Tre Boston thought he’d do OK for himself this offseason. Now, like many of the other safeties who walked into the free agent market, he’s still searching for any deal.
Boston said during an interview on SiriusXM NFL Radio that he couldn’t believe the way the market has cratered at his position.
“Just like a few of the other guys, we’re just not hearing anything near what we want to hear or even close,” Boston said. “We’re closer to veteran minimum than we are to the $7-, $8-, $9-million players we wanted to be two months ago or even eight months ago. . . .
“It’s kind of unbelievable to me. We’re talking about a position that’s needed more and more on the field in today’s game. There are about five or six valuable starting safeties in free agency right now. But I guess it’s just trying to get us to take peanuts like the rest of them have. That’s just the business of the game.”
Boston’s astute to realize what’s happening. Of the 11 players remaining in the PFT Top 100 Free Agent list, four are safeties, including him, Kenny Vaccaro, Eric Reid and Tyvon Branch.
While Tyrann Mathieu got a decent one-year deal for the Texans, the three-year deals for Kurt Coleman in New Orleans and Morgan Burnett were well short of expectations. But with Seattle’s Earl Thomas on the trade block, the market is still slow for players who have an impact.
The 25-year-old Boston is coming off career highs in tackles (79), pass break-ups (eight) and interceptions (five) with the Chargers, and said he hasn’t gotten an offer he finds adequate after some early interest from the Cardinals, Raiders, Browns, and Giants.
“You’ve gotta have patience,” Boston said. “Everybody thinks that free agency is just these one or two first-beginning days. But it can go on a long time. We’ve seen it happen before like last year with the running backs group.”
And with the draft approaching and some teams not wanting to risk compensatory picks by signing an unrestricted free agent now, some of them are probably going to have to continue to wait.