Jump to a topicJosh Allen dealLas Vegas RaidersGeno Smith tradeSam DarnoldCleveland BrownsAtlanta FalconsNew Orleans SaintsPittsburgh SteelersBuffalo BillsKansas City ChiefsNew England PatriotsQuick-hitters
NFL Free-Agency Tracker: Grading Every Major Move | SI’s Top 50 Free Agents | One Good Free Agency Fit for Every Team | Albert Breer’s Free-Agency Forecast
Josh Allen deal
The Buffalo Bills and Allen’s camp have been working on the blockbuster six-year, $330 million deal they reached Sunday since the team’s season ended in the AFC title game. And the focus, rather than being on how the deal would be headlined, was on how it would work for everyone.
So the first thing you need to know is the only deal that was really negotiated like this one in recent memory was Deshaun Watson’s in Cleveland—and Allen didn’t have to switch teams to land the contract he just did. And that’s because of what the Bills are going to, rightfully, put in the reigning MVP’s pocket over the next four years.
With that established, here are the keys …
• He’ll get $220 million over the next four years. On his existing deal, he had four years left at $129.555 million, meaning he’s effectively getting a $90 million raise. That’s an average of $55 million per year, which is the six-year average of the deal too. Taking the new-money math out of it, that’s a record—beating Dak Prescott ($54.8 million), Patrick Mahomes ($52.02 million) and Lamar Jackson ($52 million). Remember, Prescott had to play out one deal, and get to end of another to get there. Jackson played out his deal to get to his number.
And Mahomes, of course, had won multiple MVPs and multiple Super Bowls when he redid his deal last year.
• The deal has $147 million fully guaranteed, which is only behind the $230 million fully guaranteed Watson got on his Browns deal. Allen’s $250 million injury guarantee is a record. And the full guarantee rises to $163.5 million after the 2025 season, $218 million after ’26, and $232 million after ’27, pushing the practical guarantee just past Watson’s number.
But the reality, again, is if Allen keeps playing at the level he is, then this will all likely be revisited again after four years, with $220 million in the bank, and another raise coming.
• The cashflow here is relatively flat year over year, which gives the team a little more flexibility to spend, and is also an acknowledgment of the trust between the sides.
And, really, that’s where this began. The relationship between Allen’s camp and the Bills is such that there’s always a running conversation going on, and choosing to dive in and do this now was a result of that conversation. I don’t think there’s anyone on either side who doesn’t envision Allen retiring a Bill. And even if it’s hard to project those things out (see: Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers), it’s healthy to operate as if that’ll be the case.
Which, to me, is really the tone and tenor to the whole thing. The Bills are doing right by Allen, who is getting what he deserves, and it’s coming in a way that’s functional and logical for him and the team alike.
Everyone’s better for it.
(And we’ll have more on the Bills a little later in the column).
Las Vegas Raiders
It, by design, sends a message to the rest of the roster that the 27-year-old represents exactly what new coach Pete Carroll and GM John Spytek are looking for as they overhaul an organization that’s made the playoffs twice in the last 22 years.
And that’s not an unusual move by a new regime—to come in, and reward a guy they know can be a torchbearer for what they’re trying to build, showing everyone who, and really more so what, they plan on rewarding going forward.
What is rare here is that it happens with the same guy twice. Which is about who Crosby is.
Indeed, three years ago, among the first things then-coach Josh McDaniels and GM Dave Ziegler did upon arriving in Vegas was sign Crosby to a four-year, $94 million extension that aged like Napa Valley’s finest. So three Pro Bowl seasons later, the star is well aware of the responsibility Carroll and Spytek are bestowing upon him.
