I don't blame him either. but I can't help but feel that way towards a player making money like Peyton Manning. There's a big difference between Peyton Manning and Sam Bradford.
Real World said:
I don't blame Bradford either. Anyone in his position would accept whatever sum their team is willing to play. There's no need for him to appologize. I blame the league, and the players union. If Bradford gets $50 million (I know, we need the details first), what do Brady and Manning get? $70-80 million guaranteed? Their deals will be very, very tricky now, if they already weren't.
Tell that to THEIR agent, super agent Tom Condon, the little engine behind the need for a rookie contract cap. He and his agency have been instrumental in pushing contracts to outpace net revenue for a long time now.
He negotiated Manning's record shattering deal in 2004 that almost doubled the amount of signing bonus previously paid to any player. He got Eli Brady money in his rookie deal. At the time Eli was guaranteed $20M of a $60M deal. Since then he has repped every top QB in the draft and their contracts have risen exponentially whether funny money was largely employed or not.
Ultimately if there is a lockout or the golden goose is killed, players need look no farther than Tom Condon for someone to blame. Sure owners are their own worst enemy when it comes to wanting rookies or FA signed and on the field. But they were often left little alternative but to cave due to this agent and his clients. Watson had to fire him his rookie season just to get a deal done here and get into camp. He engineered Brady Quinn's costly holdout for an incentive laden contract with escalators he never saw because the holdout so poisoned the atmosphere in his own hometown RAC soured on him almost immediately and never gave him a shot at making it as a starter thereafter. Condon could care less. He's less concerned with his clients best interest or even their particular 3% than he is with landing the next class of top tier rookie and FA clients based on the reported max value of deals he's negotiated. Other agents are only too willing to stand back and ride the master's coat tails because he handles all the heavy lifting of raising the bar on perceived averages and total values annually.
One reason no one has much to say about Manning's deal is that Polian pretty much summed Indy's situation up in March when he corrected Irsay by stating the contract was between himself and Condon... Condon was the president of the NFLPA before Gene Upshaw began his reign with his own agent...you guessed it, Tom Condon, at his side. They are the ones who sold a generation of players on the trickle down theory and convinced them that % of the total pie and personal bonus or guaranteed money and even increasing the perception of value from the top down in part driven by each rookie class was the ultimate blueprint to their overall long term well being, as opposed to securing less flashy farther reaching benefits like improved disability and retirement and insurance coverage for the entire membership past, present or future. Agents don't get a piece of your benefits...and if top tier players weren't increasingly morons, they would need no damn benefits...because Condon has seen to it they are paid well enough to self insure their post career futures.
When they do cap these rookie contracts as they will, they should call it the Tom Condon rule.
The only impact this has on the Brady and Manning and Brees deals going forward is exceeding perception in the form of genuine guaranteed money and take home over the first three not tied to earning escalators and incentives. But their agents will now feel it's incumbant to top $50M in fact or in spin lest they be painted by their peers as having dropped the ball. Of course in Manning's case raising the bar yet again will remain at the forefront of his negotiations because Tom Condon will be orchestrating that deal. So in fact that will ramp up the pressure on guys like Yee and whomever reps Brees (Edit...Condon again) to deliver deals that at least appear superior to the flavor of the moment rookie QB. All three deals will therefore have to average substantially in excess of $14M and fully guarantee in excess of $50M or functionally guarantee millions more than that.
The good news should be that thereafter all extensions should reflect value in comparison to actual elite players at the position as opposed to comparison to kids with overhyped potential who have yet to accomplish a damn thing at the next level. Except of course that there will always be a Dan Snyder in the mix, an owner with more money than brains, who lives in the moment and is tired of waiting for his team to be built because he wants or needs to win now and he irrationally perceives a splashy, overpriced signing as a means to that end.
