Asante and his opinions on the tag

[PatsFanSince74]

Could someone explain to me how a "tagged" year is different from the last year of a contract in regards to a career ending injury for a player? This has often puzzled me. Say if Player A is on the last year of his 4yr contract, how is he any less vulnerable than Player B, who's got a one year tag, to a career ending injury. Just wondering. Also, aren't all NFL players insured?

Here to learn(shamlessly stolen from Mike )

your "question" makes a great point. the way i see it, the tag extends samuel's risk to the extent that there was an expectation, in this case very reasonable, that he could have signed a deal with big guaranteed money this year rather than next year. however, from an economic point of view, he isn't being compensated for taking that one year risk since the mandated franchise salary isn't enough to do so (even though eight mil ain't bad). so, from that perspective, the impact of the tag is to increase his short term risk. on the other hand, if he has another great season and emerges as the pre-eminent guy in next year's draft, he would end up getting compensated for the risk via an even bigger payout. if i were his agent, that's how i wouild be trying to get him to think.

as for insurance, the answer is "i don't know" from a player's perspective. i think, but don't know, that teams can buy injury insurance as part of a team package at an economic rate against guaranteed contracts. i don't know if the economics of buying that insurance by an individual player would work out. think about it. let's say samuel takes the view that he has $30 mil at risk next season. would he be willing to pay, say, a ten percent premium (i'm making the percentage up since i don't know what it would be but there would be injury statistics by position that would provide the number) for protection against that risk next season? on that scenario, if he thinks he has a greater than 10 percent chance of suffering a career-ending injury, the purchase would be economically, if not emotionally, rational.

 

[Fencer]

Could someone explain to me how a "tagged" year is different from the last year of a contract in regards to a career ending injury for a player? This has often puzzled me. Say if Player A is on the last year of his 4yr contract, how is he any less vulnerable than Player B, who's got a one year tag, to a career ending injury. Just wondering. Also, aren't all NFL players insured?

Here to learn(shamlessly stolen from Mike )

It isn't different. However, the tag in effect forces him to have a second consecutive contract-ending year he otherwise would have had.

 

[Willie55]

Seeing is how he is being so quiet I am of the belief he is negotiating with the Pats on a long term deal.

I think he also saw what Ty Law did and it got him nowhere so he figures whats the point.

 

[Pat_Nasty]

Seeing is how he is being so quiet I am of the belief he is negotiating with the Pats on a long term deal.

I think he also saw what Ty Law did and it got him nowhere so he figures whats the point.

Let's not forget the lessons learned from the Deion Branch fiasco -- once you start negotiating through the media and going public with hurt feelings, the process becomes acrimonious pretty quick, and you've pretty much written your ticket out of town. For a guy in Asante's situation, you have to imagine the ideal scenario would be to get the long-term, big-money deal he wants from the Pats, and not have to relocate to another region and learn a new defensive system. Unless he's not happy in the area, getting resigned is best for himself both personally and professionally.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

For these players it is all about guaranteed money. Asante now gets about the same guaranteed money under the tag as he would have gotten had he signed the kind of long term deal the Pat's were offering back in November. Those talks broke off because his side didn't feel that was nearly enough. Reportedly we offered $7.5M and he was looking for $10M+. Of course that was before he capped his season with a few more picks and had a couple in the playoffs. It was also before the FA market opened.

Asante's agent is certainly shopping his client even as we speak. They will gauge the level of interest which, while certainly limited by the need to compensate us, should still exist to some degree. If they find a team or teams willing to meet his contract demands absent a first or at least a first this season, and if the two sides are making little or no progress in closing what is likely an ever widening gap here, that is when you will begin the hear from Asante's camp again.

We haven't heard his name mentioned in connection with any team yet, but for tagged players there is a secondary market just before and after the draft when some teams were unable to get what they wanted or needed. When trading away a pick to get a piece of the puzzle they think they need for a 2007 push seems decidedly more justifiable. There are a lot of teams with a ton of cap and some of them have barely been heard from thus far.

Briggs has already ramped up the rhetoric in Chicago so it would be safe to assume he has suitors lined up and he is entering the shoot your way out of town phase to soften up the Bears resolve regarding compensation. Hopefully it never reaches that stage with Asante. I could see him quietly informing them he is sitting out simply because he saw what that netted Deion last season. BB won't carry the tag on his cap for a player who says he will not report. His agent said they are not ruling that option out. $7.8M is a lot to sit out on, but if it nets you $12-15M+ guaranteed you likely play the card. People forget that Deion didn't just sit out on his 5th year salary, he sat out on a deal on the table that would have paid or guaranteed him $8M in 2006, and he ended up with $12.5M. The same situation could easily play out in Indy with Freeney, who has $5M+ already banked from last season to tide him over and cushion the blow of sitting out on close to $10M. He knows he will command double his tag (and maybe triple) in guarantees in this market, and Polian is already indicating they will likely not get a deal done because "this isn't the time".

You would like to think that Asante also hears and sees the kind of things AD has been saying about how he arrived at his decision. But at 25 with that tattoo he sat through, I doubt it. And like most players he isn't from here and likely would be not only open to but welcome a relocation because he has a young family. He skipped our off season program last year opting to train in Florida because his wife was expecting another child. Another thing for fans to remember is it's not just about retaining or paying Asante. It's about paying for a unit, whether you look at that as DB's or CB's. These guys have a budget for each unit and while they may exceed what they would hope to pay for one player within a unit, they know that comes at the price that they will have less with which to retain or add others (including quality depth) in that unit or another unit. I'm sure our DB budget like our WR budget hasn't come close to exceeding budget over the last several years because even though we had mega injuries to account for we were otherwise relying on youngsters and JAGS. That is what allowed us to retain a guy like Ty Law in 2003 and 2004, and carry a big ticket FA like Colvin on IR for a year and through a year of gradual rehabbing his way back to starting, or franchise the PK and offer to keep him the highest paid at his position albeit incrementally, or sign Jarvis Green to a pretty expensive contract for a backup.

Like BB says, we can keep or sign anyone we want - as long as we remember it's a tradeoff against someone else you can't keep or sign. We have some other key players coming due in the next couple of seasons. And we would probably like to retain some of the flexibility the dramatic cap increase created for a well managed team in the event some of those cagy veterans BB covets wind up as cap cuts down the road on teams that didn't manage the windfall quite as well.

 

[italia44]

Just wanted to say that this is how all posts should be.
You guys put forth a lot of pertinent facts and info.

Intelligent,concise..........well done.