NFL - Are You Ready For Some Football?! - The Offseason

[Ben Kenobi]

Good way to ensure you never win a superbowl again.

[ColdWizard]

Yup, less money to invest in the defense. With a great defense you can win with Trent Dilfer as qb or, if you're desperate, Eli Manning.

[-Jrabbit]

Obviously overpaid, but they had no choice. The guy won the big game, contract was coming due, and there's no way you walk away and try to replace a top QB.

Well, unless you're Denver.

The Gints had no alternative. And when the Rivers and Cutler contracts from that draft class come due, the "highest paid" record will fall again.

God help the Chargers payroll dept., especially if they win it all this season. Rivers is a great QB and will certainly command Eli's numbers -- as a starting point.

And unless Cutler (playing for about $2.5MM this year) gets hurt or has a horrible year, he will be able to name his figure in Chicago; he holds all the cards. And the Bears knew that when they traded for him.

Yes, I'm in agreement that this is a sick and largely undeserved contract. But the way the NFL is structured, it was inevitable.

[SlowwHand]

Yup, less money to invest in the defense. With a great defense you can win with Trent Dilfer as qb or, if you're desperate, Eli Manning.

Close to true, but think Brad Johnson.

The Giants put themselves in a corner.

[Ben Kenobi]

God help the Chargers payroll dept., especially if they win it all this season. Rivers is a great QB and will certainly command Eli's numbers -- as a starting point.

We'll have him locked up before then.

Bolts are usually pretty good with contracts, except for Sproles. That was a bit of a cluster****.

[Imran Siddiqui]

From another forum I post at:

http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showpost.php?p=2089787&postcount=18

Since the only money in the NFL that is guaranteed is the Signing Bonus, I say he is underpaid.

Eli Manning signing bonus for a 6 year deal was $38 million
Mathew Stafford signing bonus for a 6 year deal was $41 million

Do you really think Eli is under paid?

Not a bad point... we really have to look at the guarenteed money.

[-Jrabbit]

It just means they're ALL overpaid. It's reached the point where no one wants a top 5 draft pick anymore. And who can blame them? Massive signing bonuses for players who have a fairly high bust rate and really don't have any other realistic option on where to play. The NFL rookie system is clearly broken. At least Eli has a track record.

The next CBA negotiations should be interesting.

[Imran Siddiqui]

All overpaid? Considering the amount of money the owners are making, I'd beg to differ with that statement.

[Zopperoni]

It's official: Michael Crabtree is a ****:

Source: Parker tells Niners that Crabtree will re-enter draft

The situation in San Francisco between the 49ers and receiver Michael Crabtree is quickly going from bad to worse.

Per a league source, agent Eugene Parker is telling the 49ers that Crabtree will sit out the season re-enter the draft in 2010, unless the team gives Crabtree what he wants.

Of course, what Crabtree specifically wants isn't known, since Parker (as multiple sources tell us) still hasn't made a proposal.

There's also a growing chorus of league insiders who are speaking out against the widely-believed effort by Parker to blow up the slotting process with Crabtree. Teams obviously would contend that the unwritten rules of draft-pick negotiation ritual should be honored; however, some of the agents who arguably would benefit from the introduction of chaos privately have described efforts to blow the curve as "inappropriate" and "unacceptable" and "wrong."

And if Crabtree opts to re-enter the draft next year, the current thinking is that he wouldn't be the first receiver drafted. For now, the guy who is regarded as likely to be the first wideout (and possibly the first overall pick) is Illinois junior Arrelious Benn.

Then again, if Crabtree is picked any higher than No. 10 after having a chance to engage in pre-draft workouts, he'd likely end up with more money than the slotting process currently would pay.

After, of course, waiting a year to get it.

From: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...e-enter-draft/

[Japher]

If he doesn't want to play than don't make him. Give him what he wants and bench his arse for a decade, the little snot.

[-Jrabbit]

nm

[OzzyKP]

With all this drama I'm sure that would affect his draft possibilities next year. I can't see how he would win from this.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

The Pats just picked up Derrick Burgess from Oakland for a draft pick...not the DE->OLB conversion the fans were hoping for, but it looks like they might have a decent replacement for Vrabel after all.

[Ben Kenobi]

Terrible idea. No one who has sat out and re-entered has ever moved up in the draft. He has 0 bargaining position.

He might screw over the niners, but he'll suffer more.

[ColdWizard]

Not a bad point... we really have to look at the guarenteed money.

That just means Stafford is vastly overpaid.


More about Crabtree from Yahoo

Crabtree has decided that he shouldn’t have to be paid less because – based on all the made-up, predicted drafts – Al Davis made a mistake. He wants to be paid more than Heyward-Bey, demanding his contract reflect that it was actually he who was the higher selected receiver.

It’s a ground-breaking, if intellectually bankrupt, concept.

Crabtree’s camp said Thursday that he is even willing to sit out the year and re-enter the draft next spring unless he gets more than the $23.5 million the Raiders guaranteed Heyward-Bey.The news was first reported by profootballtalk.com. Anything less than that stratospheric number is “unacceptable.”

“We are prepared to do it,” David Wells, a cousin of Crabtree, told ESPN. “Michael just wants fair market value. Michael is one of the best players in the draft, and he just wants to be paid like one of the best players.”

Headcase

Too bad the NFL doesn't care about the older veterans and retired guys and instead caters to the snot-nosed pea-brained over-hyped kids. But that's not going to change anytime soon (ever):

NYT: Leaf's bonus [11.25 mil] represents more than a $4 million jump from the previous high for a rookie, the $7.125 million Ki-Jana Carter got from Cincinnati in 1995.

The bonus has been surpassed by only a few established stars, including Emmitt Smith ($15 million), Deion Sanders ($13 million), Brett Favre ($12 million) and Drew Bledsoe ($11.5 million).

I'm sure everyone agrees that Ryan Leaf's career ranks right close behind Favre and Bledsoe along with the fact that Ki-Jana Carter was half the back Emmitt was