Donald misses training camp reporting deadline

Aaron Donald doesn’t show up for training camp

Mike Florio

https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/pro-rams-lb-alec-ogletree-working-on-an-extension

Rams G.M. Les Snead said recently that the team is working to find a resolution to defensive tackle Aaron Donald’s contract. Apparently, they’re not working hard enough for Donald’s liking.

Donald didn’t report for the start of camp, according to multiple reports.

Since he has fewer than four years of service, he’d lose a year of credit toward free agency if he doesn’t report within 30 days before the NFL’s regular-season opener. But since the 2014 first-round pick has two years left under contract but is only one year of service away from being eligible for free agency, the year of service toward free agency doesn’t matter.

Seven years ago, cornerback Darrelle Revis held out beyond the 30-day deadline despite having only three years of service. Eventually, he got his contract.

Given that the Rams actively have been negotiating with Donald, the holdout could be the spark to get the job done.

Donald was taken one spot after Giants receiver Odell Beckham Jr., who showed up for training camp despite not yet having a new deal.

Aaron Donald doesn’t show up, and remains the topic of conversation at Rams camp

Dylan Hernandez

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-rams-hernandez-20170729-story.html

The first day of training camp is generally about hope and optimism, so let’s start with a positive note.

The Rams’ workout Saturday outdrew the Chargers’.

Of course, the Chargers didn’t practice. They open camp Sunday.

Now, to reality, which was less charitable.

All-Pro defensive tackle Aaron Donald remained a no-show on the UC Irvine campus because of a contract dispute.

On the first day of what was supposed to be the new era of Rams football, the most talked-about player in camp was the one who wasn’t there.

“Any time your best player’s not there, you always would feel better if he was,” coach Sean McVay conceded.

You think?

The Rams are coming off a four-win season, trying to change a hypercompetitive market’s perception about what they’re about.
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They fumbled the football last month, when developers announced the opening of their permanent home in Inglewood would be delayed by a year. If being subjected to Rams football isn’t bad enough, their fans will have to endure three more years in the dilapidated Coliseum.

Now this.

In fairness to the Rams, there are reasonable explanations in both instances. Developers blamed the record rainfall for affecting the new stadium’s construction schedule. Donald is under the Rams’ control for at least two more seasons, perhaps more if the team places a franchise tag on him.

Except 12-loss teams don’t receive the benefit of the doubt.

Which was why there was a sign in the crowd with Donald’s picture that read, “Pay the man.”

The sign followed the Rams up and down one of the sidelines. It was there when Jared Goff was floating passes to receivers. It was there when Trumaine Johnson walked over to interact with fans who were taunting him. And it was there as players marched off the practice field.

Holding the sign was a Nick Galarreta, a 24-year-old fan from San Diego.

“I do get the economics,” Galarreta said. “I do get that fiscally it’s kind of hard. My gripe is with extending guys like Tavon Austin, who’s never been to a Pro Bowl.”

Austin was signed to a four-year, $42-million extension around this time last year.

“I think it reflects badly on management,” Galarreta said. “They put themselves in a situation to where they couldn’t give him the money he deserved when he deserve it.”

Even with a salary cap, creative solutions always exist. But there are presumably countless other fans who share Galaretta’s thoughts and feelings, which speaks to how the Rams’ brand is perceived.

As it was, the crowd at UC Irvine was significantly smaller and less festive than last year’s.

Donald is under contract this year for $1.8 million. The Rams have already exercised their option on him for 2018, which will pay him another $6.9 million. They can place a franchise tag on him in each of the three seasons after that.

The highest-paid player at Donald’s position is Ndamukong Suh, who signed a six-year, $114-million deal with the Miami Dolphins in 2015.

That’s a significant gap.

There are other players from Donald’s draft class who want to be paid, except they reported to their camps. Odell Beckham Jr. said earlier this week he wanted to be the NFL’s highest-paid player. Beckham is practicing with the New York Giants.

