So much for the home town discount

patfanken · Mar 17, 2013

RayClay said:
Did Amendola give them the first time discount, or the out of towner discount?

Texas Tech unproven slot receiver discount?

Just name your price!

Actually Ray he did. When you get passed the fluff of that deal the only why he's going to EARN those $6MM/yr is to be on the field and producing to a level that will make him a bargain with 3 years.

If he turns out to be the injury riddled, "unproven" WR you claim him to be, then he'll be lucky to see a 3rd of that amount. BTW- there is no one who is doubting this kids talent OR effectiveness. When he plays his QB's #'s are significantly better. SIGNIFICANTLY. So really the only real question about Amendola is his ability to stay on the field. Its a fair question, but one that can only be answered over the course of an entire season.

Reckedtrek · Mar 17, 2013

RhodyPatriot said:
It comes down to the fact that 5' 9" under 200 lb Wes Welker IS the best slot receiver in football, has produced in a huge way for the Patriot offense, comes to play every game, has shown no signs of slowing down ....... and is shown the door over what amounts to a 1 million dollar annual salary differential.
It is amazing how so many FOB (fans of Bill) so easily dismiss the contributions of Wes Welker for this team.

I guess you haven't bothered to keep up with the reports of how it allegedly went down. And the reports make sense from how both sides likely would react in a situation like the Pats and WW had a few days ago.

It sucks for Wes because he got LESS money than he was offered by the Pats, and the Pats lost their best WR. Had Dunn done a better job of knowing the market, WW would still be a Patriot and have more money than he ended up with.

So take your drama and your FOB crap and shove it.

VrabelJr · Mar 17, 2013

We're essentially free rolling on a player for the first three years of a 5 year contract and have almost zero repercussion (in terms of dollars) if we decide to cut Amendola after year 3. What's not to love about a contract like that?

PatsFanStnfrd · Mar 17, 2013

I disagree with notion that somehow the Pats let down Brady and Wes. Brady knows that BB operates on 1 principle: Do what's best for the team. BB will spend all the cap money available -- as wisely as he can. Too bad, if he cannot at the same time please every member of Patriot Nation.

As for Wes Welker, he was let down principally by his own agent who completely misjudged the market. I posted this elsewhere, but it is worth reiterating: Everyone should read Reiss's great postmortem on Welker @ 2013 NFL free agency -- If Wes Welker had read the landscape better, would he be a Denver Bronco? - ESPN Boston Entitled "Business end bites Wes Welker" -- its is a case of first class "REPORTING" with input from all sides. More definitive than the radio call-in.

Telling line:
"When asked Thursday what Broncos executive vice president of football operations John Elway said to him to close the deal, Welker told reporters he was actually the one doing the "pitching."

In other words, Welker was pitching Elway for a contract. That's how badly his agent misjudged the market.

Reiss summs up perfectly:
"As for Welker, he ultimately found himself in a tough spot. He's a player whose expertise is reading coverages and adjusting accordingly; reading the free-agent market and relying on the professional advice of others to help guide him is something altogether different."

JMarr · Mar 17, 2013

shmessy said:
So there must have been many teams out there ready to give him better contracts, right????

Think about that for a second. Really. Take a moment and ponder that.

You're just another of 3-4 who are embarrassing themselves here the past 2 days.

I think it's been well established that Welker would not do nearly as well in any other system besides the Pats, nor without Tom Brady throwing to him. That explains the dearth of offers to Welker. Yet you ignore this and act like you've been asleep the last 5 years. Your contribution on this subject the past few days has been nil.

Bruins29 · Mar 17, 2013

WW could have been playing for a better organization in a city that loved him, with his good friend and other friends I assume, for MORE money. Not less money. Last years offer was more and the Pats last offer last week was the same as Denvers with the incentives. Reiss said the numbers would have made the deal equal to Denver.

Everyone dropped the ball but I put this one more on WW than the Pats. Wish him well except his QB is someone I hope never wins another superbowl.

The Pats have made the SB 5 x in the last 12 years and the AFCG 2 more times.

Its a cutthroat biz. I have seen worse from Boston Sports front offices.

Ice_Ice_Brady · Mar 17, 2013

The more I hear about what actually happened, the more I begin to cringe about Welker... I thought I would never be able to dislike him, and I was angry at the Patriots when the news broke, but now I am glad we've moved on.

Welker has been trying to work out an extension with the Pats for 2 years now. The Pats have made him some very lucrative offers that were better than anything else he'll ever see. The fact that Welker's camp said that "no offer has been made" a couple of days after free agency, and then modified the statement to mean that no reasonable offer had been made, just goes to show the arrogance and greed on their side. In fact, the Patriots had made an extremely reasonable offer, one that was arguably better than Denver's deal.

But the worst part is that he's going to Denver. I know that I will begin to hate him as he plays in Goober's offense, so I may as well begin right now. It's the business side of the NFL, but this one could have been worked out a long, long time ago, and the market revealed that the Welker camp was to blame, not the Patriots.

