The New York Jets want wide receiver Allen Lazard to return to the team in 2025, albeit at the right price.
ESPN’s Rich Cimini revealed in a column posted on Sunday, March 30, that the Jets are trying to get Lazard to take a “significant pay cut.”
Lazard, 29, has two years left on his $44 million contract. Cimini said he is set to make “a nonguaranteed $11 million in 2025 base pay.”
GM Darren Mougey Expands on the Lazard-Jets Conversation
General manager Darren Mougey was asked for a state of the address at the wide receiver position at the Annual League Meetings.
“Yeah, the receiver room we feel good about. Obviously it starts with G-Dub, Garrett Wilson, one of the top receivers. In regards to Allen Lazard, we are working through that right now, but feel good about where that is going,” Mougey said.
Later during Mougey’s media availability, he was asked for specifics on what “working through” things with Lazard meant.
“Yeah in regards to a potential restructuring of the contract, but hope to have Allen on the team,” Mougey said. “That’s the hope [that Lazard is on the team in 2025], but we will work through that. That is fluid.”
Sure sounds like the #Jets would like to keep WR Allen Lazard on the roster in 2025 albeit at a lesser number than he is currently projected to make aka a pay cut.
GM Darren Mougey said they’re ’working through that right now’ + described it as a ‘fluid’ situation.
In other… pic.twitter.com/Ali3iUIkLl
— Paul Andrew Esden Jr (@BoyGreen25) March 30, 2025
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
A Potential Awkward Staring Contest Looms Between the Two Sides
When you look at the Jets’ wide receiver depth chart, it features Wilson and then just a bunch of unproven or unheralded guys.
Lazard, on paper, is the second-best wide receiver on the depth chart. He could refuse to take a pay cut, and then the Jets would have to make a business decision.
If the team waited until June 2, they could dump Lazard and receive $11 million in cap savings for 2025. However, there aren’t many available attractive options at wideout in free agency right now let alone a couple of months down the road.
Cimini said he senses that Lazard taking a pay cut is not a “gimme, so stay tuned.”
NFL Insider Connor Hughes of SNY compared this contract situation to the one from a few years ago between the Jets and veteran pass catcher Jamison Crowder.
In 2021, Crowder was set to make $10 million non-guaranteed. However, the Jets offered him a pay cut to avoid being cut during the summer. After the alteration to the contract that he agreed to, the Jets paid him $5 million, $4.5 million of which was guaranteed.
The Jets had the leverage in that situation. They were overflowing with wide receiver options, and Crowder didn’t have many places to turn that late in the offseason. So instead of risking it and maybe not having a job, he stuck with the Jets at a reduced salary.
The Jets could try to pull the same trick with Lazard in a few months. However, Hughes isn’t sure if Lazard will be willing to take the pay cut.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Jets Trying to Get $44 Million Starter to Take ‘Significant Pay Cut’ appeared first on Heavy Sports.