Tyler Linderbaum’s massive contract to have far-reaching impact on NFL player salaries

 

Charles Robinson | Senior reporter

Thu, April 16, 2026 at 8:00 PM EDT

The $81 Million Player Who Shattered the NFL’s Salary Scale

 

Center Tyler Linderbaum transformed the economics of his position by landing a deal worth 50% more a year than any of his peers

 

By Andrew Beaton

March 10, 2026 9:00 am ET

The Raiders signed center Tyler Linderbaum to a 3-year, $81 million deal. Terrance Williams/Associated Press

 

Tyler Linderbaum had every attribute he needed to set off a bidding war when NFL free agency kicked off on Monday. 

Over four seasons with the Baltimore Ravens, he had clearly established himself among the best centers in the league. At 25 years old, he was also in the prime of his career. Even better, he was the only offensive lineman of his caliber on the market.

The only factor standing between him and breaking the bank was a general view that centers weren’t as valuable as other positions. Which is what made the deal Linderbaum received even more stunning. 

On Monday, Linderbaum agreed to a three-year, $81 million contract with the Las Vegas Raiders that not only made the highest-paid player at his position—it completely warped the NFL’s salary scale. The previous top deal for a center, the Kansas City Chiefs’ Creed Humphrey, was for $18 million a year. At $27 million annually, Linderbaum raised the bar by 50%. 

Under normal circumstances, those records move in small increments, not gigantic leaps. But Linderbaum had a perfect storm on his side to supercharge his market. Players so young and so talented don’t become free agents all that often. And with the NFL salary cap now over $300 million, teams had plenty of money to spend—without many other top-shelf players to lavish it on. 

As it turns out, the team with the most money at its disposal was the one that landed him. The Raiders had over $100 million in room beneath the salary cap—along with a need to protect their most important asset. In next month’s NFL draft, they have the No. 1 draft pick, which they’re all but certain to use on Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza.  

At 25, Linderbaum is in the prime of his career. Timothy T Ludwig/Getty Images

 

So the Raiders didn’t think twice about splurging on the guy who will snap him the ball. As general manager Jon Spytek recently explained, bringing in a young quarterback means a need to keep him upright. 

“You want to limit the amount of pressure you have on that guy,” Spytek said. “A great offensive line, a run game, all the things that can limit his chances to really get killed.”

To understand how NFL teams value their rosters, you only need to glance at which positions draw the most cash. Quarterbacks are at the top, with 11 passers now having received deals worth more than $50 million a year. 

After that, the top pass rushers and wide receivers tend to have the most earning power. Centers only begin to appear near the bottom of the scale. Even compared to other offensive linemen, they tend to be cheap. The highest-paid tackle last year made $30.1 million, or 67% more than the Chiefs’ Humphrey. The top guard was also significantly higher at $24 million a year. 

That made centers a potential inefficiency in the market. The league is flush with strong pass rushers who come through the middle. And as modern defenses do more to disguise their coverages and blitzes, centers have an even bigger job as the brains of the offensive line. 

It’s no wonder that some of the savviest teams in the league understood it was worth shelling out for a good one. Before Linderbaum, the two centers who earned the most belonged to the Chiefs and Eagles—who have three of the past four Super Bowls between them. 

Linderbaum capitalized on all of that during free agency’s soft opening, which featured the typical frenzy of agreements that can be officially signed on Wednesday. On a day that saw the Chiefs sign Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker from the Seahawks and linebacker Jaelan Phillips land a four-year, $120 million deal with the Panthers, Linderbaum was the one who transformed the economics of his position.

Linderbaum was a first-round selection of the Ravens in 2022. Julio Cortez/Associated Press

 

The odd twist is that the Ravens could have kept Linderbaum, one of their first-round draft picks in 2022, for far less. Last year, they had an option to keep him for an additional season, but it would’ve cost $23.4 million, which was $5 million more than the top of the center market. They deemed that too much and instead sought to work out a deal that they felt was more reasonable. 

“It is our intention for him to remain a Baltimore Raven long term,” general manager Eric DeCosta said at the time. 