As a fourth-year player, Donald has minimal leverage. His power in this situation comes from the fact he is a great player — perhaps the best in football — on an awful team.

Goff is still unproven. Todd Gurley has to rebound from a down season.

Kevin Demoff, the Rams chief operating officer, pushed back against that idea.

“If you look at our team, we’ve always tried reward our players after their third year,” Demoff said. “We did it with Robert Quinn. We did it Johnny Hekker. We did it with Tavon. So if you look at our history, we’ve always tried to extend our players two years out [from free agency], if we have the ability.

“Aaron’s a special player. He’s going to sign a special contract.”

Similar to McVay and general manager Les Snead the previous day, Demoff wouldn’t speculate when Donald would sign.

“It does us no good to comment,” Demoff said. “If we say it gets done and it doesn’t, it’s bad. If we say it’s ominous … and it gets solved tomorrow … there’s no good outcome, right?”

At this stage of camp, with players not in pads, with the intensity level on the low end of the spectrum, Donald’s holdout isn’t affecting the Rams on the field.

Goff made light of Donald’s absence, joking that when the offense faced the defense in drills, “That makes our job a little easier.”

This won’t be a laughing matter for long.

McVay is a first-year coach. He needs his best player back and he needs him back soon. The exhibition season starts in two weeks.

As much as Donald could be hurt by a prolonged holdout — each day he misses is costing him $40,000 —the Rams could be hurt more.

With Aaron Donald, Rams stuck between what’s fair and prudent

Alden Gonzalez

http://www.espn.com/blog/los-angeles-rams/post/_/id/34579/with-aaron-donald-rams-stuck-between-whats-fair-and-prudent

IRVINE, Calif. — Aaron Donald’s holdout is expected to reach its seventh day Friday, with no real end in sight. The game’s greatest interior lineman is engaged in a high-stakes game with the Los Angeles Rams, who appear to find themselves somewhere in the space between doing what is sensible and doing what is right.

Donald is under team control for at least two more years, set to make a combined base salary of $8,694,250 in 2017 and ’18. But he has performed to the level of the game’s highest paid defensive players, a group earning nine-figure salaries on six-year contracts. And now he wants to be compensated accordingly.

Donald didn’t show up for the Rams’ three-week organized team activities this spring and has yet to arrive for training camp, absorbing $40,000-a-day fines to make his point. This could linger. The Rams previously extended gadget receiver Tavon Austin and edge rusher Robert Quinn before their fourth seasons, but those deals weren’t consummated until about September. Ditto for Michael Brockers, the Rams nose tackle who signed his second contract heading into his fifth season. And Texans star J.J. Watt, the only one among the five highest-paid defensive players to sign his extension despite completing only three NFL seasons.

None of those players held out.

Donald is, to use what little leverage he possesses and to avoid the type of debilitating injury that has already struck fellow defensive lineman Dominique Easley.

For now, at least, talks between the sides are considered amicable. Donald’s representatives at CAA have not commented, but the Rams have only said the right things.

In early March, at the scouting combine, general manager Les Snead said Donald “deserves a raise.” In early June, during an event for season-ticket holders, COO Kevin Demoff said Donald “deserves to be paid among the elite players in our game.” Last Friday, in a joint news conference before the start of training camp, Snead and head coach Sean McVay used the word “respect” 11 times in 10 minutes when talking about Donald, his agents and the negotiation. And just two days ago, McVay said the front office is “tirelessly working to try to find a solution.”

What, exactly, is the right solution?

There are two very different ways to rationalize it.

The financially prudent approach

The following point is almost inarguable: It is a lot cheaper to go year-by-year with Donald than it is to pay him what he would command in the open market.

