To me, it suggests that they want to keep their options open with Goff and everything is on the board from extension, restructure, release, trade, franchise . . . everything.
As for his contract, everyone hates the contract when it’s originally signed and a couple years later, it doesn’t look as bad. $33.5M APY was high in 2019, but now it’s 11th highest vet starting contract. Brady is the lowest at $25M (because of the trade, will pay Goff $26M APY). Then you got guys like Winston, Mayfield, Marriotta, Geno auditioning for a job (and they’ll get paid if they do well). Looking at it two years into the extension, Goff’s contract isn’t great for the team, but it’s not horrible.
2022 non-exclusive franchise tag for a QB was $29.7M. The tag for Goff would be a calculated figure for QB’s cap hits averaged over five years adjusted by the salary cap OR 120% of his 2024 cap hit. The potential tag for Goff in 2025 would be $38M ($31.65M * 120% of 2024 cap hit). The restructured his contract last year and increased his 2024 cap hit by $5M, but they had no choice, there wasn’t any one else they could restructure and field their 2021 team.
Snead, Rossman for Philly and Loomis for NO all try to do extension on players early. The thought process seems to be if they do it early, in a couple of years, it’s really kind of a deal. I agree with identifying players and trying to do extensions early (why I wanted them to do Hockenson early, I thought very early in the offseason we could have been looking at $10M APY for him, now I think we’ll be looking at $15M minimum to extend). Snead has had his mistakes with Gurley, Cooks, others . . . but I love the way he builds a team.
The potential franchise tag is usually used as negotiating tool. Whether it is warranted for Goff remains to be seen, but if you don’t need to increase his 2024 cap hit and thus his 2025 potential tag, there is no reason to do it.
I think Goff’s future will become more clear after this season.
