Czarnecki was on with Felger yesterday and he said he called the trade as imminent over the weekend because of info he had that the league was pressing for a conclusion to the situation before hearings began. If that is the case then any further talk about lockouts and uncapped years is just posturing BS. This has become the no stones league. There is obviously so much $$$ at stake that no one will ever be allowed to disrupt the flow of the cash cow. He said the league has their own list of give backs they are hoping to extract from the union and they don't want individual teams poking a stick in the union relations hornets nest in the interim. So it's no shock that one who would like to would be characterized as sour grapes.
He also said that Ruskell was reluctant to part with a #1 for Deion but the decision had been made on Saturday that if the offense struggled to score points Sunday they would pull the trigger. Of course if Ruskell had pulled the trigger and franchised or signed Hutchinson last March instead of transitioning him and losing him in that poison pill ploy they wouldn't be in the position of grasping at straws like adding to an already crowded WR corps to try to compensate for losing the best Olineman in the league.
Ruskell btw is the guy Paul Allen hired to take over as GM when he stripped Holmgren of his personnel duties. He was Allen's second choice, since Pioli didn't want to leave NE just to make $15M. Unlike Branch, Pioli chose to stay with a dynasty he helped build, and for a lot less. That is another reason many here support this FO in the final analysis - they don't just expect the players to sacrifice for the greater good, they practice what they preach. Over the long haul the team is better served if players and others for whom individual compensation, accomplishment, accolades matter more than winning here just move on. The challenge then becomes identifying their replacement and allowing them the opportunity to advance unimpeded. It's not arrogance, it's the Belichick in practice system across the board. And it's one designed to function well over the long haul rather than one geared to grab what you can in a window and then bolt before it slams on your fingers leaving some unfortunate schmuck to figure out where to go from there. Like what happened in Tampa after their one and done that led to McKay and his assistant Ruskell moving on to Atlanta in 2004 while Gruden was left to muddle along with a remnant team.
I think it is interesting to note that the only 2 teams who expressed any interest in Deion were teams who at some point in time lost out on either Belichick or Pioli. Now maybe like that idiot Charley Casserley they saw far greater value in Deion that the Patriots and several other potential suitors did, or just maybe they saw an opportunity to poke a little stick of their own into the Belioli mystique. The real winners and losers in this deal won't be revealed for a couple of years. I will depend on the performance of three teams, one who traded for and paid a player, another who added an as yet unknown first round draft pick, and a third who stirred a rival pot and ended up with nothing to show for it but increased enmity.