What the Ravens didn’t count on was another team straying so far positional norms. But coming off a three-win season, the Raiders weren’t afraid to go to extreme lengths to rebuild their franchise.

“We’ve got a lot of needs to address,” Spytek said recently, “and we’ve got a lot of capital to do it.”

Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the March 11, 2026, print edition as 'The $81 Million Center Who Shattered NFL’s Salary Scale'.

2026 NFL free agency awards: Best, worst, surprising moves

  

Ben Solak

Mar 11, 2026, 06:30 AM ET

 

And just like that, NFL free agency is over!

 

Well, not really. It actually starts on Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET -- but as ESPN's Adam Schefter rightfully bemoaned earlier this week, let's just start calling the legal negotiation period (which began Monday) the real opening of free agency. Almost all of the significant dust has settled on major movers and new deals.

 

I like to hand out awards after the early parts of every free agent period. These aren't awards for biggest winners (your favorite team, surely) and biggest losers (the team that stole your favorite free agent targets, surely). My colleague Bill Barnwell hit all those on Tuesday. This is for the sillier stuff. The Market Buster Award. The Friendship Award. The Arch Manning Seat Warmer Award.

 

Intrigued? I sure hope so.

The Market Buster Award: Tyler Linderbaum

 

Yes, $27 million per year. 27! Twenty. Seven.

 

When the Raiders signed Linderbaum to a three-year, $81 million deal Monday, they reset the center market in a way that markets simply don't get reset in the NFL. The then-biggest deal at center was Creed Humphrey's deal at $18 million per year. Linderbaum's $27 million per year represents a 50% increase at the top. Unfathomable.

 

Here's a current look at the biggest contract at every position in the NFL by APY and what a new contract would have to hit in order to create a proportional increase to the "Linderbaum Leap" (copyright Ben Solak 2026, nobody else is allowed to use that without my written consent).

 

The 'Linderbaum Leap' at every position

 

 

Think about this: A team would have to pay an edge rusher $70 million or a running back over $30 million or a defensive tackle almost $50 million to get a proportionate jump. I only included kicker at the bottom because it might actually happen this year; Brandon Aubrey's negotiations with the Cowboys could get him around $10 million per year, which would be a 50% increase over Ka'imi Fairbairn's newly minted $6.5 million-per-year deal.

 

It's very easy to look at the Raiders, who entered the period with over $100 million in cap space, and shrug at the Linderbaum deal. Why not sign him for whatever exorbitant figure ensured he took his services to Las Vegas and nowhere else? (This, of course, was a much easier argument to make before Maxx Crosby's $30 million cap hit was suddenly catapulted back onto the Raiders' cap when the Ravens failed his physical and backed out of the trade. But it's the best Las Vegas knew at the time!)

 

This perspective is fine, but it doesn't change the fact that $27 million is an enormous number. Linderbaum is the sixth-highest-paid offensive lineman in all of football on this deal -- below only four left tackles and one right tackle. We've simply never seen an interior offensive lineman valued like this.

 

It's interesting to try to figure out when Linderbaum's deal will get beat. The league's best centers on rookie contracts are Zach Frazier (Pittsburgh) and Graham Barton (Buccaneers). Both were drafted in 2024 and are extension eligible after the upcoming season. Barton has a fifth-year option of team control; Frazier will be a free agent in 2028. We'll know how the Linderbaum deal has fallen for the Raiders by then, but if it goes well, more teams might be willing to pay their centers more than their guards -- and close to their tackles.

 

It's a trend to watch. But who knows what's really going to happen. We're in uncharted waters here -- $27 million worth of uncharted waters.

Kirk Ferentz one win away from passing Woody Hayes as Big Ten's winningest coach

 

by: Brett McMurphy

September 3, 2025

Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Imagn Images.

 

LAS VEGAS – The (soon-to-be) winningest coach in Big Ten history starts laughing when reminded of how his Iowa career began. Kirk Ferentz lost 18 of his first 20 games – and admits he was fortunate he didn’t start 0-20.

Now, 27 years and 329 games later, Ferentz is one win shy of passing Woody Hayes as the Big Ten’s winningest coach. That will come either Saturday at rival Iowa State or the following week at home vs. UMass.

