Breaking News Per Schefter: Long-term contract for Hernandez!

[borg]

Do agents get their % if their client gets franchised? No work-no pay?

 

[Deus Irae]

His '12 compensation is the highest yearly comp for a WR in the history of the team. Such disrespect.
And WW was so outraged with the tag that he came flying in to sign it...in May. By signing it, negotiations had to be haulted.......his doing....not the teams.

That is not a true statement.

 

[DefenseRules]

In appreciation to Kraft for drafting him and extending him early...

Albert Breer‏@AlbertBreer

Nice detail -- Aaron Hernandez is donating $50K to the Patriots Charitable Foundation in honor of Myra Kraft with this deal done.

What a sweet thing to do. I love that kid.

 

[Ivan]

Still waiting for Ken to show us Welker's "diminsihing skills" and the facts that back that claim up?

 

[BelichickFan]

How about talking about Hernandez. Do you go to weddings and start discussing some other guy breaking up with his girlfriend ?

AHern made it rain, he and Gronk will be together until Brady is 42. It's all good.

 

[patsfaninpittsburgh]

Bingo.

I think the fans are more upset about the Welker contract situation than Welker is.

He did what he had to do - - negotiate cold-bloodedly like the Pats did. They shook hands, didn't come to an agreement. He goes out and plays with a smile on his face and the comp you described above. He stated as much to the press that $9.4 million isn't killing him any.

There is another Boston team that can input a few ideas on albatross contracts.

If the concept was accepted from the beginning that the young TE's would come first; much of the emotion would never have developed.

 

[BelichickFan]

What a sweet thing to do. I love that kid.

Indeed, that was very nice and it is just awesome we have these two together for 7 more years. I love being a Patriots' fan but it's tough on all of us seeing the Seymours, Branches, Samuels, etc, leaving and it's so nice to be keeping those types longer now.

 

[PATRIOTSFANINPA]

Welker is happy to be playing for this amount this year and if he goes in '13 he goes.....he will be 32 next year and most receivers start to show decline at that point anyway.

If Welker only has a 700 or 800 yard season,I think fans reactions to not signing him to an extension will quickly fade.

What he does this season will certainly have something to do with the importance of keeping him in NE until retirement.

As far as Hernandez is concerned,I am thrilled to see him locked up for another 5 years......I said last year he has all the makings and talent of a modern Tony Gonzalez and I will stick to it.

Aaron will have a HOF career if he remains healthy.

 

[slash83]

Make it rain 81

 

[patfanken]

Name the WR we are flush with. Stallworth is gone. Gaffney hasn't yet shown he will be back better than before at 31. Lloyd and Brady are still working on chemistry. Branch is on a one year deal at 33. Ebert hasn't taken a regular season snap yet and may be headed for the PS. Edleman is a pending UFA. They need to continue to upgrade the secondary via the draft and look at starting to plan for the future at WR that way too.

Welker was looking for something more than $16M guaranteed, and he's already made $9.5M of it.

I think Schmess didn't make his point well. Let me try.

Certainly we aren't "flush" with WRs. Its great for this season, but after this year, its bad combination of too old and no experience. But that's wasn't Shmessy's point....I think.

I think his point is that between Lloyd, Gronk, and Herandez we have 3 elite targets for Brady to throw at. That's 2 more than most QB's have to start with. Then when you get the opportunity to fill in after that, you start to run into the embarrassment of riches we find ourselves in now. again.

What we ARE "flush in" are prime targets. We have more than most, and will have for the next few years, even if Welker isn't here.

 

[shmessy]

Name the WR we are flush with. Stallworth is gone. Gaffney hasn't yet shown he will be back better than before at 31. Lloyd and Brady are still working on chemistry. Branch is on a one year deal at 33. Ebert hasn't taken a regular season snap yet and may be headed for the PS. Edleman is a pending UFA. They need to continue to upgrade the secondary via the draft and look at starting to plan for the future at WR that way too.

Welker was looking for something more than $16M guaranteed, and he's already made $9.5M of it.

The number I had seen was that he was looking for was $21 million guaranteed. If that wasn't it, then I stand corrected.

$9.4 million now at 31, then IF he is healthy and still performing, $11.4 million tag when he is 32 is prudent from the Pats FO IMHO. Better than guaranteeing the full $21 million in advance on a 10 year vet WR with prior ACL/MCL repair.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

His '12 compensation is the highest yearly comp for a WR in the history of the team. Such disrespect.
And WW was so outraged with the tag that he came flying in to sign it...in May. By signing it, negotiations had to be haulted.......his doing....not the teams.

