Latest news with #BagHallofFame
USA Today
03-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Former Indianapolis Colts' QB among ESPN's best at securing big pay days
ESPN recently named a former Colts' QB as one of the best at securing big pay days. Former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Joe Flacco was named to Bill Barnwell's inaugural "Bag Hall of Fame" class. So, what exactly is the "Bag Hall of Fame," and what was the criteria for making it? We'll let Barnwell explain. "I want to reward the players who did the best job of maximizing their leverage and getting paid for their ability," wrote Barnwell. "Players who pushed holdouts to the next level. Players who bet on themselves and were handsomely rewarded for doing so. Players who even managed to represent themselves in negotiations and pocket millions of dollars that would have otherwise gone to an agent." Flacco was a part of this group because, as Barnwell put it, he turned "one playoff run into two contracts." After leading the Baltimore Ravens to a Super Bowl win in 2012, Flacco received a six-year, $120.6 million deal, which at the time was the largest contract in NFL history. A big contract, but what earned Flacco a spot in Barnwell's Bag Hall of Fame is what came next. With this deal being backloaded, meaning that Flacco's salary cap hit took a big jump in Year 4 to nearly $29 million, Baltimore signed Flacco to a three-year extension worth $66 million after only three seasons, which helped lower the cap hit in that current season. "Between 2013 and 2018, Flacco ended up taking home $124 million in cash, the fourth-most money of any player over that time frame," Barnwell wrote. "(That's the equivalent of about $240 million relative to the current salary cap.) Over that run, he made just one run back to the postseason, winning a total of two playoff games and going 42-41 during the regular season." Flacco would help quarterback the Colts this past season. He signed with the team as a free agent for one year and $4.5 million. He appeared in eight games while completing 65% of his passes at a modest 7.1 yards per attempt with 12 touchdowns to seven interceptions. The Colts would go 2-4 in games he started. Flacco is now back with the Cleveland Browns, looking to embark on his 18th NFL season. He signed a one-year deal worth $4.25 million.
USA Today
02-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
2 Cowboys make ESPN's 'Bag Hall of Fame' for winning at football finances
Among its ranks of fortunate players, the NFL famously stands for "Not For Long." The typical on-the-field career is incredibly short, even under ideal circumstances. Add in the extreme daily physical punishment, heightened risk of serious injury, and better-than-average chance of lifelong health issues, and it's no surprise that for most players, the ultimate goal- a Super Bowl ring notwithstanding- is to secure as much financial compensation as possible for the brief time spent playing the game. Some do it better than others, with today's modern-era contracts often resulting in dizzyingly huge paydays for the most gifted athletes on the planet. But ESPN's Bill Barnwell set out to identify the best of the best, at least when it comes to the business side of pro football. He's created what he's calling the "Bag Hall of Fame," meant to honor those players past and present who, in his words, "did the best job of maximizing their leverage and getting paid for their ability. Players who pushed holdouts to the next level. Players who bet on themselves and were handsomely rewarded for doing so. Players who even managed to represent themselves in negotiations and pocket millions of dollars that would have otherwise gone to an agent." In short, sticking it to the man (read: obscenely wealthy and yet usually miserly NFL owners). And for his inaugural class of eight players from across league history, Barnwell has recognized two who did so to none other than Cowboys billionaire owner Jerry Jones. QB Dak Prescott It's practically a cheesy Disney movie: a fourth-round draft pick who wasn't even his team's first choice in that draft class bets on himself multiple times, comes back from a catastrophic injury, finishes second in MVP voting, and goes on to become the highest-paid player in the sport's history. Jones's repeated reluctance to pony up for Prescott at the earliest opportunity "probably has cost Jones nine figures in terms of lost leverage and extra money for Prescott." His current pact, signed just hours before the start of the 2024 season, set records for average annual salary ($60 million), most single-season cash ($86.3 million), cash over the first three years ($174.1 million) and the largest signing bonus ever ($80 million). And it came with no-trade and no-tag clauses. As Barnwell notes, fellow franchise quarterbacks Josh Allen and Brock Purdy have each had their turn at the plate since Prescott's deal; neither came away with anything resembling that. "Between 2021 and 2024," Barnwell points out, the man who was once the biggest bargain in pro football "took home a staggering $212.3 million, nearly $47 million more than any other player." Is Prescott worth it? He hasn't yet secured a sixth Lombardi Trophy for the lobby of The Star, but the organization knows that paying him gives them a better chance than starting over with someone else. And in the meantime, Prescott has secured more leverage for himself than any player before him. CB Deion Sanders Sanders was both an athlete and a businessman at an unprecedented level, so much so that he convinced a total of nine teams that he was the ultimate answer to success. Across two different sports. Juggling a nine-year career in Major League Baseball with 14 seasons, nine Pro Bowl nods, six first-team All-Pro accolades, and eventually a gold jacket in the NFL, Sanders was the Loch Ness Monster in an entire herd of unicorns. Already a superstar and a Super Bowl champ by the time he came to Dallas, Sanders became the highest-paid defender in league history when he joined the Cowboys. His seven-year, $35 million deal in 1995 would translate to "something like... a seven-year, $263.4 million deal with a $97 million signing bonus under the current cap." For a cornerback. Who moonlighted as a return man. And sometimes a wide receiver. The contract was massive enough to elicit complaints from other teams, and even Jerry Rice. Emmitt Smith's agent reportedly used the Sanders contract in their own haggling with the club over Smith and the franchise tag. And yet that deal ended with a championship parade through the streets of Dallas and merely added to the legend of Sanders, the three-way NFL star who also hit homers and stole bases in the bigs as just a side hustle. Follow Cowboys Wire on Facebook to join in on the conversation with fellow fans!
