Extending Peppers

Yeap - and this is what made me OK with the Foster deal. It was small in guaranteed coin.

On Friday, March 10th of 2006, Foster agreed to a three year, $14.5 million dollar contract with a $4.5 million dollar signing bonus with another $3 million in escalators and incentives. This is a $700,000 raise over the transition tag tender placed on Foster last month.

That's looking like a deal.

 

all our deals looked smart. Even Morgan's deal would look somewhat smart, now - if he was healthy.

The problem with Clements' deal and most of the high dollar deal is the 8 years + situation. Basically, it used to be that $2 million x (term of deal) in bonus was huge. Clements' deal is nearly 3x, and the false years are partially for that purpose. Granted some of these deals, you look at the cap expansion, if that keeps going it won't be horrid in 3 years. Contracts will continue to expand.

I'm guessing, as more and more non-core players sign for huge coin, next year will be another buyer's market and we could probably score another Lucas or two, but it's very hard to sit and just expect "well, we won't do it this year anyway" is going to cut it.

 

IMO, putting a cap on rookie contracts would help alot. I don't care how good a player was in college or where he is drafted, they shouldn't get monster contracts before they prove anything in the NFL. That's one of the reasons alot of teams won't draft a QB in the 1st round...if you miss on a 1st round QB, you pay for it for at least 3 years in terms of money and winning percentage. It's a team killer and a coach killer.

It seems to me that it shouldn't be that hard for the players union and the NFL to work out some standard rookie contracts. They could at least cap the 1st year of the deal and allow teams and players to negotiate a contract once a player has proven himself in his first year or two. Admittadly(sp), I'm ignorant about the nuts and bolts of contracts and what goes on in all these negotiations, but I do have some common sense. My common sense tells me that it hurts the parity of the league when a team gets a dud in the 1st round but still has to pay out a rediculous amount of money to a player who is absolutely no help to the team.

 

Clements' base salaries. This thing is apt to see multiple restructures.

2007 600000.00
2008 3383334.00
2009 3516666.00
2010 6000000.00
2011 7250000.00
2012 9000000.00
2013 10770000.00
2014 15480000.00

 

big name free agents are going to price themselves out of the market soon cause of the cheapness of rookies & journeymen.

try this on peppers:

 

This is going to make bad teams worse. When bad teams over spend on average players then they almost always get worse. Teams that have a good core and stay out of this market will benefit.

A team could probably do a lot worse than having a plan that says they never spend big money on a free agent who is not already on the team. In other words extend your big time guys but stay out of the fray for free agency.

 

The sad part is that if Morgan had stayed healthy, his agent would have already said he had outplayed his contract.

These outrageous salaries will affect guys already under contract. JMHO

 

If there ever was a "face of the franchise" type player, Peppers is that guy. He is smart, humble, doesn't get into trouble off the field, and is freakishly good. Someone is going to pay him. Why not the Panthers?

 

I was thinking the same thing. At the rate these salaries are increasing, owners are going to be looking to increase revenues by the same amounts. What does that mean for us as fans? The days of watching the NFL on tv for free are going to be short lived, its already there in baseball.

 

hope it doesn't turn into the nba