
him to remove himself from those negotiations, just because you know, again,
you know, when you get to that point in the contract,
the team is going to do everything they can and
tell you why the players shouldn't get this amount of money.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Ye uh, And then you, as an agent.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
Are going to tell the team why you think he
does deserve that right as the head coach who deals
with the player and has that personal relationship. I think
I think Bill decided he didn't want to have those conversations.
He didn't feel that comfortable kind of I guess trying
to harp on maybe I don't want to say the
negative aspects of the challenge game, but basically, you know,
making those arguments for the team. So he handed that
over to Jack Easterby with the time. I'm not I'm
(08:48):
not super sure what the exact role that Jack had there,
but he worked with their contract guy there, and that's
who the negotiations kind of ended with.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, and coach of Brian's known as a player's coach,
had a great relationship with Mac cow so in all
the quarterbacks in New England and just everyone, just all
the players loved him. And so that's got to be
a hard position. We're to wear both hats and we
don't see a lot of head coaches do that, you know.
And then so Jack also came from New England and
took it over. Did you ever talk with the owners
the onlyn't get involved at all or not?
Speaker 5 (09:15):
No, the owners didn't get involved. Cal never got involved
in that.
Speaker 6 (09:18):
I think he felt comfortable with, you know, the people
that he had put in place, from you know, Kach
O'Brien to Jack and kind of the rest of the
team to get that done. And you know, it took
a little longer than maybe we would have won it,
but we were able to come to a number and agree.
I think we ended up at thirty nine million a
year if I remember correctly, And you know, we were
able to secure the deal that made you know, as
(09:40):
far as we were concerned, to sewn the highest paid
quarterback in the NFL because his deal was only four
years long, so we kind of only focused on the
four years that Mahomes had So for us, we felt
like it was a win. At the time. I think
Patrick had think he had already won a Super Bowl, right,
am I correct? I think he had already won a
super Bowl. He had been the league MVP already had
been a Super Bowl MVP, so he had accomplished I
guess paper more than that Shawn had accomplished at the time.
(10:03):
So when we were able to get to where we
wanted to as far as becoming the highest paid quarterback
over those four years, we felt good about it. DeShawn
felt good about it, and we were able to you know,
kind of make it happen.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah. I think the one thing we emphasized here on
this show too, is like Deshawn's coming off of three
amazing seasons, like there's no limit to how great he
can be. And he's also, as you know, like unbelievable
in the community, does a.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Lot of charity work, foundation working.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So I think the Houston Texans also got to win
in a way, right, They got their franchise quarterback, I thought,
and this is you they lock them up for only
four years, but like that's that's a foundation for where
they wanted to go.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
So a great job.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
One reason we have aj here is to really tell
us all the details that you may not remember about
that contract. I certainly don't, but give us the.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Thing and then the final deal ends up being you know,
you looked at the Mahomes deal, and you said, you know,
on the face it averages forty five. But common misconception
that we've talked about on on a lot of these
episodes is that the deal doesn't necessarily average forty five
through each of the years.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Right.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
So in Mahomes deal at averages is that thirty eight
point nine million dollars through four years. So used that
as the benchmark to get a four year extension at
thirty nine million dollars per year. It was one hundred
and ten million dollars guaranteed, and in the first two years,
which were the last two years of his rookie deal,
he gets essentially a twenty million dollar raise above what
was left on his rookie deal, right correct, which you know,
(11:19):
I want to point out now because we get to
a point with his next deal where he hadn't actually
got to the first year of his extension.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
When he has this transition to to the Browns.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
They'll give it. You can't give away the story, come on.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Out, oh you know, ahead of myself.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
So a phenomenal deal. How does Sean feel about this
vetching deals?
Speaker 6 (11:37):
Because oh, now he was excited, super excited about it.
You know, I praid to get back and play ball.
You know, Deshaun's football focus. He's one of those guys
that he never even really asked about the deal. You know,
in his mind, it was always just let me know
when it is done, you know, and that's kind of
how he approached it was, let me know what is done,
let me know when I can kind of turn my attention.
I don't want to say turn his attention because he
never was focus on the deal, but just kind of
(11:59):
let me know what has done so and get that
over with and kind of move on and get focused
on the next season. So, but he was excited. He
wanted to be in Houston. That's where you know, he
wanted to be. So he was excited about kind of
the future there.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
And then AJ.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
One thing I mean we talked about other podcast is
you've worked in all the top quarterback deals with David,
with Todd, with Ryan, with Justin, Like, this is one
of your first deals with David.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
That you did right, No, I wasn't here yet yet.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Okay, Wow, that's amazing. Why do we need AJ?
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Then? If you know I got AJ is always helpful,
that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
That's awesome. Okay, So David, like in this negotiation, like
what what what do you what do you remember the
most about what you had to do, like the strategy
you had to do, or the approach, Like what was
unique for it?
Speaker 6 (12:42):
I think, like I said, the most unique thing about
that negotiation was the fact that coach O'Brien was involved, Right.
I just had never dealt with a situation where there
was a head coach that was kind of, you know,
for all intent purposes, running the negotiation for the team side.
So that was the you know, not only was it
the first time I did a large quarterback deal, but
it was the first time I dad would have head
coach kind of taking the lead there and then kind
(13:04):
of him stepping away and a new face being kind
of introduced as the head of the or the lead
for the contract negotiations. It's a little different than I've
seen in the past. Right, Normally, you deal with one person.
That person is kind of the face of it for
the team and you guys work through, you know, whatever
you got to work through. So kind of that shift
in dynamics. Now you're dealing with a whole different personality
from coach Obrian to Jack. I think that was a
(13:25):
little different, so that I would say that was the
most unique part about it. But outside of that, again,
when you have clients that kind of believe in you
and have faith that you're going to get the deal done,
and you know they allow you to do your job,
you know, it makes it a lot easier.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, And we talked to in the last episode about
how you know DeShawn was your first big time quarterback client, right,
and surely through this contract negotiations, he must be I
picked the right guy pretty well.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
Yeah, no, no, he was.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
He was definitely excited, His family was excited. So now
I'm super happy for him.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, and then DeShawn goes out the next year, right,
and the team doesn't play as well as they were
to like, but DeShawn has forty eight hundred pass that
year and then thirty three tightdowns only seven interceptions, and
so I think, uh, franchise records and a bunch of
different categories, and I think he was a first quarterback
since Jeff George in nineteen ninety seven to lead the
NFL in passing on a team with twelve losses. So like,
(14:14):
he has a pretty historic year. Everything goes great, and
then you know, things happened and you know, off field
issues and maybe the team's to go in the right direction.
And then so it's decided that maybe Deshaun should leave Houston.
And how did that how did that have how that decision?
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Did you tell the.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Team you want to leave teams that you want to leave?
Was a mutual or.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
I think at the time there was a lot of
kind of influx what was going on with the team
as far as did what the leadership was Again O'Brien
had had recently departed kind of you know, where the
team was headed and kind of what the leadership looked
like was a situation that DeShawn you know, didn't feel
was going to be best for the team moving forward.
Conversations were had and you know, decided that it made
(14:56):
the most sense for him to look for a trade,
and uh, we're you know, kind of given the opportunity
to kind of just you know, go out there and
see who else might be interested.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Then he there's a year he's on in Texas, but
he didn't play, right, Is that right?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
So those he had a historic yere like crazy historic.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Year and then at year they didn't play, and those
ag u saying those are the two years of his
original contract.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Right, Right, you didn't get to the new deal.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
But you got you got the money from the new deal.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
He had gotten twenty million dollars of the new deal
during those last two years of his rookie contract.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
And then then it's decided you get permission David to
seek a trade, right yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:32):
And what was I mean?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
So now you have a starting quarterback to be two
Pro Bowls, led the league in passing. Usually they don't
come up for trade, right, Like, what was your approach?
How did you what did you just send a letter
to everyone say, hey, well.
Speaker 6 (15:46):
No, man, again, I'm getting a little old, so I
don't remember all the specific details. But we worked with
Nick Cassario, who had at that time time had been
named the GM of the team, who's still there obviously
doing a phenomenal job. But we worked with Nick, you know,
you know, we kind of put it out there like, look,
he's looking to be traded. So teams, if I remember correctly,
we're calling in. And you know, all the teams that
(16:07):
wanted or that were interested in trading for DeShawn made
themselves known to the team, to the Texans, and Nick
and Nick gave us the opportunity then to talk to
you know, the four or five six things, like five
or six teams that you know, we felt like we're
serious contenders that wanted to trade for him.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (16:23):
So we had a time period in which then we
sat down with each one of those teams, kind of
heard them out, what their plan would be for DeShawn,
what their goals are, uh, and kind of just you know,
interview them, and they interviewed DeShawn and us. And at
some point then when we decided which, you know, which
teams that we really wanted to talk to, we kind
of started to narrow it down. And then when we
finally got to the team that we wanted to go to,
(16:45):
we let Nick know and I think initially they worked
out of trade. Uh And once that was you know,
they had figured out the trade details and they allowed
us and then start working on contract details.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
So you you, as the agent, you didn't have to like,
let's let's just say you want to go to the Dolphins, right,
You didn't have to work out the trade with the Dolphins.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
No, no, no, no.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
We just had to interview and kind of decide where
where we were willing to go because you know, we
had a no trade clause in that first contract that
we did for the Shawn. Therefore, I don't want to
say we could dictate, but we had the opportunity to
turn down, you know, trade offers if we didn't want
to go to that team. So once we found a
team that we were comfortable with and the Texans were
(17:24):
then able to agree to trade parameters, then it was
kind of tossed back into our court to figure out
could we get a contract done?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Sure? And I want to just take a little side
step here, Like a lot of times, like general poblock,
maybe before I became an agent, like you think, oh man,
you got the.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Agent versus team.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
They're clash and they're fighting, like you know, the negotiating
like a battle. But like a lot of times like
there's you come to a point where like what's best
for the player is also best for the team, or
you make it that way, and so you work together.
