FO gave Branch leverage

[Jacky Roberts]

And if my boss doubles my salary, I'm going to Tahiti!!

I didn't say it was going to happen, just that Branch's memory will become very short if the Pats capitulate.

 

[arrellbee]

Dear posters who called me names last week,

I hope you now understand why I became pessimistic last week...

By allowing Deion to shop around, the Pats threw all of their leverage out the window. How? By making Branch genuinely disgruntled. YOU CAN'T KEEP A DISGRUNTLED PLAYER...regardless of his contract status.

Last week, this obviously became WAY too contentious to be reconciled -- and it's now heading rapidly towards its inevitable conclusion -- a release (as per terms determined by league arbitrator).

You can BLAME Chayut/Branch all you want for believing they were worth more than the FO's intial offered (ALL INITIAL OFFERS ARE LOWBALLED). Branch played hardball and "walked out of the dealership." The Pats played hardball by not countering their initial offer. But by simply deciding not to return with his tail between his legs (a risk the Pats never seemed to consider), Branch has forced the FO's hand.

I do not believe he will ever play in navy and silver again.

That probably makes most of you happy. But, if we'd been willing to budge at all, this was potentially avoidable. Nobody seems to be able to look at Branch's value in terms of FUTURE cap levels -- that's how Chayut was looking at it -- the Pats obviously didn't want to go there.

That's business...welcome to the NFL.

We'll make due without him -- Childress might be a decent fill-in -- but we would've been flat out awesome with him.

Let's keep our fingers crossed on Jackson...the quicker he becomes an impact player the better.

Well, I don't know about last week.

But you probably have it completely backwards at this point.

Let me just give you the perspective to think about.

Which is more likely to give the Patriots a better offer for Branch:

- Shopping him during training camp when Branch is holding out so that the Patriots would appear to be looking like they were giving in and just trying to trade Branch for whatever they could get

- Letting Branch's agent appear to be twisting the Patriots arm while the Patriots are holding on to Branch stubbornly and willing to accept the consequences of a holdout even into the season.

You tell me - which scenario would cause other teams to think they had to come up with the more substantial offer ?? ?? ??

By allowing Deion to shop around, the Pats threw all of their leverage out the window. How? By making Branch genuinely disgruntled. YOU CAN'T KEEP A DISGRUNTLED PLAYER...regardless of his contract status.

What are you talking about ?? Sure you can keep a disgruntled player. He is under contract and HAS NO CHOICE. You can't make him play, but that's far different than what you said. But you sure can keep his rights - and there is nothing the player can do about that. Even to the extent of being franchised next year where the Patriots have the power to retain his rights for a whole additional year - or even more. AND they have the contractual right to assess fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars if he refuses to play - and this isn't just not getting paid - these are fines that he owes out of whatever he earned previously.

Now you tell me - who ?? has the leverage ?? It sure as heck isn't Branch.

 

[RI Pats Fan]

I thought there was a cap on how much a player can be fined for that? The Ricky Williams scenario was something unique in that he took the money and ran to India.

 

[5 Rings for Brady!!]

Arrellbee: It is true that the Pats hold the leverage, and that their choice of timing was good on the trade window, as well. As always, the Pats handled themselves well. But Chayut is a bit of a maniac, at this point, and what he can achieve thru a heavily Anti-Patriot NFLPA is yet to be seen.

I don't believe that Chayut started this grievance in a vacuum. I'm going out on a limb and guessing that there is some union collusion behind this grievance. I think that Chayut would think twice about filing a totally frivolous grievance if the union was 'playing it straight' with the truth of the situation. The union can't possibly want to encourage silly grievances, and this is quite silly. I could be wrong, I just think that Chayut has talked to the union about this already, and they decided to give it the old 'college try'.

The best thing right now is for Branch to go to the Hawks!

 

[MoLewisrocks]

I'm not sure Branch got a legit big offer. According to the one link that was posted, the jesters were the only ones to actually make an offer and it had a "funky structure".

Remember what Miguel always says - the first reports on a contract offer are usually agent spin. What really matters is what was Deion going to see in the first three seasons, how much bonus and guaranteed money, are the salaries backloaded and are these deals in fact new deals or extensions that also take his remaining year into consideration. Work will eventually leak out.

The Abraham deal took a while to shake out. Remember he nixed Seattle who was prepared to offer better compensation to the JETS because he had a deal with Atlanta who was only offering a #2. Eventually the JETS got their #1 but it took bringing a third team into the mix. That third team could be brought into this deal too if they have a WR we might be interested in.

As for Chayut, he's a relative neophyte when it comes to these deals. Deion is apparently his first big name client to reach the all important second contract stage. As for why he would file a grievance, people do crap like that all the time nowadays. No personal responsibility - when things don't go the way you planned it must be someone else's fault. I'm not worried about the special master - these guys are pretty bottom line and I don't think there is much of a case for Chayut to make. Giving a player under contract permission to seek a trade never obligates the team he's under contract to to trade him for anything less than compensation they deem sufficient.

