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The Jacksonville Jaguars aren’t worried about Leonard Fournette playing for another team in the next four seasons.
According to Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, Fournette is the only top-10 pick so far to sign a deal which does not include offset language. Florio notes that even No. 1 overall pick Myles Garrett has offsets in his deal with the Cleveland Browns.
Offsets language has become a leverage issue for NFL teams, according to MMQB’s Andrew Brandt, and was the reason behind the hold out of Joey Bosa last season. Offsets allows for the team to recover future guaranteed money if the player is released and then signs elsewhere. The language has long been common in veteran deals, and has become more common in rookie contracts.
The Jaguars, however, aren’t worried about potentially having to pay Fournette even if he were to get released and sign with a new team. While coach Doug Marrone has said he’s not giving Fournette the starting job yet just for being the No. 4 overall draft pick, it certainly appears that Jacksonville’s front office is committed to the former LSU running back for the next four seasons no matter what. Hypothetically, Fournette could get paid by two teams if he were cut prior to the 2020 season and signed a new deal elsewhere.
Considering the state of Jacksonville’s running game, which is at or near the bottom of the league in multiple stats, that appears highly unlikely.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