“I go back, like, ‘how the hell did this happen?’” Ferentz told On3 this summer.

A funny thing about Ferentz’s success is that he never really wanted to be a head coach. 

A former assistant at Iowa under Hayden Fry, Ferentz served as an offensive line coach for six seasons with the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens from 1993 to 1998. During that time, he paid attention to Iowa, Barry Alvarez at Wisconsin and Bill Snyder at Kansas State.

“In college, there was a better opportunity for family stability than in the NFL,” Ferentz said. “I really enjoyed coaching in the NFL, but I told my wife (Mary) early in our time in Cleveland that odds were we would be moving every 3-5 years.”

In 1999, Ferentz left the NFL when he was hired at Iowa. “I wanted to be successful, but if it didn’t work out, it wasn’t going to end my life,” Ferentz said. “I was perfectly happy going back (to the NFL) as a position coach.

“I know some guys have ‘got’ to be a head coach. I never wanted to be one, quite frankly.”

His success drew a lot of suitors. Ferentz had several opportunities to leave Iowa, but never did.

In the early 2000s, Ferentz jokes he “was the sexy guy in the room back then.” His agent, Neil Cornrich, approached him about a substantial NFL offer.

“Neil told me, you have to explain to your oldest son Brian, that this is ‘generational money.’ He’ll never have to work if you take this job,” Ferentz said. “My wife tells Brian (then an Iowa offensive lineman) that, and he looks at her and says, ‘I never asked to be taken care of.’

“That was a great parent moment. Like, you know, the kid’s thinking right.”

Ferentz recalls another NFL job he turned down. 

“I didn’t want to entertain it, and it was with a good owner, too,” he said. “A different college coach took the job, and I think it’s funny because that guy has no idea I was the first choice.”

Ferentz won’t name the many NFL teams and college programs that were “quote-unquote better jobs” that tried to hire him away from Iowa. Those so-called higher-paying jobs where donors would sabotage the athletic director or set up clandestine meetings with a prospective coach.

“I don’t want to swim in those waters,” Ferentz said. “At least I don’t have to worry about that shit. They love you when they love you, but they can cut and run pretty quick too. So I just never want to get involved in that.”

Ferentz has had a remarkable run with the Hawkeyes. He’s had only one losing season in the last 24 years. He’s been named Big Ten Coach of the Year four times, won two Big Ten titles and led the Hawkeyes to two BCS/New Year’s 6 bowls.

He’s 205-124. He’s won games in every way imaginable. There was the 6-4 victory – yes 6-4 – vs. Penn State in 2004 and then the infamous 7-3 victory vs. South Dakota State in 2022.

Iowa’s seven points? The Hawkeyes had two safeties and a field goal. Iowa is not always locked in a defensive tug-of-war. The Hawkeyes have scored half a hundred 14 times under Ferentz, the only Division I head coach to coach three sons (Brian, James, and Steve) at the same college. 

On Aug. 1, Ferentz turned 70. His playing career ended after three seasons as a hard-hitting linebacker at UConn in 1976. He’s been coaching ever since. Remarkably, Ferentz has been coaching longer than 59 current FBS coaches have been alive. 

Ferentz knows he can’t coach forever. He believes when he’s ready to step down, “it’s probably going to be pretty obvious to me. Otherwise, I’m cheating the kids, and I’m not going to do that. Or someone else is going to tell me to sit down.

“There’s no perfect jobs and every job has something you don’t like: speaking publicly or whatever it may be, making those appearances. But you do those things to do what you really love doing and that’s coaching. So if it gets to the point where I just start thinking ‘Hey, this stuff outweighs the good,’ then that’s the time to walk away too.”

When that does happen, Ferentz said he will not be involved in finding his replacement.

“Whenever I step down, I just hope somebody in the (Iowa) family is allowed to elevate,” Ferentz said. “We have a handful of guys in the building that are really good. That’s not going to be my decision about that. They didn’t ask me, and I don’t want them to ask me. It’s not my call to make, other than I can endorse a lot of people that we have. I hope they get that chance.”

