Editor's note: Melvin Gordon's agent told ESPN's Josina Anderson that he requested last week that the Chargers trade Gordon. This story originally ran on July 24.
The important thing with this Melvin Gordon situation is not to panic. I know, I know, that's not how we roll these days when we talk about sports, but at least try and stick with me here.
Training camp isn't and never was the deadline for Gordon and the Los Angeles Chargers to get a new contract done. If Gordon were in camp, the Chargers would be babying him anyway to make sure he'd be healthy for the start of the season. He doesn't need to learn the offense, and the time away could actually be a good thing for a team that fancies itself a Super Bowl contender once the real action starts. Assuming, of course, that he is actually with the team at some point.
The Chargers aren't assuming that, but it's their hope and sources say it's one they share with Gordon. He's justifiably upset that the fifth-year option on his rookie contract is scheduled to pay him just $5.6 million this year, and he wants a new deal that pays him like the high-level performer he has been. Both sides hope they can reach a deal that makes him happy by the time the season starts. If they can't, sure, there's a chance the Chargers could look to trade Gordon. They've definitely discussed that possibility internally. They just hope it doesn't come to that.
So let's look at a couple of aspects of this:
What Gordon wants
The highest-paid running backs in the league are, in order, Todd Gurley, Le'Veon Bell and David Johnson. Their average salaries, respectively, are $14.375 million, $13.125 million and $13 million a year. That's a simplistic assessment and doesn't take into account guarantee structure and other aspects of the deals. (For example, Bell's deal is really only a two-year, $27 million commitment, so you could say he's making $13.5 million a year.) On some level, Gordon probably has his eye on Bell's $27 million full guarantee at signing, or at least Johnson's $24.7 million full guarantee at signing.
But to keep this simple, let's look at that average annual salary. After that top three, the number drops significantly, to Atlanta's Devonta Freeman at $8.25 million. A source close to the situation says the Chargers have made Gordon an offer, and indications are that it exceeds Freeman's number but doesn't get to Johnson's. There's a lot of room in there, but let's say, based on the clues I've picked up from conversations around this situation, that the Chargers have offered Gordon between $10 million and $11 million per year. That's a lot more than he's making right now, but a still a good chunk less than what he believes he's worth, hence the standoff.
Gordon's leverage
As with any player in this situation, Gordon's leverage is simple: He can just not show up. He won't get paid, of course, but his hope with this leverage play is that the Chargers, who have their sights set on the Super Bowl, decide they aren't good enough to get there without him and cave into his demands. Gurley is the only player in the league who has scored more touchdowns from scrimmage over the past three years than Gordon's 38, and the Chargers are a better team with him on the field than they are without him. They like backup running backs Austin Ekeler and Justin Jackson, but neither has proven what Gordon has in the NFL and neither offers his combination of between-the-tackles toughness and electrifying playmaking ability in space.
There's also, as we will discuss in a moment, very little chance the Chargers can get enough in a trade to justify losing Gordon. So withholding services and threatening to sit out real games is the way to go -- especially while we're still 6½ weeks away from the team's regular-season opener.
Players who are under contract and don't show up by the sixth day of training camp lose a year of accrued service time toward free agency, but this is likely irrelevant in Gordon's case, because he has already logged four years of service time and would be eligible for unrestricted free agency next offseason. The Chargers could theoretically file a grievance and argue that Gordon's contract should "toll" (meaning he'd have to play a year for them at $5.6 million before becoming a free agent), but there's no way to know whether they'd win that. Most likely, if Gordon sat out this season, he'd be an unrestricted free agent in March.
The Chargers' position
Investing in running backs has not historically proven to be a wise idea for NFL teams. Six of the 10 highest-paid backs in the league missed time due to injury last season, and that doesn't even count Bell, who sat out the entire season by choice. The Chargers have quarterback Philip Rivers heading into a contract year, so they'll need to get something done with him soon, and they'll need to come up with new deals for guys like Joey Bosa, Keenan Allen and Melvin Ingram in the next couple of years as well. Paying Gordon top-level running back money could cause them other problems down the road.
So, if they don't want to give in to Gordon, they can tell him they have Ekeler and Jackson, that running back help always shakes loose during camp and that they'd be fine without him. They can show him the stats about running back health and why it might not make sense to commit to one long term. Heck, they can just point to Gurley, who couldn't even finish the first year of the big deal he signed last summer healthy. The Chargers' pitch is basically, "We love you, we think you're worth a lot, but this is as high as we can go and if you don't like it, we have coverage and can get it done without you."
Marcus Spears doesn't expect Melvin Gordon and the Chargers to get a deal done, which will likely lead to Gordon being unhappy at the end of the season.
If there's a reason Gordon might ultimately move toward the team's negotiating position, it lies in the critical difference between his situation and the one in which Bell found himself last season. As Pittsburgh's franchise player in 2017, Bell pocketed more than $12 million. That's about $1.3 million more than Gordon has made total in his four years in the league. He's not in quite as strong a position as Bell was if he wants to sit out the entire season, as Bell did in 2018 when the Steelers franchised him again.
Trade possibilities
Gordon's agents have said that if the Chargers and Gordon can't come to a deal, he'd like to be traded to a team that will give him what he wants. This sounds great, but, as is often the case, is not that simple. The Chargers aren't the only team leery of paying big money for running backs, and any team that would trade for Gordon would know they'd have to give him a big contract in addition to giving the L.A. something in return. This is why a trade seems unlikely: The fact that the acquiring team would have to sign Gordon would necessarily reduce the value they'd be willing to offer the Chargers in a trade. And if you're the Chargers, why would you let a player as valuable as Gordon go for next to nothing when you can continue to negotiate with him during the season if need be and hope that he eventually comes back?
This is football, however, and players do get injured, even in training camp. And if a contending team such as the Cowboys, Rams, Panthers, Saints, Jaguars -- name a team where the running back carries a massive load -- were to lose its star back to a significant injury in camp, that could absolutely change the trade landscape. The Cowboys gave up a first-round pick during the season last year for Amari Cooper because they needed a receiver so badly. You think they wouldn't try to get Gordon away from the Chargers if something were to happen to Ezekiel Elliott in the next three or four weeks?
As it stands, it's hard to find a team that would trade anything of significant value for Gordon knowing it'd also have to sign him. But things change, and this very well could if Gordon's holdout drags on deep into camp.
The bottom line
There's a deal to be done here, and the most likely outcome is that Gordon signs with and plays for the Chargers in 2019. Johnson got his eve-of-the-season deal done with Arizona last year with almost no leverage, heading into a contract year in which he was scheduled to make almost $4 million less than Gordon. The Chargers might not want to go as high as Arizona did, but it's hard to see them justifying paying less than the Johnson deal if they really do want to keep Gordon. So the trick is to find a way to get Gordon's average annual salary into that $13 million-a-year range while building a guarantee structure that protects the team in case something happens to him. He has only played a full 16-game season once, after all.
Recent deals for Carson Wentz in Philadelphia and Grady Jarrett and Deion Jones in Atlanta have made use of option bonuses to help those teams around short-term cap trouble, so there are templates in place that show the Chargers how to delay guaranteed-money payments and still get their other business (i.e., a Rivers extension) done.
The player has said he wants to stay. The team has said it wants to keep him. The two sides have exchanged contract proposals. There are more than six weeks until the season starts. At this point, there's no reason to panic. Check back again in the first week of September and see whether anything has changed.