Everyone in the NFL - players, owners, and agents know this is the game. Players have next to no leverage. Gilmore’s deal was structured in a way to benefit the Patriots and neither party ever expected him to play for the 5+ Million this season in a Patriots uniform.
A) By "holding in" and pretending to still be injured when he wasn't but he wanted to squeeze the team for more money. His team really needed him.
So the Patriots should have torn up the deal and given him an extension because they got the benefit of the deal and they needed to do the right think and take care of him?
So he is willing to play for that number as long as it's not in New England; if they had kept him, he planned on sitting out and getting nothing.
Not at all. The injury really muddled things for his efforts to get paid now. Any team is going to want to see him playing at the level he was playing at(or right around it) before committing big money. Him and his camp really overplayed their hand with the Patriots and the Patriots called their bluff. That's smart business.
I mean, what were the options? Once Gilmore got hurt his value went up is smoke.
I don’t disagree but the argument that the Pats called his bluff only makes sense if he ended up playing for then without any new $$$. He didn’t. So they must have believed he want going to suit up for them if they have him away.
One of their most valuable assets? His lack of a robust trade market says otherwise.
Yeah, they should have traded him two years ago to help with the rebuild. But the fact that they only ended up with a sixth-round pick now certainly suggests that he was not, in fact, one of their most valuable assets at the moment.
It's not that complicated...they had a valuable asset coming out of the 2019 season and could have traded him then, knowing that they were going to have difficulties in re-signing him and were probably only going to be able to keep him for another year (the way his contract was structured the 4th and 5th years were going to be problems without renegotiation). They decided not to trade him before the draft and advanced him his 5th year money into year 4, essentially setting up a conflict for year 5 (which they were obviously not willing or able to negotiate). They were going nowhere last year and easily could have moved him before the trade deadline for more than a 6th in 2023.
I mean, he wasn't that valuable. They put him up last year for a 1st and got no offers because teams were scared of his contract issues. He got hurt which then reduced the price more going into this year. I mean, sure you could argue they should have cut bait before last year for a 3rd or something, but they thought they had a chance to be a playoff team with him, instead things fell apart. If he doesn't get hurt his value this offseason likely wouldn't have been much lower than the deadline last year, since more teams would be in a position to take on salary by trading for him and working out an extension in one move.
Ok well good for him. It wasn't about money in New England then. He could simply have gotten on the field, bet on himself, and the Pats were willing to sweeten the pot on this year. But he dragged his feet and that ship sailed. A 31 year old CB with a quad issue doesn't exactly have a ton of value out there. This reeks of someone who just wanted out of town and was trying to force the team's hand to deal him.
I seem to remember that there were reports before the 2020 draft that the Pats turned down a 2nd for Gilmore, but that may have been just speculation.
What we don't know is whether the team sent out trade feeler before the 2020 draft or even during the trade deadline last year. But there is no comparison to the Collins situation (he was traded for actual value and never repeated his success here anyway) or JG (for whom they got a 2nd and a backup QB, and that situation was badly misreported by the local media).
The similarities were that all 3 players were headed into free agency, and the Pats got less than what anyone would have expected for all three players, when it at least seemed like they could have gotten more if they had traded them earlier.
Expect is doing a lot of work. Trade market for players coming off their rookie contracts is typically not very high; Collins was a fine player, but hardly a world beater. He only made a single Pro Bowl in his career. I think people have unrealistic expectations of what such a player would return even when traded in the offseason.
Again I don't think the Pats would have done better than a 2nd or 3rd for Gilmore even before the 2020 season. But with all three players, they were traded partway through the season, thereby reducing the value they could provide that season. Therefore it stands to reason that if they had been traded prior to the season with more games remaining on their contracts, they would have been worth more. Maybe not a ton more. But more.
But that's usually the case, right? It's not easy knowing exactly when to trade someone. Yeah, they could have gotten tons for Gilmore, for example, after his DPOY season, but at that point (after 2019), he still had two years left on his deal and of course the Pats, you know, could use a guy just like that. The reason why a guy would get a massive return is because he's probably a great player but trading away great players is always a huge risk. Yeah, they might get a first round pick for him, but it's entirely possible that the deal still is a net negative when all is said and done.
Doesn't this beg the question of whether Gilmore was arguably one of their most valuable assets?
It was announced that he would be released, and then he was traded before being released. (At least that's my understanding.)
It's hard to tell how much if any more though, and there are other factors involved.
They were never going to get multiple 1sts for him. Your brother would have been bullshit at the return they got for him.
I can fault him for not trading Gilmore at peak value before a season in which he knew the roster wasn't up to par and a substantial rebuild was looming. When Brady walked they should have started calling people.
Agree it's not easy, but there were plenty of people who thought that they should trade him right after 2019, after Brady decided to leave. That would have been as close to peak trade value as possible, and the time would have been right.
Agree that a 1st might never have been on the table for JG. Maybe they could have gotten an extra mid-round pick by trading him in April instead of October.
I have started to think in this direction lately. But they did pay some big bucks to rebuild the offense. If the total lack of an offensive line leads to a loss in Houston, Bill needs to start thinking about next year. Hard to figure what he’s up to, but always fun to speculate.
And don’t forget the consternation at the time of signing. Pretty damned good, and likely won us a SB.
Once they committed to starting a rookie QB, they knew they would not contend — the roster was improved, but nowhere near 2004 Steelers or 2012 Seahawks level. I don’t know how much hope BB held out for a Cam Newton renaissance heading into training camp, or when he was making roster moves back in March and April.
He told Josina Anderson in July that he could be ready for Training Camp "if he needed to be", so I have an inkling it's not serious enough to impair him and the contract stalemate probably played a huge role in him being put on PUP.
The equation is likely different if they won the Miami and Tampa games.
possibly, just because the SOS is really low.
they would just cut him or ask him to take a pay cut if they thought he was underperforming like all teams do in the NFL all the time.
