It’s no secret the San Diego Chargers are looking at the Cleveland Browns in the rear view mirror as the NFL’s most dysfunctional organization. The Joey Bosa situation, which was preceded by All-Pro safety Eric Weddle getting punched in the nuggets by the Chargers, only serves to highlight this truth.
Bosa still is no closer to showing up for work with one preseason game to play than he was before training camp began. He and his agents appear to be committed to holding out as long as it takes to set a precedent that players won’t be bullied into signing contracts that include offset language.
On the other side of the debacle is the Chargers, who won’t do a deal that doesn’t include offset language (read more about that here).
Bleacher Report’s Mike Freeman spoke with a few NFL general managers who are not in the least bit surprised by the entire fiasco. He reports they are actually laughing at the Chargers for their consistency when it comes to screwing things up.
“This is very Chargers,” one general manager said.
“If Joey Bosa ended his dispute tomorrow,” said one NFC general manager, “he would barely get something from his rookie year. But it won’t end tomorrow. It could be weeks. So effectively, the Chargers threw away the rookie year of their own high draft pick.”
“His rookie season is over,” said another NFC general manager, “and he may not be a Charger.”
Most NFL rookies don’t have the kind of support and financial security that Bosa does. His family is well off, and his father, John Bosa, is a former first-round pick himself.
Bosa’s mother recently lamented on Facebook that she wished her family had “pulled an Eli Manning” when it came to the Chargers.
In other words, they should have made it known before the draft that he wasn’t going to play for San Diego. When Manning came into the league back in 2004, Archie Manning already knew enough about the Chargers to make sure his son didn’t play for them. Fast forward more than a decade and things are still as dysfunctional as ever.
Because of this, it’s quite possible Bosa really will never play a single snap for the Chargers.
At this point, because he’s so far behind the eight ball, and because he was being asked to learn a new position to begin with (another dumb move by San Diego), he should just refuse to sign. Should he do so, then Bosa would be available to be selected in the 2017 NFL draft.
And while some might view his part in this entire poopstorm to be a potential red flag, it sure sounds like those around the NFL might not see it that way.