Russ: Bills / Peters remain far apart

[AJ1]

If you were in his position, where would you START the negotiating?

 

Can't put myself in his position. I've never considered myself a greedy lazy bastard. If were going to ask for the Moon, I'd at least show I cared about something other than payday.

[ChasBB]

Russ was questioned at the CA GM meeting about Peters and basically said they are still real far apart. Peters wants $11 M + season / wants to be the highest paid guy. I know this isn't breaking news but it seems that there is has been no movement. I now think that Peters real value lies in getting Philly or a other team to give up a stupid amount of draft picks. Peters did nothing to impress last season and his stats were less than flattering.

 

$11 M for a inconsistent run blocking retard that will never be happy with his contract seems like a cruel joke. I hope Peters new team finds him interesting enough to give up alot of premium draft picks, he will be useless to us at this pace.

Agree. As soon as there is just one other left tackle making 11.1 million, he'll be back to holding out again. He's got to go. Not so much on his talent, but the negative impact on the team of him not being there for workouts, camp, etc.

[Sisyphean Bills]

I think Owens was the perfect bridge to Hardy who is supposed to be good. People seem to be giving up on him, but he's 6'6" 220 lbs., runs a 4.49 and has great hands. My hope is that he can learn something this year and be ready to contribute significantly in 2010. From what I've seen Steve Johnson could be the real deal as well. But neither one was ready for the #2 role this season.

It's a pretty steady refrain from fans that athletes that are not solid football players will emerge as good (if not great) football players at some time in the future after watching, learning, clapping, and sitting on the sidelines. Yeah, it sometimes works out that a guy is a late bloomer. Maybe it will with Hardy.

 

On the other hand, Hardy already got a chance to display his imposing athletic skills in NFL games and defenses snuffed him out even while rolling their coverage packages away from him. In short, he sucked, catching 9 balls in 14 games.

[Adam]

Peters' position or the Bills?

Peters

 

Can't put myself in his position. I've never considered myself a greedy lazy bastard. If were going to ask for the Moon, I'd at least show I cared about something other than payday.

I have no reference to say whether that is true about him or not, and neither does anyone on this board. Haven't met him and haven't watched him practice other than a few times at St. John Fisher. I am sure converting from TE to RT, then RT to LT took a good amount of work.

[seq004]

Russ was questioned at the CA GM meeting about Peters and basically said they are still real far apart. Peters wants $11 M + season / wants to be the highest paid guy. I know this isn't breaking news but it seems that there is has been no movement. I now think that Peters real value lies in getting Philly or a other team to give up a stupid amount of draft picks. Peters did nothing to impress last season and his stats were less than flattering.

 

$11 M for a inconsistent run blocking retard that will never be happy with his contract seems like a cruel joke. I hope Peters new team finds him interesting enough to give up alot of premium draft picks, he will be useless to us at this pace.

For once I agree with you. In no way is Peters worth that kind of money. I don't we would see him till half way through the season. Get a first and a third and build the line through the draft or trade.

[San-O]

Same as we've won with Aaron Schobel, Lee Evans and the rest....want to point the finger at them too?

 

 

OK, yes.

 

Schobel is overpaid AND finished. I would drop him like a bad habit.

 

Evans was good for 3 TDs last year, thanks Lee, and he has a nasty habit of

disappearing from games entirely.

[sarpilot]

I say you stick his butt on the practice squad for the next two years and see if he can get a contract as a free agent after not playing for that long.

[DazedandConfused]

i've seen you raise these points in other posts and i frankly disagree strongly with them..........the bills can find a replacement for peters in the first round - be it with the 11th pick or a later pick acquired for peters......i'd rather take my risk in the draft then roll the dice on a ridiculous contract for peters that could handcuff this franchise for years - and that appears the only way he'll sign is if he gets something ridiculous

 

i'm sure you didn't expect ryan clady to put up a pro-bowl type season in his rookie year - in fact, i'm sure you would have said it was impossible.......but it happens

 

i remember when the colts were left without a LT when tarik glenn abrubtly retired - they turned around and grabbed ugoh in the SECOND round and haven't looked back since.......has that offense missed a beat?

 

it's the same short-sighted and ultimately incorrect arguement you made in regards to filling the MLB spot a couple seasons ago - how a rookie could never step in and learn the playcalls, for some outlandish reason......PP came in and won the job out of training camp by doing just that, and would have been damn effective if not for the injury

 

the bills need to move on if they have that option.......a 1st round pick would do the trick and they would be in a much better position going forward........give me andre smith or oher at #11 and pettigrew/pass rusher/mack at the other 1st rounder and let's move on without the dead weight........rookies can play just fine if you draft well - and they can often perform better then "pro-bowl" malcontents who don't give a damn about the team

I'm not sure we disagree in that I certainly agree with you that it is clearly possible to find a starting LT in the draft. However, where I would hope you would match my agreement with you by you also agreeing with me that:

 

1. While it is possible to find a starting LT with a #12 pick like Clady, it also is quite possible to find a #4 pick like Williams, a #7 or so like McKinnie who needed some time to deal with his immaturity before he became adequate and so on and so on. The simple occurrence of reality is that despite the conventional wisdom that a first year player should be a starter or even perform like Clady that this expectation or assumption that this is how it will be just is not likely.

