This is a laughable threat. Asante is all about the cash. There is no way he walks away from $5M.
Asante should never have gotten his "get paid" tatoo.
Its possible to believe that Lance Briggs would throw away millions of dollars out of principle.
It is impossible to believe that Asante will ever do anything other than maximize his take home pay. Unfortunately for Asante, that means reporting to camp during week one.
Fortunately for Asante, he's not actually good enough for the Patriots to care. The Patriots will do the math, and figure out that Asante is worth more to the team as trade bait, than on the field.
That's what so many said about Branch - he'll never hold out, we have all the leverage, who needs him anyway...
If Asante were crap then Belioli would be idiots for not only franchising him (and apparently with no intention of trading him or they would have shopped him pre draft) but for offering him a long term deal at $6M per...
I doubt the Pat's would wait for him until week 10 because of the distraction factor and because they tend to favor moving on. That said, championships are generally won in December and January, not September and October. And DB's drop like rocks here in the early going. In hindsight Deion would have look pretty damn fine coming in off the bench last November and likely represented far better value than a first round pick in a draft where we deferred or traded away most of our day one picks because in the 2007 draft they didn't represent good value.
Holding out until week 10 is code for if I don't get a long term deal I like I better get something like a promise I will not be franchised in back to back seasons. Couldn't do it for Deion because he wasn't there yet and was holding out while under contract. This is different, and this is how you get a franchise tagged player into camp if you a. need him, b. can't trade him for value that exceeds your current need for him, c. want to take a year to continue mutually evaluating each other contract demand/performance wise or d. realize he's gone one way or another going forward and the best you can hope for from the tag is one additional season of service albeit at a premium. In a season in which you have already invested a lot to insure you don't come up one play or one stop or one minute short of an eminently achievable goal.
There is little they can do about this as both the player and the team are well within their rights to do this dance under the CBA. Attempting to somehow punish him for exercising his rights would do nothing but sour relations with the other 52 who are likely a leaning a little more towards a management whose judgement in these matters the core leaders clearly respect because of both the astronomical demands they see a "very good" player making for the second off season in a row - demands they know do less to fuel their next deal with this team so much as make their ability to get any deal here going forward more difficult and make it far more likely they end up reluctantly moving on even if they planned to be far more reasonable in hopes of remaining here. And because of their excitement at the caliber of roster they have seen proactively assembled in this off season.
Deion had to go because he would not talk deal even after they basically told him they were ready to cave. And because they totally misjudged his resolve and the emotional upheaval his continued absence would cause. And because they developed real issues with his novice agent. Asante is not in the same position, albeit he plays a more highly coveted position league wide. He is well liked, but has always been somewhat of a loner and not nearly as gregarious or ever present as our grinning WR was. And his agent is a veteran they have worked well with in the past and have a functional relationship with.
And as for those who dream of trades including potential upgrades at the position, that's like baseball fans who always want to trade their junk for another teams treasure. If we do trade him and a player is involved, any draft compensation will be reduced accordingly. Unless we're swapping our problem for someone elses, in which case their might be none.
My bet is they do the one year deal with the no tag provision a week or so into camp. Though if for some reason he refuses, then they openly shop him at a time when other teams realize, due to injury or poor performance, that they have a dire need for a corner. What we get for him then depends on the number of teams with dire need, because you need at least two to fuel both his market and trade his value.
