Your right. They couldn't Franchise Vinatieri a 3rd time because the new CBA wouldn't allow them to. The new CBA says that a player that gets franchised 3 times has to be paid the equivalent of (I think) the franchise number for QBs. That would have meant paying Vinatieri at 10M or so.
Wrong, they could have because the deadline for them to do that was before the new CBA was agreed on and because he only played under the franchise tag once - the first time it was withdrawn when they signed a 3 year deal about a week after tagging him.
Yes, they wanted Adam so badly that their initial contract offer included no signing bonus money at all. It wasn't until follow-up offers that they put guaranteed money into their offers.
Exactly right even though you don't get it. They were willing to pay him to be the highest salaried kicker in the league as long as they didn't have to commit via bonus as the dead cap security essentially employing him as the highest salared kicker at their discretion on a year to year basis. Kinda like a franchise tag without the 20% increase or March 1 guarantee feature.
Actually, that was a BS lie on Vinatieri's part. The Patriots couldn't have done anything in the last year because Vinatieri's agent was suspended by the NFLPA and Vinatieri hadn't named a repalcement. The fact of the matter is that Adam, who has MORE of a history of leg and back issues than Grammatica does, wanted guarantees that only an idiot GM would give a player. And an idiot GM did give him those guarantees. The same idiot GM that couldn't manage his rookie cap properly and couldn't sign his 3rd round pick to the numbers that the 3rd round pick wanted.
Tedy doesn't have an agent. I wonder how we ever got him signed....
Yes, actually, I DO feel they are viable fallbacks. At some point every player either gets too expensive for a team or runs himself off the team. And at some point, you have to replace that player with either a veteran (Grammatica) or a rookie (Gostkowski). That's the life of football.
The fact that you have to do something doesn't make the alternative you are left with viable.
And you act like its all the team's fault that Vinatieri wasn't extended previously. Its just as much Vinatieri's fault as it was the teams, though I blame Vinatieri more because he clearly made no attempt to replace his agent prior to this off-season. If Vinatieri has TRULY wanted to stay with the Pats, he would have replaced his agent immediately and gotten a deal done.
It's a wonder Kraft ever gets these extensions done with Belichick considering his "lawyer" was Adam's suspended agent.
Grammatica and Gostkowski represent the future. They represent the constant change of a football team.
Gostkowski may well represent the future. It's the present that concerns me.
BTW, while you think that this was a mis-step for the team, I disagree. I don't believe that it was a mis-step at all. Not paying a kicker with a history of leg and back problems, who can't hit a 50 yard FG, and who can't consistently get the ball inside the 5 yard line is my idea of good management.