 

Its not likely cause even if a hair over 50% of 1st round choices do end up being first of their team's depth chart in their second year, even these successes tend to be weighted heavily toward the top 10 picks. Not only do the Bills pick just outside this realm at #11 but what many are advocating is that the Bills fill their LT need by using one of Philly's later first round picks.

 

Might this work out? Sure. Is this a risk? Yes, I'm glad you acknowledge this rather than simply claiming that a trade of Peters for a draft pick is a no brainer.

 

Is this a risk that is likely to work out? At #11 maybe. In the 20s probably not.

 

2. You do also see (do you not) that the Bills have numerous holes to fill (OLB for sure, some say DL, some say TE). Folks suggest specific alternatives for this can likely be had from the draft and quite frankly any intelligent argument about this needs to start with specific names (and the plan B names if the player is already is taken). Merely making the argument that the Bills should go UDFA to fill an LT hole because it worked out that the Bills once found a starting LT from a UDFA us about as sensible approach as saying the Colts found an LT in the second round. Yeah it can happen but to plan on this without a real plan is simply silly. Adding another must fill to the Bills needs at this point seems like poor strategy.

 

3. The Bills timeline for winning is NOW! I say this not only out of frustration with going over for this millennium so far in making the playoffs, but also because if Ralph wants his team to make the playoffs while he is alive (I think all of us fans make this assumption or we have really been had) long range planning is not an option. In this what have you done for me now NFL aiming for two or three years down the line is simply not the norm the way it used to be. It is more so for Ralph (assuming he cares and wants to win as much as make a nickel).

 

Even more pressing is that I do not think anyone is betting that TO will be a solid Bill (or a Bill at all) for more than a season. As far as taking risks go, this Bills team is almost certainly more interested in taking risks to win now rather than taking a risk to build for the future. Slow and steady building through the draft may be a better strategy for building a sustainable winner, but like it or not the goal is almost certainly to win now because the future is now.

 

Also adding to the stakes of not spending this year on an OL player who like it or not is going to have to learn not to be a rookie is that if the result of this rookie LT learning by pulling a whoopsie on the QBs blindside is that our investment in Edwards may get concussed (again) it is simply hard to see the Bills going with the devil they do not know over the devil they know.

 

4. Did Peters regress last year? Yep. Did he make the Pro Bowl anyway? Yep.

 

What does this contradiction tell us?

 

My sense is that it does tell us that there are limitations to anyone assuming (and I do not think most folks make this assumption actually) the Pro Bowl is absolute measure of quality play.

 

However, I think a rational person (which many of us fans are not) would also have to say that while not an absolute measure it is actually an indicator of some quality. Peters is far from a perfect player, but his performance over the course of the season did improve. Maybe he stupidly allowed himself to get out of game shape. Maybe the chemistry was not there with the layoff. Maybe he was in a silly funk because the Bills did not cave.

 

Actually it can be any and all of these three things and if our good friends in the FO would actually just cave then likely all these issues go away.

 

Perhaps some want to maintain Peters is just a jerk and if we sign him he simply takes a holiday while pretending to play. Maybe. However, the fact is this little boy has been lucky enough to play the game and compete at a high level throughout his life.

 

The actual fact is that he worked hard enough and had the talent to pull off being a UDFA who got a look as a TE and in an incredibly short period of time turned that into being an LT who deserved his Pro Bowl berth in 07. The risk that a rookie is going to play like a vet is far higher that if one showed Peters the money he plays like the player that he is paid to be.

 

All NFL players are subject to risk whether they are a rook or Peters. However, the risks of going with a rookie LT are so high for the 09 production we want that if there is a no-brainer her it is show the turd the money.

[The Senator]

I say you stick his butt on the practice squad for the next two years and see if he can get a contract as a free agent after not playing for that long.

nice idea, but doesn't help the bills, and peters isn't eligible for the practice squad anyway. if he does stage a serious, prolonged hold out, the bills could place him on the DNR/IR list, but that would also merely be punitive and not benefit the team.

