"Holdout" news of Earl Thomas

[jeremiah]

No one player on this defense is irreplaceable. Wagner is a great MLB, and his running mate is very good. You don't keep on top of the league by keeping the core together, you use players to the end of their rookie deals, then replace them except for the great QB. The Belichick model is the ideal. It ain't just because of Brady.

A. Nobody saying that anybody is irreplaceable. However, to say that you can replace a 6-time all pro who just had one of his best seasons and is only 28 years old with a low-level free agent without a massive drop-off or a major re-working of the defense is silly.

B. Neither Bobby nor KJ are on their rookie deals.

C. Name another team in the league that has been able to replicate the Belichick model.

Name another team? I can't think of one that has tried. Maybe the Packers, but they skimped on the O line in two different rebuilds. Pats give the OL a priority, Brady is not to be touched or roughed up.

 

[jeremiah]

Lol @ Earl saying he would not feel comfortable playing without a long term deal. Saying he’s gotta feed his family.

Sick.

You just try feeding a family of 3 on $47 million over 8 years!! :141847_bnono:

I think Clayton is saying Earl may ask for and get $15-18 Mil per year..

 

[jeremiah]

You just try feeding a family of 3 on $47 million over 8 years!! :141847_bnono:

This is so ignorant. They are the bread and butter for their family's, which often includes extended families. Their time on the field is limited and they're diminishing their quality of life and risking permanent brain damage to bring their families out of the depths of poverty.

Not only that, one potential wrong hit and they can be paralyzed from the neck down. No amount of money can do justice to losing your life like that. So don't blame them or get upset that they want millions and loads of them.

He has a whole life ahead of him still. Shoot he's younger then I am and he's gotta make sure that money goes a long way till after he;s gone.

Stop acting like this is some noble thing he is doing, risking his life and brain for his extended family! Tons of people risk more and make way less, and really battle to provide for their families. Ridiculous. He plays 16 games a year and one years salary (already 10m) can comfortably support him and extended family for the rest of their lives. Players using ‘feed my family’ as a reason to hold out from work for even more money is absurd. Is a gross thing to say imo.

:2thumbs:
How many years you figure it would take for most of us to make what Earl does in just one year? :roll:

200 years approximately ....

 

[massari]

LB Jaylon Smith straight up for ET. Do you do it?

 

[Popeyejones]

Again, Thomas never said anything about feeding his family. Coug either misheard him, misremembered, or just made it up.

 

[original poster]

I doubt the talks are struggling with the amount ($13.5M APY is my bet), it'll be the amount guaranteed that causes issues.

 

[IndyHawk]

LB Jaylon Smith straight up for ET. Do you do it?

God no...
The guy has drop foot from nerve damage..
You give up an OL with a pick instead.

 

[seahawkfreak]

Again, Thomas never said anything about feeding his family. Coug either misheard him, misremembered, or just made it up.

Ok, taking care of his family, pretty much the same point and this is semantics being argued.

 

[Popeyejones]

Again, Thomas never said anything about feeding his family. Coug either misheard him, misremembered, or just made it up.

Ok, taking care of his family, pretty much the same point and this is semantics being argued.

Don't mean to be argumentative, but I don't think it's even remotely the same thing.

Think about it this way, someone says "They think I'm worth 10 million a year and I think I'm worth 15 million a year, ..."

Then either branch out to:

#1: "...I want the 15 million a year because I think I'm worth that and at the end of the day me and my family come first."

#2: "...I want the 15 million a year because 10 million a year isn't enough for my children to be able to eat."


#1 is an incredibly logical end to that sentence. We can dislike it or like it, but it makes sense.

#2 is an incredibly stupid end to that sentence that is worthy of ridicule.

Seriously, they're not even remotely the same thing, and pretending that they are (or even worse, pretending that he said #2 when he said #1) is, IMO, really unfair to him.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

There's a couple social dynamics going on here;

Yes someone who makes 10-15M a year saying "I need to take care of my family" is a little eye roll inducing. I mean, if you save your money you can take care of 5-6 generations of kids and grandkids, etc with that kind of money.

But, we have to remember where most of the players come from, poor backgrounds where they literally are responsible for taking care of not only most of their immediate family, but extended family. So it matters how much they maximize their contracts..........it really does.

It also sounds better than "hey I just wanna make as much as I can." Which is fine btw, I never fault a player for leveraging as much guaranteed money as he can. Their window for making money is very limited, they're dumb if they don't try to maximize that.