May Deion holdout until week 10 if this isn't resolved in his favor? Who cares, he was prepared to do that anyway. Will he cause trouble if and when he does show up? I'd like to see him try it on this team. They may love him like a brother, but they will move on and if he tries to be disruptive they will not tolerate it because then he is interfering with their season and livelihoods.

 

[arrellbee]

Arrellbee: It is true that the Pats hold the leverage, and that their choice of timing was good on the trade window, as well. As always, the Pats handled themselves well. But Chayut is a bit of a maniac, at this point, and what he can achieve thru a heavily Anti-Patriot NFLPA is yet to be seen.

I don't believe that Chayut started this grievance in a vacuum. I'm going out on a limb and guessing that there is some union collusion behind this grievance. I think that Chayut would think twice about filing a totally frivolous grievance if the union was 'playing it straight' with the truth of the situation. The union can't possibly want to encourage silly grievances, and this is quite silly. I could be wrong, I just think that Chayut has talked to the union about this already, and they decided to give it the old 'college try'.

The best thing right now is for Branch to go to the Hawks!

You may have a really excellent point. If Chayut wins his arbitration bid that WAS great leverage and he is the big winner. However, if the grievance falls dead, then it wasn't really leverage but just smoke dreams on Chayut's part and one more thing that he has done to add to the heartburn between Branch and the Patriots - curse him.

Really good perspective - thanks !!

 

[SVN]

one thing everyone in the media seems to assume ,the pats wanted deion and his agent to test the market and find the true value and not trade him because they would have done it secretly.How is this a given ? what if arizona traded for branch with boldin or steelers with ward or jets with coles or any trade which made sense to them...you think pats would have not dealt branch and got rid of this distraction ? i think they would have .
also if the pats wanted to trade deion secretly wont his agent still talk to the team being traded first and iron out a contract and if the new team didnt meet his demands , the trade wouldnt happen secretly or not because no team will accept branch without him accepting their offer.
IMHO the pats wanted to see deion's value and would have been surely prepared that some team came up with a outrageous offer .They just wanted to try and see if they can get any value out of him .

 

[QuiGon]

By allowing Deion to shop around, the Pats threw all of their leverage out the window. How? By making Branch genuinely disgruntled. YOU CAN'T KEEP A DISGRUNTLED PLAYER...regardless of his contract status.

Ever heard of a fella named Ty Law...?

 

[shakadave]

Good night, Branch threads! See you tomorrow....

 

[the taildragger]

Ever heard of a fella named Ty Law...?

Can't recall the Pats ever setting up Law to be humiliated if he returned to the team? Can't recall the club ever telling him -- IN PUBLIC -- shop around and see how pathetic you are on the open market, and even if you find some love, this was all just a PR excercise to make us look good and humiliate you.

This is what happens in a stonewall...it has nothing to do with "BRILLIANCE"...brilliant strategies work toward a RESOLUTION...rather than further inflaming the proceedings.

Ever heard of Charles Haley?

Look, if Deion doesn't want to play here for $6M he's not going to play here for $6M. RIGHT OR WRONG.

In the cap era you can probably afford to keep him around for '06, but to what end?...to franchise a guy who doesn't want to play for your team?

We seem to be wrapped up in finger pointing instead of asking, DO WE WANT BRANCH TO CONTRIBUTE THIS SEASON? The Pats have so much flexibility because of the allowance they made to sign Branch, so please don't tell me they didn't intend to re-up. We wanted him, and now we won't get him.

There are ONLY two solutions:
a: The Pats have to raise their offer and forgive the fines.
b: OR they must release him NOW to spare the team further distraction.

Contrary to Jonathan Kraft's spin...PLAYERS NEVER OWE CLUBS "COUNTER OFFERS"...THIS PRINCIPLE DOES NOT EXIST. Players merely accept or reject offers. The Pats know this, ok? It's just spin.

Perhaps the grievance case won't give Branch what he's looking for (who knows), but the fact that he's filed it in the first place is the beginning of the end...and if the Pats are truly unprepared to raise their offer (right or wrong) then they should cut him now and be done with this.

However, if they still want to re-up then let's see some offers:
1. Five years @ $6.5M, half guaranteed, 50% of which gets applied this year.
2. one year, $3M, all guaranteed, no franchise tag next year, no fines. This gives us a year to get our receiving corps settled.

If there so much BRILLIANCE here then where are the win-win proposals?

 

[PATRIOTS-80]

they should cut him now and be done with this.

You should work for a sports agency.

Nonetheless, pounding away on your keyboard isn't going to change that if we don't trade him now, we are going to franchise him and trade him next year. We own his rights, and we are not going to give them away for nothing.