Gronkowski

[MassPats38]

Football players don't stay away from teams for most of a season, and then return in playoff form. Gronk does not retire and enter suspended animation, returning like he left the practice field yesterday. That overlooks the simple fact that even injured players interact with the team, and are further along than ones outside the system over the course of a season.

The simple question in this $9.5 million assessment is as follows: Is Gronk a difference maker with a skill set that cannot be replaced with one or more active players? I would answer that yes.

Or try an alternative: With $9.5 million to spend, does the team acquire assets that make the Patriots a better team in his absence? You have watched free agency. Does that figure acquire a game changer to the degree of Gronk? No chance.

It would be great if Gronk cost $1 and played a whole season for the Pats. It would be awesome if he could spend a season at the spa and show up right before the playoffs in perfect condition ready to win a title. It is a beautiful fiction. The sad reality is great players command a high price, and don't risk their future health for nothing. Add to that the benefit of a continuum in a season of games that develops a group into a playoff caliber team.

I will take Gronk at his price for much less than a season if that is what his health requires. He still commands double coverage, and helps the offense whether he catches 1,000 yards in receptions or not. I would love to see him return at any price.

 

[chris_in_sunnyvale]

If BB is going to manage Gronk's snaps during the season, I can't see him doing it at the potential cost of games. Any decision to rest Gronk is going to vary series to series, even play to play.

Need to make the playoffs, preferably with a bye, then win every game thereafter. No decision is going to be made that compromises that.

Regards,
Chris

 

[luuked]

Then let's do this in stages. Maybe it will make more sense.

1) Gronk has been considering retirement.

2) Gronk decides to retire.

3) In November, Gronk asks Belichick whether he would like him to un-retire in December.

4) Belichick agrees and Gronk comes back.
========
This isn't about an agreement for Gronk to come back. It is about a decision for Gronkoswki to retire, with the possibility that, just maybe, he might come back. The retirement decision is Gronk's to make.

I am sorry but this scenario makes absolutely no sense to me. Because as soon as Gronk retires the team will move on financially as well as roster management wise to put together the strongest team they can. They will not keep a Gronk Fund stashed away in case he decides to unretire especially after eating 2m in dead money.

Unless you think they will break with tradition and actually try to recoup that final part of the signing bonus which would certainly be something Team Gronk would be "happy" about.

But whatever.. this is getting too absurd for me..

 

[Soliel]

He’s not going anywhere.

 

[Ring 6]

Teams can't make their own TV deals, Jacksonville makes much more than they would otherwise.

Even a large portion of gate receipts are redistributed to teams like Jacksonville.

Popular teams do not keep the profits from merchandise, it is distributed to less popular teams.

The league decides what brands of shoes players can wear.

Again, you should study the meaning of socialism.

 

[primetime]

Teams can't make their own TV deals, Jacksonville makes much more than they would otherwise.

Even a large portion of gate receipts are redistributed to teams like Jacksonville.

Popular teams do not keep the profits from merchandise, it is distributed to less popular teams.

The league decides what brands of shoes players can wear.

Do you think OPEC is socialism too?

The NFL is effectively run as a cartel. Revenue sharing is what separates it from, say, McDonald's or some other company that relies on franchising, but the legal construction is similar. And revenue sharing isn't socialism. If the players owned the teams in a cooperative, we'd be getting closer, but a co-op still isn't socialism, which is a political economic system (i.e. a society) in which production is for human needs rather than profit and social relationships between people are not conditioned by capital (e.g. wage relations).

(This is the reason that neither the Soviet Union was also not socialism nor are the social democracies of Northern Europe, however much the latter have improved the lives of their citizens.)

 

[50-yard-line]

Limit his snaps a bit? Sure, particularly if they've got someone they're grooming, like a high draft pick this year (I don't know much about LaCosse and consider him a camp body - no disrespect intended).

I always want that with aging player - have Jules miss 4 games last year was probably part of the reason he was so amazing in the SB. Brady was lights out after the suspension the year before, all the way through.

So, sprinkle in the project and reduce the snaps for Gronk 10%? So the same with Bentley/Hightower? Maybe a game inactive near the end of the year if everything's in place?

Yeah, that seems more like good roster management to me than anything negative. it's a long season, and always longer for the Patriots.

Give him September-November off and have him come back as the savior? No. Please no. Veteran players seem to get hurt a lot after a long layoff, for one thing, it's unfair to the rest of the team for another.

 

[RayClay]

Again, you should study the meaning of socialism.

I've only got a bachelors in economics, you?

 

[Ring 6]

I've only got a bachelors in economics, you?

Same

 

[RayClay]

I've only got a bachelors in economics, you?

Also, is there a free and competitive market for labor, or do the owners of the means of production control it so that they can never never have more than an aggregate labor cost? Can a team sign a premium player when they don't have cap space? In a capitalist system they obviously could.

 

[RayClay]

Same

So why haven't you replied to any of the 5 points I've made? Saying go read stuff is not making a point.

 

[italian pat patriot]

I think Gronk will play at this point...imho if he was going to retire the "right moment" was after Atl Super Bowl Win...

Just my thought...

Probably for just a season however...

 

[ralmat55]

Talk of “half-seasons” is the silliness of a player under contract trying to get more money. Gronkowski wants his contract improved. This is not new. His contract was sweetened with incentives in both 2017 (earned) and 2018 (unearned).