 

[massari]

LB Jaylon Smith straight up for ET. Do you do it?

God no...
The guy has drop foot from nerve damage..
You give up an OL with a pick instead.

I don't know, he's risky but maybe worth it.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/fishsports/status/959116791837609984[/tweet]

I don't think they'd give up an OL like Martin, Frederick or Smith. Maybe La'el Collins+2nd for ET...

I'd be interested in taking a chance on DE/OLB Randy Gregory as part of some sort of package as well...

 

[Sports Hernia]

LB Jaylon Smith straight up for ET. Do you do it?

LOL, oh wait, you’re serious??? The guy has a serious case of drop foot, and a lot of *allas fans don’t want him on the field period. For me talks would “start” with Zach Martin plus high draft picks. I’d still rather re-up ET though.

 

[Sports Hernia]

LB Jaylon Smith straight up for ET. Do you do it?

God no...
The guy has drop foot from nerve damage..
You give up an OL with a pick instead.

I don't know, he's risky but maybe worth it.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/fishsports/status/959116791837609984[/tweet]

I don't think they'd give up an OL like Martin, Frederick or Smith. Maybe La'el Collins+2nd for ET...

I'd be interested in taking a chance on DE/OLB Randy Gregory as part of some sort of package as well...

No Martin plus goodies, Then no deal. They don’t want to give up top OL then they don’t get the best FS in the league.
Seattle doesn’t HAVE TO deal ET. JS’s job isnt to make the *allas Cowboys better, it’s to make the Hawks better.

 

[Sun Tzu]

LB Jaylon Smith straight up for ET. Do you do it?

Yes, but only if it is the best offer out there.
I am of the opinion that Earl should be moved for the best offer, regardless of what the offer is. In 2011 and 2012 when you could see this team had a shot to be something special, you could see that they were building something, a big part of that was the mentality of the players and the culture of the team. They were hungry and there seemed to be a brotherhood, particularly on the defensive side. That has been lost. It started with Bennett constantly complaining about his contract, then the signing of Williams, talks about Irvin's contract, and Kam's holdout. Last year we had Sherman's antics, and now we have Earl openly talking about playing elsewhere and an apparent conflict with Wags. Pete cleaned house with the coaches; now it is time to clear out any players who no longer have that fire and no longer fit a winning team culture. Rebuild the culture first so that the new guys who come in, draft and free agent, are coming into a winning environment.

 

[Popeyejones]

Where is this Jaylon Smith thing coming from?

Pretending it's real, where would Jaylon Smith play?

After the Hawks trade ET3 for Jaylon Smith are they gonna get rid of KJ Wright or Bobby Wagner, because Smith definitely doesn't play SAM.

Do you guys even Seahawk?

:2thumbs:

 

[Sun Tzu]

Where is this Jaylon Smith thing coming from?

Pretending it's real, where would Jaylon Smith play?

After the Hawks trade ET3 for Jaylon Smith are they gonna get rid of KJ Wright or Bobby Wagner, because Smith definitely doesn't play SAM.

Do you guys even Seahawk?

:2thumbs:

You notice that I said, only if it is the best offer, and commented at this point I trade him away regardless of the return. It clears cap (so the return is actually Smith plus free agent/s), and begins to repair team culture. Read first, respond second.
I could go into a half dozen points as to why the second comment is narrow minded but I'll leave it at 3. First, linebacker is currently the biggest depth issue for Seattle (anyone notice some special teams weaknesses this year?). Second, when Jaylon Smith came out he was considered a potential SAM if he gained some size/strength. Third, KJ has and can play SAM, and, as he slows down, moving him to SAM and reducing his snap count is not necessarily a bad thing (if Tical were still around I'd get a lecture on KJ's cover skills from the WILL right about now), particularly if it allows you to get your best 11 football players on the field.

 

[TwistedHusky]

It would be an utterly stupid move by the FO to make a trade like that.

But I suppose I wouldn't put it past them.

The idea of trading for a linebacker, in spite of our challenges with having an adequate SAM is probably one of the most ridiculous uses of trade capital I can imagine.

We have very specific challenges being able to scout or develop certain kinds of players. LB is not one of those. We haven't found an adequate SAM because we really are not drafting to fill the slot, but we have a pretty solid success rate with LBs in the draft if we put reasonable draft slots to fill them.

Leave aside the idiocy of trading a HOF safety in his prime.

Our ability to draft effective players at certain positions is well documented. Oddly enough, some of those positions are massive weaknesses on this team. If you wanted to trade for anyone, you trade for that.

