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FWIW -
http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/5968314
at the very end of the column.

flutie2phelan

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Mike the Brit

Yes, that about sums it up.

We can argue about how it got to there -- but once it had got so far there was nothing else to be done.

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My prized possessions: Our family pictures; my dad and me getting doused by Bruschi in Super Bowl XXXIX [Shalize Manza Young Up Close with ... Bill Belichick]


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They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Well, Pats fans should be invincible by now. [Fitzy, 16 November 2009]

Still here to learn

Brady'sButtBoy

I like Jimmy but he overlooks that the Pats had months to head off Branch's ultimatum but used the time inefficiently if they had any real intention of retaining him as a player. yes, the Pats did very well to get a number 1 after their offer to Branch to find his own trade, but that doesn't diminish the fact that had BB and Co. somehow found a way to reach a deal with Branch before camp even started, the team would have likely entered the season like rolling thunder instead of burping nervousness.

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King of my matchbox sized world

emoney_33

Were they supposed to knock on his door with a suitcase full of millions and beg him to sign? They offered him 2 extensions, him and his agent laughed and never counter offered. I don't see how the patriots are in the wrong there, they TRIED to get him signed for another 3-5 years ahead of time, but he refused

RAWKY

SO you know somehow some way the FO screwed this up. The failure to renegociate an extension to BRANCH's contract in no way could ever in a miilion years be BRACH'S FAULT.

Short of caving into BRANCH, please let us know the special inside infomation that has come to your attention which allows you to take this position with such confidence.

These are the facts i am aware of,

1) After the SB they offered Branch an extension, he refused it. That seems like more then months ago to me.

2)Back over the early spring they made Not ONE but TWO offers to BRANCH and his only response was to refuse to counter expcept to say do not Franchise me and i will come to work. This seems likes months ago to me.

3) The offers for Branch that BRANCH would accept were comparable with the Pat's offers of 6 mill or so a yr.

4) The issue for BRANCH was not the Pat's value of him ....it was the fifth year.....he wanted he wanted his fifth yr torn up....... and all his up front money now..... and the Pat's could not give it to him without setting a precedent that would haunt them forever.....

Too give into BRANCH on this is not to solve the problem but it rather compounds it and moves it into the future.

In essence nothing is solved. The real issue is transferred to the future and becomes much bigger.


5) Seattle had no such agreement with BRANCH so starting his contract when he arrived created no such issue in the future for them.

6) Some times in negociations one of your hands is tied behind your back by circumstance.....BRANCH's five yr contract was such an incumberece on the Pats side of this deal.


So other then the above what can you add that would have solved this issue for BRANCH and somehow demonstrates that the FO screwed the pooch on this???

And please do not say they should have kept negociating....one can not negociate with one's self.

BRACHS' mind was made up he wanted what he wanted PERIOD.

The Pat's decided they could not give it to him.

The FO did not screw this up. BRANCH screwed this up.

mikey

I thought the solution was simple:

Pay him what Seattle was going to offer and then give him a big hug.

We did NOT have to trade him.

.

emoney_33

Yes rip up the last year of his contract and give him what he wants... That won't set any bad precedents? You do that, and then you are going to have a lot of players who want to be paid now and will hold out until they get their way. That was not an option at all. Branch was offered a 5 year extension worth 6M a year, he wanted his current contract ripped up and that was not something that the patriots could have just done. The patriots success is due to building a solid team and sticking to smart business decisions. Branch does not a team make.


EDIT: but you are right, they did not HAVE to trade him. They could have let him play 6 games and traded him next year. But are those 6 games (plus playoffs) worth declining a first round pick for? no way in hell. It was the absolute right decision to trade him. They tried to sign him to an extension, he didn't want it, they weren't going to cave in to a player and set a precedent for all the other players on this TEAM.

TheBostonStraggler

Actually you overlook what the Patriots do. They determined a value for Branch and were offering in that area. That offer would not have been different in February, March or April. You further overlook what Team Branch wanted. The two were too far apart for them to come to an agreement at any point in this offseason. You even further overlook how the Patriots have been conducting business for some years now (and quite successfully I might add). Again, Team Branch wanted the big payday and the Patriot's offer wasn't enough. Starting the process a month or two earlier would likely have had no effect on the situation since Team Branch was not counter offering (that is according to the J. Kraft interview). If they truely wanted a deal from the Patriots, they would have counter offered. They weren't, I suspect, doing so because they probably thought the starting point was too low, and it would likely end up short of their target contract. Bottom line, Deion Branch was never coming back to the Patriots unless they paid the amount that Team Branch wanted. The Patriots were not going to pay what they wanted. You can argue that they should have paid more, a mistake in my opinion, but you cannot argue that starting this process a month earlier would have done anything. How this process played out is plenty of proof that Team Branch was not going to accept anything less than their target number.

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“This is one you should have thought twice about before hitting submit”

sieglo

The Patriots played the Branch situation exactly as they should have. It's a lot like bidding for something on eBay. You determine what value the object has for you, and then you commit to yourself not to bid any higher. The temptation is to get drawn into a bidding war -- self justifying something by saying, "Well, I really want that thin, and other bidder X thinks its worth so much, so maybe it is and I should raise my bid." Big mistake.