Sour Grapes???
 

http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/NFL_Czar?All=1

Re: Sour Grapes???
 

was that one GM named Bill Polian?

Re: Sour Grapes???
 

I suppose that's informative to the extent that Czarnecki's contacts imply that the alleged tampering took place after the Patriots had given permission for Branch/Chayut to seek a trade.

If that turns out to be the case, I'd have to agree with them. Once you've given permission to the player to talk to another club, it's very hard to complain about the content of the conversation.

On the other hand, it seems so unlikely that the Pats would file a complaint unless they had some concrete evidence of a clear violation of the rules, I find this account very difficult to believe.

Re: Sour Grapes???
 

Pardon me for getting all linguistic here, but the Czar (who by the way, I think is very good) did leave himself some wiggle room in his prediction:
___
"The NFL has been listening to the complaints, but no way is it going to fully support New England’s tampering charges against the New York Jets on the Deion Branch case."
___

".....no way is it going to FULLY support....."

He did not say that the folks on Madison Ave are going to laugh their heads off at the tampering charge, but that they won't FULLY support it.

Leaves the door wide open for the possibility that the Pats do get something out of it.

Re: Sour Grapes???
 

The heck with the pissing match between the Pats and the Jets, I like this line from the his next topic entry-

"It’s too bad the Raiders didn’t trade Porter to New England and kept Doug Gabriel, who was liked by his Oakland teammates, particularly Randy Moss."

Re: Sour Grapes???
 

The Patriots' allegation is that the Jets and Chayut discussed what to offer New England. Since Chayut filed a grievance claiming a second round pick was fair, these allegations are undoubtedly true.

This does constitute tampering, because the knowledge of what the Jets offered the Patriots hurt the Patriots (theoretical) chances of mending fences with Deion. The New England FO gave Chayut permission to seek another team that would give Branch what he wanted, not to negotiate trade terms of a player under contract.

Is it tampering? Absolutely. Is the league going to do anything about it? Highly unlikely.

Re: Sour Grapes???
 

That is interesting.

Do you have evidence for what you say (that this is what the Patriots' case consists in)?

If so, it seems to me to be an incredibly weak case.

If my partner is negotiating a deal and it's clear that he has to make that deal acceptable to me as well as to himself, it would be absurdly restrictive if he were unable to talk to other interested parties only about that part of the deal that affects him. If the Patriots gave Branch authority to seek a trade, how could they not also be authorizing him to talk about what compensation the other team would give the Patriots?

You say. "Is that tampering? Absolutely." What is the definition of "tampering" that makes it so? Where is that written down.

If it is all as you say, then I too think that the Patriots should drop such a silly complaint and move on. Knowing the organization as I think I do, I don't imagine that they would be pursuing this if there wasn't some clear and flagrant breach of an ethical principle (as well as a violation of the rules).

Re: Sour Grapes???
 

Well, given the fact Chayut's claim was based on a verbal agreement that if the patriots recieved adquate compensation they would make the trade. Knowing what was being offered certainly weakend their position.

But I think this is still a shot at the leauge. I am still not convinced that the NFL FO pushed the trade through.

Re: Sour Grapes???
 

They have been talking about this on the NFL network on Sirius and that is the reason that tampering charges were filed. It is not silly;it was the Jets stepping over their boundary with the player. They only had permission to negotiate a contract with the player, they did not have permission to discuss possible trade compensation with anyone other than the New England Patriots. As the poster above stated it weakens the Patriots postition especially in a situation with multiple suitors.

What you should be upset about is the fact that the Jets never intended on trading for Branch because they knew that a second round pick wouldn't get it done. So they offer a contract that they knew would never be signed because they were going to offer an unacceptable offer to the Pats and just to make things worse they disclose the offer to Chayut.

Re: Sour Grapes???
 

Czarnecki was on with Felger yesterday and he said he called the trade as imminent over the weekend because of info he had that the league was pressing for a conclusion to the situation before hearings began. If that is the case then any further talk about lockouts and uncapped years is just posturing BS. This has become the no stones league. There is obviously so much $$$ at stake that no one will ever be allowed to disrupt the flow of the cash cow. He said the league has their own list of give backs they are hoping to extract from the union and they don't want individual teams poking a stick in the union relations hornets nest in the interim. So it's no shock that one who would like to would be characterized as sour grapes.

He also said that Ruskell was reluctant to part with a #1 for Deion but the decision had been made on Saturday that if the offense struggled to score points Sunday they would pull the trigger. Of course if Ruskell had pulled the trigger and franchised or signed Hutchinson last March instead of transitioning him and losing him in that poison pill ploy they wouldn't be in the position of grasping at straws like adding to an already crowded WR corps to try to compensate for losing the best Olineman in the league.

Ruskell btw is the guy Paul Allen hired to take over as GM when he stripped Holmgren of his personnel duties. He was Allen's second choice, since Pioli didn't want to leave NE just to make $15M. Unlike Branch, Pioli chose to stay with a dynasty he helped build, and for a lot less. That is another reason many here support this FO in the final analysis - they don't just expect the players to sacrifice for the greater good, they practice what they preach. Over the long haul the team is better served if players and others for whom individual compensation, accomplishment, accolades matter more than winning here just move on. The challenge then becomes identifying their replacement and allowing them the opportunity to advance unimpeded. It's not arrogance, it's the Belichick in practice system across the board. And it's one designed to function well over the long haul rather than one geared to grab what you can in a window and then bolt before it slams on your fingers leaving some unfortunate schmuck to figure out where to go from there. Like what happened in Tampa after their one and done that led to McKay and his assistant Ruskell moving on to Atlanta in 2004 while Gruden was left to muddle along with a remnant team.

I think it is interesting to note that the only 2 teams who expressed any interest in Deion were teams who at some point in time lost out on either Belichick or Pioli. Now maybe like that idiot Charley Casserley they saw far greater value in Deion that the Patriots and several other potential suitors did, or just maybe they saw an opportunity to poke a little stick of their own into the Belioli mystique. The real winners and losers in this deal won't be revealed for a couple of years. I will depend on the performance of three teams, one who traded for and paid a player, another who added an as yet unknown first round draft pick, and a third who stirred a rival pot and ended up with nothing to show for it but increased enmity.