And you mentioned Nick Casario, who we've all worked with
for a long time. He wasn't very helpful to me
in the West WELLK negotiations, but you know, other than that,
like like so like talk about that, like what so
(18:00):
you are you now on the same side of the
table as Nick and working together to Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:04):
I think I think again we had once you come
to the understanding between the two parties, the team and
the and the agent h and player in their side,
that it makes most sense for the player then to
move on. I think then you have to be on
the same team, right because the player wants to move on,
the team wants to get fair compensation back. So you
try to figure out a win win for both sides. So, yeah,
we're working together. And once, like I said, once we
(18:27):
were able to kind of narrow down where we wanted
to be. Uh, they were able to figure out a trade.
Then you know, we figured out the contract part of it.
And you know he was a he was a Cleveland Brown.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah so but at that point, so like going the
in order, you guys interviewed with a bunch of teams.
Uh what was de Sean looking for in the team?
Speaker 6 (18:47):
I mean, we want to win. I think that was
the most important. Him was like where could he go
to win? And Uh, for him was kind of talking
to the team. You know, he talked to all the
ownership for each one of the teams that were interested,
to the head coach, the OC quarterback coach, and just
kind of worked his way through the list of questions
that he had, and most of them had to do with,
you know, roster, how they would use him, what their
(19:09):
goal was over the next few years. And you know,
I think every every conversation we had posts those meetings
where Okay, this is how I feel about this team,
and this is the likelihood that we can get to
a playoffs, we can get to a super Bowl, we
can win a championship.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
So I think that was by far the most important
thing to.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Him, especially I mean he won the championship in college, right,
and so like the tastes of it, and so then
so you'd narrow it down and say, like, okay, we
want to go to Cleveland, and then Nick does his
works with their GM and they figure out the trade
cop But then at that point you need to figure
out what his contract's going to be.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
But like, do you have zero leverage then because you have.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
To go to Cleveland or what kind of leverage?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Like what was that?
Speaker 6 (19:49):
I don't think the levers changed because we didn't have
to go to Cleveland. Right, We had numerous teams that
were interested Initially, Funny enough, That was one of the
first teams that he had kind of decided he was
not going to go to. And that was only because
it was you know, he's from he's from the South,
he's from Georgia. He wants stayed you know, close to
that area if he could, if he got to decide. Obviously,
his family's there, and there's a lot of teams in
(20:09):
that area that were obviously interested in them and just
going that far away as well as he you know,
he just hadn't played in that type of weather, uh
that you know, whether it was in college when he
was at you know, at Clemson or growing up in Georgia,
he'd always played in warm weather. So that was kind
of one of the concerns and just thought process. But
as we started talking to the GM there, Andrew Berry
and talking to kind of the you know, the other
(20:33):
players there, you know, he figured out, hey, this is
a place that I think I can I can play.
And then he started looking at the roster and he's like, man,
this is actually, you know, I like this roster the
best right there are the most playoff ready, championship ready team.
And he believed in the OC the head coach obviously,
so he was like, you know what, you know, this
is where I want to go. So but once they decided,
they agreed on a trade and we were able to
(20:56):
start talking contracts. Not I don't think the leverage changes
at all. Right, because we get a contract done with
the Browns, we just go back to the text and say, okay,
this didn't work out. There's are these other teams that
are interested. Let's you know, let's you can work out
of trade with them. So we would have trade our leverage.
We still make sure to keep our leverage in tasks.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
If you couldn't, you didn't have to work out a
deal because then you could just go back to Nick
and say, well that didn't work out, we go.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
We want to go to the correct correct.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Interesting And so now you're negotiating this contract right, to
be clear, much different circumstances than you did in Houston. Right,
because Deshaun hadn't played the year before, two years before,
he was maybe the best quarterback in the league.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
And so who are you doing this to go?
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Are you doing with Andrew?
Speaker 5 (21:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Correct, Yeah, we're both big fans of USA, right, you know,
and so great Andrew Berry phenomen old GM what what
what's important to Shawn in this negotiation, Like, you know,
obviously wanted to be He wanted to go there to
win a championship. But like in terms of the contract
here he's at first round contract which was great, had
a second deal which was great.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
What's he looking for in this contract?
Speaker 5 (21:54):
Man?
Speaker 6 (21:54):
It's it's funny, right, because again I say it again,
the Shawn's focus always been football really been a contract, right,
So I think, honestly it's probably more important for me
than the Seawan, Right. Deshaun wanted to you know, once
he decided he wanted to be a Cleveland Brown, who
was like, hey, I want to get there down and
play football.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
You know I meant to do it.
Speaker 6 (22:11):
Yeah, you know, I want to get there. Obviously I've
been on the field in a while. I want to
get get back out there. You know, He's just itching
to get back on the field. So that was what
was the most important thing to him, was like how
do I get back on the field. How quickly can
I get there? So he kind of lifted up to
you know, us to figure out the contracts side of it.
You know, he trusted us again. You know, you know,
you hire an agent, you expect them to do their job,
you know. So, uh so for us again, who went
(22:35):
back and looked at the quarterback market, and now we're
looking at who's considered the highest paid quarterback in the league, right,
and now we're using you know, that number that previously
we kind of disregarded, which was the forty five over
the ten year period that Mahomes had. So we looked
at that number even though maybe that wasn't what he
was making at that part of his career or that
(22:57):
those years, but we still looked at that because again,
we had a different type of leverage in that situation
that Okay, this is the number, this is the the
highest paid quarterback number, forty five, So we wanted to
beat that number. So knowing that Mahomes is forty five,
our goals to get above that.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
And to be clear, as we talked about mahomes deal,
like I don't know Patrick, I don't know if feel Patrick,
but like I'm sure he loved his deal and that
deal was perfect for him and the team.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
So it's, uh, you know, we never I never want
to regardless, Yeah, I never want to judge anyone else
unless I'm in the negotiating room.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Right, But so the deal was awesome for Patrick.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
But so all right, so you just said, like Deshaun
hired an agent to do his job, right, Your job
is to get a phenomenal contract. Your job is clearly
not to get a contract that is one hundred percent guaranteed,
because that doesn't happen in the NFL. A J break
down the deal that let's go to the end of
the story. What was the deal and I'm going to
come back and ask questions about it.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
I guess this is one of the rare occasions where
you know you're adding years onto a contract, and usually
to value a deal, that is, you know he had
four years left, you're adding years onto it. You say,
what are the new years and what is the new
money that's added to it? And that's how we're going
to value the deal. In this case, because he had
four years and one hundred and thirty six million dollars
left on the deal, everyone kind of just values it
as like this is a total it's a tear up.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
We tore up the old contract.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
We're gonna value this as a brand new, five year,
forty six million dollars per year deal. Two hundred and
thirty million dollars and all two hundred and thirty million
dollars is fully guaranteed at signing something that you know,
it's never been done in the NFL, hadn't at the time,
still hasn't been replicated to this point.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
And then there's two things you said there which blow
my mind. Right, and again.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
You don't.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
I mean, this is a Pro Bowl quarterback who led
the league in passing, right, So, like, I mean, this
is teams want him, right, and they're gonna be willing
to do things because it doesn't happen. You get a
quarterback to the draft and it's at best fifty to
fifty or I mean you know, I mean you got
Tom Brady, but like very rarely do you have this opportunity.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
So, but the first thing you said, like usually you
have three years on the deal, you add two and
you say, okay, two new years, here's the new money.
That's the new money, apy, Right, Really do you just
rip up the contract? I remember they do that with
Daryl Reeves way back in the day.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
But like, why did that happen?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Why?
Speaker 5 (25:06):
Why?
Speaker 1 (25:06):
I mean, why did you even think that you could
do that? And why were they willing to rip up
the contract?
Speaker 6 (25:11):
I think what you just said, right, this doesn't happen
often that you get a quarterback that's, you know, kind
of in the prime of his career that has the
ability then to change teams.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
Right.
Speaker 6 (25:20):
And for the Browns, they're looking at like, this is
an opportunity where we get to kind of bring in
a guy that we know what he is, right, We've
seen him on the football field. We no type of
player he is, and so we're you know, we believe
he's a guy that could be the face of our
franchise and kind of change kind of where we're headed.
