Will San Diego Chargers WR Vincent Jackson Test Free Agency?

but this is where I’d point out that AJ said this morning that they’d have a decision on what they wanted to do with McNeill within a week and a half. That sounds like they want to know before FA kicks off. They can always look at his neck and say “No way our doctors will okay that in a few weeks”.

They’ll probably immediately lose enough off the books (with Hardwick, Tolbert, etc.) to sign Jackson right away and then wait for McNeill to fail his physical to sign the other guys. Silly as that sounds. I also think it’s in Jackson’s best interest to wait those 3 days and get the Chargers in a bidding war. We’ll see what happens with that war.

I think you’re confusing him with Floyd.

Unless it’s a sign-and-trade, which I don’t think is something the NFL offers (at least it’s been a while since I’ve seen/heard of one actually happening).

The “getting nothing in return” thing is ridiculous. Name a single NFL player that has ever been traded for anything resembling equal value in the last year of his contract. People try and make it like AJ Smith just lets these guys walk and that’s his fault, but it’s not. Nobody does it. You’d have to get back the same amount of money (so that both teams remained in line with the salary cap), and if you get back more than 1 player than you have to start cutting guys (which means paying them to go away, which means you lose money anyway).

This is why, in the NFL, when you lose a player to free agency you get compensation in the form of a draft pick (or several). Trading a guy away is nearly impossible.

Also, with the way the cap is, no team can afford to pay two starters at QB (Rivers and Brees) or RB (Tomlinson and Turner, Mathews and Sproles).

Is this going to be another case of The Chargers losing another pro bowl caliber player and getting nothing in return?

We never got “nothing”, because we got compensatory draft picks, and we’d probably get a good one for VJ.

I’m not sure of all the intricacies of labor here; but could a trade happen so we could at least get a viable replacement?

The only potential trade is a tag and trade, which would probably be for mid round draft picks.

Ideally I’d like to keep Jackson of course; but he has been injury prone and putting up huge money for him if he cant stay healthy seem a fool’s errand

He’s missed 1 game due to injury in 5 years.

(And I’m stealing this from a GM who I can’t remember)

Is that whoever gets a free agent almost always overpays, unless the player takes less to play somewhere. Otherwise, the winner always pays more than what everyone else thought the player was worth.

We have a Stevie Johnson(Vincent Brown) at slot, a Brandon Lloyd(Malcom Floyd) at Y, Vincent Jackson(Marques colston) at X in the lineup. Scary. Of course, not a precise analogy, but these are players with similar skill sets that Rivers could definitely stretch the field with. And in my opinion, Marques Colston’s hands are noticably better than VJax. AND of course, our top receiver, Antonio Gates recovering(enough to be effective) from what most thought was a career altering foot injury.

It hasn’t cropped up yet, but the medical procedure he had to stay on the field in the 2011 is quite experimental and it isn’t known whether it’ll hold up over time.

Doesn’t seem to jive with what people are reporting. That the Chargers will aggressively attempt to retain Jackson. The question comes down to if they will offer him more than another team.