[davefan66]

It just cracks me up that Peters was worth, what, $7M last year? And now, because of one Jake Long contract - the #1 OVERALL PICK mind you - he's now worth $11M to guys like Bill from NYC? Give me a break. If he was a force at LT then this would be a discussion. He wasn't. He skipped everything he could until the regular season, performed atrociously, and has the audacity to demand to be the highest paid tackle in the league. !@#$ him. He is not "elite" by any means. Get him out and bring in someone who wants to play and doesn't have his head in the clouds. Belichick wouldn't put up with this crap.

 

If we sign him for more than the number 1 pick got last year, it is starting a dangerous precedent.

From this point forward any above average player will want to do the same thing. Not

that I believe draft picks are worth what they are making, but this could be a very

dangerous road to venture down.

 

About drafting a mid round LT. The reason we would do that is to get a player that would

be at least as good as Peters, or hopefully better. All that does is prolong the big payday

at LT. Either pay JPeters now, or his replacement later. Also remember, he wants 11 million

now, what the heck does he want in year 3? 15 million?

[SKOOBY]

If we sign him for more than the number 1 pick got last year, it is starting a dangerous precedent.

From this point forward any above average player will want to do the same thing. Not

that I believe draft picks are worth what they are making, but this could be a very

dangerous road to venture down.

 

About drafting a mid round LT. The reason we would do that is to get a player that would

be at least as good as Peters, or hopefully better. All that does is prolong the big payday

at LT. Either pay JPeters now, or his replacement later. Also remember, he wants 11 million

now, what the heck does he want in year 3? 15 million?

 

Underlying problem is Peters is physically gifted beyond belief but mentally retarded, you cannot please a retard. It's embarassing to even try, so you're better off avoiding eye contact and moving on. I think it's the only scenario that is available besides handing a 1 year wonder the keys.

[DazedandConfused]

Underlying problem is Peters is physically gifted beyond belief but mentally retarded, you cannot please a retard. It's embarassing to even try, so you're better off avoiding eye contact and moving on. I think it's the only scenario that is available besides handing a 1 year wonder the keys.

The fact is that when the Upshaw led union made the threat to the owners that they would decertify the NFLPA after the owners kicked the butt of the Ed Garvey led NFLPA with the lockout, the players got a hold of the key to the car in the CBA which the NFLPA forced on the owners.

 

Rather than operate in a classic free market where there was no union and the owners would have to negotiate individual personal service contracts with each player (there would be no salary cap or restrictions in this economic state of nature. The owners ran kicking and screaming to a more socialistically oriented structure which allowed the NFL and the NFLPA to collude together to restrict the free market with items like the player draft, the CBA, and restricting draft eligibility to the year a player would have graduated from college.

 

In many ways, the NFL/NFLPA experience presaged what happened to the global economy when the Robert Rubin driven Clinton Administration and the simply bizarre Bush Administration empowered the Wall St. stock traders and then Bush/Phil Gramm put things into overdrive by failing repealing the the Steagal Act and completely failing to regulate insurers who became banks but got to choose their own regulators.

 

Who woulda thunk it but the NFL is now one of the great working models of wealth acquisition and the key was the heave capital gun slingers who were NFL owners being forced to build a partnership with the their workers.

 

With the new CBA which Upshaw announced prior to the negotiations that the new CBA was going to dispense with the transitional notion of a "designated gross receipts" and that now all receipts would be subject to division under the salary cap. Further, Upshaw announced that in this division the share given to the players (the workers) would need to start with a 6.

 

Holding out to the last minute because final approval of the CBA did not follow the American tradition of majority rules but in fact a small minority of owners could scotch the deal.

 

It took Tagliabue and some of the new guard owners locking themselves up in a room with the few remaining gunslinger owners from the good ol days to get them to agree to a deal which met the Upshaw standard by awarding the NFLPA 60.5% of the total gross.

 

With this agreement, the players not only were partners but in fact were the majority partners in this collaborative. This change is reflected in entities like the NFLPA not reflexively opposing any crackdown on players (such as drug testing) but instead leading the way in calling for putting the hammer down on idiots like Pac-Man Jones and Chris Henry because the Troy Vincent led players know that this juveniles are threatening to kill the goose which has delivered them multi-million $ contracts for playing a boys game.

 

The kids not only have the car keys but in fact are choosing which foreign car to buy.

 

My sense is that the difference between the NFL and other major sports like MLB, NHL and the NBA is that the owners got greedy and were pleased to foster a world in which others (often the taxpayers paying for football mills like Nebraska and the Big Ten) paid for developing their players.

 

If you are MLB or the NHL you have developed a system where you have to pay for developing players by signing them as minors, but they are yours as they go through the system of separating the athletic wheat from the athletic chaff. The NFL however, has the advantage of schools bearing this cost, but the price is that by the time the NFL gets ahold of them they are adults (the NBA is a hybrid of this educational process where most players go to a school for training and development, but they can escape college as minors and even in LeBron/Garret like cases are so gifted they get signed to the NBA as minors.

