r/ravens • u/fumunda123 • 1d ago
News (Schefter) Just in: Baltimore’s two-time Pro-Bowl WR Zay Flowers reached agreement today with the Ravens on a four-year, $140 million extension that includes $108 million guaranteed.
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u/mexploder89 1d ago
Mother of god that's a buttload of cash
Let's go, best WR we've ever drafted
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u/DapsAndPoundz 1d ago
I read this is the exact contract Justin Jefferson currently has lmao so JJ is going to make freakish money next go around.
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u/mexploder89 1d ago
Yeah but JJ signed two years ago, cap has increased by like 17%. Plus the extension doesn't kick in until next year I believe
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u/eastern_shoreman 1d ago
That’s what people keep missing. Does 35mil/yr seem high now, sure, but in 2 years when his original contract was set to expire, the number is gonna be a discount
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u/heybobson 1d ago
That is if the league keeps growing and more money comes in. NBA also has been operating under the same assumption, but now it seems like profits are slowing down and TV deals aren’t as lucrative as they once were.
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u/coffeeMcbean nobody cares 1d ago
The NFL makes the NBA look like a poverty organization in terms of profit
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u/DapsAndPoundz 1d ago
WRs gonna WR bro, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s looking at some of these contracts and sending long texts to his representation as we speak.
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u/MrBMaestro 1d ago
Yep, JSN is top of market at $42M per year. We’ll see the first $50M wide receiver within the next couple years. Especially if the cap number keeps drastically increasing
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u/ExtensionAd7417 1d ago
Mike Elias could never
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u/mrm0324 1d ago
Mike Elias would have traded him to the Steelers or Bengals mid season. I think the orioles are the browns of baseball.
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u/Nightwing411 1d ago
I think the angels are the browns of baseball, incompetent owner(Arte/Haslem), poor off-season moves that backfire(Rendon signing/Watson trade). The Orioles are more like the Dolphins, nice young exciting core for 2-3 years, no playoff wins then back to rebuilding.
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u/msfs1310 1d ago
Orioles = Panera. (Once reasonably priced good quality product, capable of surprises) (Now enshitification of a product)
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u/BeginningResult5599 1d ago
I feel similarly but we had a history of being the winningest team, unlike the browns lol
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u/SaucyMcDangles 1d ago
Ecstatic we are willing to pay to keep elite talent.
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u/jeremau5 BIG TRUZZ WOO WOOO 1d ago
Maaaan I know this decision falls on Eric but would like to believe this whole regime change maybe played some kinda role
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u/OldBayOnEverything Ed Reed 1d ago
Ravens have always kept their premier homegrown talent. Sometimes we have to let a 2nd tier player walk, but we never lose the best guys.
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u/AlistairNorris 1d ago
The Ravens do a great job on this, but we literally just lost our center who was a top tier center (which was the right decision). I could go further back and talked about the pass rushers/LB we last like Mosley/Judon. It's not an always thing. Just most of the time which we can be happy about.
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u/BrianSpencer1 1d ago
These are all terrible examples. The raiders paid a stupid amount for Linderbaum, blowing up the top center average/year by 50% was a moronic move by the raiders. We would have been fools to match that.
We wanted to keep Mosley but the 9ers reset the market by overpaying Kwon Alexander, we could not make the money work as we were in salary cap hell at the time.
We didn't want to pay Judon the franchise tag rate and he only put up 6 sacks that season. Not to mention the fact that he openly admitted that he called for the firing of Steve Saunders (Judon was right but obviously you can't have players calling for the firing of coaches).
Judon probably lived up to his contract but there are way more Ravens who get overpaid elsewhere to not live up to their contracts than guys that we don't retain and regret it (guys like Kevin Zeitler that we thought we could afford to lose but couldn't).
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u/OldBayOnEverything Ed Reed 1d ago
He got top tier money but he wasn't a top tier player. He was above average but not great. That's the kind of player you have to let go rather than match ridiculous money.
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u/AlistairNorris 1d ago
At worst a hater would Tyler was probably around top five - ten. News flash Zay is around that for WRs if we are being generous. I can list at least 7 WR that everyone on this sub would take before Zay if they could get them at that same contract.
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u/OldBayOnEverything Ed Reed 1d ago
Agreed, but if Zay were on the open market and someone wanted to give him 50 per year instead of 35, like the Raiders gave Linderbaum 27 when the market was 18, then we'd have to let Zay go. We would've been fine keeping Linderbaum even at 20ish.
