That being said, of which I doubt anyone read as it is way too long, this is way too premature to even begin arguing in Mankins' case. What limit would you put on a contract for Mankins Kontra? What should he be worth to the Patriots in your opinon
I'm going to start off with this because it's the most important point of your post. The contract that I think would be fair for Mankins is something like a 5 year, $30M deal. This would take Mankins to age 33, if he even lives out the duration of the deal (unlikely) and pays him $6M per year. The most I would give him is $7M per year and that still wouldn't make him the highest paid player. It would also give the Patriots room to maneuver with future free agents, whether those free agents be their own or from other teams.
That's fine, I prefer to accept that I will never have enough information to form a valid assessment of the situation and look into possibilities of why the decisions were made as they were. I operate under the assumption that the Patriots FO actually has a lot of information, knowledge, intelligence and diligence. Thus I rather try to figure out what information we are missing that may have led the Patriots to a decision, rather than taking the tiny sprinkling of information we have as fans and attempting to pass judgement on their ultimate decision.
This sort of logic flies in some situations. It doesn't in this situation. If that's the way you prefer to operate, then that's your prerogative. However, with contract issues, there is always an abundant amount of information out there for the average fan to sink his teeth into. Hell, Miguel's cap pages show that to be true. Whether Mankins re-signs here or signs elsewhere, we will have the numbers to go by. Let's just say I'd be disappointed if he signs elsewhere for $6M per and the team is forced to go with Orhnberger as the starting RG. I'm sure #12 will agree with this assessment as well when he's unable to step up in the pocket and deliver a throw without getting pancaked.
I disagree with the "no interest" aspect. I believe they undoubtedly have interest, but at this point that interest is seemingly not in line with the asking price. (top dollar or not, there is a lot more to it and I don't think the Patriots would just refuse to sign him at any price, which is what having "no interest" really means).
Well right now it's a matter of Mankins signing his tender and playing ball, which he'll do. I personally think that the team has a checklist of items to get through, one of those things being Brady's contract as well as the contracts of the draft picks, first. After that, I think they'll address Mankins' contract. Whether that's this year or next year remains to be seen. Hopefully it's sooner rather than later. It would be nice to have the big man wrapped up.
Neal has nothing to do with it, nor does Koppen. You can't let that type of circumstance dictate your financial model unless it's catastrophic.
This situation will get catastrophic if it's left unhandled. I'm not sure what you were watching last season, but Neal definitely showed signs of age and injury beginning to break his body down. He's back this year, but a 16 game season is no certainty. I never mentioned Koppen and, as a matter of fact, I'm not as down on him as some others. But it is a fact that he's probably not long for his position either. That's two possible holes that we're looking at on the O-Line and, considering who our quarterback is and his history of injuries the past couple of years, I would say that it would get pretty catastrophic in a hurry if we were to let our best guy (Mankins) go in the prime of his career when he's been nothing but steady and has not so much as missed a practice. If he's not asking for an exorbitant contract, re-signing him seems like a no brainer.
Actually this is not the case at all nor does the logic follow your conclusion. There have been many good discussions here that had to do with trying to figure out a decision rather than being judgemental based on media-leaked facts. One of my major gripes is that some people believe the message board is for analyzing based on known facts and completely ignoring the mere possibilities of any of the vast amount of unknown facts.
Well I simply disagree with this. We never get close to all of the information. We have no idea what scouts tell the FO, what underlying issues there are, team doctors, statistical studies of performance trends, and a whole host of other analytical tools and information that any good FO utilizes. We are capable of discussing the possibilities, the surface information, and what things seem like etc... But we are absolutely not capable of analyzing with conviction.
Whether you like it or not, a lot of stuff gets leaked out to us either by former players or current players (see Thomas, Adalius). But that's a red herring and an another discussion for another thread. This topic is pretty cut and dry. You keep talking about the team having facts that nobody here can know about Mankins and his contract. The only thing I'm seeing is the numbers, which will eventually get leaked out to us anyway. After that, there could be an injury history... if Mankins had one. But he doesn't. Play? Definitely not. Anybody with a pair of eyes can see how important he is to creating a pocket for Brady to maneuver around in. That pocket not being there is Brady's kryptonite. His footwork is top notch, but if those feet don't have anywhere to go than neither does our offense. Tell me, emoney. What else does the front office have on Mankins that the fans don't right now? Because all I'm seeing is a dollar amount and, considering the fact that Mankins is still wrestling cattle out west, I don't think they even have a dollar amount either.
I am not quite sure where you get this out of anything I have posted. I believe the Patriots absolutely have made multiple mistakes over the course of a decade. I also accept the fact that I will never have enough information to correctly assess which specific decision was wrong and how egregious the mistake was.
I haven't gotten that out of anything you have posted. It was a simple question. Tell me, where do you think the Patriots have made mistakes over the past decade? Cite specific examples with the years they occured in if you can.
I said I was operating under the assumption that the Patriots do a TON of homework and have a ton of knowledge, intelligence and experience. As such, I would like to attempt to find out what possible explanations there are for the decisions. Maybe the decision was wrong, but rarely if ever for the reasons that fans/media usually state. If we are to believe the Patriots actually have a lot of knowledge and do put a lot of effort and intelligence into their decisions, then it is very likely that the end decision had a lot more unknown factors than the obvious media leaked information.
I'm really getting the vibe that you're simply preparing yourself to make an excuse for the team should Mankins not get re-signed. But, once again, I'll ask: what can the team know about the Mankins situation that we as fans do not right now? His play speaks for itself, he doesn't have injury issues, there are no character flaws, no substance abuse problems. So what is it that would potentially keep the team away from signing him if he isn't asking to be paid at the top of his position?
I just think it's short-sighted and wrong to judge a decision based only on the surface information. Let's first think about why the decision was likely made. We can be pretty sure that any decision that is "obviously" wrong on the surface, has a whole lot more to it than meets the eye. It's highly highly doubtful that the Patriots FO (or any FO really) would make such an OBVIOUSLY poor decision that mere fans can analyze it better than them in 30 seconds. Therefore even in ultimately poor decisions, there must be valid facts playing to the opposite from the FO's perspective.
I can understand giving the FO the benefit of the doubt, but don't do it to a fault. This FO has shown that it is certainly capable of making a mistake without a back-up plan. Remember now that my stance is if Mankins is asking for too much (I specified the parameters of a contract I would offer to him), I wouldn't have a problem with separating from him as long as there is a viable and capable back-up plan in place. If there is not somebody that can come in there and prevent our quarterback from getting killed, then letting him simply walk is a bad move no matter what he's asking for. By the way, while we're on it, what would you offer Mankins?
