Shield's testing the market

[KYPack]

from us, or from someone else?

i wouldn't mind bringing the big guy back, even if he is on the downside of his career, jolly too

McGinn thought the GBP would sing Pickett. yeah, I'd take JJ back if he gets back from the neck procedure.

As far as your point that teams could offer Shield a gimmicked contract, but we'd have to come across with real dollars to match it?

Good God man, have you taken leave of your senses?

If teams offer funny money deals, the negotiations take place discussing the real money in the deals, not the "newspaper" value.

The only figures worth talking about are the guaranteed portion of the deals.

The rest is all bullshit.

[Teamcheez1]

Unless Shields got an outrageous offer from the Packers (which he won't), why wouldn't he test the market? Every team has extra money to spend in the FA market now that the cap has been raised. His agent may be playing the odds to see if he can get a better deal, and to see what the market will bear.

He can always go back to the Packers, but I'm of the opinion that he was going to do this from the start unless he was offered franchise tag type-numbers. I don't see him losing money either way.

[red]

McGinn thought the GBP would sing Pickett. yeah, I'd take JJ back if he gets back from the neck procedure.

As far as your point that teams could offer Shield a gimmicked contract, but we'd have to come across with real dollars to match it?

Good God man, have you taken leave of your senses?

If teams offer funny money deals, the negotiations take place discussing the real money in the deals, not the "newspaper" value.

The only figures worth talking about are the guaranteed portion of the deals.

The rest is all bullshit.

even guaranteed money is funny these day. we hear about guys that sign a 60 million dollar deal with 30 of it guaranteed. then we see the deal, and theres a 5 million dollar signing bonus, and the first years salary is fully guaranteed, another 5 million. then theres a 20 million dollar roster bonus due at the beginning of year 3, when his salary is also 15 million.

guess whos gonna be got before year three and not see that 20 million dollar "guaranteed" money?

and the players don't care about real vs funny money, thats why these asshole sign these deals. its all ego

look at the jennings dal last year. minnesota gave him like a dollar more then we offered him so he could save face and say he was going to the highest bidder, but its all funny money. jennings probably won't see the last 3 years of that deal, yet he probably would have in green bay. jennings took the deal that looked better in the headlines

when players go from one team to the next, they're not telling team A that team B offered then a 5 year 50 million dollar deal with 45 of that million coming in the last 2 years. he's going to tell team A that team B offered 5 years 50 million period

its not public knowledge until well after the player signs just how good these deals are. so in my example, team A has no clue if the offer the player got from team B is legit, or full of fake money

[mraynrand]

telling a player to go out and find the best offer you can and we'll match it is about as dumb as you can get

it kind of depends on the circumstances. How good the player is, how good the depth at that position is, whether you really have this as your actual approach, etc. etc.

I doubt that the Packers had this type of attitude with Shields in any way shape or form.

Packers generally set a price for a guy and stick with it. Fortunately with Raji it appears they got a break in that they overvalued him and he didn't accept. Either the Packers set too low with Shields or Sheilds set much higher. As with most Packer FAs, it seems there is some team out there willing to spend way too much for a particular player. That's the price you pay for being perennial one of the best teams in the league and developing talent.

[red]

Unless Shields got an outrageous offer from the Packers (which he won't), why wouldn't he test the market? Every team has extra money to spend in the FA market now that the cap has been raised. His agent may be playing the odds to see if he can get a better deal, and to see what the market will bear.

He can always go back to the Packers, but I'm of the opinion that he was going to do this from the start unless he was offered franchise tag type-numbers. I don't see him losing money either way.

the problem is, you have teams out there like the raiders that have something like 90 million in free cap space that can just front load the shit out of deals if they want. out of 31 other teams, the chance is there, and its a pretty good chance, that someone will pay more then we will, even though we really need him

letting players test the market works when they have very little talent, and you're pretty sure no one else wants them. i have a hard time believing no one will want a young CB on the rise. i think shields is gone the second free agency opens

[mraynrand]

and the players don't care about real vs funny money, thats why these asshole sign these deals. its all ego

They care about the guaranteed money a lot. That's their nest egg. That might be all they get. And they also care for bragging right with total contract numbers, but that may be more getting stroked by their agents. It's hard for me to believe that all but the dumbest players know that if their contract is back loaded with absurd dollars, they are going to have to re-negotiate or get cut. Many of these guys are thinking they might never make it past two or three more years in the league. They see other guys get hurt and drop out all the time. Up front, guaranteed money is the key.

