Nick Collins Situation

[RashanGary]

dp

[TennesseePackerBacker]

This is a positive step forward. One would think a deal would get done very shortly. It's also a good PR move on the part of Collins agent. The ball is in GB's court now. If they don't actively pursue a deal it could reverberate to other Packers FA signings in the future. I don't see how the Packers can't close on this now.

[Tony Oday]

He will get paid and I hope he does...though I hope we find an SS more

[pbmax]

Ryan Clark isn't anywhere near Collins, and I doubt his deal will have any impact on Collins. That would be like Brandon Chillar's deal affecting Julius Peppers.

I don't know. I have seen both disappear at key times in games.

[pbmax]

Well, either Herman is just fantastic at generating good pub or Collins thinks they are going to get a deal done. Might be trying to ride the Antrel Rolle wave into a deal before someone else signs to change the numbers.

Collins signs his tender.

Has anyone seen numbers for Ryan Clark?

Honestly, this is not a surprise. The Packers locked up Rodgers a year before UFA. They locked up Barnett a year before UFA. Donald Lee, Ryan Grant, Donald Driver, Al Harris, Brady Poppinga, Brandon Chillar, Cullen Jenkins all before UFA.


Collins' agent came out already and said he wasn't using Rolles deal because that was unrestricted and Collins is restricted. If JS wasn't such a crock of crap news paper, anyone with a brain would have known Collins and his agent are not asking for unrealistic numbers.

Now this comes out, and despite a lot of information pointing toward this thing having a happy ending, there is this strange perception (mainly created by JS and their idioticly transparent pot stirring, paper selling garbage). Anyone with half a brain would ignore any sentiment given by JS. Just listen to the press conferences yourself. Use your own sense. Don't rely on a journalist who has more motivation to sell papers than to create an honest impression. They don't lie directly, but what's the harm in making an impressin that's a little juicier or to keep a source. I guess nothing if everyone and their brother knew what a crock it was. The problem is, people trust these idiots. It causes drama where there is non.

Justin, you cannot take the word of an agent at face value. If he didn't use the Rolle contract in some manner, he should be sued for breach of fiduciary duty. He is just greasing the skids for the PR battle. Now, he may be right, it may not be much of a battle, but he was also the only guy talking while Grant was holding out. And not even Herman has revealed what the Packers are thinking.

Signing the tender could simply be a goodwill gesture.

And I would trust the journalist before the agent, if the agent worked for someone beside myself. The journalist must rely to some degree on his reputation to ensure employment, readership and access. The agent only needs to serve a single player. And it may serve that player to dissemble to the public.

[bobblehead]

I think everyone misread this situation. With the 1 and 3 attached I would bet Collins has not even heard a peep of an offer. Not even a cricket chirping. I think the agent and he decided "hey, we are signing the deal sooner or later, if we sign it now we get goodwill". The pack want to lock him up, he wants a long term deal, by signing he gets goodwill and attends offseason stuff. But signed it FOR the goodwill...nah.

[pbmax]

I just went back and re-read this stuff. There is no indication that the Packers have moved in any direction since last year when they could not agree.

When the negotiations with Grant were going nowhere, Herman started popping up everywhere in the State to comment on the lack of progress. Training camp was just about to begin and Favre-a-palooza was in full swing. I am getting a distinct feeling of Drew Rosenhaus from this guy. I think he is simply trying to create public pressure. I doubt its a coincidence this happened shortly after Kampman left.

Or I am simply far too cynical to believe in good faith gestures.

[vince]

I agree with Bobble and PB that they’re not close to a deal because if things were close, they would hold off on signing the tender and just wait for the deal in that case. If negotiations were active and the team had urgency here to progress to a deal, signing the tender now only hurts Collin's negotiating position and doesn't make sense.

However, given IMO the more likely case where the team is not actively negotiating, it seems to me that NOT signing the tender would spur greater public pressure/urgency on the team to negotiate than signing it, so I don’t think the public pressure play is the main reason for signing. I think the strategy is to make a good faith gesture to the Packers to get them to the table, as I think you’re saying Bobble. This could be based on some discussion that would likely be characterized as less than a negotiation that Thompson and the agent reportedly had at the combine.

That said, signing the tender obviously is a good sign for those who want to see smooth negotiations and Collins be a Packer for a long time no matter how close they may be to a long-term deal or what the actual motivation for doing so may be.

Justin, you seem to be all over this situation and I agree with much of your assessment of it, except for one thing you are saying. I disagree that locking up players to early deals is a bad move because they just become trouble in the later years of the deal, forcing a renegotiation and eliminating any discount the early deal may have included. Players rarely have the leverage to force teams to renegotiate in those situations, although teams often renegotiate because it's in their best interests too.

Locked down players can bitch until they’re blue in the face, but that doesn’t change the fact that the team holds all the cards in these situations and the player will usually hurt their position, at least publicly, by making efforts to renegotiate ugly.

Even in this situation where Collins was not technically under contract (although he was/is under control of the Packers for the next 3 years if they want it as you’ve stated with the RFA tender/Franchise tags - which pretty much amounts to the same thing as being under contract), that lesson has already been learned, and is being implemented by Collins’ agent here. Collins has clearly outperformed his original deal, and by signing the tender, is now locked in at a discounted rate for 2010 too, but the most effective strategy for him is not to become trouble as you indicated they should or would do in this case. He seems to be taking the position that, given the control the Packer possess, he’s willing to sign a deal for under market rate relative to if he were a UFA.

