Rational and fan are practically oxymorons...
Along that line, Felger - who is actually pretty intelligent and can be insightful when he isn't focused on being a ratings douche - has often contended that there is a certain level of competitiveness/arrogance involved in the way this team views the business end of the football equation too. They don't just want to win games and championships, they are determined to win negotiations, even the seemingly straight forward or easy ones, with the guys they have identified as team players, yet they still have to create or even fabricate somewhat contentious scenarios they can eventually spin as a team win.
They've done it with Brady in the past, although this last time out the best they could muster was him finally hitting the bar as opposed to resetting it... Back in 2005 when they wanted to extend him on the heels of his third ring, Kraft had to publicly make the point that if he wanted Manning Money there would be a problem. He didn't, so with the parameters set on a 6 year $60M team friendly extension, they found a way to piss him off by suddenly insisting he take his signing bonus in 4-5 installments...to the point his side used Tom E. Curran to deliver the message that they were really beginning to annoy him.
That went over big here at the time with quite a few poster insisting Brady the diva should sign whatever deal the team was offering and be glad he gets to play here or they could flip him for a boatload of picks because Bill and his D can win with chewing gum and string on offense. Those were the knuckleheads I first came here to debate...
A few days later the message was sent that it was all a misunderstanding (on the teams part) and within a few more days the deal was done as actually previously agreed to, on Tom's terms...which were already beyond reasonable. It's like they **** around the most with the guys they think will let them get away with it. Only one they ever really badly miscalculated with was Branch, they never thought he'd actually leave... I think they felt the same way about Wilfork and Mankins and even moreso now about Welker. Which really doesn't leave Wes with a ton of leverage beyond letting fans know how they are behaving. At least he's handling it a lot better than Mankins did, and even better than Wilfork did.