Natedawg44
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HUTCH, VINATIERI EXAMPLES CONFIRM HUMAN NATURE
When a guy hits the open market in NFL free agency, he often heads to a new town. And the reason is fairly simple.
The player typically has spent multiple years with his former team, and yet his former team never did much of anything to extend his contract before he secured the ability to entertain offers elsewhere.
"Guys like to feel wanted," Texans guard Steve McKinney recently told us. "The last time most guys were recruited was eight years earlier when they were seniors in high school, so when they hit the market they're first looking for the most they can get, but they're also looking for someplace that really shows how much they want them. I think when your own team lets free agency set your value, it's too late most of the time. You're going to go to the first team that shows you love."
New Vikings guard Steve Hutchinson echoed this basic theme in his first comments regarding the offer sheet that his old team, the Seahawks, likely would have matched but for a poison pill that would have made the entire amount of the contract guaranteed in Seattle.
"The truth of the matter is that I wanted to have a contract extension done before last season, and certainly before the [transition] tag deadline," Hutchinson said Tuesday. "The Seahawks were either unwilling or unwanting to give me that contract, and Minnesota stepped up to the plate and offered it to me."
Never mind that Seattle would have paid the same money but for the provision in the offer sheet intended to dissuade them from doing so. The 'Hawks had their chance to pay him long before he had a chance to look elsewhere, and they instead sat on their hands.
"Last February, they said they wanted to do something right after the draft," Hutchinson said. "I said great. I wanted to get something done before the season started because I wanted to be able to concentrate on the season. And there wasn't any real communication or real negotiations that took place before the season started. So that was the end of that."
Although Vinatieri has yet to comment on his move from the Pats to the Colts, he'll probably say something along those same lines. New England could have paid him, but chose not to. So in comes a new team with a lot of money in tow and a genuine interest in Vinatieri at a time when he might feel like his old team has taken him for granted and before you know it the guy is gone.
And that's the risk, as we see it, in allowing another team to "set the market" for a free agent. It's a dynamic that's much more than just a number, since the player will become naturally inclined to join the team that made the offer than to stay with an organization that responds, if at all, with a proverbial gun to its head.
Florio's stuff is entertaining unfortunately alot of times wrong, but I think he makes a great point here. You could carry this forward to Witten and Roy's contracts in the future and why it might behoove us to do something now.
When a guy hits the open market in NFL free agency, he often heads to a new town. And the reason is fairly simple.
The player typically has spent multiple years with his former team, and yet his former team never did much of anything to extend his contract before he secured the ability to entertain offers elsewhere.
"Guys like to feel wanted," Texans guard Steve McKinney recently told us. "The last time most guys were recruited was eight years earlier when they were seniors in high school, so when they hit the market they're first looking for the most they can get, but they're also looking for someplace that really shows how much they want them. I think when your own team lets free agency set your value, it's too late most of the time. You're going to go to the first team that shows you love."
New Vikings guard Steve Hutchinson echoed this basic theme in his first comments regarding the offer sheet that his old team, the Seahawks, likely would have matched but for a poison pill that would have made the entire amount of the contract guaranteed in Seattle.
"The truth of the matter is that I wanted to have a contract extension done before last season, and certainly before the [transition] tag deadline," Hutchinson said Tuesday. "The Seahawks were either unwilling or unwanting to give me that contract, and Minnesota stepped up to the plate and offered it to me."
Never mind that Seattle would have paid the same money but for the provision in the offer sheet intended to dissuade them from doing so. The 'Hawks had their chance to pay him long before he had a chance to look elsewhere, and they instead sat on their hands.
"Last February, they said they wanted to do something right after the draft," Hutchinson said. "I said great. I wanted to get something done before the season started because I wanted to be able to concentrate on the season. And there wasn't any real communication or real negotiations that took place before the season started. So that was the end of that."
Although Vinatieri has yet to comment on his move from the Pats to the Colts, he'll probably say something along those same lines. New England could have paid him, but chose not to. So in comes a new team with a lot of money in tow and a genuine interest in Vinatieri at a time when he might feel like his old team has taken him for granted and before you know it the guy is gone.
And that's the risk, as we see it, in allowing another team to "set the market" for a free agent. It's a dynamic that's much more than just a number, since the player will become naturally inclined to join the team that made the offer than to stay with an organization that responds, if at all, with a proverbial gun to its head.
Florio's stuff is entertaining unfortunately alot of times wrong, but I think he makes a great point here. You could carry this forward to Witten and Roy's contracts in the future and why it might behoove us to do something now.
