Kraft - Brady ultimatum?

Bob Kraft is a greedy bastard. But I'd tell Brady the same thing. Honestly, nobody should be getting paid 20 million a year. There's just not enough cap space to go around.

Wheelman said:

Bob Kraft is a greedy bastard. But I'd tell Brady the same thing. Honestly, nobody should be getting paid 20 million a year. There's just not enough cap space to go around.

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Both Belichick and Kraft have mentioned the "fifteen percent rule," where they generally don't wish to pay their franchise QB more than 15% of the current salary cap. As a matter of fact, the 15% may have been at the top of the scale, which may have started as low as 12%. I distinctly remember something in the 12-15 percent range.

Either way, they've spoken of this in the past, as far back as somewhere around 10+ years ago. This is nothing new, so I'm not sure why Bedard is trying to make it sound like a big story. They probably did have a conversation which included the suggestion that a true franchise QB salary would be virtually impossible to have moving forward, but I highly doubt it was as one-sided as Bedard seems to suggest. After all, Kraft has openly praised Brady hundreds or even thousands of times, and he has to realize Brady's worth to the team.

Let's also remember that Brady was given a total of 50-55 million dollars guaranteed, which was on par with Drew Brees' major deal of 55-60 million guaranteed at the time.

I think there is a "wink and a nod" agreement in place and when #12 retires he will have a place near the top of this organization.. not sure of what capacity, but Mr. Kraft will take care of him.

Great thing about Patriots rumors is nobody cares enough to deny them.

That doesn't sound like an "ultimatum" to me. More like giving him the respect of two year's notice on what the team wasn't prepared to do. I don't think we should let our current frustration with and anger at Kraft spill over into other areas.

Wheelman said:

Bob Kraft is a greedy bastard. But I'd tell Brady the same thing. Honestly, nobody should be getting paid 20 million a year. There's just not enough cap space to go around.

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So is BK greedier than the other 31? Than 1/3 of them? 1/2 of them? Where does this greedy charge come from?

DarrylS said:

I think there is a "wink and a nod" agreement in place and when #12 retires he will have a place near the top of this organization.. not sure of what capacity, but Mr. Kraft will take care of him.

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I don't think Tom Brady is going to need anybody, even Bob Kraft, to "take care of him." However, none of us can know what happens when two people communicate privately. So, to that degree, you might be right.

But, to the extent that Tom Brady's future plans include working, I doubt very much that those plans also include collecting a paycheck that comes from holding a "place" in any "organization" that he doesn't own or control.

He and Gisele have a global "brand." Assuming they have invested wisely (and continue to do so), we'll probably be looking for them to join the billionaire's club somewhere down the road. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't build something together, but that too would be something about which we can only speculate. However, his pattern is to take ownership stakes as part of his major endorsement deals (Under Armour, UGG).

Wheelman said:

...But I'd tell Brady the same thing. Honestly, nobody should be getting paid 20 million a year. There's just not enough cap space to go around.

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Brady, and every other player in the NFL, "should be getting paid" what someone will pay them. That's the definition of a "market." A player might choose to take less, but there are no "shoulds" other than "what the market will bear."

supafly said:

Both Belichick and Kraft have mentioned the "fifteen percent rule," where they generally don't wish to pay their franchise QB more than 15% of the current salary cap. As a matter of fact, the 15% may have been at the top of the scale, which may have started as low as 12%. I distinctly remember something in the 12-15 percent range.

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Do you really mean they have publicly commented that they have a rule that the QB can only be paid 15% of the cap? I find it shocking that they would make a comment like that publicly. Do you have any type of source?

1960Pats said:

He'd fit like a glove in SF, but the only "stacked team" is the Pats, in spite of the efforts of the Parity Police.

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Brady is the main reason they are stacked.. the Pats have good players, but Brady makes decent players look great..

Swap Brady for Geno or Cassel this year and see what happens..

PatsFanSince74 said:

Brady, and every other player in the NFL, "should be getting paid" what someone will pay them. That's the definition of a "market." A player might choose to take less, but there are no "shoulds" other than "what the market will bear."

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I understand the demand and supply of a market. But come on, nobody should be paying someone that much with the cap limitation. If there was no cap, by all means...pay what you'd like to pay someone. If all 32 owners refused to pay that much for a player, they would be forced to take less. Eventually it bites you in the ass, a la Jay Cutler for example. No way should he have ever been payed that much despite the high demand and low supply for Quarterbacks.

vyrago said:

So is BK greedier than the other 31? Than 1/3 of them? 1/2 of them? Where does this greedy charge come from?

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He sold the Patriots out for money! That's why he backed down, so he can stay in the club of 32 greedy bastards(which should answer your first question) instead of fighting for injustice. He chose to take it up the ass and lose his self-respect so he could get paid!

For a second when I read BK I thought you were talking about Burger King lol!

AndyJohnson said:

Do you really mean they have publicly commented that they have a rule that the QB can only be paid 15% of the cap? I find it shocking that they would make a comment like that publicly. Do you have any type of source?

