Russell Okung signs with Broncos ($53m/5yr OR $5m/1yr)

[HawKnPeppa]

I think the FO is aware we need a line.We will be using that awesome spread attack full time now and I have faith in this new year the line will fit in decent with our offense.

Until we face DLs that can easily beat that, which includes all opponents in our div except possibly the 9ers. Yep.

 

[HawKnPeppa]

This looks like a deal negotiated by the player...nothing professional about it.

He signed a 1-year deal with a 4 year option.

No agent would recommend their client take a deal like that at this point in their career.

Guaranteed money is the holy grail, and Okung just signed a deal with very little guaranteed.

The broncos got a great deal in the sense that the only season he's guaranteed to be under contract is 2016, and they can evaluate him better and see if he keeps getting injured.

If okung gets injured again they WILL NOT pick up the option, and now they have a year to work on their contingency plan.

Broncos only made a bad signing if Okung can't even live up to the $8m he'll make this year.

He was going to get a one-year-prove-it deal wherever he went, agent or not. Reason being he is currently recovering from surgery and has had an injury-riddled history.

 

[HawKnPeppa]

I don't think Hsu is saying Seattle had to match.

He's speculating that they didn't even offer this type of structure in the first place, which New England and now Denver have exploited, because we historically haven't tried it yet. If that's true, then whoever we're hiring as "cap specialists" probably need to widen their box.

He stated they couldn't match the prorated portion of the deal in the first year.

As to why PCJS don't sign deals like this, who knows, most of the league doesn't. Option deals aren't something new, Seattle would rather sign straight forward deals for various reasons. Seattle's deals are much more straight forward, because it simplifies cap ramifications. I truly believe the back portion of this deal is more Okung's doing than Elways, because it gives Okung the ability to force the Bronco's hand if he plays well. Seattle, rightful so knowing Okung's history of injury, didn't want to play that game -- which makes complete sense. Why kick the can down the road like that when you know there is a good chance Okung never plays a full season?

How does an option force their hand?

 

[drdiags]

Another way to look at this is Tom Condon. He was an offensive lineman, played with the KC Chiefs I believe. Anyway, I think Okung after his career is over is looking at doing player contracts. Condon has made a pretty penny representing some top-line athletes. Russell's maiden voyage into this doesn't seem like a sparkling success but I wonder if this experience is part of his long term goal?

Maybe he partners up with some current agency when he is done before striking out on his own?

 

[HawkFan72]

I don't think Hsu is saying Seattle had to match.

He's speculating that they didn't even offer this type of structure in the first place, which New England and now Denver have exploited, because we historically haven't tried it yet. If that's true, then whoever we're hiring as "cap specialists" probably need to widen their box.

He stated they couldn't match the prorated portion of the deal in the first year.

As to why PCJS don't sign deals like this, who knows, most of the league doesn't. Option deals aren't something new, Seattle would rather sign straight forward deals for various reasons. Seattle's deals are much more straight forward, because it simplifies cap ramifications. I truly believe the back portion of this deal is more Okung's doing than Elways, because it gives Okung the ability to force the Bronco's hand if he plays well. Seattle, rightful so knowing Okung's history of injury, didn't want to play that game -- which makes complete sense. Why kick the can down the road like that when you know there is a good chance Okung never plays a full season?

How does an option force their hand?

Because the Seahawks often create contracts that have low cap hits in the first year, and they were looking to do that this time. This one year deal with an option meant that they could not structure the contract that way. If Okung hit all his incentives, he would have a $13 million cap hit in year 1, and the Seahawks can't afford that.

 

[HawkGA]

Wait, 13 mil? I thought it only went up to 8 mil? Did I miss something?

 

[bjornanderson21]

It's hard to argue Elway's success in the free agent market.

He landed the biggest free agent of the past 10 years in Peyton Manning. He picked up Ware, Talib, and Sanders on nice deals and won a championship because of it. He refused to be held hostage by Osweiler, who I think may be the most overrated player in the NFL today. He fired John Fox at exactly the right time.

He's easy to hate on for his demeanor, but if you have a track record like his, it's hard to discount anything he does.

Well I know a lot of Denver fans that were ready to run Elway out of town after we destroyed them in the SB. They thought he made a huge mistake with Manning and not spending hardly any draft or FA resources on the defense.

So I guess give Elway credit for spending a bunch of money in free agency on defense modeling the Hawks big corner press cover with elite DE style of defense.

But I've yet to read where he's even in the upper tier of GM's from a creativity or innovation standpoint. In fact IMO he got lucky this year with sneaking into that #1 seed and stopping NE seemingly a dozen times while his terrible offense struggled in both the AFC Championship and SB.

Being creative is not something that a good GM is judged by.

Being successful is how they should be judged.

The most boring way to build a roster is also the best:

Draft well
Don't overpay for players


You do those 2 things for 3 years and ANY team can have a good stretch of playoff seasons. That even includes the Browns.

Making bad picks, or signing the wrong players, or overpaying is going to hurt the team whether they're being creative or not.

Elway has established himself among the top 5 GMs.

 

[HawkFan72]

Wait, 13 mil? I thought it only went up to 8 mil? Did I miss something?

13 is the cap number Hsu threw out yesterday (for if Okung hit all his incentives in year 1). Maybe that number is off now that we know more info, but even if it is $8 million max, that number is way higher than what Seattle would have structured for a year 1 cap hit.

 

[Zorn76]

If this is such a reasonable deal, then why wouldn't Seattle come up with something similar?

I don't think Pete and John really cared too much if he left from the get go, and I'm ok with that.