Trading for almost any LB would be moronic by the Seahawks. Only thing worse would be trading for a DB.

 

[hawk45]

Unless he has a no trade clause, Earl has no say if or where he could be traded.

True, but if it's a team Earl doesn't want to sign a long term deal with, then that diminished his trade value for us.

Best case scenario is he's happy with the team he's traded to, and they agree upon an extension. That means a higher or more picks for us..........cause if we trade him to Cleveland then he's going to just play out his deal and leave.

Not all front offices are great at maximizing their leverage, meaning that even if what you say about Earl playing one year there is true, it doesn't necessarily follow that we fail to get all or most of what we want out of a deal. I 100% agree that if Earl is demonstrative about disliking the team, that it would be the centerpiece of the negotiation strategy of that team. On the other hand, I give you...the Cleveland Browns.

Secondly, sports history is littered with players who had a preferred destination, and who overcame that preference because of the stupid money waved in their face. Smart organizations try not to be held hostage and wave stupid money, but again I give you...the Cleveland Browns.

Finally, if a team is a preferred destination, and knows it, they have incentive to *not* give up a king's ransom in trade, since they have the option of waiting for free agency. They may pay a penalty in a bidding war, or they may not depending upon how strong the players prefers them, but they may decide a few mil overpay is worth it to avoid sacrificing players and/or draft picks.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

Finally, if a team is a preferred destination, and knows it, they have incentive to *not* give up a king's ransom in trade, since they have the option of waiting for free agency. They may pay a penalty in a bidding war, or they may not depending upon how strong the players prefers them, but they may decide a few mil overpay is worth it to avoid sacrificing players and/or draft picks.

For sure, and I said this earlier in this thread. Earl already tipped his hand quite loudly that Dallas is his preferred destination.

Obviously $$$$ talks, so if another couple teams show him the cash with a massive extension, I'm sure he'd change his tune.

But yes, the less teams obviously the less leverage our FO has with trying to maximize Earl's trade value.

 

[hawk45]

Do people think the Broncos should trade Von Miller because he's getting older and slowing down? How about the Falcons and Julio Jones?.

I bet if you went to Bronco and Falcon fan sites, there would absolutely be people saying this.

Every player, even the best players in the league get to the point in their career where their team has to determine whether their salary justifies their play, and potential for injury.

I think we'd probably have to go to Broncos and Falcons fan sites to find out (and neither of us care enough to do so), but personally I'd be really surprised if there were a bunch of Bronco and Falcons fans arguing that their teams should trade Miller or Jones, and that's even with their higher salaries.

And of course totally agreed that everyone gets to a point in their career where a team has to question if their play justifies their salary, I just in no way think that someone's age 28 season is when people start making that calculation. I think we'd be hard pressed to come up with an age that isn't 28 that's generally thought of as being squarely in the heart of a player's prime.

And there aren't many examples of multiple All Pros right in their primes that are getting cast off or traded. In the last 10-15 years literally the only one I can think of is Ndamukong Suh. Maybe there's one or two more? It just doesn't happen. When you have an All Pro in his prime you hang on to him, and pay him what he's worth to do so.

Yeah, Popeye's take seems to me to best represent conventional thinking WRT all-pros at age 28, and IMO it's really not even a close argument. 30 and up is a much different story.

Yes, Belichick might be one who would do it differently, but Belichick also has the ability to remake his team on both sides of the ball seemingly overnight to fit next week's opponent. He seems to have the ability with Brady to win with or without a dominant defense. I don't believe that Pete can win without a top-tier defense, and I don't believe Pete wants to win without a top-tier defense. So we'd have to believe that Pete either doesn't think Earl plays a pivotal role, or that Pete is completely swayed by Earl's injury history.

Earl has missed games, but he had a shoulder injury he recovered from to play at 100%, and a broken leg he recovered from quickly to play at 100%. He looked better than ever this year. Pete just watched a player play the best FS in the league and have a year up there with his best at age 28. Pete is looking at 2 risks, the same risks every team looks at when facing these situations (and the reason why trading all-pros under 30 doesn't happen much):

1) The risk that 28-year-old Earl can't perform that well due to injury/other for another few years
2) The risk that even with a draft pick or two he cannot add enough value to the team the offset the loss of his all-pro

Now it depends on how high the picks and what the upcoming draft class looks like, but if a first and second rounder turn into merely solid starters and at least one doesn't turn into a field-tilter (is by far the likeliest scenario) I know which door I'm rooting for.