Look, the reality is that X had 10 INT's and this was likely the best season of his career. It's nearly impossible to top that. There is no better time to renegotiate a contract from a player's perspective. Yes, it's the pandemic, but he's up for DPOY, so he's going to strike while the iron is hot. He slipped from the highest paid CB in the NFL, to out of the top 5, and despite his career year, he isn't even the highest paid CB on his team. He's healthy, productive, and is a primary reason why our defense has been dominant and the team has won so many games. This is THE time to renegotiate.
Nobody is surprised he wants to renegotiate. We have cap space, so his agent smells blood in the water. It's a new agent--and X. has changed his agent a lot so clearly he wants more money.
Can we re-sign him? Should we break the bank for him? What is his trade value in this salary cap reduction pandemic time? All very important questions. The higher his demands, the less likely we can re-sign him and the lower his trade value. But ultimately, this is the type of problem the Steelers and Patriots face every year, so we'll just have to deal with it if we start making a habit of 10 win seasons.
IMHO, re-sign X if we can do it without breaking the bank. If that's not possible, see what we can get in a trade. If neither option works ... honor his contract and revisit the issue a year from now. Given X's injury history and how unlikely it is he can repeat a double-digit INT season ... there will almost certainly be a point of better leverage to negotiate this next year. As Igbinoghene proved ... simply replacing a 2nd round pick (Xavien Howard) with a 1st round pick (Noah Igbinoghene) is not a win. Production is hard to find in the NFL, and takeaways are worth their weight in gold ... and both X and his agent know it.