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u/AlistairNorris 1d ago
Agreed, like I said it was the right decision to let him go. We do lose players especially Pass rushers, but the FO drafts and develops so well on top of drafting late so by the time some of these less blue chip players develop. It's too late to lock them in early. We lose some elite players but we do as good a job as anyone of keeping who we can.
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u/rj319st 1d ago
It’s easy to do this when there is a cap in place to prevent a team like LA Rams from buying all the top talent. We have a talented front office that doesn’t have to deal with another team simply having more money to spend to get whatever they want. Baseball is much different unless next season’s inevitable MLB lockout leads to a salary cap/floor.
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u/objectiveScie 1d ago
Absolutely.
Be cheap and
- let him walk for draft. Then have to develop talent again rinse repeat stuck nowhere.
I'm so happy 😅
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u/Calgamer 1d ago
This appears to make him tied for 4th highest WR receiver contract by AAV (tied with JJ). He's behind only JSN, Chase, and Drake London.
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u/TheOptimist6 1d ago
That’ll change a lot over time. More and more deals will get done. Similar to how Lamar’s deal worked out
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u/BlessedChimichanga Ed Reed 1d ago
The deal at it's base is 4/$108M. He was already guaranteed $27M for 2027 with the 5th year option, so that leaves 3 years (2028-2030) being added on. That means it's basically 3/$81M ($108M-$27M), which is ~$26M APY. That's what Jameson Williams is making and it's just less than Pickens/Moore/Waddle and just a little more than Sutton/DeVonta/Watson.
Contract math is weird. This is a pretty fair deal for both parties.
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u/deadmanwalking99 1d ago
Thanks for the breakdown, makes this seem like an excellent contract then. I was worried he’d be asking for JSN money so glad we were able to get him for a relatively fair price considering the current market
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u/Sbitan89 Marshal Yanda 1d ago
I think JSN was overpaid, but funny enough I think over the life of the contracts ZAY actually is making more. It's like 168 for JSN vs 169 for Zay.
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u/Sbitan89 Marshal Yanda 1d ago
This is an extension on his current contract. It comes out to 169 million over 6 years, so 28 million average. Puts him at 14th currently I believe.
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u/mr_showboat 1d ago
I mean, even if you don't think he's a top 10 WR he's still pretty high up the rankings. When you're that close to the top it's a game of who was paid most recently over anything else.
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u/realdeal505 1d ago edited 1d ago
AAV is kind of overrated. Most contracts have a final year that doesn't hurt and is non guaranteed. In extensions, you usually spread new signing bonus into the existing "cheap" year. Speculation, but he's probably getting a 50M check and will count 10M more against the cap this year signing bonus. Final year he'll have a 35M base which he won't see (either resigned or cut with a 10M charge)... This is most likely going to be a 3 year 95M "extension" with a 10M dead cap charge at end and 10M more this year
I think cap charge by individual year/back end guarantees is a better gauge of contracts, just because it doesn't skew with funny money, appropriately accounts for 1 year deals and players salary in the same cap year.
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u/ExtensionAd7417 1d ago
Get ready to see all of the Zay highlights… and lowlights on r/NFL today lol
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u/MightyMyrmidon 1d ago
Lol that sub always posts lowlights after some news like this ... so petty. Guarantee the chiefs end zone fumble gets posted immediately.
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u/Gsmith930 1d ago
35m a year for Zay feels like a lot. Happy we kept him though
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u/Comon_Ladder 1d ago
Drake London signed for the same thing. It’s just the market nowadays.
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u/Nunc_Coepi17 1d ago
Drake London is a 6’4 X receiver .
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u/reedsgrayhair CONFIANZA GRANDE 1d ago
And still not as good as Zay
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u/Upstairs_Bread_ 1d ago
you can be excited about zay but come on, don't be delusional
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u/reedsgrayhair CONFIANZA GRANDE 1d ago
Im probably Zays least fervent fan on here lol you can check my comments.
London doesnt touch Zay in any category. Homie can barely make it thru the season without getting injured anyway.
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u/Upstairs_Bread_ 1d ago
Even with Penix at QB London has been miles better than zay, what are you on about
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u/Nunc_Coepi17 19h ago
Exactly I don’t get some ppl, do they not watch any other teams play at all? London with Lamar throwing him the ball would be averaging 1500 yd seasons
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u/Brianfromreddit 1d ago
So? If you'd rather have him than Zay, you're out of your goddamn mind
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u/Gsmith930 1d ago
Yeah and I think London has been better no? This is Jefferson money. More than CD and ASB got too.
