Joey Bosa is still a no-show at San Diego Chargers training camp. The No. 3 overall pick continues to hold out.
On Wednesday, the Chargers issued a statement on contract negotiations with the former Ohio State star, which revealed that Bosa’s camp rejected the team’s latest offer. Now, the Chargers intend to restructure their offer because they feel Bosa won’t be able to contribute for a full 16-game season.
From the Chargers website:
Our contract discussions and offers to the representatives of Joey Bosa have been both fair and structurally consistent with the contracts of every other Chargers player.
Our offer included:
- An initial signing bonus payment that is larger than any player in the League has received in the last two drafts.
- More money in this calendar year than every player in this year’s draft except one (QB Carson Wentz).
- The largest payment and the highest percentage of signing bonus received in the first calendar year of any Chargers’ first-round selection since the inception of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (2011).
We gave Joey’s representatives our best offer last night, which was rejected today. The offer that we extended was for Joey to contribute during all 16 games and beyond. Joey’s ability to contribute for an entire rookie season has now been jeopardized by the valuable time he has missed with his coaches and his teammates. Since Joey will not report at this time, his ability to produce not just early in the season, but throughout the entire season, has been negatively impacted.
As a result, 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 San Diego Union-Tribune‘s Michael Gehlken reports the two sides are nowhere in contract negotiations. Bosa is behind the eight ball, having missed most of training camp and the preseason. Even if by some miracle the team got something done before the regular season, there’s no way he’d be ready to play Week 1.
That the Chargers chose to air their grievances publicly is concerning, but you can understand their frustration. This conflict doesn’t seem like it will be resolved anytime soon, but we’ll see what progresses after the statement.
