The Washington Commanders are fumbling Terry McLaurin's contract situation...

Kyle Crabbs discusses Terry McLaurin's contract situation with the Washington Commanders.

Transcript

00:00Washington Commanders' wide receiver Terry McLaurin is officially looking for a new deal

00:04with the team, but the path to get there might be a little rockier than we first thought.

00:13I'm Kyle Krabs with A to Z Sports, and it was less than two weeks ago we hopped here on the

00:17YouTube channel and talked about how much of a no-brainer it would be for the Washington

00:21Commanders and their new owners to pay Terry McLaurin if he was indeed insistent upon not

00:27playing in 2025 on the final year of his most recent contract extension with the team.

00:33We got into things like team culture under Dan Snyder and the opportunity to turn a new page

00:39with a new ownership and mark the start of a new organization under owner Josh Harris and the rest

00:46of his collection running the team. NFL insider Jordan Schultz has an official update for us that

00:53McLaurin is indeed frustrated by the lack of progress on a new deal between the team and

01:00McLaurin, who has been super productive despite playing up until 2024 without competent quarterback

01:06play during his time in the nation's capital. It is still a no-brainer for Washington and McLaurin

01:13to sort something out, but there's one major detail that serves as a blockade in negotiations

01:19that might make the path to a new deal a little rockier than everybody hoped and would have

01:25expected. Terry McLaurin is set to turn 30 years old this season, which is not old, but it's also

01:32not young for an NFL wide receiver. And when you look across the landscape of this rapidly growing

01:38salary balloon for wide receivers in the NFL, the vast majority of these contracts are being done with

01:45players in the prime of their career. You don't see many examples of receivers in their late 20s and

01:52early 30s getting those $30 million per year plus new deals from teams. And some of the league's best

01:58have not been immune to the age wall that rapidly comes once you cross the threshold into the age of

02:0430, whether that's Calvin Johnson, who retired at age 30, or Antonio Brown, be it from his own

02:11transgressions off the field or not, or Larry Fitzgerald before a revival when moving inside

02:16to play in the slot. Julio Jones and DeAndre Hopkins are great examples of two other receivers who were

02:21locks for big-time wide receiver production, but yet once age 29 and age 30 crept up, it was a

02:29different story for how productive they could consistently be. That has to be the concern here

02:34for Washington because Terry McLaurin's been a good soldier and he's been a highly productive player,

02:39but you're not paying a player for what he's been for your team. You're paying a player for what he's

02:45going to be. And that's where the inconvenient truth lies for Terry McLaurin at this stage, because

02:50perhaps the best profiled receiver who can compare to Terry McLaurin, but has a better resume and signed

02:56a contract in the same age window is Mike Evans, who signed a two-year $41 million contract extension

03:03with Tampa the same year that McLaurin signed his most recent contract back in 2022. With inflation,

03:09that will bring McLaurin's price point up and over the APY of the current contract that he's

03:14playing on, but not into the $30, $32, $33 plus million per year strike zone. And McLaurin knows

03:22this is realistically his last chance to get one more big contract under his belt. He's going to

03:28want to make it count. Washington is rightfully looking at the longevity of that potential investment

03:34with a little bit of a side. How will they bridge the gap between the two? That's what we have to

03:40wait and see.