Branch...1 year now...you be the judge...

[jct]

Re: Branch...1 year now..you be the judge..

He's a Seahawk, may they only beat SF this season.

Twice!
And Ya what he said!!

 

[ClevTrev]

Re: Branch...1 year now..you be the judge..

Deion is the furthest thing from my mind right now. He's a Seahawk, his choice to void an existing contract. Pats have moved on and don't miss him this season. Last season is over . . . .

 

[upstater1]

Re: Branch...1 year now..you be the judge..

Worshipping the Green is done by many...who cares about character..

language is what makes the fortunes inside the cookie understood.

 

[upstater1]

Re: Branch...1 year now..you be the judge..

How is it bad for children if their dad is honorable and he brings home millions?
Is your honor for sale?
Yes I guess it is...

My honor is in making CERTAIN my kids are cared for. That's the most honorable thing a man can do. But if your child were gravely ill, with no promise of insurance or medical care, you would risk it out of this sense of "honoring your contract" with the boss. It's bad for the kid if the Dad signs a contract, gets hurt, brings home $10 mill, of which he only sees $5 or 6 of it, then has to pay $5 mill for the care of his son for the rest of the kid's life. Sure, he can go on medicaid, I guess. But he did the honoraqble thing and insured his boy would get the care he needed.

 

[upstater1]

Re: Branch...1 year now..you be the judge..

Box of Rocks, thanks for the link.

One of your links lead me to this page: http://www.homeoftheinnocents.org/Kosair Main Page.aspx

So, its a Charity hospital. but it's on a big complex of industrial land, and Branch's kid is at a center where a lot of doctors and nurses provide care. That's not the charity element. The charity element comes from community programs for pregnant kids, drug users, suicidal teens, etc. Branch's kid is in a whole different pogram, so this care is paid for.

Deion has insurance for his kid now, while he's in the NFL. Good luck getting insurance when he ends his career. No one will take him on with his kid's pre-existing condition. As for long distance caring, maybe when Kentucky gets a NFL team, Deion will demand a trade. Or, he can move the kid to Seattle now, and then if he ends up with another team, say, Carolina, he can move him again. That's the other option, I guess.

 

[Box_O_Rocks]

Re: Branch...1 year now..you be the judge..

Box of Rocks, thanks for the link.

One of your links lead me to this page: http://www.homeoftheinnocents.org/Kosair Main Page.aspx

So, its a Charity hospital. but it's on a big complex of industrial land, and Branch's kid is at a center where a lot of doctors and nurses provide care. That's not the charity element. The charity element comes from community programs for pregnant kids, drug users, suicidal teens, etc. Branch's kid is in a whole different pogram, so this care is paid for.

Deion has insurance for his kid now, while he's in the NFL. Good luck getting insurance when he ends his career. No one will take him on with his kid's pre-existing condition. As for long distance caring, maybe when Kentucky gets a NFL team, Deion will demand a trade. Or, he can move the kid to Seattle now, and then if he ends up with another team, say, Carolina, he can move him again. That's the other option, I guess.

Deion's son is 6 now? And Deion's been in the league how long? 2003 wasn't it? The kid got care from a charity. I'm pleased to see it's a well run charity and it has branched out into other programs from it's inception 125 or so years ago, but Deion didn't have to sink every penny he made into caring for the child because there were people to help before he was earning NFL money. I'm glad he's now one of them, but I still can't buy that his primary focus in his negotiations was the family, the behaviors just don't add up for me.

I am however, really glad he's with Seattle and not closer to Lousiville with Indy!

 

[fgssand]

Look, I was ticked off at the way he left and feel he and his agent were quite disingenuous to say the least.

However, Patriots aren't always exactly choir boys either - it's a business.

Let it go, I have. He's OK - we're OK....I'll always have a place in my Patriot heart for him and his S/bowl & AFCG performances.

I love our WR'S right now and Randy Moss may just have that special kind of year that will be written about for a long time to come, not possible had Deion done what he did.

 

[Box_O_Rocks]

Look, I was ticked off at the way he left and feel he and his agent were quite disingenuous to say the least.

However, Patriots aren't always exactly choir boys either - it's a business.

Let it go, I have. He's OK - we're OK....I'll always have a place in my Patriot heart for him and his S/bowl & AFCG performances.

I love our WR'S right now and Randy Moss may just have that special kind of year that will be written about for a long time to come, not possible had Deion done what he did.

[Whiney gun moll voiceover]But Fraaannk, I wanted to win last year (and beat Napolian in his own hothouse). [/whine]

 

[fgssand]

[Whiney gun moll voiceover]But Fraaannk, I wanted to win last year (and beat Napolian in his own hothouse). [/whine]

Did you have to bring that up??

I cannot and will not watch that miserable game unless and until we win another Superbowl...at that point, I'll be able to handle it.

 

[Pats726]

I think what it does show is that a year later...there is still a lot of animosity against the Twig....given how he left..refusing to honor his contract and all that happened, I can understand that.. Even though I was not happy with others leaving from Vinatieri to Givens and others, they left when they were UFAs and showed more character and class than Branch could ever have.

 

[jbb9s]

Re: Branch...1 year now..you be the judge..

I am glad he is gone.

Are you glad that the Patriots let a Super Bowl slip away to in the prime of their dynasty?