Despite Ferentz’s slow start to his career, he also got that chance. What a magical run it’s been.

https://www.on3.com/news/kirk-ferentz-one-win-away-from-passing-woody-hayes-as-big-tens-winningest-coach/

 

College coaches’ million-dollar buyouts: Revealing the unparalleled power shift in sports’ lucrative realm

 

By Michael Calabrese Stacker | Updated September 13, 2023 1:01 PM

Roughly half of all U.S. employers utilize non-competes in their contracts, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute in 2019. These companies want to exert a level of control over their employees, preventing them from "sharing confidential information or trade secrets." But another major benefit for companies is that non-competes limit employee bargaining power and suppress wages. The New York Times estimated that non-competes "suppress American workers' income by roughly 3 percent to 4 percent, or $250 billion to $296 billion."

It's rare for talent to turn the tables on employers, but in college football and college sports in general, that is precisely what has happened for coaches. OLBG explores how lucrative buyout agreements have granted coaches near-uncancellable contracts and reshaped the landscape of college sports. In the past twenty years, more and more men's college basketball and college football coaches have successfully negotiated multimillion-dollar buyouts in their contracts. Notre Dame's Charlie Weis was paid "to go away," after an unsuccessful tenure in South Bend, Indiana, 15 years ago. He was paid just shy of $19 million between 2009, when he was fired, and 2017. While his buyout made waves in 2009, it's considered buy-out pocket change for universities in 2023.

So which coaches are virtually "unfireable" today due to their buy-out clauses? Let's look at what coaches would make if they were fired today.

Two quick notes: This assumes no one on our list is fired for cause. That could get a college or university off the hook, monetarily speaking. And the second note is that this list comprises coaches from public universities only. Their contracts are publicly available, while private institutions are under no obligation to share contractual information. USC's Lincoln Riley may well have a buyout of over $90 million based on his current compensation that has been made public, but we do not have access to his buyout stipulation.

1. Kirby Smart, Georgia, Head Football Coach ($103.1 million buyout)

You can't buy the kind of job security that Kirby Smart has right now in Athens, Georgia. Smart has led the Bulldogs to back-to-back national championships. As a reward, his ten-year $112.5 million deal is fully guaranteed through 2026. His deal drops from 100% guaranteed to 85% on Jan. 1st, 2027, and would be paid out at that level through the end of the contract. Luckily, the UGA athletic department won't have to entertain the thought of firing their legendary head coach. The same can't be said for other employers on this list with massive contracts hanging like albatrosses around their necks.

2. Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M, Head Football Coach ($86.7 million buyout)

The Aggies take their football seriously, so it is no surprise that they pay their head football coach handsomely. Fisher's most recent extension agreed to pay him $94.95 million over a ten-year period starting in 2022. It made sense when the Texas A&M Board of Regents voted to extend Fisher. He was coming off a 9-1 season with an Orange Bowl victory. But since then, Fisher and the Aggies are 13-11 with a losing record (6-10) in SEC play. Last fall's 5-7 mark would have gotten a lot of coaches fired, but not Fisher. His massive buyout ($86m) prevented an ouster at the time. While it has come down by another $9 million, it remains astronomical and would be the largest ever paid if A&M gave Fisher the boot following the season.

3. Mel Tucker, Michigan State, Head Football Coach ($86.6 million buyout)

Tucker's contract is fully guaranteed, according to documentation obtained by Boardroom.TV. Tucker's agent, Neil Cornrich, deserves a raise. Despite an 18-14 overall record, which includes two losing seasons in East Lansing, Tucker is entrenched as one of the sport's highest-paid coaches. He has a losing record in the Big Ten since taking over the Michigan State program, but if the school wants to move on from him, they'd have to pay his enormous buyout. Neil Cornrich 1, Michigan State 0.

***

This story was produced by OLBG and reviewed and distributed by Stacker Media.

© Stacker Media, LLC.

This story was originally published September 13, 2023, 7:30 AM.

Peeling Back the Curtain

 

PEELING BACK THE CURTAIN

 Some billion-dollar franchises are still getting away with penny-pinching measures; NFLPA team report cards aim to expose them

 

BY MIKE BEACOM

Photo by Kirby Lee – USA Today Sports

 

Vince Lombardi will forever be credited for popularizing “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,” even though Lombardi felt his words were taken out of context. The Packers’ legendary head coach of the 1960s clarified sometime later that he had meant to emphasize “the will to win.” Regardless, the overall message remained the same: winning ranks above all else.