RayClay · Mar 17, 2013

patfanken said:
Actually Ray he did. When you get passed the fluff of that deal the only why he's going to EARN those $6MM/yr is to be on the field and producing to a level that will make him a bargain with 3 years.

If he turns out to be the injury riddled, "unproven" WR you claim him to be, then he'll be lucky to see a 3rd of that amount. BTW- there is no one who is doubting this kids talent OR effectiveness. When he plays his QB's #'s are significantly better. SIGNIFICANTLY. So really the only real question about Amendola is his ability to stay on the field. Its a fair question, but one that can only be answered over the course of an entire season.

I was kidding, Ken. BB has an economics degree. He assumes many players will try to maximize their utility, not just by making the most money, but by being with the best organization, in terms of winning, facilities, ownership camaraderie and area living conditions and security of not having to move etc.

Players like Amendola might improve some of these hidden economic factors by moving to a more fun city (unless he's a hick, some people would like St. L better) better organization etc.

The point is, thee is no "discount" there is only maximizing your utility. If everything about your life is going to be worse by moving to a losing team situated in the desert, how much more money would you need to be miserable for a few years. It isn't just athletes. Many people take lower salaries to be in cities, with companies, in a challenging exciting job that they love.

I read that Welker seemed shaken after his move. Could be he and his agent "won" a Pyrrhic victory.

I'm sure Amendola, like others, included moving to a first class organization in a fun city as part of his compensation as opposed to other organizations.

PatsWickedPissah · Mar 17, 2013

Bruins29 said:
I cant wait until BB retires and Tom is Gone and the Pats are a normal team again. Gonna be some serious crying here when that day comes.

Considering this teams Mantra has always been better to get rid of them earlier than later you would think some of these people would have seen this coming. Especially when it was a player than publicly punked a coach that dosent tolerate punking.

WW is gone. Move on. It stinks but the FO track record is sound and good enough to improve the team without him. (hopefully)

Not really. Sad to say, the long time Boston centric culture here revels in misery, fostered by decades of MLB miasma. It's weakened some this century but is still the preferred behavior.

MassPats38 · Mar 17, 2013

Never understood why fans believed this 'discount' concept to be unique to the Patriots. Some athletes are pure competitors, others are purely in it for the pay day. Most are likely a combination of both, looking for the best contract from the most competitive team. As long as the Pats are successful, then there will be players taking less to play there. Once that period of success ends, then expect players will bolt for better situations or accept nothing less than top dollar.

With regard to Welker, BB has made it clear that football is a business, and nobody is safe. Every player on the Pats is likely well aware of that. He ran Cleveland that way, and he consistently has made that fact known with the Pats. He plans his personnel for more than this year. Welker's abilities will fall off, and likely catastrophically, when age costs him a step in quickness. He has taken a beaten as a slot receiver, and that will show in time (maybe next week, maybe 3 years from now - he is probably more like a running back than a receiver given the damage he takes, and most of those fall off an ability cliff at his age). While BB could pay Welker $10 million per year for past performance, he simply won't. Nor would any good GM who wants to win. That is a bad futures contract, based on nostalgia rather than present value. If Welker defies time and performs for any signficant portion of the Amendola deal, then it is a bad deal. If Welker's performance drops off, and/or Amendola produces for a longer period of time, then it was a smart move. I hate to see Welker go, but only time will tell if this was the right thing to do.

fgssand · Mar 17, 2013

FredFromDartmouth said:
Never again can the Patriots to expect a player to take a home town discount after what happened to Brady and Welker. If the team is going to nickle and dime them then I expect players to do the same to the team. No longer will players put up with that bullbleep; they will pull a Welker. I don't blame Welker one bit; enough is enough.

I am sure the phone call Brady placed to amendola was to tell him how much he was screwed over. No way was it to welcome him and tell him how much he is looking forward to playing with him.

What exactly did weaker pull? He is in a town he had to sell himself to get too playing for a qb that is not his closest buddy - and why? You don't think his agent really mis read this market? Talk about hubris - his agent and the player have enough to go around for all. Good bye Wes, thanks for the good times, I look forward to amendola now.

PHP:

Please, this notion that its about nickel and diming is ridiculous, how many times do you need to look at the overwhelming majority of other nfl teams bungling of the cap to understand how smart your management team here really is? What will it take? A return to the way money was managed before Kraft and belichick??

convertedpatsfan · Mar 17, 2013

This thread is making me think we need to re-vamp the thread Rating option. Why does Terrible equate to one star? That's one more than some deserve.

Shouldn't there be negative star option (black holes perhaps)? Those could be reserved for threads which not only take up space, but also provide a negative impact on the board by sucking in all sorts of time and effort wasted on complete nonsense?

patfanken · Mar 17, 2013

RayClay said:
I read that Welker seemed shaken after his move. Could be he and his agent "won" a Pyrrhic victory.

I'm sure Amendola, like others, included moving to a first class organization in a fun city as part of his compensation as opposed to other organizations.