Last season the team responded to this by threatening to trade him for leverage to which Gronkowski responded by threatening to retire. That’s where it still stands today. Gronk wants more money and retirement is his leverage to get it.

My reading is Gronk still wants to play and the Patriots want him to keep playing for them. It’s just business folks, and it will get worked out.

 

[Ring 6]

So why haven't you replied to any of the 5 points I've made? Saying go read stuff is not making a point.

Because you are so far off the mark I wasn’t goimg to get into it, but if you insist

1) the nfl is not a government organization
2) the nfl IS an organization formed by the individual corporations (teams) to work in their collective interest.
3) the nfl is run democratically
4) all decisions by the nfl are made by its members not by a socialist entity dictating to them.
5) the nfl, in order to maximize interst and profits of their teams, DECIDE AMONG THEMSELVES to negotiate a tv contract the require every game to be on television and thereby share the proceeds rather than competing against each other for indicidual tv deals, an arrangement that was made democratically and can be changed democratically
6) nfl teams are worth over a billion dollars
7) doing something that a socialist society may also choose do, for different reasons, that is designed to maximize the profits of a bunch of capitalists is not socialism unless you just don’t understand the meaning.
I’ll stop there.

 

[Ring 6]

Talk of “half-seasons” is the silliness of a player under contract trying to get more money. Gronkowski wants his contract improved. This is not new. His contract was sweetened with incentives in both 2017 (earned) and 2018 (unearned).

Last season the team responded to this by threatening to trade him for leverage to which Gronkowski responded by threatening to retire. That’s where it still stands today. Gronk wants more money and retirement is his leverage to get it.

My reading is Gronk still wants to play and the Patriots want him to keep playing for them. It’s just business folks, and it will get worked out.

I have not heard a credible report that gronk is asking for more money. Where is your info coming from?

Also, gronk threatened to retire, and played games about informing the team of his plans THEN the team threatened to trade him, at which point he said he was playing and the phony trade was no longer.

 

[Ring 6]

Also, is there a free and competitive market for labor, or do the owners of the means of production control it so that they can never never have more than an aggregate labor cost? Can a team sign a premium player when they don't have cap space? In a capitalist system they obviously could.

The players UNION and the nfl collectively bargained these parameters in both of their own interests
And the owners are capitalists, not a government.
Rules are evident in every society not just socialist ones.

Can kraft sell his team for BILLIONS? In a socialist system he couldn’t.
Can Le’Veon bell sit out a season to negotiate a new job in a socialist system? No.

 

[RayClay]

Because you are so far off the mark I wasn’t goimg to get into it, but if you insist

1) the nfl is not a government organization
2) the nfl IS an organization formed by the individual corporations (teams) to work in their collective interest.
3) the nfl is run democratically
4) all decisions by the nfl are made by its members not by a socialist entity dictating to them.
5) the nfl, in order to maximize interst and profits of their teams, DECIDE AMONG THEMSELVES to negotiate a tv contract the require every game to be on television and thereby share the proceeds rather than competing against each other for indicidual tv deals, an arrangement that was made democratically and can be changed democratically
6) nfl teams are worth over a billion dollars
7) doing something that a socialist society may also choose do, for different reasons, that is designed to maximize the profits of a bunch of capitalists is not socialism unless you just don’t understand the meaning.
I’ll stop there.

1. Doesn't have to be. Owners control the means of prodction ns employ labor.
2. It's a collective. Your term.
3. Not really democratic, but many socialist nations are, so it makes no difference.
4. Owners are a socialist entity. They have agreed to abide by wealth distribution and outlaw capitalism by each team, ask Jerry Jones.

You seem to have economic and political systems confused. There are democratically elected socialist economies as well as fascist state controlled economies which employ capitalist systems.

 

[Ring 6]

1. Doesn't have to be. Owners control the means of prodction ns employ labor.

Of course it has to be. Who is controlling the owners? Themselves.
Who is controlling the players? Themselves through their union.
In a socialist society the government controls production and labor, not business owners.

2. It's a collective. Your term.

See your first 2 answers are why I suggest you go learn what socialism is.

3. Not really democratic, but many socialist nations are, so it makes no difference.

Again, no.

4. Owners are a socialist entity. They have agreed to abide by wealth distribution and outlaw capitalism by each team, ask Jerry Jones.

They are capitalists who act in their own best interst which is enhanced by working together.
Go tell Robert kraft he can’t sell his team, sell his own advertising, collect parking fees, sell tickets, and merchandise.

You seem to have economic and political systems confused. There are democratically elected socialist economies as well as fascist state controlled economies which employ capitalist systems.

I have nothing confused.
The nfl is a democratically run organization of capitalists in a capitalist society.

 

[TB_Helmet]

Only on this board can a thread titled "Gronkowski" turn into a debate about the definition of socialism.

 

[jah]

1. Doesn't have to be. Owners control the means of prodction ns employ labor.
2. It's a collective. Your term.
3. Not really democratic, but many socialist nations are, so it makes no difference.
4. Owners are a socialist entity. They have agreed to abide by wealth distribution and outlaw capitalism by each team, ask Jerry Jones.

You seem to have economic and political systems confused. There are democratically elected socialist economies as well as fascist state controlled economies which employ capitalist systems.

The bold part might be the most incorrect thing ever posted here.