I few days ago I wrote a post about Antonio Bryant and the Bucs' decision to "move on" without trying to resign him. The gist of the post was that I wasn't buying their official reasons for letting him walk, with the primary reasons being his attitude and his age (29).
This evening I saw in my twitter stream that the Bucs had dealt their 2011 sixth round pick to the Eagles for wide receiver Reggie Brown. Of course when I heard about it I had to poke a little fun seeing as how Brown only had 9 catches last year but I want to make a serious point here which relates to my earlier post on Bryant. My point then was that the stated reasons for allowing Antonio Bryant to walk weren't valid. From my point of view trading for Reggie Brown just confirmed that fact.
Understand that I am not trying to take shots at Brown here, I am more so taking shots at the good folks over at One Buc Palace. See you can't try to intimate that you allowed one guy to leave because of his age and attitude then turn around and give up a draft pick for a guy who is the same age and has reportedly had attitude problems of his own in the past. Of course the Bucs also leaked anonymously to the press that somehow Bryant caused quite a few interceptions last year because he didn't run "crisp" routes but since Brown only caught 9 balls total I can't see a way to try to compare and contrast that strawman.
But I digress.
What is the major difference aside from production in the two players?
Compensation.
Antonio Bryant had the franchise tag last year coming off a Pro Bowl season and made more than $9 million dollars. Even coming off a subpar season he figures to get a pretty nice contract on the open market. Brown on the other hand had a deal with the Eagles that runs through 2014. His compensation according to online reports is right around or a little bit more than $1 million dollars each year until 2013 when it shoots up to $3 million or more for the last two seasons. That is probably going to end up being a fraction of what Bryant signs for whenever he lands on a new team.
This isn't rocket science folks.
The Bucs simply aren't going to spend any money in the foreseeable future. Now I am not one of these people who are going to rail about Manchester United or throw the Glazers under the bus for not spending money. When you boil it all the way down its their team and they have every right to run it how they see fit. But my only request is that they don't try to treat us like a bunch of blithering idiots. There was one overriding reason why Antonio Bryant wasn't resigned and that was his price tag. It wasn't about his age or his attitude or his route running, it was about the amount of zeros on the contract he was asking for.
Now for me that isn't even necessarily a bad thing but if you are going to make a move that is about money then you should have the courage to say that. Don't throw a guy under the bus who played pretty well for you for a year and a half just to try to shield yourself from a criticism. Just stand up and be honest about it and quit trying to play the fan base for fools.
End of rant
This evening I saw in my twitter stream that the Bucs had dealt their 2011 sixth round pick to the Eagles for wide receiver Reggie Brown. Of course when I heard about it I had to poke a little fun seeing as how Brown only had 9 catches last year but I want to make a serious point here which relates to my earlier post on Bryant. My point then was that the stated reasons for allowing Antonio Bryant to walk weren't valid. From my point of view trading for Reggie Brown just confirmed that fact.
Understand that I am not trying to take shots at Brown here, I am more so taking shots at the good folks over at One Buc Palace. See you can't try to intimate that you allowed one guy to leave because of his age and attitude then turn around and give up a draft pick for a guy who is the same age and has reportedly had attitude problems of his own in the past. Of course the Bucs also leaked anonymously to the press that somehow Bryant caused quite a few interceptions last year because he didn't run "crisp" routes but since Brown only caught 9 balls total I can't see a way to try to compare and contrast that strawman.
But I digress.
What is the major difference aside from production in the two players?
Compensation.
Antonio Bryant had the franchise tag last year coming off a Pro Bowl season and made more than $9 million dollars. Even coming off a subpar season he figures to get a pretty nice contract on the open market. Brown on the other hand had a deal with the Eagles that runs through 2014. His compensation according to online reports is right around or a little bit more than $1 million dollars each year until 2013 when it shoots up to $3 million or more for the last two seasons. That is probably going to end up being a fraction of what Bryant signs for whenever he lands on a new team.
This isn't rocket science folks.
The Bucs simply aren't going to spend any money in the foreseeable future. Now I am not one of these people who are going to rail about Manchester United or throw the Glazers under the bus for not spending money. When you boil it all the way down its their team and they have every right to run it how they see fit. But my only request is that they don't try to treat us like a bunch of blithering idiots. There was one overriding reason why Antonio Bryant wasn't resigned and that was his price tag. It wasn't about his age or his attitude or his route running, it was about the amount of zeros on the contract he was asking for.
Now for me that isn't even necessarily a bad thing but if you are going to make a move that is about money then you should have the courage to say that. Don't throw a guy under the bus who played pretty well for you for a year and a half just to try to shield yourself from a criticism. Just stand up and be honest about it and quit trying to play the fan base for fools.
End of rant
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