So for them, you know, the contract I don't think
mattered as much as what they were getting in return.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
Right.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
If you know, no matter how much you spend, if
you feel like you got a value for what you're getting,
it makes sense it's a good deal.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Right.
Speaker 6 (25:48):
So for them, it was like, hey, we have an
opportunity to get a proven commodity here, which is not
like you said, that's tough to get in the NFL.
You've got a draft guys and development and hope it
works out. Rarely does a guy at this age become free.
So I think for them that was how they looked
at it. For us, again, we were in our you know,
the Shawn was in his prime. You know, maybe he
hadn't played football and you know, I think a time
(26:09):
of year and a half, but he was in his prime. UH,
and we felt like, Okay, this is a once in
a lifetime opportunity for him to maximize kind of his worth.
And as we kind of talked through it with the Browns, UH,
you know, there was interest in it being a five
year deal as opposed to a four year deal. Obviously,
if you're them, you want, you know, sign them for
as long as possible. So that made sense and for us,
(26:29):
it made sense, well you know, if we're going to
do that and you know everything that comes along with that,
we wanted to.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
Make sure that we got the best terms that we
could get.
Speaker 6 (26:38):
And by the time the conversation ended, you know, we
both agree that you know, the five year deal at
UH with the forty six million dollars for ye two
hundred thirty million dollar in made the most sense for everybody.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, and we've talked about before, like we really go
for the four year, four year, four year, but I
think you know, if you're going to go a five year,
you know, so you give up the four year to five,
but the fifty years, the fifth years of arms and
guaranteed too then.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
You know, yeah, for us, yeah, he got he got that.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
Uh you know, that was that that amount of we
felt at that amount of money for those many years
if it was fully guaranteed. You know, we had done
a ten year deal if they're going to fully guarantee it, right.
So for us, you know, once it became once it
became fully guaranteed, you know, we decided, you know that
it made sense to go ahead and get it done.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
I mean, I will say from from the Browns perspective too,
it's it's only been three years since that deal was signed,
and the top of the market went from the forty
six that he signed for to now the top of
the market is sixty million dollars per year.
Speaker 5 (27:34):
So exactly.
Speaker 6 (27:35):
And that's and that's exactly why we didn't want to
do the ten year deal in Houston, right, because we
knew that the market will continue to grow and if
you lock yourself in for that many years. Uh, normally,
if you believe in the player, it's not gonna be
a good deal.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah, And I think I mean in this case, obviously
you know it hasn't worked out like Cleveland wanted because
of injuries and whatnot. Right, but at the time of
the signing, phenomenal deal for to Shawn, I mean, like
maybe the best deal in NFL history. But same time
leaving Browns like they, hey, we got a franchise quarterback
in his prime and that would check that off with me.
We go on, you know, sure?
Speaker 6 (28:06):
So I was like you said, you know, you can't
you can't control injuries unfortunately, but uh, you know, we're
we have full faith that is gonna get back and
be healthy. Uh you know once this Achilles injury heals up,
and you know he'd be ready to go as soon
as he's healthy.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah. Yeah, And I think that's the one thing that
we can say over and over again. I can say
I don't know the show like you do, obviously, but
like I loved him when we signed him, I love
him now. He's done so much for the charity, He's
been great to have his first great to my own family,
like through the s I swim and stuff. Like just
a phenomenal person. But let's let's talk about this for
a second. One hundred percent guaranteed, right, So I'm on
a trip because you guys don't need me to negotiate
(28:40):
contracts anymore. And uh, I'm with an NFL owner and
the news comes out and we look at it and
he's like, this can't be right, and I'm like, no,
that's right. You know I pretended, I know, you know
that's right, and uh, and we had a debate. Like
I said, this changes NFL quarterback deals forever, and it
might change other you know, positions as we go. Right now,
(29:04):
aj you know, like we've done some deals like for
Dak and Herbert and David EU and Castad for Jordan Love,
they're not one hundred sent guaranteed, right, But like age,
let me ask you first, what was the impact of
this one hundred percent guaranteed contract.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Yeah, I mean it opened everyone's eyes right away to like, oh,
this is something that can be done. I think around
the league, teams were looking at each other saying, you know,
are we going to have to do that when our
quarterback comes up for a contract. I think it's one
of the reasons that you saw other quarterbacks, at least
one specifically who has multiple MVPs, it had to play
out his entire rookie deal because you know, I think
he kind of expected he was going to be the
(29:40):
next man up to get a fully guaranteed deal. But
because of this thing called the funding rule, which says
that teams have to put the money into an escual
account as soon as it becomes fully guaranteed, h owners
don't want to do that. They don't want to say,
I'm going to put two hundred million dollars into an
account that isn't going to help me, you know, a
crew value.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
And well let's explain that.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
So to Shaun Watson size the deals two hundred forty
million dollar guaranteed, the Cleveland Browns have to do what
they have to come money and put it.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Somewhere else, right, Yeah, so they have to they have
to take the money that's fully guaranteed, they have to
put it into an Escro account and it's just going
to sit there until it's time to actually pay the
money out. So the two hundred and thirty that's fully guaranteed,
Deshaun's not going to get that all at once. He's
going to get it over the five years of the deal.
The amount that he's not getting paid is going to
sit in Escro until it's time to pay him that money.
Teams don't want to do that because it's going to
sit there, it's not going to collect interest, it's not
(30:28):
going to give them anyway to capitalize that.
Speaker 5 (30:31):
And not only that, not all teams have that type
of cash on hand. Right.
Speaker 6 (30:34):
Obviously, the Browns owner, you know, he's independently wealthy outside
of the Cleveland brown so he has that, you know,
the ability to do that. Not every NFL team and
ownership has two hundred and thirty million dollars in cash
laying around that they can put into an escro account.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Yeah, and that's kind of the reason that the rule
is there, is that they want to level the playing
field for the extremely wealthy owners who have that much
cash and could go out and say, well, fully guaranteed
if we can get you, versus the owners who don't
have as much cash and they're not able to do that.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
They want to level the playing field for the season.
Speaker 6 (31:06):
And we think it's an outdated rule. I think the
reason also that and you know, initially it was done.
You know when football, you know first started, the NFL
first started, These teams weren't making the type of money
they're making now, and football and the NFL wasn't as
big of a business as it is now. So those
you know, some they were afraid that teams are going
to guarantee contracts and not have the ability to pay
the players, right, But now obviously that has changed with
(31:26):
what the NFL has become, so every team has the
ability to do it, but the teams have just been
slow to change and not want to change that rule.
The owners don't want to change that rule because they
know once that rule changes that you have to fund
all that money up front, that that's going to lead
to a lot more fully guaranteed contracts. But ir regardless
of that, I think that that contract has helped, you know,
teams now see that they're gonna have to guarantee more money. Yeah,
(31:48):
so as you look at these quarterback deals, maybe one
hundred percent of these deals aren't guaranteed, but now there's
more percentage of these deals guaranteed than ever before, not
only for quarterbacks but even other position guys. Right where
you're seeing a lot more guaranteed coming to players. So
I would say, you know, the way things are trending,
we're going to start seeing fully guaranteed quarterback contracts here,
you know, pretty soon.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Guess a question, Like, so hundred and thirty million dollar
guarantee one hunderson guarantee, they have prinesco if it was
two hundred and twenty nine million guaranteed in one million
not guaranteed?
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Do that have to put any in escrow?
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Yeah? All of it that is fully guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Okay, so there's not the contract doesn't have to be
fully guaranteed. It's just whatever amounts of money is fully guaranteed.
So if there's one hundred and eighty, they put that
in right, right.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Yeah, So if if sixty million of the two thirty
is fully guaranteed and they're going to pay out twenty
of it, now the other forty of that fully guaranteed
amount is going to go in task.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yeah, and the confusion comes.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I was really confused. But the confusion comes from like
a fully guaranteed what does that mean?
Speaker 5 (32:46):
That means you have guaranteed the full sucks.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
So let's kind of take it back where it's like
an NFL there are three different type of guarantees. You
have a skill guarantee, there's an injury guarantee, and a
cap guarantee. So unless you have all three of those guarantees,
the money's not considered fully guaranteed. Right, If you have
a skill guarantee and you get hurt or they need
your cap dollar, they can still cut you, right, So
you'd have to have all three of those guarantees for
a certain dollar Mauth for that to.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
Be considered fully guaranteed.
Speaker 6 (33:10):
So in Deshaun's case, the two hundred and thirty million
dollars was fully guaranteed for skills, fully guaranteed for cap,
and it was fully guaranteed for injury.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
So yeah, yeah, that's interesting because yeah, so that's amazing,
And I think I agree with you, David and agent.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
I think that that deal that you all did. You
were part of that.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Deal, weren't you. Yeah, that's why the first one wasn't
full guarantee because you were. But you know, I think
that deal they did with that kind of guarantee send
a message to the NFL, to other agents, to owners
and players like, hey, you know, baseball is full of guaranteed,
Basketball full of guaranteed. There's not as much a risk
of injury neither one of those sports. Like it's time
to start fully guaranteeing. And you know, one thing, I
(33:50):
think the agent community can work on, hopefully, is changing
the funding rule, because it doesn't it's kind of obsolete
in my mind, you know, I've never had to fund
anything like that, but well you're an allary. Know, it's
I think that's one thing that we can work on
in the future and try to change. Is that something
you guys will focus on.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
Yeah, yeah, and that's a little above our head. Unfortunately,
that's the NFL p a thing. But you know, there's
a certain you know, there are few things that we'd
love to get changed, whether it's the funding rule, whether
it's the franchise tag. You know, there there's you know,
there's a few things that we'd love to get changed.
