- Joined
- Mar 25, 2005
- Messages
- 19,929
- Reaction score
- 3
He didn't want to retire though and he publicly stated he was not taking a paycut to remain because he apparently believes as so many of them do he is still productive. They wanted to do this last year but gave him his shot at proving he was now healthy and reinvigorated and still better than AP... It's a little like the Favre thing only as a RB they could afford to just cut ties.
They almost all believe they can still play until a couple of years after the phone stops ringing. Tedy and Rodney are the exceptions to the rule. Most players are not the best judges of what's left in the tank and whether that translates to value anywhere. We let Bingo hang on for one more year because he hadn't come to terms with it. But it was for short money. Vrabel didn't think he was done and wasn't interested in taking a paycut so we found him a job somewhere else where his knowledge of the system had sufficient value that they were willing to pay him what the last year of his deal called for. We are such heartless bastids...
Willie had let it be known for some time he had no intention of taking a paycut in what he admits he always understood to be an unworkable backend of his deal. He also made no bones about the fact he was heading for Cleveland with RAC. So rather than waste each others time, we skipped the dance. Cleveland overpaid for his talent in the hope he could help install the system and police a young locker room. Only it didn't work out due to injuries and decline in skills. They cut his pay in half in his final year or he'd have been looking for work in 2008 and not 2009 (when no one offered...).
He is now apparently ready to move on and sees his next niche as an analyst...despite the involvement in the music business and real estate development and player representation... He knows the quickest way to garner attention from the likes of ESPN or NFLN or Fox or whomever is show you are willing to critique the NEP...whatever. Screw perception. Reality is players egos seldom allow them to admit they are victims of an NFL system, not the NEP system, which is not geared to carry diminishing returns at increasing cost on limited rosters. If you routinely pay players for who they were instead of what they are you won't be winning many games or any championships.