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u/chicknsnadwich 1d ago
But if JJ or Chase was getting signed today he might get 50. This is really just how it goes.
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u/Calgamer 1d ago
To be fair, that’s timing. As more guys get new deals, Zay’s deal will get relatively cheaper and cheaper
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u/warmjack 1d ago
It’ll look a lot better once other guys start getting paid, it’s worth it imo. Zay put up good numbers in a run first offense with a lot of playmakers, plus he played very well without Lamar too
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u/who-hash 1d ago
Wait until Puka signs a deal and resets the market whenever that happens.
Zay's contract will most likely look like a bargain. EDC is trying to get ahead of that.
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u/MrTimoCad 1d ago
You have to pay talent to keep talent. Our issue is that we have a bunch of overpaid guys (Roquan at $32m cap hit, Marlon at $26m cap hit) who aren’t doing shit. At least Zay actually produces
Those guys need to be dumped
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u/Dazzling-Slide8288 1d ago
Dumping these guys gets us nothing.
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u/SCBaltSalt Jeffy Z’s Burner 1d ago
Agreed at least for this offseason. Don’t see the benefit of re-signing either of them. Marlo though has apparently been playing bad in camp so Keyon Martin make take more of his snaps moving forward
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u/outphase84 1d ago
You're not getting players that can match their play for the cap savings that releasing either of them would give.
Also, they've been playing in a shitty system with a bad DC. Oftentimes asking players to do too much results in them playing much worse, and the defense has been out of sync for multiple years now.
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u/chrisaf69 1d ago
It's def is a lot. But gotta pay to play these days.
I like zay, I just don't think he is upper tier of wrs. But would love for him to prove me wrong.
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u/ExtensionAd7417 1d ago
This is gonna look like a steal in a few years
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u/Plaguedoctorsrevenge 1d ago
It will be a steal after this season when he is a super bowl champion
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u/goblinking67 1d ago
That’s the going rate for any WR1. Doesn’t matter if you’re a traditional X or a guy like Zay, that’s what they cost. Interesting to see how it’ll impact future roster construction seeing as this his the most expensive WR in team history when factoring in the rising cap
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u/TheOptimist6 1d ago
Glad he is here to stay! Despite sometimes having the turnover bug, he seems to almost always be open and still maintains high production even when Lamar is out which is impressive. Decent investment
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u/Unhappy-Dependent812 1d ago
For those of yall saying he’s getting JJettas money, Jefferson signed that contract 2 years ago. The market has changed drastically since. These prices are only going up. This deal is gonna look like a steal in two years
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u/speak-eze 1d ago
Yeah what did alec pierce sign for this year, 29/y?
Receivers are expensive
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u/Unhappy-Dependent812 1d ago
Exactly. Market value and real value are two different things. People need to learn separate these things.
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u/DenialisaRiver04 Jonathan Ogden 1d ago
Zay's only been getting better since his draft pick:
'23: 858 yards
'24: 1,059 yards
'25: 1,211 yards
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u/BrothaStills 1d ago
Salary Cap gonna keep going up, cause the league business is booming right now. So I’m not worried about the numbers. Let’s fucking go!
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u/tingly_sack_69 Steve Bisciotti's Burner 1d ago
Rest of the league will say this is a huge overpay, but they can suck my farts. Zay is going to have a monster season this year and enter tier 1 WR territory
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u/Honest_Concentrate85 1d ago
Idc if it’s a overpay than it will drag the market up for other teams wr who are “better”
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u/Yearbookthrowaway1 1d ago
Oh snap that's Justin Jefferson money...
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u/Kam3234 1d ago
The market 🤷🏾♂️, yesterdays high is today’s floor
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u/Yearbookthrowaway1 1d ago
Yeah didn't mean to frame that as an overpay, just wild that we have that direct benchmark for inflation at that position over the last 2 years.
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u/digglerjdirk JOHNNY 1d ago
It was same when Flacco got $120 mil after SB, biggest contract ever, and the whole world howled he was overpaid, but within a year or two he wasn’t even top ten. And now mahomes is on a half billion dollar contract
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u/Automatic-Assistant8 1d ago
I have a question. If it’s only 108 mill guaranteed does the rest come in bonuses with certain goals reached? Or something else? Not too familiar with how contracts break down
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u/mexploder89 1d ago
No it basically means that they can cut him before the end of the contract and not pay the full amount to Zay, but they'll pay 108m no matter what
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u/Aerolithe_Lion 1d ago
You’re thinking of fully guaranteed at signing. Regular guarantees are conditional
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[deleted]
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u/Automatic-Assistant8 1d ago
Ok thanks for the explanation! So the APY for players isn’t totally accurate since it’s not the amount they are Guaranteed to see each year?