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It wasn't necessarily a "rule" as it was a statement that they prefer not to go over 15 percent for a franchise QB. I believe it was during the Brady contract renewel in 2005 in regards to cap management in the current era.

I am 100 percent positive that one of Kraft/Belichick commented publicly on the matter (likely Kraft), and we've talked about it here on the forum in the past. I'll see if I can dig up a source somewhere in the next day or so.

A quick google search brings up an article that speaks of this widely used practice across the NFL. The article states that the "old" way was between 10-13 percent of the cap (hence Kraft's comment of 12-15 percent in 2005), and now it's closer to somewhere between 17--18 percent for most of the NFL in the era of 20+ million dollar AAV deals.

I don't really see what the big deal is though, when you consider the fact that the cap was 143m dollars this year. What's 12-15 percent of 143 million dollars? It seems to be a pretty solid practice, and proves that they'd be willing to go fairly high almost as much as the next guy.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap10...aries-cause-teams-to-make-difficult-decisions

Wheelman said:

I understand the demand and supply of a market. But come on, nobody should be paying someone that much with the cap limitation. If there was no cap, by all means...pay what you'd like to pay someone. If all 32 owners refused to pay that much for a player, they would be forced to take less. Eventually it bites you in the ass, a la Jay Cutler for example. No way should he have ever been payed that much despite the high demand and low supply for Quarterbacks.

..

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I really don't know what "should" has to do with this discussion.
If someone pays, then it "is."
If no one pays, then it "is not."
As long as an owner values a player at a particular level, that player will be paid at that level.
What I think or what anyone else thinks "should" be the case really doesn't matter.

Armchair Quarterback said:

YEE-HA! Look kids, a real life internet tough guy! And look, he 's armed with a what men do list.

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Grow up man, God forbid someone doesn't act like an emotional little baby in this site

PatsFanSince74 said:

I really don't know what "should" has to do with this discussion.
If someone pays, then it "is."
If no one pays, then it "is not."
As long as an owner values a player at a particular level, that player will be paid at that level.
What I think or what anyone else thinks "should" be the case really doesn't matter.

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I doubt they valued Cutler as much as they paid him. But the market demanded they pay him lots of money. I guess they were afraid someone else would snap him up. They should not have payed him!
It does matter, we all knew the Bears overpaid Cutler. We all knew Cutler sucked but they were afraid of having nobody at all at QB.

Wheelman said:

I doubt they valued Cutler as much as they paid him. But the market demanded they pay him lots of money. I guess they were afraid someone else would snap him up. They should not have payed him!
It does matter, we all knew the Bears overpaid Cutler. We all knew Cutler sucked but they were afraid of having nobody at all at QB.

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That's a different subject than your original point, which was that "...nobody should be getting paid 20 million a year. There's just not enough cap space to go around. no one is worth $20 million dollars."

Logically, whether or not Cutler was worth the $25 million is a completely different discussion. Some players aren't worth the veteran's minimum because even that makes them overpaid. One can be "overpaid" at any level, from the minimum to $25 million.

Your point was very clearly stated and you argued that "nobody" "should" be paid "20 million dollars" because nobody was "worth" that much (your words). My point was that a player's "worth" isn't a matter of "should," but rather a matter of how a market values the player and will pay him.

Whether the market ends up being right or wrong in valuing a particular player at any level is another matter entirely.

Some players are overvalued at the minimum salary the CBA allows. Jay Cutler was absurdly over-valued at $25 million or whatever he got, but at that time, the Bears ownership thought it was in its interests to pay that much to him. I thought they were wrong at the time, but I didn't have a vote and the market set his price.

Brady would very likely be valued at that level on the open market; Kraft acknowledged to him, according to the report, that his "market" value might be a lot higher than the Patriots were willing to pay. Had he gone to an open market Brady would very likely have been valued closer to $25 million. Whether he "should" or "should not" have gotten that much would then be irrelevant. It just would be.

Deflatemyballs said:

Grow up man, God forbid someone doesn't act like an emotional little baby in this site

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OK....WTF are you talking about now?

Get over yourself.

PatsFanSince74 said:

Brady would very likely be valued at that level on the open market; Kraft acknowledged to him, according to the report, that his "market" value might be a lot higher than the Patriots were willing to pay. Had he gone to an open market Brady would very likely have been valued closer to $25 million. Whether he "should" or "should not" have gotten that much would then be irrelevant. It just would be.

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I disagree that it's irrelevant. Nobody should be paying anyone 20 million a year right now. It's a market with a salary cap.

Wheelman said:

I disagree that it's irrelevant. Nobody should be paying anyone 20 million a year right now. It's a market with a salary cap.

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If the only way to get a top-5 QB was to pay him $20M per year, I would gladly pay it. Luckily for us, the Pats get the best of both worlds.

Wheelman said:

I disagree that it's irrelevant. Nobody should be paying anyone 20 million a year right now. It's a market with a salary cap.

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Fair enough. I just disagree, but your position is now clearly stated. I don't think either of us is going to change the other's mind.
Have a nice weekend.