Foster not eager to stay

That holds true as a free agent.
If you want to go somewhere else, and you're not contracturally obligated to play for my team this upcoming year, then take it easy. If you have another year, you're on that team and you play as part of that team.

Honestly, I can partly blame Carolina for opening negotiations at this point, but any of these three - Foster, Morgan, WW - sitting there thinking about contracts, or the latter two considering holdouts, is bullshit, and is the only real drawback to the deals we put under Smitty and Delhomme when each had another year on their contracts. Significantly, Smith wasn't being that much underpaid, and his dealings as an RFA are part of what WW is trying to use as leverage.

 

sad part is I would rather lose Foster and Morgan over WW.

 

moose?

if it's true that he wants to get outa here and go back to the the WC then yea i'll be down on him regardless ... but until i seeing him dog it, complain, come out in the media and say he wants outa here, or actually leave at season end, i'll root for him and hope that the hearsay is wrong.

 

Honestly, I've been leery of putting money into both Foster and Morgan. Witherspoon has been reliable, it just depends on his price.

 

When did Muhammad refuse to rework his contract over time, other than the issue upon which he got cut? He actually worked or reworked his contract every year from 1999-2004. That they didn't come to an agreement in 2005? Oh well.

So meanwhile, if you have anything that actually suggests he "played for the money" or was playing for himself instead of team - or made comments to that end, sure, back that statement up.

I'm going on the rumors, sure. But yeah, at this point, I'm leery of his motives if he's, as you said, worried about making someone else's money instead of winning our games.

 

you're getting pretty testy in your old age. that's not like you. i presume that you're just trying to warm up for the season. it was just a good natured jab. didn't mean anything serious other than he coulda stayed here for a little less cash but maybe like Foster is perhaps doing, he let the cash rather than loyalty to the fans and team rule his thinking.

>> I'm leery of his motives if he's, as you said, worried about making someone else's money instead of winning our games.

you're putting your thoughts into my mouth. could be that he's simply worried about making big money and he hasn't really concerned himself with thinking about whose money it is. as long as he's playing team ball and performing at a high level or as otherwise noted i'm not gonna worry myself with his motives. makes too much sense for him to not want to sign a contract at this point even if he wants to stay in Carolina. i think Foster doesn't have a lot of leverage at this point in time whereas Moose was sitting with a pretty strong hand when he reworked his contract.

 

>>and he hasn't really concerned himself with thinking about whose money it is.

If we're going on the rumors, it's been said many times he's not staying, specifying a west coast departure. So that, to me, does say that yeah, he's worried about whose money, and since he won't talk money with our eager asses, that the money wouldn't be ours.

That might not bother you. It bothers me a little. If he's got his head on right and plays as a part of this team, not a guy looking to get stats for his agent, then it might not harm anything. The end result is that no one should be talking contract right now, including the team.

 

i'm confused by the 'our eager asses' thing. do you have some kind of inside info that says we've tried to talk with him, because i thought we hadn't approached him either.

 

Here's a pretty recent story with some quotes from #26:

http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/2005/07/26/sections/sports/sports_columns/article_610540.php

Reg. required so here it is:

Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Foster hopes kids look beyond glory
By MARCIA C. SMITH
The Orange County Register

A sprinting eighth-grader named Andre hijacked DeShaun Foster's attention. The boy had quick feet that could give him balance on a tile floor scattered with marbles, and a rubber torso that bent and twisted to wriggle him between blockers.

The kid glowed with confidence, too, especially when others were anointing him "Little DeShaun." And this is where Carolina Panthers halfback Foster, the Tustin High and UCLA All-American and 2002 NFL second-round pick (34th overall), offered some of his most heartfelt instruction this summer at the DeShaun Foster Football Skills Camp at Tustin High.

Foster put himself in a race beside Andre, eyed the kid, then beat him into the end zone.

"Just had to show him he still has a ways to go," said Foster, 25, about one of the NFL-minded youngsters who arrived with the newest brand-name cleats, swoosh-baring receiver gloves, logo-emblazoned headbands and half-tucked shirts to sport the pro-styled nonchalance.