“Three years later, I’m in the same situation,” Crosby told me Thursday night. “I take it with a lot of pride—it’s super humbling because of the work I put in, how much I put into my teammates, how much I give to others on a daily basis. I’m willing to do anything to win. Everybody’s got an opinion, but they don’t know the truth. I’m in that building all year-round. I have relationships with the janitor just like I do the owner. It’s much bigger than just football. The product and the production speak for itself. But it's about relationships. …
“They believe in me for being the head of the spear of what that next generation of what the Raiders are going to look like, this next movement of what we’re trying to do as a football team with Mark Davis and Tom Brady coming in and all these guys that are involved now. Everybody’s on the same wavelength in terms of what we’re trying to build. Them choosing me and taking care of me is obviously a humbling thing.”
And while they did get this one done early—well ahead of the start of free agency—there was a winding road taken. Here are some of the details …
• Last year, Crosby’s agents, C.J. LaBoy and Doug Hendrickson of Wasserman, went to the team, under a new coach (Antonio Pierce) and GM (Tom Telesco) seeking an adjustment to the four-year deal signed in 2022, reasoning that Crosby had outplayed it, and the market had changed, with Nick Bosa landing more than $10 million per year.
The Raiders agreed, but didn’t want to set the precedent of doing a new deal with three years left on the old one. So after some negotiation, on May 23, the sides reached an agreement to add $5 million in new money to Crosby’s 2024 base salary, and move a little more than $1 million of his ‘25 money into ‘24, while moving more money from ‘26 into ‘25. The pact came with an additional agreement to explore an extension after the ‘24 season.
• After the season, both Pierce and Telesco were fired, and Crosby told LaBoy, his lead negotiator, to allow him to see the direction and “feel the energy” of whoever was hired. To that end, Crosby was in the building, as he is every day, when Carroll interviewed, and made a point of going to meet him. That started a conversation that Carroll was sure to resume right after he was hired, as did Spytek.
“They were both very cool, very open and transparent from the beginning,” Crosby says.
When Spytek arrived in Vegas, Crosby asked him, The new GM responded that he should consider not playing 100% of the snaps, in order to keep his legs fresh deep into games, and the season. Crosby said he couldn’t stand not being on the field. That was an answer the new guys would remember, as they contemplated their next steps with Crosby—he had exactly the mindset they were looking for.
• The Raiders then communicated to LaBoy and Hendrickson that the plan was to build around Crosby, and wanted to do a contract with him quickly, not just to establish to others their commitment to him, but also so they could have an idea of what they’d be working around from a cash-and-cap standpoint. Accordingly, they exchanged proposals prior to the combine that reflected the agreement that Crosby should be atop the edge market, past Bosa.
The sides met in a conference room the Raiders had at the Indianapolis Conrad on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday of combine week, with Vegas’s SVP of football administration Tom Delaney, a 24-year vet of the organization, leading talks and bringing all the context of Crosby’s (and LaBoy’s) previous negotiations with the team to the table.
Meanwhile, other teams, given the regime change, were inquiring. Seattle proposed a deal that would send Geno Smith and DK Metcalf to Vegas for Crosby. The Raiders rebuffed that interest, showing Crosby their resolve.
• Last Monday, LaBoy and Hendrickson spent the day talking with Crosby—who wants to know every element of every deal he does—about where things stood, agreeing that the gaps had closed enough for the agents to make a trip to Vegas. So they flew from California on Tuesday morning, and went straight to the team facility to dive in with Delaney.
The sides worked through the morning and, as soon as Crosby was finished with his workout, LaBoy and Hendrickson went back to the star’s house. There, they spent five or six hours with Crosby, his wife and daughter, drilling down on every detail, with the agents getting their directives from him on closing out the negotiation. And late in the day, LaBoy and Hendrickson returned to the Raiders’ facility to work out the final details, which was the guarantee structure of the deal—the average per year and cashflow was agreed upon.
A little after 11 p.m., they got the negotiation to the 1-yard line, finding common ground on a full guarantee of $32 million in 2025, and $30 million in ‘26, and an injury guarantee of $29.5 million for ‘27 that would vest as a full guarantee next March.
