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View Full Version : Ahman's Rush to Texans is Downsized



vince
08-29-2008, 12:25 PM
A very interesting back-office perspective from Andrew Brandt.

http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/2008/08/ahmans-rush-to-texans-is-downsized/


Ahman’s Rush to Texans is Downsized
Ahman Green has agreed to a reduced contract with the Houston Texans. In the range of options that the Texans had between keeping Ahman at his present rate of pay and releasing him outright, this appeared to be a logical compromise, although not one that the Texans anticipated making with their marquee free agent signing of 2007. I will not soon forget the day Ahman left the Packers and went to Houston, a decision I firmly believed that both he and the Texans would regret.

Ahman had been a wonderful player for us at the Packers. Acquired in a trade in 2000, he turned out to be a productive running back right away, taking over for Dorsey Levens. We went to him in 2001, his restricted free agent year, and extended him with a five-year deal with a 5M bonus. He actually played out that deal — a rarity in the NFL — despite many protestations by he and his agent about re-working it, especially when Clinton Portis hit the jackpot in Washington after extricating himself from Denver.

Ahman had a very close relationship with Mike Sherman — more on that later with the Texans — which made it difficult for me to argue against a monster contract for him. Sherman was our head coach and general manager and had a soft spot for Ahman. I personally liked Ahman a lot as well, but always pointed to the graveyard out there for contracts of running backs over the age of 28 or 29 — Eddie George, Jamal Anderson, Corey Dillon, etc. — that were emotional reactions by clubs to beloved players that came from their hearts and not their heads.

Ultimately, we never extended Ahman and in his final year of the contract he was injured for the majority of 2005 season. We settled on a one-year contract in 2006, using a contract twist involving 45-man active roster bonuses for every game active, protecting ourselves if he became injured again. This was the first instance where we had used these 45-man active roster bonuses as Ahman was coming off a major injury. They have since become a staple of Packer contracts.

Ahman stayed injury-free in 2006 and we negotiated late in the season and into the early 2007 offseason. We would have re-signed him but for a wildcard out there in free agency. Mike Sherman had been terminated as our head coach by new general manager Ted Thompson and landed as offensive coordinator in Houston with, apparently, some influence over personnel. Ahman was also visiting with Denver and Oakland, but we knew the only real suitor that mattered was Houston.

And what a suitor they were. After being wined and dined and taken to a Rockets game, Ahman spent the day with his former coach Mike Sherman and rekindled that relationship. That was all expected. What we did not expect was the aggressive level of contract they were offering, especially 8M in the first year for a 30 year-old running back! We had been at 5M for first-year money but with the Texans going to this level we reluctantly crossed the 7M threshold for the first year, but wanting 2M of it to be in the form of 45-man active roster bonuses. This was one of those offers where I didn’t know whether I wanted want him to take it or not, as I had a feeling this was going to be a deal we would be re-working — as the Texans are now doing — if he took it.

I spent the entire time during my son’s 10th birthday party at — of course — Lambeau field on the phone with Ahman’s agent and Ahman trying to tell them that this was bigger than money, that Packer stars like Ahman have a lifetime pass wherever they go, that he would hold all the Packer records, that he would not like Houston, that he shouldn’t be fooled by all the recruiting, that Mike Sherman would not be there long, and so on. It was all for naught.

Ahman, although nearly 30, was smitten with the whole free agent recruiting thing — private plane, Rockets game, etc. — and the agent was smitten with the money. I asked him how many times he thought he might fly in that private plane after that day, but got no reply. We had lost him to Mike Sherman and the Texans.

I was communicating with Ted Thompson throughout the process while he was driving to a college workout. At that time of year, Ted was always on the road so I had to be able to control these free agent situations that came up fast and furiously, often with one of our players sitting in the offices of another team.

The rest did not go well for Ahman. He was injured for a large part of last season; Mike Sherman left after the season to take a head coaching position at Texas A&M, and now he is taking a pay cut from 3.8M to 1.8M. One other thing about this reduction: he can make back 3M if he is on the 45-man active roster bonus for 15 games. These are exactly the kind of bonuses that I tried once again to put in the proposed Packer contract that Houston agreed it would not! Now they are the basis for a salary reduction with an opportunity to make more based on health.

Last year Ahman gained 260 yards for his 8M, roughly $31,000 a yard. When we lost Ahman to Houston, I felt sick from an emotional standpoint (not only due to the fact that I missed my son’s 10th birthday party). He was one of the all-time great Packer players and should have retired a Packer. (We’ve heard this one throughout the summer, haven’t we?) However, I knew that this was not a deal we should have made financially.