Another case is Rodgers’ contract. The Packers, by signing him early, have locked down a top 5 QB long-term for what will amount to be far below market rate, particularly as soon as Manning signs a new deal. Now the Packers may choose to renegotiate later on (probably not for at least 2-3 more years), but that will be because the team thinks it’s in their best interests to do so at that time. Rodgers’ only leverage point would be if he outperforms the original contract, which is what the Packers hope he does anyway! Rather than waiting for Rodgers to become firmly entrenched as a $20 mil/year QB, the Packers are likely to get discounted production by signing him early for some number of years until they think it makes sense for them to renegotiate and get new discounted production for more years. All the while, everyone is happy.

Obviously you have to do the deals with the right players, and I agree that Ted often has a bit more of a tendency to wait and let these things sort themselves out, thus paying more current market rates at times, which is probably prudent because you're not always right. But signing (the right) players early and seeing them outplay their deals is exactly what is needed for consistent winning. Renegotiate up if/when it makes sense, but do it when you hold the cards and when you think it’s the right thing for the team – not when the player holds the leverage and they know it’s the right thing for themselves.

Signing Collins this year at some point means, as you’ve stated, they will get a better deal for some number of years than if/when he’s a UFA. That’s the whole point of having (the right) players locked down early.

[Fritz]

My question in these cases is this: what kind of guy is he?

If he's of the Cletidus Hunt variety, signing that big deal early (and probably ever) is a bad idea, because his motivation is then gone and he's in the tank.

I think Thompson had no qualms about Rodgers's signing because TT knew what kind of guy Rodgers was. He wasn't going to sign and then slack.

It doesn't appear Collins is that kind of guy, either, though my sense is that it took a little longer for Collins to become that kind of guy. But he is now, so I think a deal makes sense.

The puzzling guy in all this is Jolly. He can be a force, but is he motivated if he has a big contract in his back pocket? I bet Ted spends a lotta nights wondering about that.

[RashanGary]

Over the last year or so, McCarthy and Thompson have both said they were moving into the next stage of building this team and now they are going to have to identify the core players to give 2nd contracts to.

At the combine, Thompson said he Nick Collins is one of the core players they want to keep on the team.

A big part of the worry is that we know Collins is not as good as a Troy Polamalu or Ed Reed but may want to be paid as an elite player. Then a lesser but unrestricted player, Rolle, signed for what appears to be more than he's worth, possibly making negotiations tougher. Being restricted, though, Collins and his agent should know that they do not have the power to force as bad of a deal on teh Packers.

From teh Packers perspective, Collins is an upper tier safety, bordering on elite. He's just entering his prime. The Packers just said they value him as a core player they want to keep. Based on Jennings and Rodgers contracts and how I perceive Collins value, I think Collins will receive close to the total Rolle got, but less guranteed and more in incentives. Essentially we'd be getting a better player with a better contract that if Collins keeps playing the way he has, will look even better over time and if he falls off a little, will still be ok.

I think Ted Thompson is building solid relationships with these agents. By all accounts, everything Thompson does is straightforward and fair. For Collins to sign that tender, I think the Packers had to have told Collins agent they were serious about signing Nick, they felt he was the most value to the team if he was in the offseason program. Maybe they gave Herman a comfort level that the price was going to be high enough and Ted is known as being honest enough, that they felt little risk in signing. In fact, they might feel having Nick showing up, learning, working hard only increases his value to the team (and it does). If this thing gets ugly and NIck doesn't show up, the Packers signing the deal just becomes riskier (injuries after hold outs, poor play after not being in defense, etc). . If it starts ugly, it could finish ugly. Maybe both sides recognize that. Maybe Collins has communicated he wants a certain type of contract and the Packers have communicated that they believe he's worth a certain type of contract and now they have to start ironing out the details and exact amounts.


I see this thing going very well. From the agent understanding NIck is not unrestricted to the Packers waning Nick to be a core member of their team, to the Packers having a history of signing core players a year early, to Collins signing the tender. Everything about this says mutual compromise.

I'll bet Nick is signed before the start of the season to a deal that's very fair to both him and the Packers. Yet another step in the right direction for this team.

[vince]

Per Silverstein on Twitter

Packers S Nick Collins signing three-year, $23.4 M contract extension, sources said. Will get $14 mil in the first year.

[swede]

Per Silverstein on Twitter

Packers S Nick Collins signing three-year, $23.4 M contract extension, sources said. Will get $14 mil in the first year.

Any idea why the short deal? Is it so he can get paid big one more time, or does it have to do with the uncertainty of the present labor situation?

[mission]

Per Silverstein on Twitter

Packers S Nick Collins signing three-year, $23.4 M contract extension, sources said. Will get $14 mil in the first year.

Any idea why the short deal? Is it so he can get paid big one more time, or does it have to do with the uncertainty of the present labor situation?

It's three years beyond the next one, right? I know some people were saying it's essentially a four year deal.

[Tarlam!]

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[MJZiggy]

I loved this and thought it worth sharing:

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That is so damn fun!