Bosa declines Chargers' "best offer:" The San Diego Chargers and their first-round selection, defensive end Joey Bosa, are at a standstill in contract negotiations after the rookie declined the team's "best offer" Wednesday.
As a result, the Chargers pulled their initial offer to Bosa and made the details of the offer public.
Here's what the Chargers offered the third overall pick Tuesday evening:
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An initial signing bonus payment that is larger than any rookie has received in the past two NFL drafts;
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more money in 2016 than every rookie in this year's class except the Philadelphia Eagles' Carson Wentz;
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the "largest payment and the highest percentage of signing bonus received in the first calendar year" of any Chargers first-round pick since the adoption of the NFL's collective bargaining agreement in 2011.
Bosa's representatives expressed their displeasure over the Chargers' offer in the following statement:
"We will say that it is ironic that the team now takes issue with the timing of Joey's arrival, since the Chargers unilaterally decided to remain silent for the first 14 days of training camp, instead of replying in a timely fashion to the proposal we made on the eve of training camp on July 28th," the statement said. "At this point, all we can do is continue to fight for a fair contract on behalf of our client, as we do for all of our clients.
"The Chargers can focus on trying to sway public opinion, but our focus will remain on our client and securing a contract for him that is fair and consistent with his draft position."
Bosa has been absent from the entirety of the team's training camp. He is the only unsigned first-round pick from the 2016 draft. At this point, the Chargers believe that Bosa has missed so much valuable time with this teammates and coaches that he will be unable to play all 16 games during the regular season, which will result in an offer fitting of that service.
"We will restructure our offer since Joey will be unable to contribute for the full 16 game season without the adequate time on the practice field, in the classroom, and in preseason games," the Chargers said in a press release.
Chargers owner, John Spanos expressed his outrage with the situation, calling the negotiation process "absolutely asinine."
"I'm blown away. At all costs, I wanted to avoid going down this road, Spanos told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "They made it overly clear we had no other option. … It's absolutely asinine. He would have gotten more cash in this calendar year than anyone except [No. 2 overall pick] Carson Wentz."
Pats trade Stork to Skins: After being informed by the New England Patriots that he was being released Wednesday, center Bryan Stork was surprisingly traded to the Washington Redskins for an unconditional draft pick.
A stunner: Former starting center Bryan Stork is being released by the #Patriots today, I'm told. Crazy.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 24, 2016
Wow. #Patriots didn’t cut C Bryan Stork after all… they traded him to the #Redskins, source said. That was unexpected.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 24, 2016
The 2014 fourth-round pick started 21 games for the Patriots, including the playoffs, the last two seasons. However, he suffered multiple concussion, including one early in training camp that forced him to miss a week.
In his absence, second-year lineman David Andrews performed well enough to assure the Patriots that he would be a suitable replacement for Stork. Andrews started the first ten games of 2015 before Stork returned from injury.
Stork was also involved in a scuffle during a joint practice earlier this month with the Chicago Bears that upset Patriots head coach Bill Belichick.
Giants owner defends Brown signing: In the wake of 2015 domestic violence accusations against Giants kicker Josh Brown, the team elected to re-sign him to a two-year, $4 million deal earlier this offseason.
Giants owner John Mara spoke to the media for the first time since the signing, and defended the team's decision.
"All I can tell you is that we're aware of all the allegations, and I believe all the facts and circumstances, and we were comfortable with our decision to re-sign him," Mara told reporters Wednesday, via ESPN.
Brown's ex-wife, Molly Brown, told police that he had been physically violent with her on more that 20 instances over the last several years.
However, the NFL suspended Brown for one game due to the 2015 allegations, noting that the league was unable to gather adequate information from Brown's ex-wife and law enforcement officials to warrant a longer suspension.
The NFL's current domestic violence policy requires a six-game baseline for first offenses, but allows for aggravating circumstances that can make the suspension longer, or mitigating circumstances that can make it shorter.
