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The real money on McLaurin’s new deal won’t be known until the three-year extension is filed with the league and the total guarantees and true breakdown are known. For now, the headline is that McLaurin received a nice per-year average number, and the total contract is worth “up to” $96 million over three years, according to sources.

It could be discovered in the next few days that the team got the deal it wanted. So, saying which side won or lost in this situation is premature and will ultimately become irrelevant.

What matters now is that Washington can enter its Sept. 7 opener against the New York Giants feeling good and with its best receiver in tow.

McLaurin earned his second Pro Bowl selection last season, posting a career-high and franchise-record 13 touchdown catches, along with 82 receptions and 1,096 yards.

Despite the aforementioned D.C. QB carousel — which featured six different primary starters and an assortment of fill-ins — McLaurin has been a constant producer for Washington. The 2019 NFL Draft third-round pick has been his team’s leader in receptions and receiving yards in each of his six years. He’s put together a string of five straight 1,000-yard campaigns, becoming the first in NFL history to do so with a different primary starter at QB every year, per NFL Research.

All too often in player contracts, the initial numbers leaked to the lineup of Twitter thumb racers have been inflated. No one asks questions before hitting the post button, because he/she who hesitates has lost.

Then, the real numbers emerge. And the truth becomes known. And it’s not the same as the initial reports.

As to the new deal signed by Commanders receiver Terry McLaurin, some of the initial reports pegged the three-year extension at $96 million, giving it a straight $32 million new-money APY. At least one report described it as being worth “over” $96 million.

Then came something likely closer to the truth. The magic words “up to” were added to the number. Which is another way of saying “not $96 million.”

That makes the truth even more important to knowing the actual value of the deal. As one source who has been attempting to dredge up the real numbers told PFT on Monday, the details have been “very elusive.”

The truth inevitably will emerge. When it does, we’ll have it. If the numbers are delayed long enough, few will care by then.

Washington Post (paywall)

Now that McLaurin’s contract dispute with the Commanders has ended, let’s get to the important part: What kind of performance can we expect from McLaurin over the course of that three-year, $96 million extension? Because whatever disagreements existed between the bedrock of the franchise and the franchise itself, surely an element of it was this: How productive can an NFL wide receiver be when he’s 31, 32 or 33?

First, though, let’s get something out of the way. We don’t really know what McLaurin’s extension means until we know how many years and how much money is guaranteed. NFL contracts are announced as if they’re ironclad. They’re actually pretty flimsy. This deal covers 2026, ’27 and ’28. It says here the odds of McLaurin playing out the third year under the terms trumpeted Monday are quite low. We can’t fully evaluate who won the negotiations and by how much until we know all the parameters of the deal. Right now, we don’t. So pause that discussion.

1,000-yard seasons grow harder to come by as wide receivers age. McLaurin, though, has evidence to support the case that he could become an outlier: a veteran wideout whose best days come after his 30th birthday, not before it.

[I]f you’re McLaurin, you look at yourself as on the rise, not the decline. You’re unrelentingly physically fit. You’re coming off what’s arguably a career year with a quarterback who can actually throw you open and take advantage of your strengths.

The concern should be about the next workout, the next game, the season that stretches beyond. Is three years and $96 million too much for a wide receiver who will be 33 when the deal ends? Don’t answer that until we know what three years and $96 million really mean.

Although left guard Brandon Coleman was not slated to play, he talked his way onto the field.

“They left it up to me the whole week,” Coleman said following the game in the locker room. “I was feeling good kind of building up to today, so then I just pulled the trigger on it. D.Q. [head coach Dan Quinn] and B.J. [offensive line coach Bobby Johnson] were pretty cool about it and just left it all up to my hands. As long as I feel good, there’s always communication being set for me and where I’m at.”

The Commanders’ 30-3 loss to the Ravens marks Coleman’s first time ever getting snaps in the preseason. He missed last year’s preseason in its entirety nursing a shoulder injury, and he was sidelined again for the first two games of the Commanders’ preseason with a lower leg injury.

“I feel like it was huge for me,” Coleman said of preseason game action. “Like I saw last year, they were playing, obviously dealing with an injury, and I saw it, too — everybody saw it — those first couple of weeks were rough for me. It’s like you go from not doing anything to just getting thrown in the fire, especially your rookie year. So, that’s why I really wanted to push to get in, just because it knocks the rust off. You kind of get those game-speed reps, especially with a new position. Like I said, I feel great, and it just builds confidence going into Week 1.”

We finally got to see our first look at Magee in the preseason finale on Saturday after dealing with an injury for the majority of training camp. Hopefully, we will see more of him this season, because he’s LB3 on the roster. It’s not ideal to have Bobby Wagner play 100% of snaps this season, so Magee rotating in and staying healthy is important, and he knows that.

“Just for me, the main thing is being healthy,” Magee told the media after the game. “The best ability is availability. I know I can play football; it’s just about being healthy at the end of the day. I was having a good training camp until I got hurt about two weeks in. That was a minor setback. Coming off this game, I felt good out there. Got one drive, 12 plays.”

The McLaurin saga certainly had its share of handwringing and teeth gnashing. However, it’s important to recognize what did not happen as much as what did.

This never turned ugly. Sure, there was a testy quote here and there, but it could have been so much worse. McLaurin is a classy man and clearly wanted a positive outcome. We can now say the same about general manager Adam Peters.

Did you ever read an anonymous quote coming from a team “source” badmouthing McLaurin or his representatives? That was de rigueur under previous ownership. Leaks. Unnamed sources. Rumors. It happened every time things got contentious.

That type of disease is hard to eradicate. The franchise treated Williams so shabbily that even the arrival of Ron Rivera could not placate him. Allen was so worn down by trying to be the locker room leader of a dysfunctional franchise that he couldn’t recalibrate when new ownership arrived to right the ship.

Scherff was franchise-tagged for two straight seasons before getting out of town. So was Kirk Cousins. Double franchising a player is about as sure a sign of dysfunction as you will find in the NFL. It rarely happens because it is an extraordinarily punitive way to build a roster. It happened twice in the last decade under Snyder.

Peters — we can assume with the blessing of majority owner Josh Harris — remained tough in his negotiations with McLaurin. But in the end, he got a deal done.

There will be no franchise tag. There will be no disruption to the offense. Contract details are not fully available yet, but we know that Harris will be paying McLaurin fair market value for a receiver of his stature. We can also safely assume that Peters has built in some downstream protections for the club if the player’s performance diminishes toward the end of the contract.

That is exactly what is supposed to happen, but what so rarely did happen in the previous quarter-century. A fair price. A club staying ahead of the curve rather than playing catch-up. And things never turned ugly.

Commanders PFF grades: Top 5 offense

Commanders PFF grades: Top 5 defense

Commanders PFF grades: Bottom 5 offense

Commanders PFF grades: Bottom 5 defense

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Terry McLaurin!!! + 53-Man Roster Predictions | Booth Review Podcast | Washington Commanders | NFL

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