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The off season solution....


EndZoneCrew

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Did you miss the Abraham bus rolling through the Meadowlands a couple of weeks ago.

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nope. that is the easy choice for a lazy detractor. He played with a bum leg and was still suffering the effects of a concussion. My point was made and included the words "when healthy".

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nope. that is the easy choice for a lazy detractor. He played with a bum leg and was still suffering the effects of a concussion. My point was made and included the words "when healthy".

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Great, so he's above average before the first game. Injuries are a HUGE factor with Jennings and severely limit his effectiveness.

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I would rank him between 11-20 at his position in the league.  That's the definition of average.

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considering there are 64 starting tackles in the league, I'd say he's above average. If you're talking purely left tackles (which doesn't really make as much difference as it used to considering formation shifts) and you have him at 11-20, I can see your point. One other tthought on this IMO is that there are @ 20 above average starting left tackles in the league right now. I guess it's all how you look at it. I'd probably rank him @ 18-20 of all starting tackles in the league.

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Great, so he's above average before the first game.  Injuries are a HUGE factor with Jennings and severely limit his effectiveness.

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I agree with you. Now we all see the complexity of the situation. If there is a team out there who sees his ability and downplays the injury factor, then we (as ICE suggests) may be able to atleast get something for him by going the franchise route.

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If he's willing to do something in the 3-4 mill. range then let's talk, if not, have a good time in Atlanta.

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This is assuming that Atlanta would want to overpay him.

 

It is a shame the way his career went down. Jennings (imo) is a VERY GOOD, however injury prone RT, who is playing out of position. He will never be an elite LT, and has no business being paid as one.

 

Honestly, I think he could also be a pro-bowl guard.

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Tdog, All you have to do is take the tag off of him. We get it back and immediately free up the cap room.  We wont do it of course, but I would.  I am 100% against letting players with any value go for nothing.

 

Understand something here folks...some of you laugh at FT Jennings. There ARE Teams that would surrender picks for him.  Ryan leaf got 3 chances in this league.  Teams feel they can salvage someone elses guys.  Jennings is good when healthy. I am sure some teams Training staff is calling ours idiots and can convince a front office they can "heal" him.

 

I say tag him.

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My understanding of the tag is this:

 

1. The tag does lock a player into only negotiating with the team which originally has his rights and the choices are either make a deal or pay the player a salary without a bonus which is the average of the top 5 salaries for the franchise tag and the top 10 salaries for the transition tag.

 

2. The tag is a tender of an offer to a player, thus, if a player accepts the tender the club is bound to that contract.

 

3. The tag can be withdrawn by the team at any time IF the player has not accepted this tender.

 

4. Teams do not like to offer tenders through tags and players do not like to be tagged because both parties can generally make a far better deal for themselves through negotiation. Teams hate the tag because the cap hit for the salary is immediate and severely limits the room to negotiate which comes from paying a player an even larger amount of money but doing as much as possible as bonus so that the amount can be pro-rated over the life of the contract.

 

Player's hate the tag because they can get much more money upfront and overall by negotiating a deal with a sizable bonus.

 

What ICE suggests in terms of using the tag is generally not done in the NFL because it would not be the best deal for either party which can be done and because it exposes both parties to significant risks.

 

The Bills would immediately have a huge burden on their cap which limits their room to operate. Further they run the risk that the cap figure for an OL player is so large that Jennings might actually accept this deal and the Bills are locked into it whether they want to withdraw or not.

 

Jennings would likely not want this deal because he would be paid a large amount of money under it, but it would come on a per game basis rather than in a big chunk as a prorated bonus. In fact, were he to be cut prior to the 2nd week of the season he would not be entitled to the bulk of the money, though after the second week he would be guranteed all the money whether the Bills kept him or not.

 

In sum total, if the Bills were to cap and pay Jennings they would essentially being going to war with this player. Worse, the huge cap hit would totally restrict TDs ability to negotiate other deals within the cap and build a team.

 

For Jennings, he suddenly finds himself locked into a team who his contract hamstrings their ability to build a winner. Personally, what pays for him is to take as few risks as possible with his fragile body until after the 3nd week when the money is guaranteed.

 

If the Bills attempted to use the tag purely as a negotiating tactic with the player, they run the risk that he will accept the deal really destroying the team's prospects for 2005. Alternately, they can bet he will not do this to his teammates (though the cap number for OL players is so high, if the Bills were going to stop me from going home and eliminate my contractual ability to negotiate, I might well accept their tender out of spite, make sure I didn't risk injury but didn't get blamed too much for lollygagging and take the big contract and see if they want to do it agin next year or let me go anyway but with big bucks now in my pocket.

 

Even worse for the Bills as they attempt to attract FAs to the frozen tudra, they now will have to do this with a rep for playing hardball in contract negotiations. If they play hardball with Jennings it is questionable whether FAs like Spikes, Adams, Posey etcetera will choose to come here.

 

ICE's tag proposal is fraught with risk and will force TD to go to war in building this team rather than doing what he has done in the past which is attract players here and actually get them to sign less lucrative contracts than they could have gotten elsewhere.

 

Tags are applied in specific cases, and usually with a pretty good explanation by the team doing the tagging to the player tagged why this approach will actually result in both sides making out like bandits. An example of this is the Price tag and deal. Falcons owner Arthur Blank made the mistake of publicly promising to get Price in particular. He did this as it greatly satisfied his big investment Vick that the Falcs were going to pay for WRs for him and AT fans of the same.

 

TG, seemingly with total communication with Price and his agent put the transition tag on Price because Blank had already guranteed that he would pay through the nose for him. Price seemed to operate in a manner where he expressed the appropriate dismay at getting tagged, but made a deal through the Bills with the Falcs that allowed him to be paid big bucks to go home.

 

Unless you see some similar scenario for cooperation between Jennings and the Bills with some third party paying Jennings and the Bills to do what they want to do I do not see your scenario happening at all.

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