3x Super Bowl Champ Curtis Martin coasts to HoF

Armchair Quarterback said:

Jets Take Shot At Martin - Hartford Courant

"The Jets raised the pot by signing running back Curtis Martin to a reported six-year, $36 million offer sheet"

"The Patriots had reached an impasse in negotiations with Martin, who turned down a six-year, $20 million offer"

More than a $500,000 difference.

No mention of a balloon payment.

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Apples to oranges.

I'll say this again. The Patriots offered him that contract PRIOR to his third year. He made $300k that year. He would have made $3.5m if he had taken the deal. By not taking it, he made about a million more.

It's well known that the last year of the Jets contract was for $10 million with few salary cap ramifications. That's why he renegotiated with the Jets later in his career. It's irrelevant anyway because the 6th year of the Jets contract would have been one year after the end of the Patriots contract because the Patriots offered him a year before his final year of his rookie contract. Again, apples to oranges.

DarrylStingley said:

See, I loved Curtis as a Patriot but I don't have any love for him now.

Bill Parcells screwed Pats fans. Yes, he made them respectable and very good. Thanks for that. But by not waiting until after the SB to deal with the Jets, he made winning that game more difficult.

Curtis Martin followed Bill Parcells. When Curtis did that, it was as if he was saying that what what Bill did to the Pats and their fans wasn't so bad, and going to the Jets and following Parcells was acceptable.

It wasn't. If Curtis was the classy guy everyone says he is, he would have said I want nothing to do with a guy who let his team, his fans and his owner down by letting the two weeks before the SB be all about him.

Screw you, Curtis Martin.

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THAT is when they went from being the Jets, a divisional opponent who I had no particular animosity for, to the Rats; the most vile, despicable, low-class, cheating, abomination of a franchise that any team could ever become.

And they did it to themselves and have no right to EVER point any fingers at any other franchise for ANYTHING, for however long this planet continues to have sentient life on it.

Armchair Quarterback said:

I wasn't even aware he still had a job, another poster said he works in their personnel dept. I looked up their won-loss record, you want to lecture someone, lecture the poster who I was responding to.

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Wow, sorry to bother you with a discussion of talent on Houston. Among the thin-skinned posters on this board, you take the cake.

upstater1 said:

I'm pretty sure you're the drunk one.

I mentioned Belichick for obvious reasons. To show you that paying RFAs top dollar before their contract expires is NOT a good business practice. The Patriots tried to do to Curtis what Belichick accomplished with Brady, Warren and many others. ie. Ripped up their old contracts, and paid them an amount that was not top dollar, but in comparison to their old contracts, was really really good.

That's not a fabrication. That's a comparison. Nowhere did I claim you mentioned Belichick. Can you read?

The Patriots offered Martin prior to a year in which he earned $300k and when you ex-out the balloon payment of $9-10 million that the Jets never paid to Curtis, you realize that the Jets offer was 5 years for $26 million (which was close to the highest paid RB at the time, since Barry Sanders was at $5.25). Take the Patriots offer which was for $3.5 a year, add the last contract year with the Patriots at 300k to the Jets offer, and that average is $4.5k. A difference of a million. Left out of it of course is that the Patriots offered Martina year earlier. He could have gotten hurt in that year. Kudos to Martin for turning it down, but you don't renegotiate and offer top dollar to a guy under contract.

We'll never know what would have happened because of the poison pill contract.

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Parcells had made the Pats look like idiots with how this had played out. The contract was actually frontloaded and the Pats couldn't fit it under the salary cap but it's nice to see that you think they did the right thing. BTW they payed him the $10 million as a signing bonus in 2002 on a new contract.

WhiZa said:

I'm trying to shake out the cobwebs, but wasn't Martin a RFA and the Jets signed him to an offer while it was the Patriots who had the opportunity to match, but didn't?

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I don't have the details of the contract, but it was something like the number of games played in Foxboro each season increased his salary to rediculous levels or someting like that.

EDIT:
Actually, it was a free agency clause if the Patriots matched. I was confusing this with the receiver the Seahawks got from the Vikings using a poison pill.

Deus Irae said:

Early nominee for worst thread of the year.

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It doesn't take a genius to realize this thread was meant as a slam aimed towards Jets and Jet fans. CM will obviously make the Hall in the near future.

rhodeislandpatsfan said:

It doesn't take a genius to realize this thread was meant as a slam aimed towards Jets and Jet fans. CM will obviously make the Hall in the near future.

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It's a stupid thread, even for the silly season.

Armchair Quarterback said:

Parcells had made the Pats look like idiots with how this had played out. The contract was actually frontloaded and the Pats couldn't fit it under the salary cap but it's nice to see that you think they did the right thing. BTW they payed him the $10 million as a signing bonus in 2002 on a new contract.

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Uh, no. That new signing bonus was for the length of his new contract. Martin reduced his salary and cap for that 6th year. He signed that in 2002 and played a few more years, making that bonus an average hit of $2 million a year. Just because he got a SB that year does not mean it was for that year's pay. You have to average what he got in the years afterward. And at the end of that contract, Curtis got hurt, and took a salary below $1 million ($800k).

Whoever it was on the Patriots that didn't realize there was a poison pill loophole was at fault for losing Martin.

Curtis Martin should not be a hall-of-famer. He was consistently good but he was never elite. Should not be a damn Hall-of-Famer.

Guy has a lower career YPC than Laurence Maroney.

Laurence "4.1" Maroney

VS

Curtis "4.0" Martin

Yup he has a higher average, Laurence 'HOF lock' Maroney for the win.