The fifthyear option for for first round draft picks. So
now there's a list of things that you know, it
was up to us agents that we'd love to get changed.
(34:25):
But again, the PA, there's a lot. You know, it's
a give and take, right. You don't just get to
go to the owners and say hey, we want a
B and C. Right, There's going to be some type
of negotiation. There's going to be trade off. So you know,
obviously every you know, every time there's a new CBA,
you know, we hope to think it's better and better
for the players.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Well, as we learned the last two episodes.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
I mean, if you can go and sign Deshaun Watson
after National Championship and then get the first deal and
get the second deal, you should be able to change
the funny role.
Speaker 5 (34:50):
We're working on it. We're working on it all right.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Well, listen, that's an unbelievable story, one that I really
enjoyed living vicariously through you all, and I think on
behalf of a everywhere and players everywhere. We thank you
guys for that deal. Lessons learned at the end of
this episode, obviously I'll go first. You know, it's an
interesting one, right, but I think my lesson learned it
goes back to aj what we talked about True Bloodsoe
(35:13):
back in the day where you know where he did
that big deal and then he got hurt and then
Tom Brady took over, and just watching the way he
dealt with everything, and that, you know, in our careers
with our players, like it's never going to be just
all roses, never going to be just awesome, right, And
I think as our job, we want to get the
two hundred and thirty million full yearantee contract. But also
(35:33):
our job is to be there during times of adversity,
whether it is an injury, whether it's poor play, whether
it's a tough contract negotiation, whether it's off fielders or
whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
And I think that you know, it's it's really.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
It's really great to have watched you through Deshawn's process
and knowing what a great guy to Shawn is and
being able to overcome the first of his injury the
first year, you know, all the things that happened Houston, whatnot,
and just continuously come out on top, you know, and
have that solidarity with your clients, with athletes first, with
all of our clients, all of our employees. Just watching
(36:06):
everyone work together to get the best result possible, no
matter whether it's Sonny or a ready, you know. And
I think that's somewhere we're blessed to be able to
do that, right, We're blessed to be able to help
these guys through through you know, their their journey, and
then we're blessed to be there when they signed, you know,
arguably the greatest NFL deal of all time. So so
my job is a blessing, I guess is my lesson
because I get to work with you, guys.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
AJ.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
I think my lesson on this one is that going
into any negotiation like you're not going to get something
you don't ask for, right and just because no one
had gotten this fully guaranteed contract before you have to
you have to dream it, you have to believe it.
You have to say like, this is a guy who
I believe in, who deserves this type of contract. And
when you go to the Cleveland Browns and you say like,
this is what I think we need and they do it,
(36:51):
it's something that you're not You're never gonna get unless
you ask for it. So being able to come with
come up with that and think creatively and say like
how am I going to push the boundaries?
Speaker 4 (36:57):
I think is the big lesson in this one.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I think the only way you do that is you
show the team that it works for them, right.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
I mean, Hey, this is this is what we want.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
This is what we deserve, and this is why it
works for you. And you got you guys, you did
pen I mean a phenomenal casebook study ab In that's negotiations.
Speaker 6 (37:12):
But are now I think you guys hit it on
the head. You know, I think as you said when
you're dealing negotiations, obviously you have to you know, you
got to be reasonable, but at the same time, you're
never going to get anything you don't ask for, right
and now things that you asked for, but you should
be able to explain why you think these things are
achievable and kind of to tie what you said in
why it's beneficial for both parties. Right in this situation,
(37:34):
we wanted to fully guaranteed contract, you know, getting a
guy of his caliber at that age that we need
the team, the value another year, fifth year to be
added onto the contract.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
So there's a win win there.
Speaker 6 (37:44):
And anytime you're able to get a win win, and
you know, and it normally works out well.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
David, once again, we thank you.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Is you listen to your stories is mind boggling. We're
going to break you back for a record third podcast episode.
You're going to set a record there as well. And
next episode we're going to bring Cassie Andrew Castle in.
We talked about the last episode and we're going to
talk about your guys' relationship of Jordan Love and uh
the record breaking Deally did for Jordan Love. So look
(38:11):
forward to having you back. Thanks for your time.
Speaker 5 (38:13):
I can't wait
Welcome to the next episode of the Athletes First Family podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
The Quarterback Series.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
I am Brian Murphy, Athletes First CEO, joined once again
by my co host AJ Stevens, one of the best
negotiators in the business.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Welcome back, Aj, Thanks Murph, Excited to be back for
another episode, another episode with David Muligeta Athletes First. On
this podcast, we talk about the quarterbacks that we represent.
We currently have one point four billion dollars in quarterback
deals on our books. Goes to speak to our experience
with quarterbacks. And today we're going to talk about the
Deshaun Watson deal deals with David.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
So welcome back, David hey Man.
Speaker 5 (00:34):
Happy to be back.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yep, No, David, Welcome back. David Muligeta.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
For anyone who doesn't know, Living under Rock is athletes
First equi partner and super uber agent Forbes number one,
and we're here to talk about the deals he's negotiated
with to Sean Watson in the relationship they created. But
because that's the Quarterback Series, right, and we're also going
to further talk about Jordan Loves deal. But David is
not just a quarterback agent, right, He's also done the
(00:58):
highest deal in NFL history for several other players, several
other positions.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Tell us about it.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Antoine Winfield Junior, Jalen Ramsey twice, Buddha Baker, Kevin Bayer,
Michael Thomas, Coleccio, Semile, Derwin, James. The list goes on
and on, right, But we're gonna talk about the quarterbacks today,
So we're gonna talk about Deshaun today. We'll get to
Jordan at Jordan Love at a later date, but we
want to dive into Deshaun's.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Both of Deshawn's deals that.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
You did worth mentioning. David asked me to mention that
he again, he did one billion dollars of deals last
year by himself, first agent in history. And he also,
you've got to mention he is Forbes number one, right,
the youngest agent ever to be Forbes number one and
the first African American agent to ever be Forbes number one.
So that was what David and sister we say. Come back,
(01:45):
So anything else you want us here.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
You keep going, ip going, good.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Awesome, all right, So I'm going to keep going. I'm
going to I am going to kind of set the
scene here. In our last podcast, we talked about you
recruiting Deshaun out of Clemson, and what a life changing
moment that us for both of you. We're going to
go to twenty and seventeen here right, and Deshaun Watson
was the number twelve overall pick of the Houston Texans.
I had a lot of success early on his career,
(02:12):
named All Rookie Team before getting injured. Then they made
the Pro Bowl in twenty eighteen, the Pro Bowl in
twenty nineteen, all in the rookie contract that you negotiated.
And so the twenty nineteen season ends three years of
the NFL, you can start the negotiations. When did those
discussions begin? Like, how did that happen?
Speaker 5 (02:31):
After?
Speaker 6 (02:31):
Yeah, I don't remember exact that it began, but you
know those discussions started shortly after his third year. Okay,
so I don't remember the exact Tom frant, but probably that.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
And this is twenty twenty, so this is the start
of COVID exactly exact.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
The world has a lot of unknowns.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
We know what the salary cap is for twenty twenty,
but we don't know what it's going to be in
twenty twenty one. Everyone's telling us that there's going to
be a drastic fall off, right, So then you know,
people are kind of speculating, like will that effect the
growth of the quarterback market or all positional markets? Right,
And so we did see one quarterback deal get done
before Deshaun's. Patrick Steel got Patrick Mahomes, and his was
(03:11):
a you know, a ten year deal. You know, on
the face of it, it says it averages forty five million
dollars per year. I want to know, you know, how
did that affect your negotiations because you still had two
more months of negotiating before he got the deal done.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
For yeah, I mean, obviously, the Mahomes deal came across
the ticker, and you know, when we first saw it,
you know, we're kind of a little taken aback obviously
for obvious reasons. It was a ten year extension of
two years left on the deal, so it was a
twelve year deal, and we hadn't seen a lot of that, right.
I think the most recent deals in the marketplace might
were around four years or so, some four year deals.
I think there might have been a couple five year deals.
(03:44):
But for us, you know, we you know, we took
time to kind of break that deal down. As you
stayed on his face. It was I think it was
a ten year, four hundred and fifty million dollar extension.
But as we kind of looked into it, you know,
we realized, you know, that wasn't the average over the
entire deal, right, it was.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
I think the average of.
Speaker 6 (04:02):
The first four years, you correct me if I'm wrong,
was around thirty eight point nine million, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Is that right?
Speaker 6 (04:06):
Yeah, I'm getting old, but not too old, But yeah,
it was about thirty eight point nine million. So for
us going into it, you know, obviously we think, you know,
the world of Patrick and you know, phenomenal football player,
you know, arguably one of the best to ever do it.
