DONE DEAL: Buffalo have successfully sign player worth $40.5m….

Wyman isn’t just casually throwing out the $40m as a suggestion. He is well connected to the team and it was announced yesterday that John Schneider will be appearing on his radio show every Thursday until the draft.

This is a steer. This is a nugget of information, pulling back the curtain and letting fans know where the negotiation is.

Smith’s camp are asking for $40m.

I don’t think it’s worth overreacting too much to the news. This is likely a starting point for negotiations. It’s the same average salary being given to Derek Carr, Dak Prescott and Matt Stafford (although Carr is about to be cut by the Raiders).

This simply sets a high bar for the discussion, while the Seahawks will try to set a low bar. From there, the two sides will work on a compromise. That’s business.

However, there is one problem.

By introducing the $40m number, it normalises the idea of paying Geno Smith $30m. Or the $32.4m he’d get on the franchise tag. Suddenly that feels like a more reasonable number simply because it isn’t $40m.

My response to this is…

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

No.

How has this become our reality? How have we gone from the Russell Wilson trade, embracing an opportunity to draft a replacement and potentially benefit from years of cost-effective quarterback play, to having a serious debate about paying Geno Smith a similar salary to the one they shipped to Denver 12 months ago?

Smith had one good season in a journeyman career. It wasn’t even a full season of quality play either. You can make the arguments about why his form tailed off and some are valid points to raise. Yet the truth is he still made errors and could easily have had more turnovers — as noted in a previous article: