maddog60 wrote:Hmm funny, I did some researching on those players who were cut to "make room for Peyton" supposedly.
I think that is only part of the argument you are receiving. You have to consider who WILL be cut in the future to compensate for Mannings contract.
In two years, if Manning doesnt restructure his contract like just about every veteran does, then true, it will hurt them. But until 2 years from now, its purely speculation with no clue what the scenario will look like.
Well for starters, today isn't two years for now, so how can you complain about something that may or may not happen?
Next, veterans that restructure are generally much deeper into their careers than Manning. 28 is still pretty young in QB years. How can you complain about someone not restructuring a contract the signed THIS year?
Brett Favre (35) and Drew Bledsoe (32) each could use some WR's, but neither of their monster contracts have been restructured to make room for it. I suppose you could call Brett Favre a greedy, arrogant, pompous player, but then no one would ever listen to any arguement you ever made after that...
Bledsoe did restructure his contract to make it cap friendly and to free up cash just a few weeks ago.
Hey Maddog... I'm not against you on this. As long as all your numbers are accurate then you make a very good argument. My only issue with the Manning contract is that asking for that much money (deserved I suppose...another issue all together) forces his team to choose to eliminate a valuable member of the team. Regardless of whether the cap room is less... they (the Colts) spent a ton of cash on this guy and don't make a whole lot to begin with. I guarantee that his agent never said... what is the number you can offer to keep Peyton, Marvin and Edge together.
I don't know... maybe I'm naive but a really big shiny ring on my finger should still be the main incentive in a pro sport, and it is rarely seen these days when a player sacrifices cash to better the team. Manning is no worse or no better than 95% of the players in the NFL, at least the upper tier of players.
maddog60 wrote:I'd agree that FA pickups on Def. would've helped, however I can't see how its Manning's contract that is the cause. Manning's cap hit was roughly 15 million last year, this year despite his large contract its about 8.3. So he's even less of a cap hit this year than he was last year. There's potential to make a case that last year his contract denied them the opportunity to sign defensive FAs, but this year, it seems far fetched to believe with an nearly 50% decrease in cap hit he hurt their chances of signing free agents. By all means if you can cite a report/article explaining how Peyton's contract prevented the Colts from signing def. players I'd like to read it.
Also, going by your logic of what Manning as a matter of a fact KNEW, I could just as easily say that he KNOWS that he's going to have to restructure that contract in 2 years. I'm sorry but that's just stating an opinion as if its fact. Fact is, he counts less against the cap for the next two years than he did in 2003. Logic dictates that they "should" have more cap room than before because of that decrease.
Yes they had more cap room than the year before from Manning, but other players salaries also inflate every year. The way teams structure contracts is to put the low years first, and the huge years down the road as we see in Mannings contract. If he hadnt restructured
Manning's new deal, though, isn't a cure-all. It does provide an '04 salary cap number of $8.3 million, saving more than $10 million over the franchise tag.
Still, "it's not like this opens up so much (cap) room that we can go out and do whatever we want," Irsay said. "We're still going to have some difficult decisions."
Earlier this week, the team re-signed veteran defensive tackle Josh Williams to a six-year contract. He was one of six players who would've become unrestricted free agents today.
The next step was to issue one-year tenders to five of the team's restricted free agents: starting right tackle Ryan Diem, starting left guard Rick DeMulling, starting cornerback Nick Harper, backup running back Dominic Rhodes and backup safety Cory Bird.
So if Manning hadnt restructured his contract he wouldnt have had enough money to resign 2 starting offensive linemen, a starting cornerback, and their primary backup RB (who may be the guy to take over for Edge if he isnt re-signed?). Sure he counts less than he did last year, but its not like it gave Indy a lot of room to work since they had so many of their own unrestricted FA's to sign. If he hadn't had taken a lower amount this year, their team would have looked like a disaster.
Which leads me back to 2006 and beyond. What are they going to do then? More key players will need to resign, and there just wont be the money. Sure Manning can restructure again, but the Colts still cant over-extend on long term contracts b/c there is no guarantee Manning will cooperate. If they are barely getting by with signing when Manning is counting over 10 million less now then he will be, there are going to be some major cuts, and Indy won't be a contender.
they ended up giving a 73-percent increase over the previous record signing bonus to a player who never has reached a Super Bowl.
That does seem like a hefty upgrade for a guy who hasnt shown a whole lot in the playoffs. Granted last year he got his first win, but 14.5 million more from the previous record signing bonus is ridiculous. I do blame the Colts for a large part of it, but Peyton still needs to take a step back and look how this could really effect the team and the players around him.
