Manziel offer is ‘fair, competitive’

Kent Austin knew the Johnny Manziel camp was going to impose some kind of a deadline, but didn’t know when it would be, or that his agent would make the deadline public Monday afternoon.

“Erik (Burkhardt, Manziel’s agent) has been unbelievably transparent, honest and fair right through this process,” the Hamilton Tiger-Cats vice-president of football told The Spectator Tuesday morning. “He said there was going to be a deadline, but we didn’t know it was going to be Jan. 31.”

On Monday, Burkhardt released a statement through an American football writer in which he said the Ticats had until Jan. 31 to work out a “fair deal” to make Manziel “their quarterback,” or “We will turn our focus to several other professional options readily available to us.”

Over the weekend, the Ticats made Manziel a contract offer, meeting another deadline, set by the CFL and its negotiation list rules.

If they hadn’t made an offer — even if it wasn’t accepted, which Burkhardt’s statement clearly indicates it wasn’t — they would have lost Manziel from their negotiation list to CFL free agency.

To keep Manziel on their negotiation list for up to a year, all the Ticats had to offer was the minimum CFL salary, but Austin said their offer was well over the minimum amount of $53,000.

Burkhardt referred to the offer as a “placeholder” and said what he and his client consider a fair offer is for the Ticats to make Manziel their QB with a salary on a par with what Hamilton quarterbacks have made in recent years.

Since the Ticats just re-signed Jeremiah Masoli to a two-year contract with starting-quarterback money, and traded Zach Collaros and his $540,000 contract to Saskatchewan (where it will likely be renegotiated downward), Manziel isn’t going to get a starter’s salary, too.

Especially since he hasn’t played a game in two years.

Austin pointed out that even future Hall of Famers such as Doug Flutie and Anthony Calvillo had struggles early in their CFL careers.

“Erik is doing what he needs to do, I get that,” Austin said. “But our offer was more than fair, more than competitive.”

Austin also said that some of the release’s wording around the TigerCats giving Manziel permission to negotiate with another team was confusing. That permission was given, Austin said, but it was during negotiations earlier in the fall, not now.

It’s believed Manziel and Burkhardt met with the Montreal Alouettes.

Burkhardt’s statement said that because Manziel has been impressed with Austin and head coach June Jones, they were restricting discussions to the TigerCats. Until the end of this month, that is. But they have no current permission to speak to another team, Austin said.

Austin said that Burkhardt’s deadline is artificially imposed. He said it would “be pure speculation on my part,” so would not comment on why he thought Burkhardt would choose to make such a strong public statement.

Austin told TSN 1150 earlier that despite what the Ticats feel was a “more than reasonable” offer, “obviously, we’re very far apart.”

“But things can change very quickly,” he told The Spectator. “Things are fluid. We like to stay positive.”