RayClay

A fair contract is a range. Players don't have to only consider the highest possible contract, and most don't. could depend on city, cost of living, loyalty to team, getting on a winning team and many other factors.

Obviously the strange circumstances adversely affected Mankins, so the question is, did the Pats, independent of that, make a fair offer?

I think they did. In fact, it's more that I thought they would pay for a guard. Is it the highest possible offer he would get? I don't know, but if you're talking 8+ million with tons of guaranteed money, the Pats would have traded or let him go anyway.

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PatsWickedPissah

There's no way a team is gonna fool BB by offering a 2010 2nd for Mankins. He's too smart to fall for that. Al Davis might, but not Belichick.

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Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as "bad luck." RAH

JoeSixPat

I've got no problem with Mankins or anyone else holding out if that's what they deem in their best interest... I respect that as much as I'd like them to play.

But I find it insulting when Mankins or any other player suggests something is "owed" to them because they played better than their contract or because the current CBA keeps them as RFAs.

Fans are pretty smart and understand the dynamics here

mgteich

????

Are you saying that Belichick is so smart that he would prefer a 2012 end of the third comp pick?

alamo

I suspect he'd actually be asking for a 2011 pick, not a 2010 one as you specified.

mgteich

Yes a 2011 2nd.

Synovia

Well, other than the fact that hes going to get nowhere near as much money after sitting out a year. There's definitely going to be some trepidation about signing a player to a big deal who hasn't played football in a year.