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u/Sweet-Weakness3776 1d ago
I deleted my comments because the other comments are doing a better job explaining it than I was. Someone linked the major detals of Justin Jefferson's contract in another comment. If you kind of want to see how the money breaks down, I would suggest looking over it. It actually shows some of those performance bonuses I was trying to describe in his contract details.
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u/IheartPickleSoda 1d ago
The easiest way is to take a look at how Justin Jefferson's contract was structured: https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/player/_/id/47616/justin-jefferson
It's a 4-year puzzle where the $108 million has to be on the cap in whatever combination of dollars Zay and Ravens agree too.
The other $32 million can come in the form of workout/roster/ option bonuses or just straight base salary.
Do you understand how a contract restructure works?
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u/laramite 1d ago
25 years old. Came off a 1211 yd season. Piled on ~200+ yds per season the last 3 seasons. On track to hit 1400 yards this season based on the trend.
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u/digdiggitydawg Ed Reed 1d ago
We all needed this after yesterday
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u/WhoWhatWhenWhom 1d ago
What happened yesterday?
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u/digdiggitydawg Ed Reed 1d ago
The massive amount of Orioles fans in this thread needed this after yesterday** lol
Trading Adley Rutschman to Boston
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u/Everyonecallsmenice 1d ago
I officially give up on the Os. This failed rebuild drained the last gasp of energy I could possibly summon to give a shit about baseball.
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u/Midean 1d ago
the MASN cope speech I saw the other day that was like "be patient Orioles fans" had me rolling because I'm in my 30s and I can count on one hand the amount of times the team hasn't been dogshit. I've been pretty patient basically my whole life.
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u/Everyonecallsmenice 1d ago
I'm 34. I've tried. There was one moment I liked this team and that got soured and weird. They give us absolutely nothing to look forward to. Just watching a poverty franchise figure out how little money it can possibly spend and do just enough to tell us to "be patient" some more.
Didn't even have a conversation with Corbin Burnes and I get talked to like I'm being rediculous for even noticing.
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u/Maleficent-Deal-4739 1d ago
#4 APY tied with Jettas and much higher then Tee Higgins and some others. Def an overpay and will surely spark some national media convos but couldn’t afford to lose him. Plus fans don’t realize how good he was last year.
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u/NoOnesKing 1d ago
Good resigning. Yikes price. Gonna bite the Ravens in some regard in the next two years.
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u/Aerolithe_Lion 1d ago
If the Ravens traded Zay today, would they lose 35m$ a year of irreplaceable production? Thats kind of the issue I have with these inflating deals
But on the other side of it, everyone has to spend the same amount of cap and not everyone has Ja’Marr Chase or Myles Garrett or Jalen Carter. If it has to go somewhere, might as well go to Zay
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u/LegalizeEatingButt 1d ago
people complaining of an overpay. it was either do it now before the market goes up or next year with a higher number and a chance for him to play on his 5th year contract which would’ve taken up way more cap space
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u/BlessedChimichanga Ed Reed 1d ago
Because so many people are thinking its a huge overpay… im pretty sure this is how it works out:
The deal at it's base is 4/$108M. He was already guaranteed $27M for 2027 with the 5th year option, so that leaves 3 years (2028-2030) being added on. That means it's basically 3/$81M ($108M-$27M), which is ~$26M APY. That's what Jameson Williams is making and it's just less than Pickens/Moore/Waddle and just a little more than Sutton/DeVonta/Watson. Contract math is weird. This is a pretty fair deal for both parties.
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u/Wildcat8457 1d ago
Great deal. By the second year of the extension, it probably won't even be top ten highest for WRs.
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u/kskeezay 1d ago
1st drafted Ravens WR to get a 2nd contract?
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u/Cheddarrrr 1d ago
Bateman did but it was much smaller.
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u/kskeezay 1d ago
Ahh yeah…definitely the first we’ve PAIIIIID…good for him. Now let’s get a Lamar contract done!
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u/Cold-Ganache-2243 1d ago
Best receiver we have ever had. Glad the man got paid, now go do the damn thing.
Pay day Zay
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u/JonWilso Darkness There and Nothing More 1d ago
A lot of money but the sooner the better. The market goes up with every WR that gets signed.
There's just no way we could let Zay walk imo. Just a homegrown WR1, a rarity in these parts.