Let’s do some quick math. Donald will cost $3,225,250 toward the salary cap in 2017 and $6,892,000 toward the salary cap in 2018. Let’s say, to make things easy, that the 2019 franchise tag for Donald costs $16 million. Let’s assume that they franchise him yet again in 2020, which would consist of a 20-percent raise from the prior year and cost the Rams $19.2 million. With that in mind, Donald would cost the Rams $45,317,250 toward the salary cap in four years.

Now, just for reference, let’s look at the contract for the game’s highest paid defensive player, outside linebacker Von Miller. In the first four years of his six-year, $114.5 million deal, Miller will cost the Broncos a combined $75.2 million toward the cap. That’s a significant difference. And it’s why one NFL agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of these negotiations, said: “The Rams should sit back and do nothing. Let him play out this year, let him play out the fifth-year option, and franchise him.”

The Rams face potential stumbling blocks when it comes to getting a long-term deal done with Donald.

First is the fact that the highest paid player at Donald’s position, Dolphins defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh, is very nearly the game’s highest paid defensive player, with a six-year, $114.375 million deal that includes nearly $60 million guaranteed. Suh played five NFL seasons and ventured into the open market to get that deal. But Donald’s side would probably argue that he nonetheless deserves to be the highest-paid defensive tackle.

Then there’s the precedent the Rams may have set with their own contracts, paying what some consider above-market price for Austin (four years, $42 million with $28.5 million guaranteed) and Brockers (three years, $33.25 million contract with more than $24 million guaranteed).

And there’s that whole thing about location. Even if Donald doesn’t file as a California resident, he would still be taxed at a rate of 13.3 percent for about 85 percent of the days he works throughout a typical NFL season (a little less so this year, because the Rams are playing in London and will thus spend an entire week outside of California). Suh and Watt, meanwhile, live in tax-free states, so they benefit from roughly 85 percent of their work days being tax free. Donald, then, could easily say he deserves even more.

At that point, does it make sense for the Rams?

They have him even cheaper because he was drafted outside the top 10 and thus was owed less on his fifth-year option. They have less than $4 million in salary-cap space this year, according to OverTheCap.com. And though OverTheCap has them set up to have about $53 million in salary-cap space next year, the Rams also want to extend inside linebacker Alec Ogletree and defensive back Lamarcus Joyner, each of whom is heading into his final season under team control.

Is it worth blowing up their salary cap?

The ‘do right by your star’ approach

ESPN analyst Louis Riddick, a former defensive back who spent 13 years as an NFL executive, considers this a no-brainer.

“There’s too many superlatives, there’s too many positives, there’s too many benefits to getting this done, and there’s not a single reason why you shouldn’t,” Riddick said in a phone conversation. “… If you made Aaron Donald the highest-paid defensive player in the National Football League right now, no one would blink an eye. No one.”

He’s right.

Donald has never not made the Pro Bowl and has been first-team All-Pro each of the last two seasons. Heading into this year, the reputable Pro Football Focus considers him the game’s best player, regardless of position. His 28 sacks during the last three seasons are four more than any other defensive tackle. Last season, he led the NFL in quarterback hits (31) and tied for the NFL lead in tackles for loss (17). He has become an unstoppable force. But he’s also a disciplined hard worker who’s only 26, hasn’t missed a game and hasn’t been in trouble.

He is the perfect player to break the bank for; the type of guy to build a franchise around.

“This isn’t a matter of what you can do to the player as far as controlling his salary and the cap ramifications of his salary,” Riddick argues. “This is about what you should do.”

If you’re the Rams, it’s hard to sell giving Austin more than $10 million a year and not spending big on Donald. They’ve suffered 10 consecutive losing seasons, are still trying to establish themselves in the nation’s second largest media market and are coming off a 4-12 showing in 2016. The last thing the Rams need is a reputation for not taking care of their own.

But what kind of contract makes sense here?