I did too. I thought he was "saying" the right things, but to me he looked numb to his new situation. I'm sure he'll feel better once he gets more settled in, but it will be a while before he gets to truly happy/

Here's another indictment of his agent in the way of a question. And its ironic, because its a Felger question, that never gets suitably answered to my mind. What did the agent hear or not hear that would lead him to believe that there was an 3 for 24 deal out there, after the 3 day "legal.tampering period"

You have to believe, given the 3 simialr offers he eventually got, that THAT bigger deal was never even approached. So, WHY at at the 11th hour, and the agent knowing that the Pats are pretty much at the market rate, and Wes truly wanted to stay, did they tell the Pats that their best current offer to the Pats was 3 for 24, when he KNEW the current market was essentially some form of 2 for 12

If you take out the "legal tampering" part, it all makes perfect sense as to why it happened the way it happened. Clearly the Pats were busy during this time, working with DA's agent and knew his market. WTF was Wes' agent doing during those 3 days and what was he telling Wes?

PatsFanSince74 · Mar 17, 2013

Welker did what he felt he had to do. The Patriots did what they felt they had to do.

As to how Tom Brady feels about that, we'll never know unless he writes a book someday.

Brady is, however, a full grown adult human being. As such, he knows by now that the Krafts aren't going to make any moves that they don't think are in the team's and their own best interests, even if one of those moves disappoints ("enrages," if you believe one media report) the best player ever to play for them and who just took a haircut so they could spend more money on other players.

Wolfpack · Mar 17, 2013

FredFromDartmouth said:
Never again can the Patriots to expect a player to take a home town discount after what happened to Brady and Welker. If the team is going to nickle and dime them then I expect players to do the same to the team. No longer will players put up with that bullbleep; they will pull a Welker. I don't blame Welker one bit; enough is enough.

There are always going to be some players who are going to be willing to take a little less money for the chance to play for a perennial contender. You can call that whatever you want.

shmessy · Mar 17, 2013

Fred From Dartmouth, Lawyer Milloy, Deion Branch (circa 2006), Richard Seymour, Adam Vinatieri, Ty Law etc. all say hello to you.

Maybe you have heard of them.

The Patriots have had little trouble attracting FA's since they all were let go.

You have no clue on this subject.

Reckedtrek · Mar 17, 2013

shmessy said:
Fred From Dartmouth, Lawyer Milloy, Deion Branch (circa 2006), Richard Seymour, Adam Vinatieri, Ty Law etc. all say hello to you.

Maybe you have heard of them.

The Patriots have had little trouble attracting FA's since they all were let go.

You have no clue on this subject.

It appears that he has no clue about anything.

Bruins29 · Mar 17, 2013

Reckedtrek said:
It appears that he has no clue about anything.

It's just attention seeking. He would rather look like a complete fool here and have people notice him than go on in his regular life where he is a nobody.

Sad

vyrago · Mar 17, 2013

Big-T said:
Well, the start of free agency has really shown who should be on the ignore list.

Yeah, but it's kind of fun, isn't it?

vyrago · Mar 17, 2013

patfanken said:
I did too. I thought he was "saying" the right things, but to me he looked numb to his new situation. I'm sure he'll feel better once he gets more settled in, but it will be a while before he gets to truly happy/

Here's another indictment of his agent in the way of a question. And its ironic, because its a Felger question, that never gets suitably answered to my mind. What did the agent hear or not hear that would lead him to believe that there was an 3 for 24 deal out there, after the 3 day "legal.tampering period"

You have to believe, given the 3 simialr offers he eventually got, that THAT bigger deal was never even approached. So, WHY at at the 11th hour, and the agent knowing that the Pats are pretty much at the market rate, and Wes truly wanted to stay, did they tell the Pats that their best current offer to the Pats was 3 for 24, when he KNEW the current market was essentially some form of 2 for 12

If you take out the "legal tampering" part, it all makes perfect sense as to why it happened the way it happened. Clearly the Pats were busy during this time, working with DA's agent and knew his market. WTF was Wes' agent doing during those 3 days and what was he telling Wes?

Thanks for clarifying this PFKen. I thought I had missed something in the Reiss-Felger stupid argument. If what you say is true, Welker got screwed out of playing with his BFF where he wanted to play for a lousy couple of million (of course I might shoot my BFF for that ;-).

So much for the home town discount

PatsFans.com Supporter

In the Starting Line-Up

Veteran Starter w/Big Long Term Deal

Third String But Playing on Special Teams

In the Starting Line-Up

Veteran Starter w/Big Long Term Deal

I heard 10,000 whispering and nobody listening

Hall of Fame Poster

PatsFans.com Supporter

PatsFans.com Supporter

PatsFans.com Supporter

PatsFans.com Supporter

PatsFans.com Supporter

PatsFans.com Supporter

Banned

Phoenix, AZ/Retired

In the Starting Line-Up

Veteran Starter w/Big Long Term Deal

In the Starting Line-Up

In the Starting Line-Up

Similar threads