At a time when many NFL owners are fretting about the sport going the way of baseball, with growing revenue disparities between "have" and "have-not" franchises, will Manning's contract give the have-not Colts enough remaining cash and salary cap space to put a competitive team around their quarterback in 2006 and beyond? It's doubtful, and the Colts have four key members of their offense -- wide receiver Marvin Harrison, tailback Edgerrin James, guard Rick DeMulling and tackle Ryan Diem -- eligible for unrestricted free agency next offseason.
Good luck w/ any or all of those signings next year
have enormous holes to fill on defense after the offseason departures of linebacker Marcus Washington and cornerbacks Walt Harris and David Macklin.......
If Coach Tony Dungy can keep the defense from collapsing, the offense again should be somewhere between formidable and unstoppable in what's likely to be the last go-around together for Manning, Harrison and James. But it's difficult to imagine a team with a secondary this young and this vulnerable reaching a Super Bowl. And the window of opportunity to improve greatly could begin closing as soon as the impact of Manning's contract is felt.
The defense is just going to continue to get worse. They have lost big names in FA the last couple years (Peterson, Washington, etc) b/c they havent had the cap room to even make an offer. Once again it could be blamed on poor financing by the Colts, but Manning is not really helping the situation.
Like I said, its fine if he wanted to take the contract to just "prove" he is worth it, but he is really putting his team in a bad situation and he needs to restructure his deal if he wants a ring. Harrison is getting older, and this may be Edge's last year. The opportunities are becoming very few and far between.
Just to hit on a few other things said, no I dont think Edge will get or deserves a Portis like contract, but I really dont see him taking a $1 or $2 million deal
And whoever said people are hating on Manning b/c he is white has no clue what they are talking about. It has nothing to do w/ his "name" either, although he is not the classiest person in the world... (cough...teabag....cough)
It's doubtful, and the Colts have four key members of their offense -- wide receiver Marvin Harrison, tailback Edgerrin James, guard Rick DeMulling and tackle Ryan Diem -- eligible for unrestricted free agency next offseason[/b].
Good luck w/ any or all of those signings next year
ANY time ANY team has a top 3 WR and a top RB become unrestricted free agents in the same year, they have to work miracles to re-sign both, you can't possibly blame that on Manning.
Flux wrote:
they ended up giving a 73-percent increase over the previous record signing bonus to a player who never has reached a Super Bowl.
That does seem like a hefty upgrade for a guy who hasnt shown a whole lot in the playoffs.
Wait wait wait, let me repeat that.
they ended up giving a 73-percent increase over the previous record signing bonus to a player who never has reached a Super Bowl.
What the hell does it matter who's won a super bowl when you're talking about a 28 year old QB? The best players get paid the most. This guy is so obviously trying to skew the facts towards his arguement by putting unnecessary clauses on them. Kind of like the Randy Moss arguement a while back where Warpigs (no offense Warpigs, just using an example ) decided he was going to compare Moss and Priest and ignore Moss' rushing numbers and Priest's receiving numbers even though there was 600yds of difference in them.
Heck, this guy may as well be saying that Manning is making 1200% of what another QB with similar stats to him made, and just neglect to mention that the other QB played when you could buy a bottle of coke for a nickel.
This guy's arguement loses it's credibility with stuff like this, not like he made any good points anyway.
I still don't see why some people think Manning's contract is so outlandish. It's a natural progression for big time free agents to get record setting deals. Favre did it. Then Bledsoe did it. Then Mcnabb did it. Etc.
For those trying to say that it was too large of an increase. Let me throw some numbers around.
The NFL salary cap is $80 mil right now. It's been steadily increasing at around $5 mil per year. Manning's deal costs Indy about a half a mil against the cap the next two years, so those two years we'll toss out for your arguement's sake since he takes up about as much cap room as the colts special teams players.
Now, in 2006 Manning starts earning his real money: $17 mil. If salary cap progression stays the way it has been the last 10 years, the cap will be around $90 mil at that time, although probably higher. But we'll take the low end and say $90 mil. This means that in 2006 Manning will take up approximately 18.5% of the Colts' cap space.
Now, lets go back a few years. There was a certain quarterback in Jacksonville, Mr. Mark Brunell, that took up 15% of the Jags cap space. MARK BRUNELL!!! Is the difference in Brunell to Manning not worth 3.5% of your cap space? I would certainly think it is.
Star QB's taking up huge chunks of team's cap space is pretty common practice around the league. Further, had the Colts not begged Manning to take pennies the first couple years it probably would've ended up taking up less % of the team's cap space than [sarcasm] the great hall of fame bound [/sarcasm] Mark Brunell.