Riddick sees a five- to six-year deal worth between $18.5 and $19 million annually as a reasonable one for Donald, which would rank just behind Miller and Suh for third among defensive players. Jason Fitzgerald, who founded OverTheCap.com and co-wrote a book detailing the salary cap called “Crunching Numbers,” suggests about $21.6 million per year, with upwards of $65 million paid in the first three seasons.

Those figures, Fitzgerald wrote in an email, would represent a raise over Miller’s deal that is similar to the raise Miller received over the Chiefs’ Justin Houston, who signed a six-year, $101 million contract in the summer of 2015. What really matters, however, is guaranteed dollars. Miller leads with $70 million, followed by the Eagles’ Fletcher Cox ($63.30), the Bills’ Marcell Dareus ($60 million), Suh ($59.96 million) and the Jets’ Muhammad Wilkerson ($53.50).

Watt received $51.88 million guaranteed on a six-year, $100 million contract. His deal is widely considered the best comp for Donald, because he signed it heading into his fourth season and because he was deemed the game’s best defensive player at the time. But Watt’s deal was done in 2014. The cap has increased by $34 million since then, which means Donald’s contract may need to surpass it significantly.

In Riddick’s mind, it matters little.

“I just get when you need to step outside your comfort zone for certain players,” he said. “Aaron Donald lets you sleep at night. No matter how much money you’re paying him, he lets you sleep at night.”

Aaron Donald’s holdout stems from NFL’s unfair rookie-wage scale

RYAN KARTJE

link: http://www.ocregister.com/2017/08/05/kartje-aaron-donalds-holdout-stems-from-nfls-unfair-rookie-wage-scale/

In July 2011, as a heated standoff over a new collective bargaining agreement continued into its fourth month, NFL owners and the players association found themselves at one final impasse over how to pay rookies.

Owners wanted first-round picks, whose contracts had ballooned into the tens of millions, to be under team control for at least five years. The players association agreed that rookies shouldn’t be among the league’s highest paid, but demanded a quicker route to free agency.

The players blinked first. As Cam Newton waited to sign his deal as the No. 1 overall pick, the NFLPA agreed to a wage-scale system that would keep him under team control for four years and $22 million — less than half the guaranteed money that the Rams handed to Sam Bradford the year before.

Still, the owners wanted more. In a Washington Post editorial, Packers president Mark Murphy wrote that “the system is so bad that some teams no longer want picks in the top part of the first round.” In a months-long PR battle, they pushed this message relentlessly, “No other business operates this way,” Murphy said, “and no other union gives its entry-level hires such privileges.”

By the end of the month, the two sides struck a deal. First-round picks would sign four-year deals, with a team option for a fifth year. The lockout lifted. Players went back to work. Soon, some would realize how much they lost.

Five years later, Rams training camp opened in Irvine with standout defensive tackle Aaron Donald conspicuously absent. At the start of his fourth year, Donald was already the NFL’s preeminent interior lineman and arguably one of the league’s best players. But due to the wage scale agreed to by the union, he’s set to earn just $3.2 million in 2017, 34th-most among NFL defensive tackles.

The Rams are under no obligation to change that. In April, the team exercised Donald’s fifth-year option, ensuring he’s under team control through the 2018 season. For another year, they’ll still have him at a major discount, at just under $6.9 million. After that, they could use the franchise tag — another 2011 addition to the CBA — to keep him away from unrestricted free agency.

“Six years is so far beyond the average career span,” says longtime agent Leigh Steinberg, who once called Warren Moon, Troy Aikman, and Steve Young clients. “Essentially, (Donald) is being paid for half of his career based on draft position, not on accomplishment. This system has no incentives. It doesn’t distinguish between a major star and someone who just happens to be sticking around.”

So on July 29, Donald exercised his only available leverage. He stayed home. According to the CBA, any player holding out must pay $40,000 per camp day missed. (Prior to the most recent CBA, fines ranged from $14,000-$16,000 per day.) Teams often forgive those debts when the player reports, but through the first week of camp, Donald is technically nearing $300,000 in fines. That’s already 20 percent of his signing bonus in 2017.

