The NFL has always been a business, and it seems like more and more every year that side of things leaks into the game portion of the sport. Players hold out for more money, they bounce around in free agency and chase checks and they play for incentives sometimes more than the logo on their jersey.
And who can blame them? This is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and these guys absolutely deserve their piece of the pie. But as fans, it can be frustrating or feel like semantics when a player wants $5.1 million instead of $5.0 million, knowing that .1 million would be life-changing for most who watch.
As this all pertains to the Las Vegas Raiders, Fernando Mendoza, Keyron Crawford and Jermod McCoy remain unsigned from the 2026 rookie class. It seems mindboggling that the two sides can't reach an agreement when the players have yet to play a game, and a sliding scale is already in place.
But such is the situation for the Silver and Black and these first-year NFLers, and the Raiders are not alone. According to one NFL reporter who specializes in understanding this kind of thing, though, Las Vegas and the fanbase don't really have a reason to worry all too much.
NFL reporter explains why Fernando Mendoza and other Las Vegas Raiders rookies haven't signed their contracts
Q Myers of the Locked on Raiders Podcast spoke to CBS Sports reporter Joel Corry recently about the ongoing situation in Sin City. First, he dove into what the crux of the matter is with Mendoza, and it doesn't sound like it's a multi-layered issue that cannot be resolved quickly.
“Now, the big issue why he's not signed is there's this convention with the first overall pick," Corry explained. "Ever since starting in 2020 with Joe Burrow, the first overall pick has gotten a signing bonus in a lump sum. That may be paid within 15 days of signing, 30 days of signing, but it comes in one payment, not in installments. Now, Raiders pay their first-round pick signing bonuses a little bit differently. Ashton Jeanty, Brock Bowers, Tyree Wilson, the last few first-round picks got 77.5% of their total signing bonus within 15 days of signing, 12.5% in mid-September, and the final 10% in mid-October. So this is really over how the signing bonus is gonna be paid. Nothing more, nothing less, not the whole dollar amount of the deal, not how much the signing bonus is gonna be, not whether it's gonna be fully guaranteed. The payment of the signing bonus is the big holdup.”
It is easy to understand both sides of the argument here, as Mendoza and his camp probably want to be treated like the other recent No. 1 picks, but the Raiders have their way of doing things, and the young player will obviously get all of his money in short order. Again, it is semantics.
McCoy's situation may be a bit different, however. He was undoubtedly a first-round talent who was taken in the fourth round, so he and his representatives probably feel as though they missed out on some serious money. And they'd like Las Vegas to make that right, Corry surmised.
“I could see the argument: 'I'm not your typical fourth round pick, so I should not be paid like a typical fourth round pick.' Once you get out of the third round, essentially, you're getting a signed bonus of four years of minimum salary, not the maximum amount of the slot. So he could be making that argument. Last year, the first overall pick in the fourth round got $100,000 above minimum salary. So the second-year base salary for the first pick in the fourth round last year was $100,000 more than the league minimum. The year before it was $75,000 more. So the Raiders can go, 'It's gone up $25,000 a year. We'll pay you $125,000 above the league minimum in your second year throughout the deal. But we are not going to try to pay you the maximum of the slot or anything more than that.' So I could see that being one of the big sticking points.”
This is where things get a bit sticky, because fans should want these players to maximize their contracts, as they are the ones who bring in the money, and life can be short in the NFL. But fans also see it from the Raiders' perspective, as McCoy is a gamble, health-wise.
Nobody wants Las Vegas to sink its money into anything that won't have a strong return on investment, but the flip side of the coin is that McCoy wants that security with all of the uncertainty. This negotiation sounds a bit more layered than Mendoza's.
When it comes to Crawford, Corry believes that this is merely a waiting game, just as it was with second-rounder Jack Bech last year. Players and their agents are hoping one of their peers signs a lucrative deal that they can use as leverage against the franchise.
“Well, he might be in a little bit of a holding pattern, waiting to see what happens with the two players taken above him, Carson Beck in particular," Corry said. "Because you get the full slot of where you're drafted in the third round. The thing is, the only amount that's guaranteed is your signing bonus. So we saw that last year in the second round in terms of fully guaranteed contracts. There's a big holding pattern. We're going to see if Tyler Shough, the quarterback, was going to get a fully guaranteed contract, I believe, at number eight. So like six, four, five, six, and seven. We're waiting once he did get one, those ones which were right in front of him, wherever we get the fully guaranteed contract. Here, if Carson Beck gets something, some money guaranteed among his base salary, number one, the guys who are unsigned right, particularly two and three, might be able to get a little money, which is guaranteed. That's something the union has been pushing for the past couple of years to have some guaranteed money. The third round outside of signing bonus. So that's really the hold up here.”
Again, Raider Nation may just have to wait on this one while keeping an eye out for what is going on in other NFL buildings. Nobody wants to be the franchise that cracked and caves on a big guarantee, and no player wants to be the one who takes less and ruins it for his peers.
At the end of the day, rookie contracts are fairly straightforward. There isn't much to negotiate other than cash flow and the amount of the signing bonus that is paid. But it is also a domino effect, as all of these deals affect each other.
Hopefully, these young players sign their deals before things get rolling in training camp, and all of this ends up being a non-issue. It's not like Las Vegas is dealing with JaMarcus Russell and a holdout again, but pen hitting paper would help the fanbase relax over the next month or so.
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