But does it still?

This offseason, the Washington Commanders were expected to sell for a record $6.05 billion. The club has not won a Super Bowl since the 1991 season and has claimed only three playoff victories in the 31 NFL seasons since (its most recent in January 2006).

The NFL is a brand — a very lucrative brand — whose teams sell tickets, merchandise and sponsorships, regardless of success on the field. When it comes to the business of pro football in 2023, winning isn’t the only thing; it may not even be the most important thing.

But one thing that did cast initial doubt for the Washington sale was the toxic culture that had been portrayed by media and former players. Turning a losing franchise into a winner can happen in a few seasons with the right changes and a little luck. But turning around a toxic workplace? It’s something NFL franchises have largely neglected up to now.

This offseason, the NFL Players Association released team report cards to assess how well franchises are being run off the field. It was a bold move — one that’s been in the works for some time — and it exposed where teams invest back into the workplace to benefit “the product” that is largely responsible for ever-growing franchise valuations.

Wrote NFLPA President JC Tretter in March to accompany the report: “ ... for the first time, we are peeling back the curtain on issues that we talk about among ourselves as players but have been unable to organize and publish in a centralized way.”

 

SO WHAT’S BEHIND THE CURTAIN?

The more than 1,300 players surveyed were asked to critique their team’s performance in eight categories: treatment of families, nutrition, weight room, strength staff, training room, training staff, locker room and team travel. Players scored each category on a 1-5 scale and were encouraged to provide comments, where applicable. The only team to receive an A rating in all eight categories was Minnesota. Miami received A grades in seven of eight.

There was little correlation between overall team scores and recent on-field success. In fact, the top five-rated teams (Minnesota, Miami, Las Vegas, Houston and Dallas) were a combined 43-41-1 last season, with only the Cowboys winning a playoff game. The Texans’ 3-13-1 record brought the numbers down and the other four teams were a combined 40-28. Here’s a snapshot of some of the feedback collected from players surveyed for the report:

 

• Because the Jaguars do not offer a family

room, players’ wives have breast-fed their

babies on the floor of the stadium’s public

restrooms.

 

• If Cardinals players would like dinner,

staff will box one up, but the team charges

them via payroll deduction (apparently the

only club in the league to do so).

 

• Some Washington players complained

that there is a lack of warm water and poor

drainage in the showers.

 

• Cincinnati’s lockers do not have outlets

for players to charge devices.

 

• The Colts are one of only six teams that

require young players to have roommates

during road trips, and one of seven teams

that do not offer first-class tickets to any

players.

To some, this may sound like entitlement, but others would argue multi-billion-dollar organizations can afford basic amenities for the lifeblood of these organizations.

When he heard of Washington’s valuation, Miami head coach and one-time Washington assistant Mike McDaniel quipped, “Wow, the organization’s worth that much? And I couldn’t get free coffee!?”

Agent Neil Cornrich has been representing his clients’ best interests for more than three decades. For Cornrich, that has always involved looking beyond what’s outlined in the player’s contract.

“We’ve always tried to tilt the playing field toward the player being selected by an organization which optimizes his best opportunity for success and longevity,” he said.

According to Cornrich, many of the clubs he deals with understand that little things can make a big difference in a player’s development and overall happiness. The report cards, he believes, could incentivize the other clubs to step up their game.

“These are $6 billion organizations now. There’s no reason they can’t invest in these areas to make it a healthier work environment.”

 

WILL POOR GRADES LEAD TO CHANGE?

In his March letter, Tretter outlined the three primary objectives of the team report cards: highlight positive clubs, identify clubs that need improvement, and highlight best practices and standards.

Some clubs took offense to the exercise. “They didn’t want help; they wanted shock factor and embarrassment,” one league executive told The Athletic’s Kalyn Kahler this spring.

Motives aside, the team report cards illustrate that NFL players are largely underwhelmed by how much teams are investing in facilities and essential services. One-third of teams received a C grade or lower for their weight room, and one-half of teams received a C grade or lower for their training room. Only four teams received an A grade for their treatment of families.