“I’m hopeful to see Aaron Donald at any time,” Rams coach Sean McVay said last Wednesday. “I think that’s something that we’re constantly striving to get a solution.”

The Rams maintain that talks with Donald’s agent are ongoing, and the team does have a history of preemptively paying valued players. But the issue at hand isn’t about the Rams so much as it’s about a system that traps young stars under bargain, team-controlled contracts, with little to no leverage to lean on.

“(The rookie wage scale) is completely unfair,” Steinberg says, “but it’s not supposed to be fair. It’s supposed to take money away from rookies and move it to proven, productive starters. That was the design from the union.”

But that design has done far more harm than help, decimating the league’s veteran middle class and leaving its young stars massively underpaid relative to the value they bring in five years of team control. Using Pro Football Reference’s Approximate Value metric, a recent analysis from Football Perspective revealed that half of the league’s Approximate Value last season was provided by players on rookie contracts.
From the first round of the 2014 draft alone, a treasure trove of stars will play this year for bargain deals that defy logic. Along with Donald, fellow Pro Bowl players Jadeveon Clowney ($7 million), Khalil Mack ($5.9 million), Mike Evans ($4.65), Anthony Barr ($4 million), Taylor Lewan ($3.6 million), and Odell Beckham ($3.3 million) are in position to be massively underpaid in 2017, before being paid only slightly better during their 2018 option year.

Each member of that vaunted group is set to make less than half of what the Rams will pay Tavon Austin this season.

While players drafted outside of the first round aren’t beholden to a fifth-year option, their leverage is also limited. To be eligible for unrestricted free agency, players must accrue four years of service time. To earn that fourth accrued season, players must report 30 days before the regular season kicks off. This year, that deadline is Aug. 8.

If Donald had been drafted in the second round, he would have had to return to camp by Aug. 8, or else face the prospect of being a restricted free agent next season. Since he’s already under team control for 2018, this isn’t likely to apply to him, short of a two-year-long holdout. But for others, it’s creates a no-win scenario.

That’s the reality players have been forced to face since agreeing to the CBA in 2011. The even harsher truth being that the rookie-wage scale isn’t likely to change anytime soon. The old system and its exorbitant rookie contracts are “too unworkable” to completely do away with the rookie-wage scale, according to former NFL agent and salary cap expert Joel Corry.

Eliminating the fifth-year option is a possibility, Corry said, but given the sheer size of the NFL player pool, even that could be a tough sell, given the concessions it would likely require from the union.

“Is it worth making something a priority that affects 25 guys, and you have an 1,800-player union?” Corry said. “The rank-and-file does not care about a player option.’

The CBA will be up for renegotiation in 2021. But even then, the status quo will more than likely remain, as young stars continue playing out rookie deals that pay only a fraction of their worth. Even if Donald’s saga ends with a new contract, there are still dozens of young players who will smile and take their below-market deals without protest, trapped under team control, mostly powerless, for the entire first halves of their careers.

For Donald, the Rams’ most valuable asset, there’s little he can do now but wait and wonder why he hasn’t been paid. He has the system — and the 2011 CBA — to thank for that.

“It’s unfortunate for him,” Corry says. “If he’d just been a second-round pick, he’d probably be the highest-paid non-quarterback in the NFL right now.”

With the regular season now just a month away, contract talks between the Rams and defensive lineman Aaron Donald remain stalled.

Vincent Bonsignore

link: http://www.ocregister.com/2017/08/10/bonsignore-with-preseason-games-upon-us-and-aaron-donalds-holdout-lingering-what-is-his-end-game/

IRVINE – The Rams will play their first preseason game of 2017 Saturday against the Dallas Cowboys at the Coliseum. Barring a major development between now and kickoff, their best player won’t even be in the same area code, let alone in uniform and on the field with the rest of his teammates.