 

[Ring 6]

Without question, the right thing was done.
Sure there is an argument that we could have won it all last year if he had stayed, but we will never know. We may have been set back further if he played half a season and got hurt.
Lets not forget Branch is extremely injury prone. Investing the amount of money necessary to keep a smallish injury prone receiver is not great business.
All that said, it didn't really matter. No matter what the team did (unless it made a foolish decision to give him whatever he wanted) Branch wanted out. What we got in return was fair value.
If we go on to win the SB this year, it may well have been because of this move. Any player transaction (especially large cap hit moves) are a domino effect. I think the overall result, POSSIBLY hurting our chances to win last year while POSSIBLY helping our chances to win the next few years is about the best you can ask for given the circumstances.

We wouldn't be looking so good today if Deion Branch got his long term deal, got injured again and was in street clothes watching us lose the AFCC last year and we hadnt totally rebuilt the WR group.

 

[Ring 6]

Re: Branch...1 year now..you be the judge..

Deion's son is 6 now? And Deion's been in the league how long? 2003 wasn't it? The kid got care from a charity. I'm pleased to see it's a well run charity and it has branched out into other programs from it's inception 125 or so years ago, but Deion didn't have to sink every penny he made into caring for the child because there were people to help before he was earning NFL money. I'm glad he's now one of them, but I still can't buy that his primary focus in his negotiations was the family, the behaviors just don't add up for me.

I am however, really glad he's with Seattle and not closer to Lousiville with Indy!

This is where trying to attach a value system to an NFL player always goes awry.
One side of the argument is that as a good father he needed to be sure he could provide the extremely expensive medical treatment his son needed. You could argue that with the leverage he had, it was right to use it and not risk an injury ending his career, and thereby risking his childs health care.
On the other hand, you could argue that if he were really a good father he wouldnt be living apart from his children, and would be there more than occasionally.

One side of the argument is that he is sacrificing for his son.
The other side is he is using the son that he is absent from for sympathy.

None of us can possibly know Deion Branch's character and have any idea which is true.
How do we not know that he used that contract to pay for every specialist in the world, and get his son into the best treatment facility in the world, or how can we possibly know that he is an absentee father who doesn't care to spend time with him?????????????????????

 

[PatsSteve1]

Re: Branch...1 year now..you be the judge..

1. The players know the deal going in – they get a guaranteed signing bonus with each year of the contract at the team’s option. NOT the player’s option, the team’s option.

Teams know the deal going in as well. That players may hold out, want a new deal before the one they have expires, etc. It goes both ways. It's a business decision on both sides parts. One of the things I like about BBioli is I've never detected what a player did for themselves lead to a grudge.

 

[upstater1]

Re: Branch...1 year now..you be the judge..

Deion's son is 6 now? And Deion's been in the league how long? 2003 wasn't it? The kid got care from a charity. I'm pleased to see it's a well run charity and it has branched out into other programs from it's inception 125 or so years ago, but Deion didn't have to sink every penny he made into caring for the child because there were people to help before he was earning NFL money. I'm glad he's now one of them, but I still can't buy that his primary focus in his negotiations was the family, the behaviors just don't add up for me.

I am however, really glad he's with Seattle and not closer to Lousiville with Indy!

That's not a charity. Doctors don't go into Med School debt so they can hang out all day at a non-profit in the sticks, making chump change. Rest assured, someone is paying for that. I know who it is. The fans. Deion has insurance for his son right now through the Patriots or the NFLPA. Some insurance company is shelling out the dough. But as soon as deion is out of the game, he'll try to switch to a new insurance, probably through the union. That's when the old pre-existing condition comes into play.

Good point about Indy being close to Louisville. He could have driven down once a week to see him.

 

[upstater1]

I think what it does show is that a year later...there is still a lot of animosity against the Twig....given how he left..refusing to honor his contract and all that happened, I can understand that.. Even though I was not happy with others leaving from Vinatieri to Givens and others, they left when they were UFAs and showed more character and class than Branch could ever have.

LOL, Adam's screwjob where he didn't even give the Pats a chance to match showed character, and then he dissed the Patriots. What a guy. Deion has only talked about how much he wished he had stayed here, even though he's now a Seahawk.

 

[Box_O_Rocks]

Re: Branch...1 year now..you be the judge..

This is where trying to attach a value system to an NFL player always goes awry.
One side of the argument is that as a good father he needed to be sure he could provide the extremely expensive medical treatment his son needed. You could argue that with the leverage he had, it was right to use it and not risk an injury ending his career, and thereby risking his childs health care.
On the other hand, you could argue that if he were really a good father he wouldnt be living apart from his children, and would be there more than occasionally.

One side of the argument is that he is sacrificing for his son.
The other side is he is using the son that he is absent from for sympathy.

None of us can possibly know Deion Branch's character and have any idea which is true.
How do we not know that he used that contract to pay for every specialist in the world, and get his son into the best treatment facility in the world, or how can we possibly know that he is an absentee father who doesn't care to spend time with him?????????????????????

I'm trying to not be judgemental regarding the family situation with all the dynamics that get involved there. The divisions revealed by the stories are sad enough in a vacuum.

I am being judgemental about what little I know about his negotiations with NE - I'm left with the impression that he wanted out of New England first, and that makes whatever money he got elsewhere "okay" for his family. That's his choice, he gets to make those decisions, I get to make my choice and that's to think a player who wanted out of NE isn't anyone I'm going to feel any particular empathy about.

Upstater1: You seem to assume that all doctors attend medical school for the money. I direct you to the website's FAQ and invite you to consider whether they offer charity medical care for a child like Deion's: http://www.homeoftheinnocents.org/FAQ.aspx We can be pretty sure the NFLPA wasn't helping Deion with insurance in 2001.

 

[Pats726]

Deion has only talked about how much he wished he had stayed here, even though he's now a Seahawk.

Talk is pretty cheap when he did virtually EVERYTHING to get out of town...and did NOTHING to indicate he wished to stay here..