[mraynrand]

letting players test the market

Packer may have less control than you suggest.

[red]

it kind of depends on the circumstances. How good the player is, how good the depth at that position is, whether you really have this as your actual approach, etc. etc.

I doubt that the Packers had this type of attitude with Shields in any way shape or form.

Packers generally set a price for a guy and stick with it. Fortunately with Raji it appears they got a break in that they overvalued him and he didn't accept. Either the Packers set too low with Shields or Sheilds set much higher. As with most Packer FAs, it seems there is some team out there willing to spend way too much for a particular player. That's the price you pay for being perennial one of the best teams in the league and developing talent.

most of my anger comes from shields agents quote about them looking for a deal like tim jennings. if thats the deal they were looking for (4 years 22.5 million) then there's no excuse for that being done. oh course if they were really looking for 9 or 10 million a year or so, then its a different story

but if we did refuse to pay our top corner 5.5 million a year, when we have no problem paying our 2nd (and after next year maybe the 3rd or 4th best) cb on the team 9.5 million this year. then i'm gonna be pretty furious

losing shields makes this team worse, not better imo. we're suppose to be trying to get better,not worse, and we have the cap space to prevent that

[red]

Packer may have less control than you suggest.

they could have been working on this for 2 or 3 years now. as soon as the undrafted rookie proved he could play. not every team has a rule where you can't negotiate with your players until the last year of the current deal, and then only if they are your very best players. all others need to wait another their contracts are up

[mraynrand]

most of my anger comes from shields agents quote about them looking for a deal like tim jennings. if thats the deal they were looking for (4 years 22.5 million) then there's no excuse for that being done. oh course if they were really looking for 9 or 10 million a year or so, then its a different story

but if we did refuse to pay our top corner 5.5 million a year, when we have no problem paying our 2nd (and after next year maybe the 3rd or 4th best) cb on the team 9.5 million this year. then i'm gonna be pretty furious

losing shields makes this team worse, not better imo. we're suppose to be trying to get better,not worse, and we have the cap space to prevent that

maybe the increased cap threw things out of whack. To me the interesting thing is whether the Packers had a chance to lock Shields up earlier for a little more cash. If there was a chance a month or two ago to sign him for around 6 mil/year and they blew it, that's on them for undervaluing him. But it's possible that Agent of Shield was never going to accept any offer until he knew the market.

[mraynrand]

they could have been working on this for 2 or 3 years now. as soon as the undrafted rookie proved he could play. not every team has a rule where you can't negotiate with your players until the last year of the current deal, and then only if they are your very best players. all others need to wait another their contracts are up

sure, but that just changes the planning a bit. If they sign him to an (effectively) four year deal two years ago, then you go through this next year. Shields was pretty raw; it's possible the Packers weren't quite there believing he was a long term answer at one corner. It's still possible the Packers have valued him properly and some other team is gonna get burned.

[Patler]

That's a pretty good way to put it Patler. Then no matter what happens, in hindsight you can't be wrong! No matter what, you're always taking some type of chance in these negotiations and there's never a sure thing because you're betting on future production. Injuries or a million other things can derail the actual outcome. My only point was that I would have put more of a priority on trying to re-sign Sam and I would have used some of the money they were throwing at Raji to do it. Does it guarantee that a deal would have been imminent? Absolutely not. It's a crapshoot and who ended up getting the better deal usually isn't known until a couple of years into the contract. Heck you could sign Sam for 8 mil a year now, (Or whatever number.) and 2 years from now that could look like a steal or it could look like a horrible decision. Nobody knows for sure and all of our opinions are based on pure speculation with the limited amount of knowledge we have regarding the situation.

Well, I have no intention of proclaiming to be either right or wrong about it regardless of what happens because I have no clue what the Packers offered, and I have no clue what Shields asked for.

