PATRIOTSFANINPA

First the guy refuses to accept any offer on the table by the team that was more than adequate for just 1 great campaign out of all he has played thus far in the NFL and refused all summer long to negotiate with a realistic look at what he was worth and now comes this crap out of his mouth that says "He's Happy" to be back with the team and is ready to play! - IMO thats BS

How the f-ck can he be happy when he had the franchise 7M offer on the table in April and got absolutely nowhere the entire summer and still ended up with wasted time and no more money than he was going to get anyways.

Was it the fact that he just decided to waste the summer off the hot football practices and 'went on vacation' knowing that he was never going to get an offer of 2 #1 picks by any team because hes simply not in the league of guys like Champ Bailey and Nate Clements and knew the team was still going to give him the minimum money he could get even after taking the sweltering practices off all summer.

I just think he took the easy way out and did not really have to work hard this offseason to get where he is today and thats nowhere more financially than when the tag was put on him.

It seems not fair that he did not have to work as hard as the other guys did and still knew he was a lock for the team after his off the field summer,He knew we have really no one better that would have made him expendable and took the delay.

I hope the team makes him work harder than any other player in the next few weeks to gain back that starting spot he knew he was really going to have anyway and never really intended to sit out 10 games IMO.

Asante is a good player and an asset when he is at his best but it does not take away the fact that he was a lier when it came to threatening to sit out 10 games and he really knew no team was stupid enough to cough up big bucks for a possible 1 year wonder - Clements and Bailey have showed awesome talent for years,Asante 1 year so far.

He took advantage of lack of depth,and got the summer off for free IMO...Thats the bottom line,Even though he didn't get the 'billions' he wanted for 1 good year of service (thus far)

dhamz

He did not get nowhere. He got the ability to be an unrestricted free agent after this season. After a LT deal with 30m in guarentees, it was the second item on his wish list.

Why would he not be happy with that result?

mgteich

Samuel will not be franchised next year. When the patriots decided to play hardball this was the best he could hope for. He was able to secure free agency without giving up a dime, without missing a game. He will be paid almost $8M for this year. I presuming that he will buy injury insurance. He will hae enough left for groceries.

Samuel couldn't have done better, unless the patriots chose to allow him to leave this year, after completing his contract obligations. Once they wouldn't do that, it was simply a matter of when he would be a free agent. He will be a free agent next February.

BelichickFan

BTW, when can we re-sign him should we reach an agreement. I know we can't now but I assume we have the usual time after the season until FA begins (March 1 I think), when only we can sign him - is that the case with a player in Samuel's situation ?

Pujo

We can actually sign him as soon as the playoffs start. The no-long-term deals rule only runs until the last game of the regular season.

BelichickFan

Ah, OK, thanks.

PATRIOTSFANINPA

I still say he is a bit disgruntled he is not a $10M a year player

He is doing this because heknows hes getting good money and will likely not be franchised next year,However....

What happens IF Hesinjured and plays only a few games or less AND the team fails to win enough games to drop the tag next year,not very likely but nothing is guaranteed.

He probably gets 'not happy' very quickly.

Pujo

I wonder if our deal with him also covers the Transition Tag...

Crazyeechrispats1

Well if someone just gave me 8 million dollars I would be like the guy from the classic movie the happiest millionare.
I'm sure he's happy as of right now next year that's gonna be a different story all together.

__________________
That trophy represents the team – I mean that word collectively, that is able to play the best season for the year that it's engraved. It doesn't mean anything about what happened the year before. It doesn't say what's the best team, which has the most talented players, which teams has the biggest payroll, smallest payroll. It stands for the team that played the best in that season. Put the number on there for that year. And the next year we start all over again everybody is at the same point."

T-ShirtDynasty

I never thought of that. Could be brilliantly evil if not for the problem of opening us up to one of those ridiculous poison pill contracts.