Smoot wants Vikings to trade for Gardner

[jdlea]

Originally Posted by joecrisp

I don't think Chris Samuels sees it that way. He's got 15 million reasons to think otherwise.

Promising big money and paying what a player thinks he's worth are two different animals. The Skins offered Pierce and Smoot generous signing bonuses, but other teams were able to offer more salary in the first three years of the contract.

Now if you're talking about LaVar Arrington's situation, there's the little issue of Arrington and his agents signing a contract that made him the second-highest paid linebacker in the league-- even without that extra $6.5 million he thought he heard someone mention.

And I think Champ Bailey's contract demands and subsequent performance on the field in Denver speaks for itself. There's a reason folks in Denver are already calling him "Chump"-- Pro Bowler or not.

Okay, so he got a big signing bonus, you think he'll see the end of his deal? If you do you're flat out naive.

[joecrisp]

Originally Posted by jdlea

Okay, so he got a big signing bonus, you think he'll see the end of his deal? If you do you're flat out naive.

I didn't say he'd see the end of his deal. I don't think he will, and I doubt Chris Samuels, his agent or the Redskins think he'll see the end of his deal. That's the trade-off for taking the big money up front. The players know that, the agents know that and every front office in the league knows that. It's the guaranteed money and the average salary of the first three years of the deal that the players are looking for. If they get that big bonus, they know they're not likely to be cut during the first three years of the deal, due to the acceleration of the signing bonus onto the cap.

In the past, the Skins have been able to outgun other teams and woo free agents by wielding a big enough signing bonus that the lower salaries during the first three years of the deal were less important. But this year, the Skins had to maneuver around both the Coles fiasco and the potential for cap problems in 2006. The Giants and the Vikings knew that, and both had the cap space for 2005-2007 to offer a little more signing bonus, and significantly more salary over the first three years.

The Skins are paying now for past indiscretions. The front office has indeed made its share of mistakes. But getting into a bidding war for Smoot and Pierce would not have made their cap situation any better. It would have only exacerbated the problem, and would have forced them to make even tougher decisions over the next two years.

But your assertion was that players see staying with the Redskins as a lose-lose situation because they won't see the big bucks the front office promises them. I can agree with the suggestion that some players would rather play for a winning team, but I think the fact that Jon Jansen, LaVar Arrington and Chris Samuels are all still Redskins is indicative of the fact that the Redskins do, in fact, take care of a few of their own (at least as far as money goes).