Lurking on a Carolina Panthers message board can be interesting. Most there seem willing to take just about anything in trade to be done with it, sooner rather than later.

The biggest part of the discussion centers on the "leverage" aspect of their current situation with "Pep". The problem, as the fans see it, is that Pep is essentially holding the team hostage. Pep has not signed his tender offer, and doesn't need to do so until this summer to cash in on the almost 17 mil. More importantly, until he does, the Panthers are not allowed to engage other teams in trade discussions, excepting offers that come through Pep and his agent...he can shop but the team cannot.

The fans are convinced that Pep and his agent are deliberately presenting mis-information, generating rumors, etc. in order to orchestrate his departure to a team of his choosing, on the terms that he dictates. In effect, the fans seem to think that their salary cap is being held hostage by the situation. I would characterize the majority opinion as them NOT getting so much as a first round pick, that the trade will happen on/near draft day, and good riddance because he takes too many plays "off". (Sour grapes factor must be factored)

I'm not speaking to the accuracy of anything, just posting what I perceived as at least a significant portion of the myriad opinions there.

The problem I see is that Ted Thompson has several guys to sign and the only way to insure stability down the road to keep players on the roster when their contracts are up would be a front end loaded deal for a guy like Peppers. The kind of guaranteed money he will command would have to be spread out over years so the question is what impact that will have more than the fact we have the money this year.


If Washington has a list of players requiring contracts next year you will see a lot of players released. They play the revolving door game anyhow so nothing new there.

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I want to throw out a line I wrote down. It comes from Robert Boland in an article he wrote for the National Football Post. I contemplate it because I have been following our cap "situation" for a couple of years now, and remain amazed at how so many are willing to accept and dismiss the broad generalization that we were in "cap hell". It seems that the concept gets lost in the blame-game argument as regards "Tightwad-Ted".

We had over 50 guys on our payroll for cap purposes last year in pure "dead money", and many were a significant cap hit. I'm not going into who was at "fault", but half the fanbase probably doesn't even remember that half those guys even played on our team.

Here's the quote:

"It only takes a minute to ruin a salary cap for years."

Thanks Foster. I don't want to get anywhere close to a Redskins-esque situation. Yeah they sign a lot of big names, but the downside is that they never stay on the team for more than 3 seasons. The player that signed a huge deal with Washington a couple years ago needs to get cut to make room for the new guy.

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I would rather keep the 9th pick over taking either of those guys in. We have no where to put Peppers and I just don't like the guy. When his own fanbase doesn't like him, why would we?
Tony is not worth that either and I can't remember what we were going to trade up for him last season...umm, wasn't it a 3rd rounder?

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I thought we offered a 2nd rounder, but TG didn't want to come here and mentioned he wanted to go to the Giants who were only offering a 3rd or 4th round pick?

If you take a chance on ONE player your cap isn't going to go down the drain. You'll still have enough money. If the Packers sign Julius Peppers, Khalif Barnes, Anthony Smith, and Kevin Burnett and they all flop then GB is going to take heavy hits yes.

That's not happening.

GB has 35 million in cap. Michael Lombardi said he wonders what the Packers are going to do with all that cap and it's obvious that they intend to sign their own players, but none the less the point is made. You have money to spend and you have so much that unless you screw up structuring the deal which GB wouldn't, then your cap is going to be fine.

They'll still be years away from having to release veterans, but if the team wins a Super Bowl, it's worth it.

Peppers is going to sign something similar to Jared Allen of last year and that's if he signs anything at all. Minnesota set the market for DE's. Minnesota is still in decent shape cap wise too and look what they've done.

This idea that one signing is going to screw the cap up is inaccurate.

Mike Sherman's cap problems didn't happen because of Joe Johnson. It happened because Johnson, Robert Ferguson, Cledius Hunt, Terr Glenn, Hardy Nickerson and that's just off the top of my head. The problem wasn't that those guys made a lot of money. The problem was they made a lot oaf money and didn't contribute.

If Ted Thompson ends up signing Peppers, Jennings, Collins, and Kampman to long term deals then you know what that's money well spent if they all play well and I think they would.

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Throwing an insane amount of money at one hyped up FA isn't going to be the reason we make it to the promised land. Odd are probably against us that the player even becomes a big success story in GB.

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I agree with Porky here. My support of Ted is starting to sour. Yeah, it's hard to get FAs to come here, small market, bad weather, lack of high-end strip clubs. But we have a crap-ton of money. Would I throw it all at a Chris Canty? No. But would I offer him or an Olshansky too much guaranteed $ up front, just to get him here? Heck yes.

And on the note of Peppers:

1. He aint comin here, we def aren't at the top of his list, Ted would never give up what it would take to get him here. (were I a GM with a #9 overall, I'd offer it for Peppers straight up.)

2. Wherever he does go, for whatever cost. He. Will. Be worth it. Write it down today, this is a PiB Special Guarantee. This is like Randy Moss round II. And I have a sneaking suspicion that our FO won't learn from the past.

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i can't imagine, why some of you would like to spend millions of bucks and a #9 ovr pick on a guy that has never played a snap at olb in a 3-4 and therefore has shown nothing at all. i'm not sure wether he can play olb or not, time will tell, but he is the same kind of a "black box" as every kid coming out of college.

my support of Ted Thompson would be starting to sour with this move. he should sign 3-4 proven guys instead. burnett + olshansky in a package would cost far less than peppers alone and the packers would still have a 9th overall selection.

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