That's not true. They had until July 16th to negotiate a long term deal whether he signed the tag or not. He may have lost leverage, but then again he may have realized he didn't have any with this organization given his age and what at that point appeared to be a plethora of options - at least on paper.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

The Pats are FLUSH with WRs and TE's - - but WILL need to spend money on that secondary. We all love Wes, no doubt. There is such a thing as priorities in the dog eat dog NFL. Rewarding for past performance is not a top one.

They don't have to spend much on the secondary next year.

McCourty 2014
Dowling 2014
Moore RFA 2013
Dennard 2015
Arrington UFA 2013

Gregory 2014
Chung 2012
Wilson 2015
Ebner 2015

 

[Ivan]

How about talking about Hernandez. Do you go to weddings and start discussing some other guy breaking up with his girlfriend ?

AHern made it rain, he and Gronk will be together until Brady is 42. It's all good.

I'm thrilled with both signings, but i don't like seeing the news of it used to take shots at Welker, especially when the same people doing it are the ones who said they couldn't sign Welker because they had to pay the TE's. That's happened, and now Welker should be the priority after the season.

 

[West Philly Patriot]

The hypocrisy of the "contracts aren't based on past production" crowd will be front and center when Tom Brady signs his next very lucrative deal at the age of 35 approaching 36. I guarantee no one will be calling for a low ball contract due to paying Brady for past production. I don't want to see what this offense will look like if Lloyd doesn't pan out(we also haven't seen Gaffney play hardly) and the TE's are getting blanketed, while the only other receiver to take pressure off them that we know of will be a 34 year old Deion Branch(as much as I love him).

I love that they were pro-active in signing both TE's to cap friendly deals. Very happy. Please sign Mr. Welker and meet somewhere in the middle. Nice work by the FO.

 

[WinstonSmith]

Still waiting for Ken to show us Welker's "diminsihing skills" and the facts that back that claim up?

Ivan,

Ken used the word “likely”. I could link a bunch of studies that show on average that performance levels for WR’s drop significantly after 30.

I suppose that you could then say that everyone is different and that doesn’t mean that Welker’s numbers will follow the same pattern.

If you are playing blackjack and you are dealt an 18 and the dealer shows a 6, your best play on average would be to stay, even if in this instance (based on the way the cards were stacked) your only chance of winning would be to hit.

Some players will hit in this case and get lucky, but in the end the players who consistently play the averages will fare better.

I don’t pretend to know what the ultimate fair Welker offer would/should be, but the Patriots would be stupid not to consider the likelihood of an age based performance decrease when determining its value.

 

[Ivan]

I think Schmess didn't make his point well. Let me try.

You might as well ken, because you sure as hell aren't going to back up your claim that Welker's "skills are diminishing" any time soon.

 

[SONS_OF_BELICHICK]

I think these two (hern and gronk) understand how good they have it here ...and want to be here. They could be playing for Jacksonville or some other hell hole...and be paid well but have a crappy coach, inexperienced quarterback, and ....no fan support. WOW...imagine waking up and going to work for the Jags.

A great organization top to bottom ...does make a huge difference....

GO PATS!!

 

[everlong]

There were extenuating circumstances in some of those earlier cases. Branch was injury prone, same thing that is dogging Chung and Vollmer. And Samuel they were never entirely enamored of for a variety of reasons (skill, attitude, leadership). Mankins was a victim of the lockout monster, kind of like Welker was a victim of the turf monster. They love Vince but I think they were testing him to make sure he was all in and that was the test Seymour had flunked. Mayo sleeps on a couch in Bill's office. Gronk and Ahern while still a little frisky off the field or occasionally distracted on it, both seem to get it and that includes responding to Brady riding them like mules to toughen and coach them up.

There's no doubt about what you're saying there are always mitigating circumstances and there was a bit of the party hard line stance of you're still under your rookie deal. While there were the Koppen and Warren deals prior to Mayo, Gronk and Hernandez those were uber team friendly deals. These more current deals are much more mutually beneficial. I have to wonder if this trio of new deals would have gotten done this way a few years ago.

 

[shmessy]

There is another Boston team that can input a few ideas on albatross contracts.

If the concept was accepted from the beginning that the young TE's would come first; much of the emotion would never have developed.

I get your first sentence - - and agree.

However, that second paragraph - - where do I start?

In the NFL, WHO telegraphs ahead of time to players' agents which players they are going to prioritize????? (maybe geniuses like Dan Snyder or Mike Tannenbaum).

Who cares about "emotions"? I don't see FA's boycotting Foxboro.

Yeah, sure, have the Pats FO tell the world that Hernandez and Gronkowski are their #1 contract priorities versus Welker or someone else and watch Gronk and Aaron's contract demands go through the roof. Had the FO done that, you would not see their two butts signed, sealed and delivered for the next half-decade-plus this morning.

They know their worth, but I'm sure Welker sitting out there got them to move also. The FO plays ALL the chips against each other. That's the way it works.

There is no worry about "emotions".