The contract holdout of All-Pro defensive tackle Aaron Donald continues to linger, hovering over the Rams like a thick morning marine layer off the Pacific Ocean.

On and on it goes, now officially two weeks in length and months in execution if you go all the way back to the Rams’ organized offseason team activities. Donald was a no-show throughout OTA’s, firmly planting his feet in the ground in protest of a contract that doesn’t reflect his stature as the NFL’s best interior defensive lineman and the internal fortitude to fight for a new deal that does.

The last time we actually saw Donald and the Rams in the same vicinity was at a mandatory minicamp June 13. But whatever positive vibes his appearance created in Thousand Oaks that day soon faded amid contract talks that yielded no resolution, an official training camp report date that passed without Donald reporting and the 13 days that have followed in which Donald has conspicuously remained AWOL.

Donald and his camp have been eerily quiet throughout, but we can safely surmise they are seeking a deal that makes him the highest-paid defensive player in the NFL and surpasses in annual salary the $19,062,500 that Ndamukong Suh makes and the $60 million in guaranteed money his six-year contract with the Dolphins pays him.

We can also safely assume the Rams have pushed a life-changing pile of money to the middle of the table for Donald to accept, an amount that will grant the 26-year-old Pittsburgh native his wish to be the highest-paid defensive player in the league.

They are wise enough to understand what they uncovered when they drafted Donald 13th overall in 2014, and that, three years into his original rookie deal he is wildly underpaid and deserves a contract worthy of his current stature.

In that respect, the two sides share mutual ground. Donald wants his just due and the Rams want to do right by him.

On the other hand, months of contract talks have yielded no resolution. For all the mutual motivation they share, they just aren’t connecting on the key elements of a mutually satisfactory contract.

The reasons for that could vary:

The Rams aren’t willing to go as high over the Suh market as Donald is demanding;
The two sides can’t find common ground on how much money is guaranteed;
Donald’s camp is seeking a deal flexible enough to account for any future upward spike of the salary cap, or one he can maneuver out of sooner rather than later if someone comes along to surpass him as the highest-paid defensive player.
And you can bet someone will.

Those are all valid negotiating points. And Donald and his camp have every right to fight and scratch for every desirable dynamic.

But here’s the thing.

Donald may want all of the above, but aside from doing right by him on a worthy pay bump and the kind of guaranteed money that will comfortably take care of him and his family for generations to come, what is the Rams’ incentive to give in on everything, including how much Donald wants to soar over the Suh benchmark?

The answer, frankly, is very little.

Holdout or no holdout.

Donald still has two years remaining on his original deal. And if you take it a step further, he’s under the Rams’ control through the 2020 season when factoring in the franchise tag tool.

They hold all the leverage. And while they want Donald back in camp like yesterday, they’ll hold firm in their position because there’s no reason not to.

Which brings us to the real crux of this holdout and what will ultimately determine how long it lasts.

Safely assuming the Rams have pushed a life-changing amount of money for Donald to the middle of the table – an amount that, when divvied up, will perch him at the top of defensive player salaries – is he so entrenched in his demands he’s willing to continue to turn that kind of coin down?

And do what?

Come back and play this year and next year before, maybe, hitting free agency in 2019? In the meantime, risk getting hurt and throwing away $70 million or more in guarantees?

Donald has $8 million, total, coming to him over the next two years. That’s a lot of money, relatively speaking. But it ain’t $70 million, now is it?

Or maybe he continues to hold out and start missing paychecks he’ll never recoup.

Do either of those options seem appealing, giving the amount of money we can safely assume the Rams are offering?

The regular season is still a month away. There’s plenty of time for Donald to think all this out and, when the time comes, make a sound decision.

But you get the sense the Rams have gone pretty much as far as they’re willing to go on his demands. There’s really no incentive go any further.

That points the spotlight directly on Donald and his camp.

The question is, what, exactly, is their end game?