If he signs for $5-6M somewhere else, I will feel that in some way the Packers must have botched the negotiations, because it seems he should be worth that. Of course, the thing we will likely never know is if Shields just doesn't want to be in GB for some reason. He wouldn't be the first player who wanted out, nor will he be the last. Some hate winter, some want to be closer to family, some don't like a coach, some would love to stay but want to maximize their income for what can be a short career.

Shields very well could be in that last category, because he has not made a great deal of money in his 1st four years, and for all he knows this will be his last contract. Seeing Collins go down and maybe Finley, getting all that you can get takes on more significance. With that in mind, his priority might be to see what FA brings.

You state; "I would have put more of a priority on trying to re-sign Sam and I would have used some of the money they were throwing at Raji to do it." More of a priority than what? Than the Packers did? How much of a priority did they put on it? For all you know it was their highest priority. I suspect the Packers may have done just what you suggest, because it has been reported that they withdrew their offer to Raji at some point during the season. Therefore, they freed up the Raji money for whatever purpose they wanted, and Shields was probably high on their list. But if Shields stance was, "I really want to see what FA will bring, but if you give me $10M/year I'll pass it up" no deal was ever going to get done. For all we know, they might have offered Shields as much or more than the offered Raji. Maybe they offered him substantially less.

The point I was trying to get across was that blaming the Packers for "not getting it done", as some have, is kind of silly, because Shields might not have had any intention to do anything but test free agency. The Packers can't get a deal done by themselves, nor can Shields. There have been plenty of instances of deals getting done the night before free agency starts, shortly after it starts and at a time after the player assesses his value in the eyes of other teams.

Shields seems to be an ascending player, but losing him in free agency means no more to me than losing a player to injury. It's just part of what happens.

[ThunderDan]

what? raji is the exact opposite. a player who should not have been resigned that TT wet himself very early on trying to get to resign and ended up throwing all kinds of ungodly money towards him, we're just lucky raji and his agent are stupid as shit

telling a player to go out and find the best offer you can and we'll match it is about as dumb as you can get, you let every other team in the NFL dictate just how much you are gonna pay your players

if you're not going to start locking these guys up with a year to go on their deal, and you're gonna keep playing this stupid game of chicken with free agency, then just trade the damn players and get something in return

Except that if GB had gotten the Shields done for 4/24m and he got burnt in 13 you would have been scream what a horrible signing and if Raji had played well in 13 you would have screamed that TT should have extended him during the year.

That being said, if there was a chance to sign SS for 4/24m during 13 we screwed up. But I don't think that happened. Here is what I think happened. After 2012 TT was trying to sign Shields to a deal. Probably in the 3/10m range and Sam wanted more so the Packers signed him for 1 year as a RFA. I thought I remember there was talk that Shields might miss part of training camp. I think he sighed his RFA offer very late.

At that point I think SS thought he could wait one more year to hit FA and see what his value truly was. Like Patler said if TT made a monster offer Shields would have given up on going to FA. I am sure Rosenhaus talked about the Tim Jennings deal just to give notice to the other teams in the NFL were the starting point would be not the ending point.

[ThunderDan]

Yeah, matching offers is a pretty poor way to run a business. He's going to generate interest and he's going to get paid. There's no way SS is this years JJ.

Yes only matching deals is a poor May to run a business. But what if the Packers offered SS a "fair" contract and he still said I think I am worth a lot more. At that point all you can say is good luck in FA and I hope you will allow us to match the offer if it is close to the one we offered.

TT has a history of signing young up and coming players to lucrative contracts. I am sure Shields has been on the radar since the end of the 2012 season.

[wist43]

Shields is an ascending player - as is Neal.

I think both those guys are as good as gone, and will get better deals on the open market than Packer fans think.

Neal proved he could handle OLB - if used properly (which of course will never happen here under Capers), Neal could be a beast in odd fronts the way teams like Baltimore and Pittsburgh have used those guys. Capers is an idiot though, so it doesn't matter if he walks.

There is no improving our defense - so we might as well focus on the offense.