But for us, we felt just as positive about Deshaun
you know, you know, we knew where his arrows pointed.
Phenomenal football player, phenomenal person. So for us, it was
about trying to figure out what was the right deal
(04:28):
for DeShawn Right.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
And so if I'm the Texans and I see the
mahomestill get done, I'm probably putting together a ten year
proposal to send to you.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Did they do that?
Speaker 5 (04:37):
Of course, yeah, we got it.
Speaker 6 (04:38):
Shortly after the Mahomes deal gets done, we get a
ten year offer, a ten year extension offer from the Texans.
Obviously that was not something that we were interested in
for obvious reasons, and you know, the salary cap continues
to grow up, go up every year. So for us,
it was about, you know, we wanted to stay within
that four or five year range, but also maximize what
he was able to get.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
So we like, as I said.
Speaker 6 (04:58):
Earlier, we kind of locked in on that first four
year cash flow for Mahomes, which was thirty eight point
nine million dollars a year, and decided our goal would
be to surpass that right to say, okay, we plan
on doing a four year deal. If we can make
more money on average over the first four years, we
consider that a win because then we'd get back to
this table, you know, sometime before year four and then
over the same amount of time, we were very certain
(05:20):
we'd make more money as opposed to doing a ten
year extension and locking that in currently got it.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
So in the negotiation, you're kind of segmenting out the
Mahomes deal and saying we're only going to acknowledge the
first couple of years and completely disregard that the team
has control of his football rights for another six years
after that and say we just want to beat.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
That correct, correct, correct Texans Probably a jan and I
talked about this probably throughout the Drew Bloodsoell Athletes first
president where we did a ten year deal with them, right.
You know, I wonder if Nick Sarah was even there
at the time when we do that deal, But yeah,
I know. So, I mean, so you have uncertainty everywhere, right,
you have COVID, so you don't know exactly what the
salary caps could be, which is a pretty important variable
(05:58):
in the negotiation. You have this new ten year extension
twelve year deal for arguably the best quarterback in the league.
And then that's like they're going to want to use
that they're off making ten years, but like you're not
going to use that. So you got to say, hey,
you know, they're like, it's good enough for Patrick, should
be good enough to Shawn. You're like, no, it's not that.
That's what we're going to do. So you have actually
and this is the first big quarterback deal you're working on, right,
(06:19):
the rookie deal. But so, so how are you feeling
are you kind of confused by all edge, Like why
is it so difficult? Or just focus in and work
with you and the team and figure out what to
Sean want to.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
Well, no, I mean for me, it was a matter of,
you know, I kind of look at every negotiation individually,
right and you know, what does this Shawn specifically bring
to the Houston Texans. And that's kind of how I
approach every contract negotiations. You got to understand your leverage,
you got to understand the team's leverage, and then you
got to understand how you want to kind of game
plan to get to the end result that you want.
So for me, again, I didn't you know, I wouldn't
(06:52):
say it necessarily matter to me that it was my
first quarterback deal. Obviously there's a different type of leverage
you have when you're dealing with a quarterback, especially with
one as good as the Shawn. So again, we figured
out what our end goal was, which was we wanted
to be the highest paid quarterback in the history of
the NFL. Patrick had just done his deal. We had
zero interest in doing a ten year extension because again,
like we said, we knew the cap continues to go up,
and you know at some point if you do a
(07:13):
ten year extension, you're going to be underpaid. So for us,
we locked in on the four year deal, which was
thirty eight point nine for Mahomes and decide, okay, we
want to be above that number and kind of just
worked our way backwards on how to get there.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
And who are you dealing We were dealing.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
With mostly Bill O'Brien at the time.
Speaker 6 (07:29):
Initially Bill was obviously the coach there, but he had
taken over duties as a GM as well, which kind
of you know, made the negotiations at a little different
than normal, right, because normally you're dealing with either general
manager or a team's contract guy, and the head coach
normally stays out of that because obviously he has a
very personal relationship with the especially the quarterback, right, they
(07:49):
talk every day. Bill O'Brien's offensive minded head coach, so
he obviously is in the room with DeShawn at all times.
So normally those type of guys want to stay out
of those conversations. So initially the conversations were with uh,
with Bill, and uh, you know, they progressed, and I
think as we started getting more into the nitty gritty details,
(08:11):
he decided that it probably made the most sense for
him to remove himself from those negotiations, just because you know, again,
you know, when you get to that point in the contract,
the team is going to do everything they can and
tell you why the players shouldn't get this amount of money.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Ye uh, And then you, as an agent.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
Are going to tell the team why you think he
does deserve that right as the head coach who deals
with the player and has that personal relationship. I think
I think Bill decided he didn't want to have those conversations.
He didn't feel that comfortable kind of I guess trying
to harp on maybe I don't want to say the
negative aspects of the challenge game, but basically, you know,
making those arguments for the team. So he handed that
over to Jack Easterby with the time. I'm not I'm
(08:48):
not super sure what the exact role that Jack had there,
but he worked with their contract guy there, and that's
who the negotiations kind of ended with.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, and coach of Brian's known as a player's coach,
had a great relationship with Mac cow so in all
the quarterbacks in New England and just everyone, just all
the players loved him. And so that's got to be
a hard position. We're to wear both hats and we
don't see a lot of head coaches do that, you know.
And then so Jack also came from New England and
took it over. Did you ever talk with the owners
the onlyn't get involved at all or not?
Speaker 5 (09:15):
No, the owners didn't get involved. Cal never got involved
in that.
Speaker 6 (09:18):
I think he felt comfortable with, you know, the people
that he had put in place, from you know, Kach
O'Brien to Jack and kind of the rest of the
team to get that done. And you know, it took
a little longer than maybe we would have won it,
but we were able to come to a number and agree.
I think we ended up at thirty nine million a
year if I remember correctly, And you know, we were
able to secure the deal that made you know, as
(09:40):
far as we were concerned, to sewn the highest paid
quarterback in the NFL because his deal was only four
years long, so we kind of only focused on the
four years that Mahomes had So for us, we felt
like it was a win. At the time. I think
Patrick had think he had already won a Super Bowl, right,
am I correct? I think he had already won a
super Bowl. He had been the league MVP already had
been a Super Bowl MVP, so he had accomplished I
guess paper more than that Shawn had accomplished at the time.
(10:03):
So when we were able to get to where we
wanted to as far as becoming the highest paid quarterback
over those four years, we felt good about it. DeShawn
felt good about it, and we were able to you know,
kind of make it happen.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah. I think the one thing we emphasized here on
this show too, is like Deshawn's coming off of three
amazing seasons, like there's no limit to how great he
can be. And he's also, as you know, like unbelievable
in the community, does a.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Lot of charity work, foundation working.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So I think the Houston Texans also got to win
in a way, right, They got their franchise quarterback, I thought,
and this is you they lock them up for only
four years, but like that's that's a foundation for where
they wanted to go.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
So a great job.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
One reason we have aj here is to really tell
us all the details that you may not remember about
that contract. I certainly don't, but give us the.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Thing and then the final deal ends up being you know,
you looked at the Mahomes deal, and you said, you know,
on the face it averages forty five. But common misconception
that we've talked about on on a lot of these
episodes is that the deal doesn't necessarily average forty five
through each of the years.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Right.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
So in Mahomes deal at averages is that thirty eight
point nine million dollars through four years. So used that
as the benchmark to get a four year extension at
thirty nine million dollars per year. It was one hundred
and ten million dollars guaranteed, and in the first two years,
which were the last two years of his rookie deal,
he gets essentially a twenty million dollar raise above what
was left on his rookie deal, right correct, which you know,
(11:19):
I want to point out now because we get to
a point with his next deal where he hadn't actually
got to the first year of his extension.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
When he has this transition to to the Browns.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
They'll give it. You can't give away the story, come on.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Out, oh you know, ahead of myself.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
So a phenomenal deal. How does Sean feel about this
vetching deals?
Speaker 6 (11:37):
Because oh, now he was excited, super excited about it.
You know, I praid to get back and play ball.
You know, Deshaun's football focus. He's one of those guys
that he never even really asked about the deal. You know,
in his mind, it was always just let me know
when it is done, you know, and that's kind of
how he approached it was, let me know what is done,
let me know when I can kind of turn my attention.
I don't want to say turn his attention because he
never was focus on the deal, but just kind of
(11:59):
let me know what has done so and get that
over with and kind of move on and get focused
on the next season. So, but he was excited. He
wanted to be in Houston. That's where you know, he
wanted to be. So he was excited about kind of
the future there.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
And then AJ.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
One thing I mean we talked about other podcast is
you've worked in all the top quarterback deals with David,
with Todd, with Ryan, with Justin, Like, this is one
of your first deals with David.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
That you did right, No, I wasn't here yet yet.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Okay, Wow, that's amazing. Why do we need AJ?
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Then? If you know I got AJ is always helpful,
that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
That's awesome. Okay, So David, like in this negotiation, like
what what what do you what do you remember the
most about what you had to do, like the strategy
you had to do, or the approach, Like what was
unique for it?