Still, why should we believe that teams lagging behind the curve will succumb to peer pressure? Washington ranked 32nd in the NFLPA’s first-ever team report cards and the news broke before owner Daniel Snyder received the $6 billion-plus bid — a number more than seven times the $800 million he paid for the club in 1999.

The answer could be the NFLPA’s resolve. NFL management and labor have always been at odds. Prior to the 1970 season, as the NFL and AFL merged into one league and the two respective players’ associations did the same, the players threatened their first strike. But management still had a stronghold over labor, and the players were poorly organized and lacked clear purpose.

“The guess was the players were primarily concerned about pension, insurance, disability benefits and things of that nature,” said players’ union attorney Ed Garvey in 2011. The players made small strides in 1974, 1982 and 1987 until securing the right to free agency in the early 1990s.

That long journey has allowed today’s players to shift their focus from financial objectives to better workplace conditions. It fits the times we live in; a 2018 Gallup poll found millennials value working for an employer who cares about their well-being above all else.

But critics warn that unless players begin to weigh NFLPA report card findings heavily in free-agent considerations, this all will be nothing more than an annual news release.

Cornrich believes it’s something that has always factored into player decisions.

One of his former clients, eight-time Pro Bowl guard Marshal Yanda, was a third-round selection by the Ravens in the 2007 NFL Draft. He spent his entire 13-year career in Baltimore, and many believe Yanda will soon be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“He had opportunities twice in free agency to go other places for more money and chose to stay in Baltimore because they were always successful and they treated people right,” Cornrich said.

The Ravens scored favorably in several areas, but ranked near the bottom of the league in the weight room and strength staff categories. Just prior to the report card’s release, the team fired strength and conditioning coach Steve Saunders.

Perhaps more than anything, the NFLPA report cards provide a glimpse into how players feel about ownership. Every Ravens player surveyed gave owner Steve Bisciotti a positive grade, probably because Bisciotti has been one owner who has consistently responded to the needs of his organization.

“It all comes from the top,” said Cornrich. “Eddie DeBartolo is in the Hall of Fame for a reason, and Robert Kraft will be shortly.”

 

WHERE DO THINGS LEAD FROM HERE?

Tretter suggested the NFLPA will collect player feedback annually to measure progress and incentivize teams to invest in the workplace. At least a few teams have pledged they’re prepared to do so.

The reigning Super Bowl champion Chiefs ranked 29th in the report, scoring no higher than 12th in any single category. Kansas City owner Clark Hunt told reporters during 2023 NFL Draft weekend: “Nobody likes criticism, but you know, from my standpoint, feedback is always positive, and so you know we’ll take and learn from it.”

The Arizona Cardinals ranked secondto- last in the report, but owner Michael Bidwill quickly took note. When Bidwill hired Jonathan Gannon to be the team’s new head coach, the two talked at length about improving many of the areas that were later outlined in the report.

“The directive (from Bidwill) was, ‘I want a fresh set of eyes on everything that we’re

doing with football operations, and I want to know between you and (general manager Monti Ossenfort), how it can be better and how we can improve that,’” Gannon told reporters. “So, not really concerned about what went on in the past. I’m concerned about how we move forward to help our team win.”

Later, at the league meeting in March, Gannon said some “big-time changes” had already occurred.

“I’m not going to get too much into it,” he added, “but food, weight room, facilities, contracts, Michael has been fantastic. He came in my office the other day saying he wanted technology (talked about) and graded. We had a couple meetings with the heads of departments and we said, ‘We need this, this, and this; we don’t need this,’ and he’s pulled the trigger on all of it.

“Everything I’ve said that I felt we wanted or needed has come to fruition.” Some have suggested there is a need to refine the next round of the report cards’ criteria and add categories. Said Cornrich, “One thing these report cards don’t mention, which I think they should, is medical staff. That’s different from training staff.”

There really is no limit to what the players can evaluate — practice and playing field conditions, team traditions, community outreach — but ultimately change will come when teams believe that a better work environment is marketable to prospective free agents, coaches and corporate sponsors. Those elements lead to wins, franchise stability and revenue.