We struggled for a while last season without Ahman until Ryan Grant came into his own with his stellar play, earning a stunning contract after limited experience. Ahman was missed as a presence in Green Bay, but in the end, it was the golden rule of business in the NFL: some of the best deals are the ones that are not made.

mraynrand
08-29-2008, 12:47 PM
There's some insight there into why Sherman was a good coach and just a so-so GM: GMs can't afford to get too close to players.

Bretsky
08-29-2008, 12:49 PM
Great Article Vince; reading stuff like that is part of the reason I enjoy coming in here. Thanks.

Tony Oday
08-29-2008, 12:54 PM
great read

Guiness
08-29-2008, 04:04 PM
some good insight for sure - and no surprise he didn't see the end of that deal. Although many were sad to see him go, I don't think anyone thought he'd play the deal out. Of course, most thought he'd get more than a year out of it!!!

Little Whiskey
08-29-2008, 04:18 PM
so if he would have resigned in GB last year (and the injury still occured) he would have made 5mill instead he goes to Houston and makes 8mill. He now renegotiates his contract to contain the same roster clauses that GB's contract contained. except he is now 3 million ahead. sounds like the packers wanted him to think with his heart and not with his head.

Scott Campbell
08-29-2008, 06:21 PM
so if he would have resigned in GB last year (and the injury still occured) he would have made 5mill instead he goes to Houston and makes 8mill. He now renegotiates his contract to contain the same roster clauses that GB's contract contained. except he is now 3 million ahead. sounds like the packers wanted him to think with his heart and not with his head.



Yeah, but ultimately the Texans way overpaid. You don't match those deals with money - that's when you start pulling on the heart strings.

At $1.8M I think Ahman is still overpaid.

RashanGary
08-29-2008, 06:34 PM
There were a few that were happy as hell to see Green go. There was also a big percentage of us, including me, that didn't know what to think at the time. A part of me had a feeling that Sherman would screw it up, but another part of me wondered how bad it would hurt short term. Turns out Sherman did screw it up, like usual, and it didn't even hurt short term. AT the time though, it was tough to see Green go. I had a harder time watching a team player who showed up to all off-season work and never complain leave than I did watching Favre, a guy who could care less to show up to offseason work and complained constantly the last three years go.

Bretsky
08-29-2008, 06:50 PM
There were a few that were happy as hell to see Green go. There was also a big percentage of us, including me, that didn't know what to think at the time. A part of me had a feeling that Sherman would screw it up, but another part of me wondered how bad it would hurt short term. Turns out Sherman did screw it up, like usual, and it didn't even hurt short term. AT the time though, it was tough to see Green go. I had a harder time watching a team player who showed up to all off-season work and never complain leave than I did watching Favre, a guy who could care less to show up to offseason work and complained constantly the last three years go.


gosh, not to question more of the pot stirring.....but when Favre was playing....when did he contantly complain ? Did he do that to the coaches or media...care to provide a source ?

boiga
08-29-2008, 07:09 PM
gosh, not to question more of the pot stirring.....but when Favre was playing....when did he contantly complain ? Did he do that to the coaches or media...care to provide a source ?
Most offseasons during the last couple of years. Moss, Mooch, OTA's, Wahle/Rivera, etc.

He was a team player once the season started, but kind of a pain in the ass every summer.

pbmax
08-29-2008, 10:55 PM
I would say this puts to bed the criticism that we didn't do enough to keep Ahman ($5 million for year one on the table scared off everyone but the Texans). However, since its Brandt writing, we can't exactly say he is an uninterested bystander.

Still, its clear the money we were offering was well within the ballpark of reasonable.

As for the comparison of what money he got with the Texans vs the Packers considering the injury, you need to include this year as well. Ahman got $8 rather than $5 for in 2007, but for 2008, from a position of weakness, he has a base of 1.8 million. If he had remained a Packer, his base this year might have made up the different from last year.

Fritz
08-30-2008, 09:09 AM
Man, Brett Favre is like the five degrees of Kevin Bacon. I can be in the middle of a thread about Ahman Green...or who the third string tight end will be...or whether the Brewers will win the division...and somehow, some way, someone finds a way to turn it into a discussion of Brett Favre.

Weird.

mraynrand
08-30-2008, 01:23 PM
Man, Brett Favre is like the five degrees of Kevin Bacon. I can be in the middle of a thread about Ahman Green...or who the third string tight end will be...or whether the Brewers will win the division...and somehow, some way, someone finds a way to turn it into a discussion of Brett Favre.

Weird.

Get used to it. The guy ran through the veins of Packerlife for 16 years. Played in every game. Was THE story of the Packers almost all the time.

Remember the Shermy GM threads and how Shermy being a 'horrible' GM vs. so-so would ramp up at any time a few years back. Those discussions had nothing on the Brett Favre saga.

Probably the only thing that can kill the infection of threads with the Favre virus is one or two doses of Superbowl vaccine.