Speaker 6 (12:42):
I think, like I said, the most unique thing about
that negotiation was the fact that coach O'Brien was involved, Right.
I just had never dealt with a situation where there
was a head coach that was kind of, you know,
for all intent purposes, running the negotiation for the team side.
So that was the you know, not only was it
the first time I did a large quarterback deal, but
it was the first time I dad would have head
coach kind of taking the lead there and then kind
(13:04):
of him stepping away and a new face being kind
of introduced as the head of the or the lead
for the contract negotiations. It's a little different than I've
seen in the past. Right, Normally, you deal with one person.
That person is kind of the face of it for
the team and you guys work through, you know, whatever
you got to work through. So kind of that shift
in dynamics. Now you're dealing with a whole different personality
from coach Obrian to Jack. I think that was a
(13:25):
little different, so that I would say that was the
most unique part about it. But outside of that, again,
when you have clients that kind of believe in you
and have faith that you're going to get the deal done,
and you know they allow you to do your job,
you know, it makes it a lot easier.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, And we talked to in the last episode about
how you know DeShawn was your first big time quarterback client, right,
and surely through this contract negotiations, he must be I
picked the right guy pretty well.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
Yeah, no, no, he was.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
He was definitely excited, His family was excited. So now
I'm super happy for him.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, and then DeShawn goes out the next year, right,
and the team doesn't play as well as they were
to like, but DeShawn has forty eight hundred pass that
year and then thirty three tightdowns only seven interceptions, and
so I think, uh, franchise records and a bunch of
different categories, and I think he was a first quarterback
since Jeff George in nineteen ninety seven to lead the
NFL in passing on a team with twelve losses. So like,
(14:14):
he has a pretty historic year. Everything goes great, and
then you know, things happened and you know, off field
issues and maybe the team's to go in the right direction.
And then so it's decided that maybe Deshaun should leave Houston.
And how did that how did that have how that decision?
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Did you tell the.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Team you want to leave teams that you want to leave?
Was a mutual or.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
I think at the time there was a lot of
kind of influx what was going on with the team
as far as did what the leadership was Again O'Brien
had had recently departed kind of you know, where the
team was headed and kind of what the leadership looked
like was a situation that DeShawn you know, didn't feel
was going to be best for the team moving forward.
Conversations were had and you know, decided that it made
(14:56):
the most sense for him to look for a trade,
and uh, we're you know, kind of given the opportunity
to kind of just you know, go out there and
see who else might be interested.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Then he there's a year he's on in Texas, but
he didn't play, right, Is that right?
Speaker 2 (15:09):
So those he had a historic yere like crazy historic.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Year and then at year they didn't play, and those
ag u saying those are the two years of his
original contract.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Right, Right, you didn't get to the new deal.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
But you got you got the money from the new deal.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
He had gotten twenty million dollars of the new deal
during those last two years of his rookie contract.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
And then then it's decided you get permission David to
seek a trade, right yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:32):
And what was I mean?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
So now you have a starting quarterback to be two
Pro Bowls, led the league in passing. Usually they don't
come up for trade, right, Like, what was your approach?
How did you what did you just send a letter
to everyone say, hey, well.
Speaker 6 (15:46):
No, man, again, I'm getting a little old, so I
don't remember all the specific details. But we worked with
Nick Cassario, who had at that time time had been
named the GM of the team, who's still there obviously
doing a phenomenal job. But we worked with Nick, you know,
you know, we kind of put it out there like, look,
he's looking to be traded. So teams, if I remember correctly,
we're calling in. And you know, all the teams that
(16:07):
wanted or that were interested in trading for DeShawn made
themselves known to the team, to the Texans, and Nick
and Nick gave us the opportunity then to talk to
you know, the four or five six things, like five
or six teams that you know, we felt like we're
serious contenders that wanted to trade for him.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (16:23):
So we had a time period in which then we
sat down with each one of those teams, kind of
heard them out, what their plan would be for DeShawn,
what their goals are, uh, and kind of just you know,
interview them, and they interviewed DeShawn and us. And at
some point then when we decided which, you know, which
teams that we really wanted to talk to, we kind
of started to narrow it down. And then when we
finally got to the team that we wanted to go to,
(16:45):
we let Nick know and I think initially they worked
out of trade. Uh And once that was you know,
they had figured out the trade details and they allowed
us and then start working on contract details.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
So you you, as the agent, you didn't have to like,
let's let's just say you want to go to the Dolphins, right,
You didn't have to work out the trade with the Dolphins.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
No, no, no, no.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
We just had to interview and kind of decide where
where we were willing to go because you know, we
had a no trade clause in that first contract that
we did for the Shawn. Therefore, I don't want to
say we could dictate, but we had the opportunity to
turn down, you know, trade offers if we didn't want
to go to that team. So once we found a
team that we were comfortable with and the Texans were
(17:24):
then able to agree to trade parameters, then it was
kind of tossed back into our court to figure out
could we get a contract done?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Sure? And I want to just take a little side
step here, Like a lot of times, like general poblock,
maybe before I became an agent, like you think, oh man,
you got the.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Agent versus team.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
They're clash and they're fighting, like you know, the negotiating
like a battle. But like a lot of times like
there's you come to a point where like what's best
for the player is also best for the team, or
you make it that way, and so you work together.
And you mentioned Nick Casario, who we've all worked with
for a long time. He wasn't very helpful to me
in the West WELLK negotiations, but you know, other than that,
like like so like talk about that, like what so
(18:00):
you are you now on the same side of the
table as Nick and working together to Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:04):
I think I think again we had once you come
to the understanding between the two parties, the team and
the and the agent h and player in their side,
that it makes most sense for the player then to
move on. I think then you have to be on
the same team, right because the player wants to move on,
the team wants to get fair compensation back. So you
try to figure out a win win for both sides. So, yeah,
we're working together. And once, like I said, once we
(18:27):
were able to kind of narrow down where we wanted
to be. Uh, they were able to figure out a trade.
Then you know, we figured out the contract part of it.
And you know he was a he was a Cleveland Brown.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah so but at that point, so like going the
in order, you guys interviewed with a bunch of teams.
Uh what was de Sean looking for in the team?
Speaker 6 (18:47):
I mean, we want to win. I think that was
the most important. Him was like where could he go
to win? And Uh, for him was kind of talking
to the team. You know, he talked to all the
ownership for each one of the teams that were interested,
to the head coach, the OC quarterback coach, and just
kind of worked his way through the list of questions
that he had, and most of them had to do with,
you know, roster, how they would use him, what their
(19:09):
goal was over the next few years. And you know,
I think every every conversation we had posts those meetings
where Okay, this is how I feel about this team,
and this is the likelihood that we can get to
a playoffs, we can get to a super Bowl, we
can win a championship.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
So I think that was by far the most important
thing to.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Him, especially I mean he won the championship in college, right,
and so like the tastes of it, and so then
so you'd narrow it down and say, like, okay, we
want to go to Cleveland, and then Nick does his
works with their GM and they figure out the trade
cop But then at that point you need to figure
out what his contract's going to be.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
But like, do you have zero leverage then because you have.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
To go to Cleveland or what kind of leverage?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Like what was that?
Speaker 6 (19:49):
I don't think the levers changed because we didn't have
to go to Cleveland. Right, We had numerous teams that
were interested Initially, Funny enough, That was one of the
first teams that he had kind of decided he was
not going to go to. And that was only because
it was you know, he's from he's from the South,
he's from Georgia. He wants stayed you know, close to
that area if he could, if he got to decide. Obviously,
his family's there, and there's a lot of teams in
(20:09):
that area that were obviously interested in them and just
going that far away as well as he you know,
he just hadn't played in that type of weather, uh
that you know, whether it was in college when he
was at you know, at Clemson or growing up in Georgia,
he'd always played in warm weather. So that was kind
of one of the concerns and just thought process. But
as we started talking to the GM there, Andrew Berry
and talking to kind of the you know, the other
(20:33):
players there, you know, he figured out, hey, this is
a place that I think I can I can play.
And then he started looking at the roster and he's like, man,
this is actually, you know, I like this roster the
best right there are the most playoff ready, championship ready team.
And he believed in the OC the head coach obviously,
so he was like, you know what, you know, this
is where I want to go. So but once they decided,
they agreed on a trade and we were able to
(20:56):
start talking contracts. Not I don't think the leverage changes
at all. Right, because we get a contract done with
the Browns, we just go back to the text and say, okay,
this didn't work out. There's are these other teams that
are interested. Let's you know, let's you can work out
of trade with them. So we would have trade our leverage.
We still make sure to keep our leverage in tasks.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
If you couldn't, you didn't have to work out a
deal because then you could just go back to Nick
and say, well that didn't work out, we go.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
We want to go to the correct correct.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Interesting And so now you're negotiating this contract right, to
be clear, much different circumstances than you did in Houston. Right,
because Deshaun hadn't played the year before, two years before,
he was maybe the best quarterback in the league.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
And so who are you doing this to go?
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Are you doing with Andrew?