Speaking to reporters at the Combine, second-year Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell said his team’s high scores are a reflection of the organization’s commitment to building the right culture and connecting with players.

“Culture is people and it’s something we strive to work on every single day, and I think our players feel that,” O’Connell said.

He added, “One of the things that I look back on a year ago and I think about using words like connecting with our players and the collaboration that goes into what pro football should be at this level. It goes so much beyond those words and people kind of chuckle sometimes as you use some of these cliché-like words; well, they’re not cliché when you go to work every day and try to join with a great group of people and a great support staff at every level of our organization. It’s not a cliché when people make that our mission statement, to provide the premier place to go to work and improve both personally and collectively as a team in our league means a lot to us.”

The Vikings didn’t lure any high-profile talent to the Twin Cities this offseason selling culture, and they aren’t among the favorites to compete for the Super Bowl. But nothing happens overnight in pro football. A few years from now, the March release of the NFLPA’s team report cards could be necessary reading for players heading into free agency.

And while no one is arguing that state-ofthe- art training rooms and first-class tickets lead to more wins, or even higher franchise valuations, what the NFLPA is saying is that taking better care of the players (and those around them) will lead to better management/labor relations and possibly a higher probability for prolonged success in the league.

“Happy, healthy players usually have happy, healthy careers,” said Cornrich. “Everyone should be in favor of that.”

Oklahoma’s Brent Venables owed full contract amount if fired without cause

 

By Stewart Mandel

Oct 21, 2022

Should Oklahoma fire head coach Brent Venables without cause over the course of his six-year, $43.5 million contract, it would owe him the full amount, according to a copy of the fully executed agreement obtained by The Athletic.

Venables is set to make $7 million his first year, with his annual compensation increasing by $100,000 each year through the contract’s conclusion on January 31, 2028. He can earn additional bonuses on top of that, including $400,000 for winning a national championship.

Coaches’ contracts have normally included a “liquidated damages” clause that puts in writing a reduced percentage the university would owe the coach should it choose to fire him prior to the end of the contract. However, several high-profile coaches recently have been given fully guaranteed deals, including Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher, Michigan State’s Mel Tucker and Penn State’s James Franklin.

Unlike those three, Venables, most recently Clemson’s defensive coordinator, is a first-time head coach. He was represented by CAA’s Jimmy Sexton, the sport’s most prominent coaching agent, who also negotiated Fisher and Franklin’s deals. Tucker was represented by Neil Cornrich at NC Sports.

Venables’ first season at Oklahoma got off to a rocky start, as the Sooners lost three straight games for the first time since 1998. They included a 55-24 blowout by TCU and a 49-0 blanking by Red River rival Texas, OU’s most lopsided defeat in the series. The Sooners beat Kansas 52-42 last week to improve to 4-3.

While extremely unlikely the school would fire him after one season, regardless of financial terms, it would cost OU around $36 million to do so. A mitigation clause requires Venables to make “reasonable, continued and diligent efforts” to find a new job in coaching or broadcasting, or other sports-related professions that would reduce the remaining amount owed on a “dollar-for-dollar” basis relative to his new salary.

Venables himself is required to pay a buyout should he voluntarily leave for another coaching job. That number starts at $7 million this year, dropping by $2 million a year for the following two years, down to $2 million by 2025.

Schools have been paying increasingly exorbitant buyouts recently to fire coaches still early in their deals. Auburn owed Gus Malzahn $21.45 million when it fired him just two years after giving him a new seven-year contract, and that was with a reduced payout of 75 percent. Florida State paid Willie Taggart $18 million when it fired him after two seasons in 2019. LSU last year paid Ed Orgeron $16.9 million.

Earlier this season, Nebraska paid Scott Frost $15 million, even though the number would have dropped in half had it waited a few more weeks. Wisconsin contractually owed Paul Chryst around $20 million but the coach agreed to an up-front buyout of $11 million.

With the trend of fully-guaranteed contracts now applying to first-time head coaches, it might finally become prohibitively expensive for schools to fire an underperforming coach.

(Photo: Kevin Jairaj / USA Today)