 

A side effect of the NFL system is that owners got to escape millions in development costs, but in doing this they had an older educated work force that tried and failed miserably to win on their own, but this prepared them to understand and say yes to a way being offered to them to make more money than they even imagined through embracing a system which ain't the classic free market.

 

Even better the economic advantage of ditching a free market system was so elegant and saleable that the vase majority of NFL owners simply bent over and asked for another when they were offered a deal which gave them a clear minority cut of the total gross.

 

I think when one thinks this through its impossible not to be impressed with what a non-free market system can produce in terms of profits.

[Trader]

Peronally, I think McLovin wil llikley be a better CB than Nate . . .but when do we stop this madness of releasing talented players and then using the draft to fill those holes. this is why we don't have any D- or O- line depth. Just sign him and you don't have to worry about LT for 5-6 years.

 

If I thought that was true I would agree with you. I don't believe it.

he will take the money and coast. He sucked last year.

[SKOOBY]

If I thought that was true I would agree with you. I don't believe it.

he will take the money and coast. He sucked last year.

 

Peters will never play up to his level set a few years ago. He had all last year to get back on track and looked terrible a majority of the time. He also got Trent killed a few times and the run suffered as well. Do not over pay for a typical one year wonder.

[colin]

peters reminds me of another tackle, but on the D side. sean gilbert. sean was an oft injured malcontent who commanded a retarded contract. after one or two seasons of albert haynesworth level domination, he was always hurt and pretty useless.

 

big fat half retarded man children fail much much more often than they succeed. sam adams, who was ten times the pro gilbert was, has had an issue with being lazy and unmotivated on every team he's been on. peters, who i'd like to play like he did in 07 and be a great guy for us, seems way closer to gilbert than sam adams.

[drinkTHEkoolaid]

peters reminds me of another tackle, but on the D side. sean gilbert. sean was an oft injured malcontent who commanded a retarded contract. after one or two seasons of albert haynesworth level domination, he was always hurt and pretty useless.

 

big fat half retarded man children fail much much more often than they succeed. sam adams, who was ten times the pro gilbert was, has had an issue with being lazy and unmotivated on every team he's been on. peters, who i'd like to play like he did in 07 and be a great guy for us, seems way closer to gilbert than sam adams.

 

hahahaha nice analogy

[Rockinon]

Make no mistake, here. Peters is an incredibly gifted athlete. From reports last year, when he ended his holdout, he was working hard. OK, him making the pro Bowl last year was dumb, but the fact remains that he is one very dominating football player. I'd like to see him rushing the passer myself. Do you remember his rookie year when he simply crashed through the line, blocked a punt, recovered the ball and scored a touchdown in one play? This man is a force.

 

I think young people often let thier heads grow larger than thier bodies and Jason Peters just needs to come down to earth and get back to work. His head is in the clouds. He'll come around. Yea, it's possible he'll hold out for too much and try to hold the Bill's hostage. Fortunately, his leverage is not that great right now and he will have to realize that. To me it is less of a numbers thing and more of a character thing now. If things work out we get a great LT. If not, then Peters will become the biggest loser.

[Sisyphean Bills]

What in the recent Bills draft history makes people think they can just go out and draft a bunch of stud OL?

[Leonidas]

What in the recent Bills draft history makes people think they can just go out and draft a bunch of stud OL?

 

Actually, the Bills have had very solid drafts of late. 2006 was solid with the exception of McCargo (we got Whitner, Youboty, K. Williams, Ellison, and Brad Butler), 2007 was very solid (Lynch, Poz, Edwards, and Schouman late), and 2008 - while still to be determined - seems good so far, although I think Bowen will bust and Fine might be the next Tim Euhus.

[Sisyphean Bills]

Actually, the Bills have had very solid drafts of late. 2006 was solid with the exception of McCargo (we got Whitner, Youboty, K. Williams, Ellison, and Brad Butler), 2007 was very solid (Lynch, Poz, Edwards, and Schouman late), and 2008 - while still to be determined - seems good so far, although I think Bowen will bust and Fine might be the next Tim Euhus.

Let's see who is an stud OL here. McCargo? Nope. Whitner? Nope. Youboty? Nope. Williams? Nope. Ellison? Nope. Butler? Well, he is an OL, but a stud? Nope. Lynch? Nope. Poz? Nope. Edwards? Nope. Schouman? Nope. Fine? Nope.

 

So, basically you've confirmed the suspicion. Brad Butler, a decent but oft-injured RG, is the only example of an OL that the Bills have drafted.

 

So the notion that the Bills should knee-jerk react, by dumping their most talented OL rather than negotiate with him and snap their fingers and replace him in the draft easily, simply flies in the face of the evidence.