Kelly: You’ve Made Your Point, Connor Williams, Now Come To Work
Connor Williams deserves a round of applause for his bravery because in those rare instances when NFL players have the hammer (are in possession of some semblance of leverage), they need to swing it.
NFL teams do it all the time when they void contracts they wrote and signed, often releasing players at inopportune moments, or shake down an established veteran, forcing them to take a pay cut for whatever reason.
Then these teams justify it with a “It’s not personal, it’s business.”
Well, Williams is swinging his hammer by skipping all of the Miami Dolphins’ offseason program as he and his agent push to get a new contract, and his absence is noticeable.
The center skipped the first day of the Dolphins’ mandatory minicamp session as a means of protesting the fact he’s slated to earn just $7 million in the final year of a two-year, $14 million contract he wants the Dolphins to extend.
DOLPHINS OFFENSIVE LINE NEEDS CONNOR WILLIAMS
The team desperately needs Williams to help stabilize the first-team offensive line, which already is practicing without Terron Armstead. But Williams figuratively is mimicking Cuba Gooding Jr. character Rod Tidwell in the movie Jerry McGuire, metaphorically screaming, “SHOW ME THE MONEY!”
Williams played well last season and wants to be rewarded for it with some financial security, and in my opinion a deal should have been done months ago because he’s the foundational piece I want Miami’s offensive line to be built around for the next few seasons.
Problem is, there are 29 Dolphins players with expiring contracts jockeying to get their slice of the $13 million in cap space the Dolphins received for Byron Jones’ June 1 release last week.
Williams was the only one bold enough to draw a line in the sand, and as a result he's subject to be fined just north of $93,000 if he skips all three days of mandatory minicamp because teams can dock players $15,515 for the first missed day, $31,030 for the second, and $46,540 for the third.
THE RESHAD JONES EXAMPLE
If I were Williams, I’d follow Reshad Jones’ lead and show up for the rest of this week's minicamp practices after skipping the first day.
Jones, a Pro Bowl safety for the Dolphins, did just that one camp during the Adam Gase era. He stole all the headlines by skipping the first day of a mandatory minicamp, then carrying the story forward by attending day two, and pleaded his case for a new deal to the media.
It was brilliant!
Wouldn’t you know Jones got his deal redone before the regular season started. He pimped the system, and Williams can too.
WILLIAMS' POTENTIAL FINANCIAL SACRIFICE
According to the CBA language, simply showing up is the requirement for minicamp and training camp. Participation is not.
Williams would save himself the remaining $77,570 by attending the final two days of minicamp, watching his teammates work instead of sitting at home, and potentially having a pimped-out Mercedes docked from his paycheck.
The Dolphins are seeing just how valuable Williams is to the offense watching these center tryouts Miami has been putting the interior linemen through just to make it through these OTA practices.
But will it lead to a pay increase for Williams, who will be the eighth-highest-paid center (base salary and bonuses) in the NFL in 2023?
The top six centers in the NFL all clear $10.5 million in take home salary this upcoming season, and that’s likely the stratosphere Williams wants to enter.
This season the Dolphins have 29 players on one-year deals, and another 12 on play-for-play contracts, which means Miami can release them after the 2023 season with little to no penalty, creating an identical amount of cap space.
Closed mouths don’t get fed, especially in this financial climate Miami is entering, where veterans will be jockeying for the remaining cap space available before quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s second contract eats up roughly 20 percent of the team’s cap space in 2024 or 2025.
The offseason is the time for players to take a stand when it comes to the messed-up business of football, and push for new or better deals.
Williams should be applauded for doing that. But someone should tell him there’s no need to throw away $77,570 when he can just show up and watch practice like Zach Sieler.
Sieler, who is in the exact same position as Williams, pushing for a new deal, decided to attend the session Tuesday after spitting a few OTA weeks, but only watched minicamp while his people pushed for a new contract.
