Ian

Noticed this article tonight and thought I'd post it here since there's some interesting fodder from Jason Cole regarding Mankins:

Restricted trio may be forced to hold out - NFL - Yahoo! Sports

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IcyPatriot

93% of the people visiting the site have voted 'MEH' Mankins ... because

business is business and we need to spend our time talking about the players who are here.

RayClay

Mankins got a bad deal from the league, however he's certainly not worth what Wilfork is to this team and it appears he was offered a good contract (that's relative, of course).

If he loses out and eventually gets what seems to me as more than he's worth, good luck to him, but he's not worth that much to us.

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mgteich

If he isn't worth the money to us, then we should trade him (with his cooperation of course).

AndyJohnson

That assumes he is worth the money to anyone, which is not certain.

spacecrime

We aren't paying him anything. Surely he is worth keeping for free? Worst case scenario, he never pays for us and gets a big contract and we get a 3rd round compensatory pick.

Probably only get a 4th for him if we try to trade him anyway. All this talk about a first round pick is nuts. If he was worth that someone woud have made an RFA offer earlier this year. No one with give a first (or even a second) for a guy who will be a FA next year and cost nothing.

No need to panic and trade him away for less than we'd get as a compensatory pick.

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“When we look at the board, based on everything we want in a football player at that particular time, we evaluate them and take the player that fits best for our football team. That’s what we always do, and I think the last nine years we’ve put a pretty competitive team out there on the field every year. I think that’s how you do it – you get good football players. Sometimes they are not always at the No. 1 position, but I don’t think you pass up good football players to get the guys who aren’t as good just because they’re at a position that somebody feels you need.”
BB on his draft philosophy, April 2010

patriot lifer

the article compares the situation of Leon Washington last year to McNeil, Jackson, and Mankins. I think the moral of the story for Leon Washington was that he should have signed the deal they offered him of $5.5 million per year, not hold out longer than he did.

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2013 Season:

Nate Solder (6'8" 320 lbs)
Seabass (6'8" 320 lbs)
Rob Gronkowski (6'6" 265 lbs)
Jake Ballard (6'6" 275 lbs)
Logan Mankins (6'4" 320 lbs) (100% recovered)
Dan Connolly (6'4" 320 lbs)
Marcus Cannon (6'5" 340 lbs) (Switch to Guard??)

RB: Ridley, Vereen, Washington, Bolden

RayClay

For what it's worth, Mankins contract situation does seem totally unfair. I don't think the Pats are trying to take advantage of him, though. I think they really are offering what they think a good young guard is worth.

He might be wiser to analyze that and maximize his position, but he's got a right to feel, because of the league rule, he got a bad deal.

Doubt they could get much for him considering the situation. Sometimes you just have to take the comp pick.

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MoLewisrocks

I think Cole makes some assumptions that are skewered at best. Like that these players should have presumed themselves to be in line for absolute top of the line deals - or what those deals actually might reasonably be assumed to encompass. Not sure what kind of deals if any AJ was offering his players in SD. In Mankins case however he was offered a deal in the top 5 at his position, $7MAAV, and the top player at his position was only offered $19M in guaranteed money, not the $25M Cole is sputtering about. So that deal and whatever guarantees it entailed and not merely the original tender is what Mankins has walked away from.

Cole is also assuming that the consequences of holding out past week 10 are mitigated by the liklihood that there even is a CBA next season to allow for their becoming UFA whether they earn a year of service credit this season or not, when it's at least as likely there will be either a lockout or a season or three played under rules determined by ownership following a decertification of the union as a result of a CBA impass... And he is totally ignoring the possibility that unfortunate **** sometimes happens to players apart from when they are playing football. Just ask Steve Smith or that young Giants FS because no one ever said life would be fair. Just ask our still young old friend David Givens, who has two championship rings he was instrumental in winning that he now flashes to customers at his smoothie shop.

If I were Mankins I'd stay as far away as I could from my daddy's cows from here on out, and might just baracade myself in a padded room...for fear something happen that precluded me from ever even seeing an offer approaching $35M again... At the end of the day whether for reasons Billick cites or otherwise, there remains a reason no one has held out on a tender in recent memory...

There were in excess of 200 players tendered as RFA this season, largely as a result of the rules changes in an expiring CBA. 9 remain unsigned. This is a little like the angst expressed via the media every off season when roughly a dozen (less that one half of 1%) of the thousands of players in his league suffer the tragic misfortune of being franchise tagged... Pardon the majority of fans if they can't locate their violins at the moment given the state of the national economy and life in the real world. Perhaps some had to pawn theirs to pay their mortgage lest their home be forclosed on...

Fencer

I'm sure the union and the owners will be at loggerheads over the three or so guys who are sitting out the season. The union will want to give them their UFA rights back, and will push for same. Guaranteed.

What is far from guaranteed is that the owners will cave first.

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"To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness." -- Oscar Wilde