The Jets' Quarter-Billion Rookie Contract Spending Spree

AtoZ Sports

Kyle Crabbs discusses the recent record-setting rookie contract signings of New York Jets CB Sauce Gardner and WR Garrett Wilson as they both ink deals for a combined quarter-billion dollars

Transcript

00:00So it turns out shopping in the Big Apple is pretty damn expensive,

00:04no matter what you're looking for, and the Jets are finding that out the hard way.

00:12I'm Kyle Krabs with A to Z Sports, and don't get me wrong, it is a absolutely wonderful problem to

00:18have to give out a quarter of a billion dollars in contract investments to a pair of rookie draft

00:25picks. That means you, as the executive making the picks, knocked it out of the park. There's just

00:31one minor problem with that, and that's Joe Douglas is no longer the general manager

00:37of the New York Jets. The Jets have made sweeping changes throughout their organization,

00:41but in the last 24 hours have found contractual agreements to extend both Garrett Wilson and

00:48Sauce Gardner for record-setting contracts for different terms and reasons. Garrett Wilson

00:54collecting an annual average salary of $32.5 million per year on the new four years on his

01:02contract that is the most a third-year wide receiver has ever been paid. And Sauce Gardner tops the

01:08cornerback market with the raw annual average salary figure on his four-year contract, averaging $30.1

01:15million per season, which checks in $0.1 million higher than Derek Stingley Jr., who was drafted

01:22just one spot in front of Sauce Gardner in the 2022 NFL draft. The big question for the Jets was,

01:29with a new regime in place, how quickly would they prioritize handing out what was long assumed to be

01:36supersized contracts, especially because both Gardner and Wilson had the fifth-year option for the

01:432026 season scheduled to keep them under contract, meaning the Jets did not have to force any decisions

01:50with a new coach and a new decision-maker in place managing the roster. As it turns out, the Jets did the

01:57smart business thing, which should be a promising sign for Jets fans everywhere. The longer you wait,

02:04the more you pay. It is one of the unwritten rules of the NFL. And instead of stringing things out to

02:10get a year of time on task and getting to know these guys, the film resume speaks for themselves

02:17for both players. They're highly talented, and you want to reward players who come in,

02:23especially to a team that has struggled the way that New York has, and reward them for performing

02:28at a high level. That's the message you want to send. If we draft you and you develop and you invest

02:35in yourself, we are going to reward you for that performance. That has been strongly reinforced with

02:41two four-year contracts with a quarter of a billion dollars scheduled to go out to two of the Jets

02:48franchise cornerstones. The question now is, are the Jets done? There's a few other talented members

02:55off of that 2022 draft class lingering, most notably running back Brees Hall. Jermaine Johnson

03:01is a talented pass rusher, but is coming off of a season-ending injury. Hall, looking for a payday

03:08of his own, would be a unique situation. You have a wide receiver and a cornerback, premium positions.

03:16Running backs have long been devalued across the league, and I, for one, would be quite surprised

03:22if the Jets rewarded Hall for his prior performance for a prior regime, although you can never say

03:28never. One would assume, though, that this costly spending splurge for the Jets has them content

03:33for a while.

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