Will Meeks Use Peppers differently?

Feel free to use contracts to bash some of the less popular targets, like Delhomme or Gamble.

 

it'd be fantastic if everyone got paid the minimum, or better yet we could all vote and decide who earned money that game and award it to them outselves.

Except for not really. I mean, an all-incentive league would destroy the league itself, and shit happens - if you want a premier player you pay that player.

And I think that Delhomme contract was stated by someone to not really be that damaging to us. The Gamble one is pretty tough, but we got a hell of a corner for something like 5 years, $6 million before that.

 

I understand all that. I have no problem paying a guy who earned it. Peppers certainly deserves to be paid. The problem is how much he is going to get.

When you pay a guy a large enough deal so that it will put you in cap hell if it does not work out that guy better be rock solid. He better bring it every game. Peppers is such an enigma that it is a gamble. If he plays his A game most of the time then he is worth the deal. If he starts to slag then we done being a playoff team for several years.

 

That's kind of an odd justification.

It's not one massively bad contract that fucks up your cap it's lots of somewhat bad ones, like the Redskins constant spending sprees or the Jets big FA roundups the last 2 years that surely will haunt them down the road.

 

What does throwing the bank at Peppers do to our chance to keep Beason, DW and Davis when their rookie deals are up?

 

It's quite affordable to tag Williams. We already have his replacement on the roster if somebody decided to work a deal for him with us. We would have a decent draft pick to get a new #2 RB. Dealing with Beason is well down the road. Davis hasn't played to the point where it would take Ray Lewis type money to extend him

 

Gross and Gamble are among the highest paid at their positions, what does that do?

 

I know, but it's part of it. He was such a bargain for years, but he wasn't going to get replaced by a guy of similar monetary structure. A lesser player would still have cost more than he did.

agreed. And the Peppers, Gross, Gamble contracts would hurt, but I imagine it hurts more to have guys like Kemoeatu who aren't putting out top performace for that money.

 

it doesn't help, but it's doable. You notice we haven't been signing FAs, and other than DT I don't think there's a place where we aren't both good and deep to our liking. The lack of those long term contracts that could've been brought out in 08, 09 offseasons, that balances it out a little - and you notice, over the Hurney era we haven't spent much on outside guys in years we've locked out own guys down. I think there's a methodology in place there, where they spend a certain amount with an eye toward the future, so they'll have the ability to do this or that.

Not having Peppers under contract over 07 and 08 would actually help us in '10 and '11, in some ways, since that contract is still new in those years (read: lower salary) and we wouldn't have the escalating salaries of other FAs we would've spent on otherwise over that time.


As for DW specifically, he doesn't have especially high miles in the pros (he certainly took enough carries in college) but I wouldn't expect we'd break the bank to pick him up. They've been through enough backs to know that maybe they franchise him a year, but for the most part a long term commitment to a back that's gone through the league five years isn't necessarily a sound investment. I love what both bring, but if years down the road we let each of them walk, I can't begrudge that. We'll have likely gotten the best out of either.

 

Hurney has also been known to lock up the wrong guy. Not to reopen the debate about signing Dan Morgan and letting Spoon walk but it happens.


Running backs to get used up quick but DW has split carries every year in the league and had no major injuries so far. If he is still playing at a high level when his deal is up I would hate to lose him.