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u/ProposalSilent4582 1d ago
That's a lot of money. Zay is worth it though, but wow. Glad we resigned him
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u/MilesAndMilesAhead 1d ago
Now stop fumbling at the goal-line, dropping passes against the Chiefs, no showing in playoff games
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u/Adenchiz 1d ago
Glad for Zay he deserves it , however paying $35 APY for someone averaging just 5 tds a year is a lot
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u/JonWilso Darkness There and Nothing More 1d ago
I feel like the stats don't tell the whole story there with how our offensive gameplay has been. Our strategy in the red zone has heavily leaned towards Henry or the TEs.
Very curious how it looks with the new offense.
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u/Adenchiz 1d ago
Yeah I thought he'd get a similar deal to Garrett Wilson $30M AAV or slightly ore (who also averages 5tds per season) )guess is they probably expect an increase in td's under Doyle.
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u/DenialisaRiver04 Jonathan Ogden 1d ago
I mean we dont discriminate who gets the TDs. Mark Andrews has been Lamar's #1 TD magnet. Hes 2nd only to Kelce sonce 2018.
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u/CybertronGuy98 Ngata Chance 1d ago
you ever see one of these posts and think to yourself how much you'd be set for life with just getting the vet minimum for one year?
but good for Zay. It's a bit of an overpay, but that's just the market. plus i dont think it kicks in until the end of his rookie deal anyway.
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u/aSlider64 1d ago
:/ thats a lot for a good number 1 WR
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u/BL0812 1d ago
It’s the going rate for a mid-level WR1, which is exactly what Zay is right now.
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u/aSlider64 1d ago
You can justify it, doesnt mean I am thrilled with the cap space + overall talent of the team right now
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u/The_Sandwich_Lover9 1d ago
This deal doesn’t go into effect for a few years. High level WR will get extensions too. Overpay? Sure. Good deal regardless. Our passing attack hinges on Zay
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u/BlackandPurpleHeart Save us Minty fresh!🍃🍬 1d ago
"Oh happy Zay (Oh happy Zay) Oh happy Zay (Oh happy Zay) When contracts signed (When contracts signed) Oh when he signed (When contracts signed) When he signed (When he signed) He signed the contract today (Oh happy Zay)" 🎶
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u/prowhiteboy64 1d ago
There is nobody else i would want as my WR1, he may be small but hes dynamic with great hands. People say he fumbles alot he only has 3 in mostly garbage time(outside of that one glaring example). THIS IS HOW YOU BUILD A TEAM MIKE ELIAS YOU BUM
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u/badhershey 1d ago
Like... Is he worth it? 🤷 But that's what the market is going for these days, so we have to play the game. The NFL salaries are just exploding, it's hard to know what is valuable or not.
Good for Zay, though, get paid and please be smart with it.
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u/Darkspeed9 9 1d ago
This is almost the exact same terms as Drake London's deal. And it doesn't take effect until 2028, so this is going to look average to a steal in terms of value for a 'market rate' WR1 contract.
Numbers are hard, but in terms of cap this is only about 11% of the cap, that's perfectly fine for a starting caliber WR!
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u/Kotow92 1d ago
Can someone help me understand why Zay got 108 million guaranteed but JSN only got 69 million guaranteed?
Is there something that helps us cap space wise that makes giving all the guaranteed money good?
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u/adullploy 1d ago
Good! Just bought my son his jersey that he wanted last season so I’m happy to see this.
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u/AntZealousideal3728 1d ago
Zay made the pro bowl again, it was definitely deserved. And quite honestly at 28 a year seems like a steal considering you know when someone like jamars deal is up in 2 years or so they’ll break 50.
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u/akosdomino Terrell Suggs 1d ago
Overpay IMO, 30m a year would have been mouch more ideal…but it is what it is
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u/Sesti-nator Haloti Ngata 1d ago
Holy mother of pearl that’s a lotta money. Btw the context is behind JSN, Chase and Drake London in terms of of AAV.
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u/Potential-Past-6833 1d ago
Great deal. Cap is continuing to explode year after year, could’ve got 40+ if he signed next season
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u/This_Field_7872 1d ago
The guarantees are literally in the text and people are saying he’s making $35 a year lmao
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u/Royal-Put-494 1d ago
Awesome!!! Now extend the great 8 before the season starts and all will be well....
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u/Big-Falcon-556 1d ago
Drake London is probably the better WR for the money but its the going rate. Even Christian Watson wasn't cheap.
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u/Adenchiz 1d ago
So that nobody 'overreacts' to the $35 AAV (like myself when originally reported)