Albert Breer on Possible Extensions for Jonathan Taylor & Christian Gonzalez, Training Camp Preview

All right.

Welcome in.

It's the Brew Report for Wednesday, July 22nd, a mailbag edition of the Breer Report.

We will have a print mailbag coming for you a little later this week.

You can get more answers to more of your questions there on the MMQB.

com.

But right here, right now, as we always do, we are going to answer three of your questions.

The first question comes from Curtis Allen, that's at Curtis 93969.

Curtis asks, is there any news of a Jonathan Taylor extension with Indy?

And right now, Curtis, I'd say that's status quo.

Um, Jonathan Taylor has voiced his desire for a new contract.

And I think running backs have to push harder than guys at other positions in these sorts of cases because it is harder for those guys to get paid and their skill level, um, their sustainability is more fleeting than you see at other positions.

And so, just as Jonathan Taylor pushed real hard in 2023 when he was going into his fourth year and he's among the best backs in football for his big second contract, he does the 3-year deal then, and now he's coming to the end of that deal and going into his seventh NFL season, and he's shown that he has sustained and he has taken it further than a lot of players in his position do, so it's logical that he would try to cash in again.

I think it would behoove the Colts to do it now.

And I know it can sound a little crazy, the idea of extending a guy who's got the kind of mileage that Taylor has going into his 6th year, but I think he's so important to where they are right now.

He's so important to the way that they're planning on playing in 2026.

Um, he's important to the success of Daniel Jones, and here's the key.

You don't want to wait until after Bejon Robinson and Jamir Gibbs do their deals.

And those contract situations are looming as big ones for this summer.

So if Gibbs gets done, say August 15th, if Bejon Robinson gets done, say August 20th.

Now we're talking about potential market changing forces entering the equation with Jonathan Taylor, and if you are the Colts, you do not want to be there.

So, I think the best thing for the Colts to do right now would be to sit down, hammer something out, make sure that Jonathan Taylor is set and ready to go for the start of training camp because I think this only gets more difficult if you wait.

Question number 2 from Anthony Clery.

I hope I pronounced that right.

That's, uh, Anthony is at East Coasta Nostra, asks, are the Patriots going to pay Christian Gonzalez?

Anthony, the answer to that question is yes.

My bigger thing here is when, how, um, will they do it?

And I, I think the, the, the key thing to remember here is it's not just about the Patriots going to Christian Gonzalez and wanting to get something done.

It's about Christian Gonzalez being ready to do a deal.

And if you're Christian Gonzalez, you wait until Devin Witherspoon does a deal for a diff a couple of different reasons.

Both those guys, same draft class, of course, then you get a, I think you could, could make the argument Christian Gonzalez has a higher ceiling, maybe is a better corner now.

I think Devin Witherspoon is more of um the do everything guy and a guy who's a little more versatile, and I think he's more accomplished at this point of his career.

But, you know, if you're talking about, you know, wanting a big prototypical outside corner, that's what Gonzalez is.

Witherspoon is just a different player.

So, like, I think Gonzalez would look at it and say, if Witherspoon does a deal before I do, then that sets the floor for where I'm gonna get paid.

On top of that, Witherspoon has the negotiate the negotiating leverage of having the Seahawks going into um the phase where they're gonna be sold.

And that's, um, that, that, that process, of course, is ongoing with, uh, with the Coastlaws buying the, the, the franchise from Jody Allen, um, and that's gonna be approved about a month from now.

So when that happens, you don't know if the rules of engagement are gonna change.

The football people would have, you know, reason to do a deal now.

So you want to take advantage of that if you're Witherspoon.

And I think with Witherspoon, the other thing you're looking at is they just paid a non-quarterback over $40 million per year.

So, that doesn't mean that Devin Witherspoon is entitled to get over $40 million per year, but he can make the argument he's as valuable to the Seahawks as Jackson Smith Njigba is.

And he could logically say this, Seattle, look, you don't got to pay me 4041 $42 million per year, but you got to get me closer to that than where Trent McDuffie, Sauce Gardner, and Derrick Stanley are.

And so if Witherspoon can push the market to $35 or $36 million per year, then, you know, Christian Gonzalez can react to that.

Christian Gonzalez can negotiate his deal off of that.

And, you know, if you're talking about doing a deal now, unless you're getting into that neighborhood, if you're a Christian Gonzalez, it probably behooves you to wait, especially considering you have all the information.

You have the same agent as Devin Witherspoon, which is another factor in all of this, which, you know, is going to allow one guy to move with the information of what's going on in the other negotiations.

So I think the Patriots will pay Christian Gonzalez.

I think they may have to wait until after Devin Witherspoon gets done in Seattle, unless they wanna give him a market-changing contract right now.

Finally, question number 3 from Logan France, that's at Living like Logan.

Which team's camp are you most excited to attend this year and why?

I'll give you a swing of 3 camps that I'm most excited to go to, and I'll be there during the first week, and that's the 3 camps in Los Angeles.

I think all 3 of them are intriguing for a number of different reasons.

Um, the Cowboys are the Cowboys.

So it's always interesting, um, the Cowboys camp.

I, I think, you know, the different forces in play there and you look at , um, Dak Prescott now, you know, going into his 11th year, going into his 2nd decade as the Cowboys starter, um, you know, you, you look at George Pickens coming back on the franchise tag playing opposite CD Lamb.

You look at the defense now without Micah Parsons and without all the drama that they dealt with last year during training camp, there's a left tackle battle there.

So there's just like a lot going on in Cowboys camp where, you know, do they have the ceiling of being an 11 or a 12-win team.

I think they do, but a lot of things have to go right and that starts in training camp.

Then you have the Chargers.

I think where Justin Herbert goes this year is going to be fascinating.

There are people who felt like he should have been a bigger consideration for MVP of the league.

Um, that maybe we saw publicly based on the year that he had last year and the circumstances going on around him when the Chargers were down to their 5th and their 6th and their 7th tackle, and they had some of the injuries at the skill positions.

Now they get Omari and Hampton back.

They got Trey Harris at receiver going into year 2.

Ladd McConkie, they expect to have a bounce back in his 3rd year, and you have Joe Alt and Rashaw Slater coming back into the fold.

I, like, I think they're interesting and then you add Mike McDaniel to that.

So where the offense is, where Justin Herbert is, is fascinating, and then I think it's self-explanatory with the Rams.

I mean, this is, this, this feels like 5 years ago when they traded for Matthew Stafford and the Super Bowl was in their building.

And all these expectations were mounting.

That's the way it was going into 2021 for the Rams.

That's right back where we are now.

Those expectations are building for the Rams going into the year, and we've seen Sean McVeigh and his staff manage those expectations very effectively in the past.

Um, I know they feel, uh, they feel very strongly about where their team is going into this year.

They went toe to toe with the Seattle Seahawks in Seattle in the NFC championship games.

Matthew Stafford played a balls-out game.

That Sunday, they lost by 4 points in that game, and now they add Miles Garrett, they add Trent McDuffie, they add Jalen Watson.

It feels to me like this is a team that's right on the precipice.

Of putting together what could be a historic season the same way you felt that way about them going into 2021.

Appreciate you guys coming out.

Um, we are going out on the road next week.

Can't wait for that.

We got one more Breer report coming for you this week.

As always, you can leave your comments down below here on the YouTube page.

You can also, also get to me on my social media at Albert Breer on Twitter, at Albert R Breer on Facebook at Albert_Breer on Instagram.

Appreciate you guys coming out.

We'll see you a little later in the week.