Edit: Didn't even see the above post lol.

If he stayed, the Pats would have stayed dominant, which means no Bellechick, which means no Brady, which means we have a mediocre franchise at the moment.

Dutchmaster617 said:

Laurence "4.1" Maroney

VS

Curtis "4.0" Martin

Yup he has a higher average, Laurence 'HOF lock' Maroney for the win.

Edit: Didn't even see the above post lol.

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Jerome Bettis, Marcus Allen, Franco Harris, John Riggins, Ricky Watters, OJ Anderson.

None of these guys have a higher YPC than Maroney.

BlueString94 said:

If he stayed, the Pats would have stayed dominant, which means no Bellechick, which means no Brady, which means we have a mediocre franchise at the moment.

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I don't know... even the year Martin was with Carroll the Pats were already underachieving, and in '98 we had Robert Edwards and still only managed 9-7 (albeit decimated by injuries.)

God, I'll never forget that ugly playoff game against the Squeelers where Martin was injured and we lost 7-6. If Martin had been in, we woulda won. Not that we would have got past the Broncos in the AFCCG though.

Pessimistic Pete said:

Curtis Martin should not be a hall-of-famer. He was consistently good but he was never elite. Should not be a damn Hall-of-Famer.

Guy has a lower career YPC than Laurence Maroney.

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Agree with this. It's NOT the Hall of Very Good, it is the Hall of Fame. Martin was never the best RB during his playing days.

upstater1 said:

You honestly think Belichick would have done differently? We're talking about a RFA.

All the RFA's that Belichick has had over the years have been signed for much less than the top rate. Including Brady and Ty Warren. Only the players who were entering free agency received around market value (Seymour and Wilfork).

The difference at the time with the Martin contract was not more than $6 million (or a few hundred thousand a year). You have to remember that the Patriots offered Curtis the contract PRIOR to his 3rd year, when he earned $300k, so essentially, the Jets contract needs to account for that.

Remember too that the original Jets contract had a balloon payment at the end of $10 million that would be guaranteed if the Patriots signed him.

In the end, the difference between the Jets offer and the Patriots offer was less than $500k.

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I don't know if the comparisons are valid.

First, it is two different eras. Back in the 90s, teams were far more willing to part high draft picks for players (Joey Galloway and Sean Gilbert netted their respected teams two first rounders). A restricted free agent tag back then did not protect a player like today. A team back in 1998 was far quicker to give up a first and third for a franchise RB. Knowing this, Belichick would have revised his strategy to keep players he wanted.

Second, Belichick would never had rubbed in the fact he is forcing a player to play under a below market deal to stroke his own ego in the press. I think that was probably the final nail in the coffin of the Martin years. It was one thing to make a potential HOF RB play out the final year of his rookie deal which is well below his market value. It is a complete other thing to brag to the press how great of a personnel guy you are by not giving that RB the deal he deserves (or at least he feels he deserves).

Look at it this way. You wouldn't be happy if you got a promotion with out a raise, but you would be outraged if your boss told everyone how great of a manager he is because he got you to do a higher level job at your former position's salary rather than getting a candidate from outside the company and pay that person 10% more than you are being paid. That is where Greer was really wrong.

upstater1 said:

Jerome Bettis, Marcus Allen, Franco Harris, John Riggins, Ricky Watters, OJ Anderson.

None of these guys have a higher YPC than Maroney.

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I was going to respond to those posts, but frankly it wasn't worth the effort. The guys is 4th all time in rushing yards, played on many mediocre teams and somehow ran for more than 1000 yards every season (10) but his last. He won the rushing title one year before he called it a career. That isn't very good, it is outstanding.

With that logic, Terrell Davis's first 4 years earn him the Hall over Martin because he had a 4.7 YPA. A player makes it in on the body of work, not 1 or 2 good years. Martin was consistently good for a long time. He earned his place.

BlueString94 said:

If he stayed, the Pats would have stayed dominant, which means no Bellechick, which means no Brady, which means we have a mediocre franchise at the moment.

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I was waiting for someone to say that. As TrueBeliever said, Martin staying doesn't guarantee Carroll still doesn't get fired after 1999 but even if he gets one more season, whether we ever get BB or not, Tom Brady is already playing on another team.

No thanks on anything that keeps Martin a Patriot. It's one of those things that sucked at first but now obviously has turned into something great for this team.

Rob0729 said:

I don't know if the comparisons are valid.

First, it is two different eras. Back in the 90s, teams were far more willing to part high draft picks for players (Joey Galloway and Sean Gilbert netted their respected teams two first rounders). A restricted free agent tag back then did not protect a player like today. A team back in 1998 was far quicker to give up a first and third for a franchise RB. Knowing this, Belichick would have revised his strategy to keep players he wanted.

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I disagree with this. The RFA back then worked exactly as it did today except for the poison pill, which hadn't been used prior to that, and was expunged after the Martin contract. I mean, Belichick has made the same sort of gambles with a few players, Deion Branch just one of them.

I don't see what's so wrong in offering a player essentially $1 million a year less than he otherwise earned for his new team. That's $1 million is essentially what a player takes for the insurance of a signing bonus, just like Ty Warren's contract.

the fact that parcells and martin et al, never won a superbowl as jets, does my heart good. knowing that the jets org. is a bunch of pervs makes everything that much better.

rings or no rings he's not a first ballot hall of famer and a big part of that is because he has said many times he dose not love the game of football he mostley played to make money and help he's family