The Chargers and first-round pick Joey Bosa haven’t had any contact since July 28th, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets. Bosa stands as the only unsigned rookie in this year’s class and few expected his contract wrangling with the Bolts to go on for this long. 
As Schefter notes, Chargers greats Philip Rivers, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Shawne Merriman also had prolonged contract negotiations with the team before ultimately signing their rookie deals. Of course, that was back when rookie contract holdouts were commonplace. Under the current CBA, rookie holdouts are much less frequent and even the trickiest ones seem to wrap up by the middle of the summer. Unfortunately, there is no end in sight for this stare-down between the Chargers and the Ohio State product.
Technically, the Chargers have until tomorrow to trade Bosa’s rights but one source with knowledge of the situation tells Mike Florio of PFT that it’s highly unlikely that any team retained enough rookie pool space to accommodate his contract.
Meanwhile, Bosa’s mother took to Facebook over the weekend with some interesting comments. “It bums me out for him so much,” she wrote. “Wish we pulled an Eli Manning on draft day.” Manning, of course, forced his way out of San Diego after being selected with the top pick in the 2004 draft.
It’s important to keep Bosa’s family in mind, Alex Marvez of The Sporting News tweets, since the defensive end comes from a wealthy household and doesn’t have any pressure to immediately collect on an NFL contract. In theory, Bosa could survive a year-long holdout in order to re-enter the draft pool next year. Of course, after a year away from football, it’s unlikely that he would go No. 3 or higher in the 2017 draft. Bosa will be ineligible to play this season if he doesn’t sign by the Tuesday after Week 10.
In order for Bosa to agree to offset language, agent Todd France reportedly wants the Chargers to pay the 21-year-old the entirety of his signing bonus (approximately $17MM) in 2016. San Diego, meanwhile, would rather wait until next March to dole out a “significant portion” of the bonus. At last check, the Chargers want to give Bosa roughly 61 percent of his signing bonus during this calendar year, which is the same payout schedule the Cowboys agreed to with fourth overall selection Ezekiel Elliott, who was Bosa’s teammate at Ohio State and went one pick after him.
Photo courtesy of PFR on Instagram.
That’s really nice of your mommy to post comments on FB!! Just go play football Bozo!!
Note to Mom…..it’s your Son that’s being difficult here.
Chargers are offering him the same as anyone would to the #3 and its commonplace for a portion of the signing bonus to he paid in March.
Just sign the dang thing Joey and get to work!
I wonder how much of this holdout is being fueled by Bosa’s agent and his desire to set a strong precedent for rookie clients going forward.
As an agent you are hired to look out for the best interests of your client not what potential business you may gain from having Bosa hold out. Besides you can’t try to set a precedent when you have no idea how the next CBA may play out. Just really bad business using your client to try to make money for others. This seems Bosa and family driven
Sounds like another Ryan Leaf in the making … Hoping the Chargers hold their ground with this malcontent
Go get that paper Joey! The NFL has the worst player contracts in professional sports with very little guarantees. They won’t hesitate to cut a player and not pay him so take what u can when u have the leverage.
It’s not about the $$…..it’s just about whether he gets it ALL up front or if a small portion is held til March.
He’s still getting the same amount and it’s common practice.
He’s just being difficult.
As a Charger fan I wish he’d pulled an Eli also…..then we coulda got 3 good players instead of just this Bozo
not guaranteed but the signing bonus alone is more than nhl entry level contracts for rookies.
While the NFL does usually have the worst guarantees (in terms of guarantee to total dollar amount)…$17 million coming straight out of college is still a lot. Plus, as @ThePriceWasRight said, NFL players make a lot more on their entry contracts as opposed to MLB players (with the top draftees probably getting a bonus in the $3-$6 million range but low salary) and NHL rookies getting entry level contracts that are cheaper than NFL’s rookies signing bonuses.
Wow not the brightest decision to have your mom pick your battles. Guess she wants to make sure SHE is taken care of should her son turn out to be a bust.
He doesn’t want to play for the Chargers so trade him to the Dallas Cowboys and to the person that said that he’s trying to do this so he can get guaranteed money remember his family has money he does not need this he just wants it
What would Dallas even give up for Bosa? The Chargers aren’t going to trade him for a free tour of Jerry World. And it looks worse if his reasoning is “he just wants it” when his family is well off. If his family is well off (and he’s not concerned about losing money for violating terms of the offset language in his contract) then there is no reason for him to hold out. A rookie who is asking for his full signing bonus right away, without proving himself, is either greedy or knows there could be problems down the line that will hurt his potential earnings.