Saints cornerback Malcolm Jenkins already is setting records in the NFL.
But not the kind he had envisioned.
His nine-day holdout already is the longest of the Mickey Loomis era in New Orleans.
Coach Sean Payton says he has a “sense of urgency” to get the 14th overall pick in the fold, but Payton is treading lightly in his comments so as not to make a bad situation worse.
“I know that both parties are doing a great job of trying to get this thing done and both parties are extremely talented at doing this,” Payton said Thursday, accoridng to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “They’ve done it for a long time, Mickey and [Director of Football Administration Khai Harley] and Ben Dogra and Tom Condon from CAA. The good news is that we have experienced guys in the positions of importance as it comes to negotiations. I think both sides will do a good job.”
But the reality is that someone isn’t doing a very good job. The floor and the ceiling for Jenkins have been set, via contracts also negotiated by CAA. So either the agents are trying to ignore the slot that their other contracts created (doubtful, in our view), or the teams isn’t respecting the ritual of the slotting process.
Regardless, if everyone were doing a “good job,” Jenkins would be in a position by now to do a “good job” on the field.