Okung, IMO, grades out as a C+ LT during his tenure.

I also believe Glowinski will be a significant upgrade over Sweezy, along with our F.O. finding an adequate replacement for R.O. The line needed to be shaken up, and I'm glad it's happening.

 

[Seaswab]

Enough about how smart Russell Okung is.

 

[KitsapGuy]

Russell Okung the agent failed Russell Okung the player, writes Curtis Crabtree of 950-AM KJR:

"So to recap, Okung took a contract with zero guaranteed money, a contract that doesn't even guarantee he makes it to training camp with the Broncos this year, a contract that would pay him just $1 million if he doesn't make the roster at the end of the preseason, and a contract that would potentially leave him earning less-than-market-value over the next five seasons if he plays to a Pro Bowl level.

Okung wanted the chance to represent himself and show that players don't have to rely on an agent if they don't want to. He scheduled visits with several teams - Detroit, Pittsburgh, Denver and the New York Giants - and mulled over the options available to him. But in the end, he signed a poorly structured contract with no guarantees and no control."

John Clayton shared similar thoughts during an interview on 710 ESPN Seattle:

"It's horrible," Clayton said. "It's now starting to be regarded as maybe the worst contract for a sub-30, Pro Bowl-caliber player ever done in free agency."

"In this case it's even worse than we imagined. In some ways you could look at this as a one-year, $3 million contract, or in one way, maybe a one-year, $1 million contract," Clayton said. "What happens if he blows out an Achilles and gets hurt? All the risk went on Russell Okung."

http://espn.go.com/blog/seattle-seahawk ... omas-rawls

 

[Fade]

This contract = The worst of both worlds.

The 1st is obvious, 0 guaranteed money.

The 2nd is if manages to stay healthy, and play well he will be locked in to a 4 yr extension that will pay him under market value. He would of been better off signing a 1 year deal, and re-entering the market next off-season.

Foolish-Pride Russell Okung wanted to show the world he could negotiate contracts with the big boys, he didn't need an agent. He showed them.

 

[morgulon1]

Pretty crazy how the Seahawks haven't been able to develop a single OL worth re-signing in Cable's 5-year tenure.

Saw this one twitter - Crazy if you think about it yet Cable is never the problem. Wilson is young but he is also smaller than most QB's. Seahawks need to start getting serious about investing in Oline before their franchise QB gets seriously injured.

Cable has developed Sweezy, Carpenter, Giacomini, to name a few.

 

[xgeoff]

I predict this is a one and done deal

 

[crosfam]

I predict this is a one and done deal

Me too. I bet we would have given him a one year, five million dollar deal with some potential performance money. And he would not have had to move houses. I say it is 75% that he plays one year and is negotiating again. Even if he plays great. This time with an agent.

 

[rjdriver]

I'm just hoping that there's not a recurring "Why the hell did we not resign Okung for what Denver did" thread throughout the year (when things start to go bad on the left side). Although he is injury prone, it's a great deal on a relatively young ex pro bowl tackle.

 

[kearly]

It also sounds like Osweiler didn't really want to stay in Denver all that much. If I was a GM I wouldn't want to fork over $18m APY to a player who felt indifferent about staying.

For Houston it's a decent move, but for Denver I don't think value was quite as good, and it sounds like Osweiler wasn't all that enthusiastic about staying. Denver also gets a 3rd round comp pick out of it.

I could be wrong, but I think you have the cause and effect backwards. Osweiler wasn't enthused about staying in Denver because Denver wasn't enthused about having him stay. They demonstrated it by not trying to keep him, and not even really wanting to talk about it, until way late in the process. They might have wanted to keep him, but they wanted a discount and I think they were betting they would get it.

Really, it kinda reminds me of the Hutch situation. The feelings of both players were hurt by the perception of being undervalued, and it had the effect of pushing them out the door.

It seems probable that Osweiler would have stayed if Denver had offered the most money. That said, Osweiler did not give Denver a hometown discount, which is evidence that Elway may not totally be full of shit when he says Osweiler didn't want to stay.

And personally, if I was Osweiler I wouldn't want to stay in Denver either. He'd get blamed for Denver's inevitable decline over the next few seasons, and he'd get crucified by Denver fans who are infamous for comparing their present QB to past greats. I wouldn't want to be a QB trying to fill Peyton Manning's and John Elway's shoes with the expectations of that fanbase. It's similar to how in Seattle we always complain how our OL can't live up to Hutch and Walt.

So I buy it, but that's just my subjective opinion. :twocents:

 

[kearly]

This contract = The worst of both worlds.

The 1st is obvious, 0 guaranteed money.

The 2nd is if manages to stay healthy, and play well he will be locked in to a 4 yr extension that will pay him under market value. He would of been better off signing a 1 year deal, and re-entering the market next off-season.

Foolish-Pride Russell Okung wanted to show the world he could negotiate contracts with the big boys, he didn't need an agent. He showed them.

Well said.

In addition to all that, the total lack of guaranteed money puts him in a terrible position if Denver approaches him for a paycut in a future season. Denver could cut him at any time without consequences, which robs Okung of any possible leverage.

 

[Ziggyy108]

Feels like a lot of salt in this thread

 

[Rob12]

Meh, the more I think about Okung the less I'm affected by him taking his game elsewhere, and I am quite a bit worried about our offensive line.

Wrong side of 30, hurt often.

His penalties are not the problem, as many have eluded to here. He's an average LT who's production can probably be replaced in the draft, or by Garry Gilliam.

Moving on from Okung was the right call.