Before the Dallas Cowboys and CeeDee Lamb agreed to a lavish four-year, $136 million contract extension on Monday, there was a lot of excitement and some consternation about the exploding wide receiver market – including the direct connection between the Detroit Lions’ Amon-Ra St. Brown deal and the Minnesota Vikings’ Justin Jefferson contract.
You could hardly go anywhere during the past four weeks of NFL training camp without hearing some opinion on the skyrocketing salaries for wide receivers this offseason. Everyone has an explanation for how the league got to the point where an average of $25-35 million per year is the new deal for good to very good wideouts. Some see this as a natural rotation toward what matters most in the league (emphasizing quarterback value). Others point to a wave of general managers, coaches and team owners who no longer care about the decades-old “Rule of Four” that has historically ensured that good to very good quarterbacks, elite offensive tackles, DPOY-caliber edge rushers or “traveling” cornerbacks received exorbitant salaries.
Before Lamb’s contract extension on Monday, three deals were mentioned most frequently in conversations about wideout money. Two of them were often referred to as the “starter” deals of Tyreek Hill (after he was traded to the Miami Dolphins) and Davante Adams (after he was traded to the Las Vegas Raiders). The third was the Detroit Lions’ contract extension for wideout Amon-Ra St. Brown, which many clubs viewed as one that will change the dynamic for everyone involved.
Although St. Brown is a first-team All-Pro selection in 2023, several teams view him as a very good but not exceptional player who ultimately received elite money due to unexpected upside. In particular, some teams believe that the reason St. Brown received elite money without lengthy negotiations was because the owners wanted the contract extension in Detroit before the NFL Draft last April (Brown’s contract extension was announced shortly before that event). In some corners of the NFL, that perception actually exists.
Whatever the factors, the general consensus is that Hill and Adams opened a door to big money for the No. 1 wide receiver. After that, St. Brown raised the second floor while Jefferson raised the first ceiling. These factors have impacted the sluggish negotiations with Brandon Aiyuk and Ja’Marr Chase in different ways, not to mention a host of future receiver deals looming on the horizon.
Aiyuk’s deal was definitely complicated by the St. Brown deal, while I think the Cowboys were shocked by the Jefferson deal and its impact on their pre-deal talks with Lamb.
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As for Chase, I think the Cincinnati Bengals are struggling to make Chase the highest-paid non-quarterback in the NFL, even though several teams believe that’s what’s needed to get this contract extension done. As one general manager put it, “We’re at a point where every single good receiver now starts at 25 (million) and the best ones are heading toward 40 (million). You can make these deals, but you lose one or two other starters in the process. It’s not a 1-for-1 trade-off. Sometimes it’s a 2-for-1 trade-off. So you have to ask yourself: Do I want this receiver, or do I want to keep these other two starters and try to find a younger and cheaper receiver in the draft or through a trade?”
One head coach grumbled, “If you’re paying (a receiver) $30 to $35 million a season, he better not be able to stay afloat.”
I don’t know when, but I think this will ultimately lead to an extremely active — and extremely polarized — approach to retaining wideouts. There are so many receivers coming into the league seemingly in every draft that it feels like teams are leaning toward pushing more of them later into their rookie contracts, then either franchise tagging them or trading them before a huge contract extension becomes necessary. It will be interesting to watch what happens when a wideout gets a huge contract extension and then doesn’t remotely live up to it. That’s the kind of pressure point that contributes to coaches and general managers getting fired.
