Basis4day":5fguzaak said:
Popeyejones":5fguzaak said:
^^^^ What's a lot to maneuver? They just had to inform the league and Irvin's agent they were exercising the option and that's it.
Then if Wilson or Wagner pose a problem a year later they don't exercise the option and that's it.
There's literally no scenario in which they didn't exercise his option because it was too complicated to do so.
Irvin was pissed because by not exercising it the Seahawks essentially said "there is no scenario in which you're worth 7.5 million to us, and we're not even interested enough in keeping you long term to even pretend there is as a form of leverage in the long term negotiations we're not planning on having with you."
From a cap (and comp pick) perspective I totally get it and don't fault the Hawks for it at all (see my post above about what the Hawks ask of him), but if this summer the FO talks about having made a sincere effort to keep Irvin they're being deeply full of crap.
It's not as simple as just giving Irvin the option
Because by giving Irvin the option, at the time, would hurt the bargaining power to resign Wilson and Wagner because you're telling Wilson/Wagner that we don't have as much money to negotiate a deal. More specifically Wagner, because his agent is going to proceed with the cap number that assumes Irvin is on the roster and they both play Linebacker.
It sounds like you on the one hand the Hawks should have given the option to Irvin no matter what, while at the same time understanding that the Hawks didn't have enough cap room to keep him. It can't be both.
It is just as simple as tagging Irvin with the option, because tagging someone with the option doesn't mean you actually give them anything. If you tag someone with the option you can just take it away if you want: YOU have the option as from the player you have taken away the option to hit the FA market. It's like putting a video game that comes out next year on hold but without having to put down a deposit: if you want it the day it comes out you're guaranteed a copy but if you decide you don't want it there's no penalty and you just never show up for it.
As for bargaining power with Wagner, this is incorrect for two reasons:
1) It has no effect on bargaining with Wagner because everyone in the NFL already knows that making the option claim doesn't mean you actually keep the player for another year or ever pay him.
2) If not that, it makes negotiating with Wagner slightly easier because the message it sends to Wagner is that if he plays hardball you already have another player at his position group who you might be interested in trying to keep around.
IMO it's really unrelated to Wagner, but if it's related at all, they would have given Irvin the option (and not exercised it this off-season) if only to make negotiations with Wagner easier.
As for what I think, yeah, I think both of those things. On the one hand I think it's pretty surprising they didn't exercise the option on Irvin, but on the other hand both from a total cap and spend perspective and from the perspective of what they ask of Irvin in their defense I can also understand why they did it. Even with both of those things being true, though, there are two basic points we can't really get around:
1) It was a pretty big slap in the face to Irvin to not exercise the option (why he was so pissed last year and basically said "FU I'm going to Atlanta anyway")
2) By not exercising option the Seahawks basically revealed that there interest in keeping Irvin a Seahawk (given all other considerations they're making) is closer to 0% than 1%.
That it was too complicated to hand in the paperwork or that doing so made it harder to negotiate with Wagner or Wilson just doesn't hold any water, man.