Speaker 5 (21:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Correct, Yeah, we're both big fans of USA, right, you know,
and so great Andrew Berry phenomen old GM what what
what's important to Shawn in this negotiation, Like, you know,
obviously wanted to be He wanted to go there to
win a championship. But like in terms of the contract
here he's at first round contract which was great, had
a second deal which was great.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
What's he looking for in this contract?
Speaker 5 (21:54):
Man?
Speaker 6 (21:54):
It's it's funny, right, because again I say it again,
the Shawn's focus always been football really been a contract, right,
So I think, honestly it's probably more important for me
than the Seawan, Right. Deshaun wanted to you know, once
he decided he wanted to be a Cleveland Brown, who
was like, hey, I want to get there down and
play football.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
You know I meant to do it.
Speaker 6 (22:11):
Yeah, you know, I want to get there. Obviously I've
been on the field in a while. I want to
get get back out there. You know, He's just itching
to get back on the field. So that was what
was the most important thing to him, was like how
do I get back on the field. How quickly can
I get there? So he kind of lifted up to
you know, us to figure out the contracts side of it.
You know, he trusted us again. You know, you know,
you hire an agent, you expect them to do their job,
you know. So, uh so for us again, who went
(22:35):
back and looked at the quarterback market, and now we're
looking at who's considered the highest paid quarterback in the league, right,
and now we're using you know, that number that previously
we kind of disregarded, which was the forty five over
the ten year period that Mahomes had. So we looked
at that number even though maybe that wasn't what he
was making at that part of his career or that
(22:57):
those years, but we still looked at that because again,
we had a different type of leverage in that situation
that Okay, this is the number, this is the the
highest paid quarterback number, forty five, So we wanted to
beat that number. So knowing that Mahomes is forty five,
our goals to get above that.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
And to be clear, as we talked about mahomes deal,
like I don't know Patrick, I don't know if feel Patrick,
but like I'm sure he loved his deal and that
deal was perfect for him and the team.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
So it's, uh, you know, we never I never want
to regardless, Yeah, I never want to judge anyone else
unless I'm in the negotiating room.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Right, But so the deal was awesome for Patrick.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
But so all right, so you just said, like Deshaun
hired an agent to do his job, right, Your job
is to get a phenomenal contract. Your job is clearly
not to get a contract that is one hundred percent guaranteed,
because that doesn't happen in the NFL. A J break
down the deal that let's go to the end of
the story. What was the deal and I'm going to
come back and ask questions about it.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
I guess this is one of the rare occasions where
you know you're adding years onto a contract, and usually
to value a deal, that is, you know he had
four years left, you're adding years onto it. You say,
what are the new years and what is the new
money that's added to it? And that's how we're going
to value the deal. In this case, because he had
four years and one hundred and thirty six million dollars
left on the deal, everyone kind of just values it
as like this is a total it's a tear up.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
We tore up the old contract.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
We're gonna value this as a brand new, five year,
forty six million dollars per year deal. Two hundred and
thirty million dollars and all two hundred and thirty million
dollars is fully guaranteed at signing something that you know,
it's never been done in the NFL, hadn't at the time,
still hasn't been replicated to this point.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
And then there's two things you said there which blow
my mind. Right, and again.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
You don't.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
I mean, this is a Pro Bowl quarterback who led
the league in passing, right, So, like, I mean, this
is teams want him, right, and they're gonna be willing
to do things because it doesn't happen. You get a
quarterback to the draft and it's at best fifty to
fifty or I mean you know, I mean you got
Tom Brady, but like very rarely do you have this opportunity.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
So, but the first thing you said, like usually you
have three years on the deal, you add two and
you say, okay, two new years, here's the new money.
That's the new money, apy, Right, Really do you just
rip up the contract? I remember they do that with
Daryl Reeves way back in the day.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
But like, why did that happen?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Why?
Speaker 5 (25:06):
Why?
Speaker 1 (25:06):
I mean, why did you even think that you could
do that? And why were they willing to rip up
the contract?
Speaker 6 (25:11):
I think what you just said, right, this doesn't happen
often that you get a quarterback that's, you know, kind
of in the prime of his career that has the
ability then to change teams.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
Right.
Speaker 6 (25:20):
And for the Browns, they're looking at like, this is
an opportunity where we get to kind of bring in
a guy that we know what he is, right, We've
seen him on the football field. We no type of
player he is, and so we're you know, we believe
he's a guy that could be the face of our
franchise and kind of change kind of where we're headed.
So for them, you know, the contract I don't think
mattered as much as what they were getting in return.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
Right.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
If you know, no matter how much you spend, if
you feel like you got a value for what you're getting,
it makes sense it's a good deal.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Right.
Speaker 6 (25:48):
So for them, it was like, hey, we have an
opportunity to get a proven commodity here, which is not
like you said, that's tough to get in the NFL.
You've got a draft guys and development and hope it
works out. Rarely does a guy at this age become free.
So I think for them that was how they looked
at it. For us, again, we were in our you know,
the Shawn was in his prime. You know, maybe he
hadn't played football and you know, I think a time
(26:09):
of year and a half, but he was in his prime. UH,
and we felt like, Okay, this is a once in
a lifetime opportunity for him to maximize kind of his worth.
And as we kind of talked through it with the Browns, UH,
you know, there was interest in it being a five
year deal as opposed to a four year deal. Obviously,
if you're them, you want, you know, sign them for
as long as possible. So that made sense and for us,
(26:29):
it made sense, well you know, if we're going to
do that and you know everything that comes along with that,
we wanted to.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
Make sure that we got the best terms that we
could get.
Speaker 6 (26:38):
And by the time the conversation ended, you know, we
both agree that you know, the five year deal at
UH with the forty six million dollars for ye two
hundred thirty million dollar in made the most sense for everybody.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, and we've talked about before, like we really go
for the four year, four year, four year, but I
think you know, if you're going to go a five year,
you know, so you give up the four year to five,
but the fifty years, the fifth years of arms and
guaranteed too then.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
You know, yeah, for us, yeah, he got he got that.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
Uh you know, that was that that amount of we
felt at that amount of money for those many years
if it was fully guaranteed. You know, we had done
a ten year deal if they're going to fully guarantee it, right.
So for us, you know, once it became once it
became fully guaranteed, you know, we decided, you know that
it made sense to go ahead and get it done.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
I mean, I will say from from the Browns perspective too,
it's it's only been three years since that deal was signed,
and the top of the market went from the forty
six that he signed for to now the top of
the market is sixty million dollars per year.
Speaker 5 (27:34):
So exactly.
Speaker 6 (27:35):
And that's and that's exactly why we didn't want to
do the ten year deal in Houston, right, because we
knew that the market will continue to grow and if
you lock yourself in for that many years. Uh, normally,
if you believe in the player, it's not gonna be
a good deal.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah, And I think I mean in this case, obviously
you know it hasn't worked out like Cleveland wanted because
of injuries and whatnot. Right, but at the time of
the signing, phenomenal deal for to Shawn, I mean, like
maybe the best deal in NFL history. But same time
leaving Browns like they, hey, we got a franchise quarterback
in his prime and that would check that off with me.
We go on, you know, sure?
Speaker 6 (28:06):
So I was like you said, you know, you can't
you can't control injuries unfortunately, but uh, you know, we're
we have full faith that is gonna get back and
be healthy. Uh you know once this Achilles injury heals up,
and you know he'd be ready to go as soon
as he's healthy.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah. Yeah, And I think that's the one thing that
we can say over and over again. I can say
I don't know the show like you do, obviously, but
like I loved him when we signed him, I love
him now. He's done so much for the charity, He's
been great to have his first great to my own family,
like through the s I swim and stuff. Like just
a phenomenal person. But let's let's talk about this for
a second. One hundred percent guaranteed, right, So I'm on
a trip because you guys don't need me to negotiate
(28:40):
contracts anymore. And uh, I'm with an NFL owner and
the news comes out and we look at it and
he's like, this can't be right, and I'm like, no,
that's right. You know I pretended, I know, you know
that's right, and uh, and we had a debate. Like
I said, this changes NFL quarterback deals forever, and it
might change other you know, positions as we go. Right now,
(29:04):
aj you know, like we've done some deals like for
Dak and Herbert and David EU and Castad for Jordan Love,
they're not one hundred sent guaranteed, right, But like age,
let me ask you first, what was the impact of
this one hundred percent guaranteed contract.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Yeah, I mean it opened everyone's eyes right away to like, oh,
this is something that can be done. I think around
the league, teams were looking at each other saying, you know,
are we going to have to do that when our
quarterback comes up for a contract. I think it's one
of the reasons that you saw other quarterbacks, at least
one specifically who has multiple MVPs, it had to play
out his entire rookie deal because you know, I think
he kind of expected he was going to be the
(29:40):
next man up to get a fully guaranteed deal. But
because of this thing called the funding rule, which says
that teams have to put the money into an escual
account as soon as it becomes fully guaranteed, h owners
don't want to do that. They don't want to say,
I'm going to put two hundred million dollars into an
account that isn't going to help me, you know, a
crew value.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
And well let's explain that.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
So to Shaun Watson size the deals two hundred forty
million dollar guaranteed, the Cleveland Browns have to do what
they have to come money and put it.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Somewhere else, right, Yeah, so they have to they have
to take the money that's fully guaranteed, they have to
put it into an Escro account and it's just going
to sit there until it's time to actually pay the
money out. So the two hundred and thirty that's fully guaranteed,
Deshaun's not going to get that all at once. He's
going to get it over the five years of the deal.
