The recent history of lucrative contracts for left tackles in the NFL come with some seriously mixed results for the teams that offered them.
At this point in the next few days, the Kansas City Chiefs are expected to announce the NFL’s next mammoth contract when they reward Orlando Brown Jr. for his youth and production with a long-term contract extension. With a deadline of July 15 to get a long-term deal finished, the player and team are expected to reach an agreement very soon which will give Patrick Mahomes a blindside protector for the next several seasons.
Unfortunately, here’s the thing about long-term deals: they’re all too often not worth the money paid in the first place. Every offseason brings teams trying their best to jettison their latest poor financial decisions and the Chiefs’ own history with lucrative deals isn’t all that great. Just see what happened after Justin Houston, Eric Berry, or Frank Clark after signing on the dotted line.
Some deals work out swimmingly, of course, and the Chiefs have some examples of those win-win contracts on the books at present. That’s what everyone is hoping for Orlando Brown Jr and the Chiefs’ front office. However, before anything is signed, it might be prescient to take a look at some of the biggest deals signed by left tackles in recent years to see what we can learn from those scenarios.
Trent Williams, San Francisco 49ers
When it comes to contract evaluation, it’s a bit hard to really get any reasonable perspective on such a deal only one year after the fact. Imagine grading a draft class after a single season. Still, it’s worth noting the Trent Williams contract for multiple reasons, including the fact that everyone is thumbs-up one year later.
When Williams signed a mammoth six-year deal last spring, it made heads turn around the league with such a whopping price tag attached at over $138 million. That’s a lot of money to give to any lineman, but Williams was pushing into his mid-thirties when he signed it, which meant the Niners were banking on Williams dominating opponents for a second decade by the end of it all. That’s a very risky proposition.
However, there’s a reason that the Niners went all out to retain Williams and keep him from leaving (for the Kansas City Chiefs, perhaps): he’s the best left tackle in the league. When healthy, Williams is an All-Pro talent who can shut down any opposing pass rusher. He’s got a body of work with nine Pro Bowls to his name to prove it. Last year, Williams played as hoped once again over 15 games and he should be expected to continue until age/injury wins out.