Posts Tagged ‘Patriots’

Sam Bradford just agreed to a ridiculous contract that makes Jamarcus Russell look like a bargain. Bradford agreed to a 6 year, 78 million dollar deal, with 50 million guaranteed. 50 MILLION!!!

How ridiculous is this contract for a player who has been continuously injured in college and didn’t even play for his team much this season? Well, Tom Brady, coming off his third Super Bowl victory in February 2005, signed a 6-year, 66 million dollar contract similar to the extensions Vick and Manning received around the same time.

This made Brady one of the top 10 highest paid players in the game. He also restructured his contract a few years later to save the patriots money to sign Randy Moss and others, so he didn’t even see that much.

Bradford is getting 13 million more base, and can make up to 86 million total.  That 86 million is very close to what Philip Rivers just got, and he’s a top 5 QB in the league, and was at the time, too.  It is 12 million more than Aaron Rodgers got after his first year of starting in 2008.

The NFL has gotten out of control.  The #1 pick is a curse money wise, and there absolutely no way Bradford can live up to that contract short of a 14-2 season and a Super Bowl NEXT YEAR.

These kinds of things make me want a lockout next summer.  If the players really think rookies are this valuable, I can almost guarantee there isn’t going to be a new CBA deal done.

So after the Patriots vs. Panthers game this past weekend, everyone who has ever watched sports has put an opinion into this Moss ‘quitting’ situation. Well I was of course watching the game, and said myself multiple times: “Ok, this guy is finally quitting on the Patriots.” And that interception that Gamble had was because of a weakly run route (and a lofted pass).

“We knew he was going to shut it down,” Panthers cornerback Chris Gamble said after the game. “That’s what we wanted to do him. That’s what we did. … He’d just give up a lot … Slow down, he’s not going deep, not trying to run a route. You can tell, his body language.” Gamble continued … “I know everyone who plays against him, they can sense that. Once you get into him in the beginning of the game, he shuts it down a little bit.”

All of this is true, if Moss isn’t involved early, he’ll shut it down a little bit (see Terrell Owens or NBA defense). But some of the best analysis of Moss in this game was given by Merrill Hoge and Steve Young (ESPN’s best football minds, in my opinion). Hoge says he watched the tape and it was Moss’ hardest fought game hes ever seen, including route running. And those two had the Gamble interception spot on.

First of all, Peppers came flying at Brady, so he threw the ball early and off of his back foot so the ball floated up for the defender. Gamble was playing an outside route defense, which is dangerous for the QB on the out route. Moss saw this, and knew Brady wouldn’t throw the pass into that kind of coverage to Moss, so maybe he didn’t run the route as hard as he could/should and it resulted in a pick. But receivers often know when and when they are not getting the ball on certain plays/coverages, and take a couple plays off. Sprinting 20 yards full out every minute for 180 minutes is not an easy task, so that is justified.

End of story, as much as I dislike the Patriots and hope for all the turmoil in the world to come upon them, Moss deserves a break this time. From what I’ve seen hes been a great player since leaving the horrid situation in Oakland and playing HOF football. But just for fun, can we go ahead and speculate that Moss DID QUIT, and its because he is jealous of Wes Welker being the most influential and game changing WR’s in the league? Rumor, begun.