The amount that he's not getting paid is going to
sit in Escro until it's time to pay him that money.
Teams don't want to do that because it's going to
sit there, it's not going to collect interest, it's not
(30:28):
going to give them anyway to capitalize that.
Speaker 5 (30:31):
And not only that, not all teams have that type
of cash on hand. Right.
Speaker 6 (30:34):
Obviously, the Browns owner, you know, he's independently wealthy outside
of the Cleveland brown so he has that, you know,
the ability to do that. Not every NFL team and
ownership has two hundred and thirty million dollars in cash
laying around that they can put into an escro account.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Yeah, and that's kind of the reason that the rule
is there, is that they want to level the playing
field for the extremely wealthy owners who have that much
cash and could go out and say, well, fully guaranteed
if we can get you, versus the owners who don't
have as much cash and they're not able to do that.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
They want to level the playing field for the season.
Speaker 6 (31:06):
And we think it's an outdated rule. I think the
reason also that and you know, initially it was done.
You know when football, you know first started, the NFL
first started, These teams weren't making the type of money
they're making now, and football and the NFL wasn't as
big of a business as it is now. So those
you know, some they were afraid that teams are going
to guarantee contracts and not have the ability to pay
the players, right, But now obviously that has changed with
(31:26):
what the NFL has become, so every team has the
ability to do it, but the teams have just been
slow to change and not want to change that rule.
The owners don't want to change that rule because they
know once that rule changes that you have to fund
all that money up front, that that's going to lead
to a lot more fully guaranteed contracts. But ir regardless
of that, I think that that contract has helped, you know,
teams now see that they're gonna have to guarantee more money. Yeah,
(31:48):
so as you look at these quarterback deals, maybe one
hundred percent of these deals aren't guaranteed, but now there's
more percentage of these deals guaranteed than ever before, not
only for quarterbacks but even other position guys. Right where
you're seeing a lot more guaranteed coming to players. So
I would say, you know, the way things are trending,
we're going to start seeing fully guaranteed quarterback contracts here,
you know, pretty soon.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Guess a question, Like, so hundred and thirty million dollar
guarantee one hunderson guarantee, they have prinesco if it was
two hundred and twenty nine million guaranteed in one million
not guaranteed?
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Do that have to put any in escrow?
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Yeah? All of it that is fully guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Okay, so there's not the contract doesn't have to be
fully guaranteed. It's just whatever amounts of money is fully guaranteed.
So if there's one hundred and eighty, they put that
in right, right.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Yeah, So if if sixty million of the two thirty
is fully guaranteed and they're going to pay out twenty
of it, now the other forty of that fully guaranteed
amount is going to go in task.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yeah, and the confusion comes.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I was really confused. But the confusion comes from like
a fully guaranteed what does that mean?
Speaker 5 (32:46):
That means you have guaranteed the full sucks.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
So let's kind of take it back where it's like
an NFL there are three different type of guarantees. You
have a skill guarantee, there's an injury guarantee, and a
cap guarantee. So unless you have all three of those guarantees,
the money's not considered fully guaranteed. Right, If you have
a skill guarantee and you get hurt or they need
your cap dollar, they can still cut you, right, So
you'd have to have all three of those guarantees for
a certain dollar Mauth for that to.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
Be considered fully guaranteed.
Speaker 6 (33:10):
So in Deshaun's case, the two hundred and thirty million
dollars was fully guaranteed for skills, fully guaranteed for cap,
and it was fully guaranteed for injury.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
So yeah, yeah, that's interesting because yeah, so that's amazing,
And I think I agree with you, David and agent.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
I think that that deal that you all did. You
were part of that.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Deal, weren't you. Yeah, that's why the first one wasn't
full guarantee because you were. But you know, I think
that deal they did with that kind of guarantee send
a message to the NFL, to other agents, to owners
and players like, hey, you know, baseball is full of guaranteed,
Basketball full of guaranteed. There's not as much a risk
of injury neither one of those sports. Like it's time
to start fully guaranteeing. And you know, one thing, I
(33:50):
think the agent community can work on, hopefully, is changing
the funding rule, because it doesn't it's kind of obsolete
in my mind, you know, I've never had to fund
anything like that, but well you're an allary. Know, it's
I think that's one thing that we can work on
in the future and try to change. Is that something
you guys will focus on.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
Yeah, yeah, and that's a little above our head. Unfortunately,
that's the NFL p a thing. But you know, there's
a certain you know, there are few things that we'd
love to get changed, whether it's the funding rule, whether
it's the franchise tag. You know, there there's you know,
there's a few things that we'd love to get changed.
The fifthyear option for for first round draft picks. So
now there's a list of things that you know, it
was up to us agents that we'd love to get changed.
(34:25):
But again, the PA, there's a lot. You know, it's
a give and take, right. You don't just get to
go to the owners and say hey, we want a
B and C. Right, There's going to be some type
of negotiation. There's going to be trade off. So you know,
obviously every you know, every time there's a new CBA,
you know, we hope to think it's better and better
for the players.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Well, as we learned the last two episodes.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
I mean, if you can go and sign Deshaun Watson
after National Championship and then get the first deal and
get the second deal, you should be able to change
the funny role.
Speaker 5 (34:50):
We're working on it. We're working on it all right.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Well, listen, that's an unbelievable story, one that I really
enjoyed living vicariously through you all, and I think on
behalf of a everywhere and players everywhere. We thank you
guys for that deal. Lessons learned at the end of
this episode, obviously I'll go first. You know, it's an
interesting one, right, but I think my lesson learned it
goes back to aj what we talked about True Bloodsoe
(35:13):
back in the day where you know where he did
that big deal and then he got hurt and then
Tom Brady took over, and just watching the way he
dealt with everything, and that, you know, in our careers
with our players, like it's never going to be just
all roses, never going to be just awesome, right, And
I think as our job, we want to get the
two hundred and thirty million full yearantee contract. But also
(35:33):
our job is to be there during times of adversity,
whether it is an injury, whether it's poor play, whether
it's a tough contract negotiation, whether it's off fielders or
whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
And I think that you know, it's it's really.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
It's really great to have watched you through Deshawn's process
and knowing what a great guy to Shawn is and
being able to overcome the first of his injury the
first year, you know, all the things that happened Houston, whatnot,
and just continuously come out on top, you know, and
have that solidarity with your clients, with athletes first, with
all of our clients, all of our employees. Just watching
(36:06):
everyone work together to get the best result possible, no
matter whether it's Sonny or a ready, you know. And
I think that's somewhere we're blessed to be able to
do that, right, We're blessed to be able to help
these guys through through you know, their their journey, and
then we're blessed to be there when they signed, you know,
arguably the greatest NFL deal of all time. So so
my job is a blessing, I guess is my lesson
because I get to work with you, guys.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
AJ.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
I think my lesson on this one is that going
into any negotiation like you're not going to get something
you don't ask for, right and just because no one
had gotten this fully guaranteed contract before you have to
you have to dream it, you have to believe it.
You have to say like, this is a guy who
I believe in, who deserves this type of contract. And
when you go to the Cleveland Browns and you say like,
this is what I think we need and they do it,
(36:51):
it's something that you're not You're never gonna get unless
you ask for it. So being able to come with
come up with that and think creatively and say like
how am I going to push the boundaries?
Speaker 4 (36:57):
I think is the big lesson in this one.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I think the only way you do that is you
show the team that it works for them, right.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
I mean, Hey, this is this is what we want.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
This is what we deserve, and this is why it
works for you. And you got you guys, you did
pen I mean a phenomenal casebook study ab In that's negotiations.
Speaker 6 (37:12):
But are now I think you guys hit it on
the head. You know, I think as you said when
you're dealing negotiations, obviously you have to you know, you
got to be reasonable, but at the same time, you're
never going to get anything you don't ask for, right
and now things that you asked for, but you should
be able to explain why you think these things are
achievable and kind of to tie what you said in
why it's beneficial for both parties. Right in this situation,
(37:34):
we wanted to fully guaranteed contract, you know, getting a
guy of his caliber at that age that we need
the team, the value another year, fifth year to be
added onto the contract.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
So there's a win win there.
Speaker 6 (37:44):
And anytime you're able to get a win win, and
you know, and it normally works out well.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
David, once again, we thank you.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Is you listen to your stories is mind boggling. We're
going to break you back for a record third podcast episode.
You're going to set a record there as well. And
next episode we're going to bring Cassie Andrew Castle in.
We talked about the last episode and we're going to
talk about your guys' relationship of Jordan Love and uh
the record breaking Deally did for Jordan Love. So look
(38:11):
forward to having you back. Thanks for your time.
Speaker 5 (38:13):
I can't wait
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Brian Murphy
AJ Stevens
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