At this point, basically everybody is saying the same thing:
Manning's got a big contract
Edge deserves one too
Edge might not play for the Colts again after this year
For once, I am with Bagel here. Of course Manning's salary is huge, but losing him would be the worst thing that could happen to the franchise, whereas losing Marvin or Edge would not be as devastating. Placing personal blame on him for taking such a huge contract is like complaining to a Ronald McDonald statue about too much lettuce on your Big Mac.
I love how everyone sees no problem in making character judgements or personality assumptions based on what perceptions they've been given of Manning by the media. Don't forget that everyone - save for Bronco-haters - loves John Elway and he did the same thing that E-Cry did.
I bet you people saying Manning is hurting his team and he is only in it for himself and that he doesn't exemplify strong morals are the same people that run around repeating everything from last night's episode of Dave Chappell.
I guess it's "cool" to hate the Mannings these days.
Flux, I agree he'll need to restructure, but in the next two years, no he shouldn't. If 2006 rolls around and he hasn't restructure, then fine, he's a greedy pompous jerk. But its 2004, so I don't see how we can apply something that hasn't happened to an argument against Manning.
I think if anything, Marvin Harrison, who if his contract gets any bigger this year will be making money on par with Manning. For a 32 year old WR, 8 million against the cap is a lot more than 8.3 million for the top rated QB in the game. Personally, looking at his age and the amount of money he's currently being paid, I don't think the Marvin could get the Colts to sign him to a higher paying contract regardless of Manning's contract.
From reading the two articles you posted I believe there were a few things you left out though. Both articles mention how the Colts use homegrown talent to replace veterans. The one specifically mentions how the Colts in recent years havent done much if anything in free agency. So their lack of big free agent signings on defense this year shouldn't come as any surprise.
Also, Marcus Washington, who seems to be the all-important LB they lost this year. He's replaced by David Thorton ( http://www.colts.com/sub.cfm?page=article7&news_id=2065 ), who had 150+ tackles last year, 100 of them which were solo. Compared to Washington's meager 82, 57 of which were solo, it seems like the smarter move to avoid a bidding war with the Redskins, and upgrade at strong-side LB from within.
However, I do believe the second article you posted brings up the only real concern I see for the Colts with the Manning contract. His signing bonus. Like any big contract I expect he'll be restructuring come those big-money years, and until then I would say his cap cost is minimal for his level of play at the QB position. The real concern is about the non-cap cash, signing bonuses, because the Colts don't have a lot of money. I think they're perfectly fine in terms of cap room, but they have been mentioned as one of the less wealthy teams. Having the cap room without the cash would definitely hurt their ability to retain people, but I can't find any information yet to support either side of that argument (will keep looking).
maddog60 wrote:If 2006 rolls around and he hasn't restructure, then fine, he's a greedy pompous jerk.
What, exactly, is this based on? How is he a pompous jerk for seeking the highest compensation for all of his hard work and excellence at what he gets paid to do? Oh, wait a second...it looks like you agree with me:
maddog60 wrote:I would say his cap cost is minimal for his level of play at the QB position.
OK - so if his salary is justified by his performance on the field, then that's obviously not the problem. The problem must be, then, that he has put his team in a terrible salary cap position. Oh...wait a second, that's not the problem, either:
maddog60 wrote:I think they're perfectly fine in terms of cap room, but they have been mentioned as one of the less wealthy teams.
So what, then, Sir MadDog, is the problem here? How, exactly, is Manning a pompous jerk? Statements such as these should require substantiation, not contradiction...
Somebody get this guy to take the bar exam, quick!
Perhaps the Colts brass is saying this not only to "inform us all", but also to add yet more motivation for Edge to perform his best. We all know Edge is a great talent and being in a contract year is only going to help motivate him all the more. The Colts saying that Edge could be gone by the end of the year directly targets Edge's pride, and from sporting experience, there is no bigger motivator than a man's pride. Edge needs to prove to everyone in Indy (and elsewhere if he does wind up being available for other franchises) that he is a top back. He won't be sitting on his laurels.
In fantasy perspective, this news only helps me want Edge more than ever. I think the signs are all pointing towards a big year for Edge and he can be had fairly cheap (mid to late first round, perhaps even early second round) in most drafts.
Cafe Home
Fantasy Baseball
Fantasy Basketball
Fantasy Hockey
by CC » Wed Jul 07, 2004 9:49 pm 
) decided he was going to compare Moss and Priest and ignore Moss' rushing numbers and Priest's receiving numbers even though there was 600yds of difference in them.