Somebody also had to teach Foster and save him from having a head too swollen to fit inside his helmet.

Something had to beat him, knock him down to the turf and remind him he wasn't so special - though he is blessed with great power (20 reps of a 225-pound bench press), leaping ability (36-inch vertical) and speed (a 4.5 second time in the 40-yard dash) and heralded since middle school as "The DeShaun Foster" (cue brass trumpets, please).

There were the fumbles, and the concern the ball wouldn't be safe in the grasp of his 91/4-inch hands. And there were the injuries, which have become his greatest humblers. It was a broken finger, a sprained ankle and tweaked knee at UCLA, and a broken collarbone and aching knee last season with the Panthers.

When he reports to Panthers training camp Thursday, Foster is expected to be the team's featured back while Stephen Davis, 31, continues knee rehabilitation.

Foster's own body was the stern teacher that taught him how athletic fortunes can outrun him.

This offseason, Foster returned to the second year of his youth camp a wiser man, better seasoned for life, which is the best coaching he can offer the 8- to 14-year-olds whose singular focus, sadly, was becoming what DeShaun Foster represents to them - a rich and famous pro athlete.

They want his life, more specifically, its trappings.

They wanted to know how many cars he has. Three - a forest-green Cadillac Escalade, a black Infiniti FX and a black Chrysler 300.

They were curious about how many homes he has. Two - a four-bedroom, one-story suburban Charlotte, N.C., home, which he is renting out; and a condo in downtown Charlotte, near Bank of America Stadium.

They asked about all the free stuff he gets: his Oakley endorsement deal that lets him go to the Foothill Ranch headquarters and pick up all the free sunglasses and apparel he desires; the Nike arrangement that sends him more free shoes and clothes than he could ever wear; and the Penta Water pitchman pact that means he is never thirsty.

They questioned him about why the Panthers didn't win Super Bowl XXXVIII. "Because time ran out," Foster said of the 2004 defeat to the New England Patriots, 32-29, in which he ran for a 33-yard touchdown.

"There's more to being an athlete than what you see on TV," he told them.

But at that age, Foster realizes, the message is hard to hear over the rattle of bling-bling on eardrums and the begging impulses for their bodies to run, work out, lift weights, get cut, train, score touchdowns, get scholarships, play in bowl games and strike a Heisman pose.

He told the pre-teens to wait until high school to start lifting weights and to stick with push-ups and sit-ups. He urged the kids to enjoy their childhoods.

"The kids are growing up fast," Foster said. "I don't know if I was like that."

When he was 7, Foster remembers himself as a skinny kid with a chest like a parakeet's cage, just a skeleton compared to today's 6-foot-1, 222-pound stature.

He wanted to run like L.A. Rams workhorse Eric Dickerson, get stronger and faster, be a man while he was still a kid.

Back then, Foster never thought of how his body could become his traitor, or about the rigors of two-a-day practices in NFL training camp, or about sinking a spot on a depth chart, worrying about getting traded or watching your coaches get fired if the team started to lose games.

"I saw the kids at the camp, and I was reminded of how I used to think football was just a game, about me, not really a business or a competitive career," he said.

The realities - the injuries, the setbacks, the competition for carries, the arrival of another young teammate who might be just as fast or as strong - are part of the life beyond the TV-highlight touchdowns, the riches, endorsements and the diamond stud on his earlobe.

Going into his fourth season in the NFL, Foster knows that knowledge, as humbling and hurtful as it can be, will be among the most valuable experiences he could ever pass along to the next Little DeShaun.

"It's perspective," Foster said, "and seeing the football for more than the glamour."

Just gaining that wisdom from Foster, fortified inside and out, is in itself worth the camp fees.

 

No way I pay Foster right now. He has to prove he can play a whole season first. Smith and Delhomme both had shown what they could do when they got extension. Foster and Morgan have both failed to do that so far. I would like to keep WW but it almost seems like Thomas Davis was drafted to replace him so he may be on his way out.