I can't advocate "locking him up" or not "locking him up" until I have some idea of the costs involved and our ability to pay.
In June I'll have a better idea. If the Pack comes out and says they have a 20 million dollar profit (and having raised ticket prices for this year) for 2009, and have taken care of the contracts that they said they were prioritizing...
Still not out of the woods-paucity of information-wise.
If I don't know that Nick Collins is NOT making outrageous monetary demands, I'm not going to fault my team for making him play under the auspices and restrictions of restricted free agency.
In my opinion, if you are not doing the same, you are being at least as unfair and rigid to the team and this point of view as I might be perceived with this stance.
If you are operating under some assumption that we have plenty of money to "pay the man", I would have to ask what money you are speaking of, and kindly prove it to my satisfaction.
If you are tempted to cite our salary in comparison to other teams, or possibly our dollar amount under last year's cap- please don't, if the plan is to try and persuade me.
Every indication thus far is in keeping with my perception on the matter.
We had an indication that Nick was unhappy at his 3 + million dollar figure, to the point that a mini-holdout occurred. To somehow praise him for not doing a full-fledged holdout (I have heard that mentioned) as an indication that he is now somehow entitled to some special consideration because he HONORED HIS CONTRACT with a huge escalator, well, that is a pretty low standard, imo.
We have 12 other issues going on simultaneously, and some of those issues have the potential to be extremely expensive. For example, Clifton makes a hell of a lot of money, and he will be an unrestricted free agent.
You just cannot take each individual situation and place it in some sort of isolated "thread vacuum" and come to any conclusions. Like I said previously, as yet another example, another set of members here have us paying Kampy top 5 money in a "tag" scenario. Not only are they low by about a million in their assumption by using 2009 franchise number, they might be low (note I said might be, because this is going to open up a can of worms if it comes to pass) his agent might raise hell that he is a DE, not a linebacker...why? Tack on about one MORE million.
For me this is a by-product of the fiasco. How can this possibly relate to that, one might ask...
"Tightwad Ted"
People drink that Kool-Aid.
I'll drink it when they double the ticket prices and we don't have to worry about the financial ramifications as much.
He is as tight as he has to be, and if you don't get it, it is because you don't want to, imo.
Right now, a top revenue team would have over 100 million dollars more than we do to address this exact situation.
The very bottom revenue team in the league would have about 24 million less than us. It is easy to see how tough it would be for them. I only ask that you look at how easy it is in comparison for a top revenue team before casting aspersions and wondering why these things are a little tougher to do here in GB than we would all like. (Revenue differentials based on 2008 numbers-latest available) I don't like dicking around with numbers, but I like to know the why, not just the what. This is not a rant, it's a plea.
I found something interesting over at PFT last week. Florio (or one of his cohorts) mentioned as a preface to something about us (the Packers and their fans) --
They said they love reading our local papers. They said they love to read them because of both the media and fan involvement with the minutia of our team, far more so than any other team. I had to laugh. I found the thought that we are "well represented" in the comments section of the JSOnline or the GBP Gazette very sad, indeed.
I only ask that everyone that wants to lock up Collins now make damn sure they know why the Green Bay Packers opted out of the Collective Bargaining Agreement...For starters... At least then I will know you have come to the discussion table having at least looked at some of the financial reality. Again, not a rant, a plea. A plea mostly because I know so many that want this done so badly - now-- are in fact fair-minded and intelligent.
Instead of looking at what Nick did or didn't do in those two games, I'm looking for news about the hearing that occurred this week regarding the legality of the NFL yanking back the supplemental revenue sharing. Why should I give a shit about that? You know, the one (our--as in rooting for that financial abomination with deep pockets might move to LA losing tall $$$ team)Nick laughs at me about for caring about?
How about 12 million dollars in "Nick Collins money" on the line?
OK OK- I re-read it. It's a rant. Forgive me, you know how I get, lol sorry, carry on.