So Tom Brady kept his word. He wasn't a pig at the trough during contract extension negotiations with the Patriots. He could have been, given he has won three Super Bowls by age 27. We all know Brady could have asked for anything and won the public relations battle with the team. Peyton Manning's making $14.2 million a year, with the Colts, and he signed that deal a year ago, Brady could have said. You guys are high if you think I'm doing a deal for $10 million a year -- especially after ESPN just raised the ante ridiculously with the new broadcast contract.
But Tom Brady gets it. He knows there have been only so many sporting Camelots in recent history, and he's smack-dab in the middle of one of them. Five days after this most recent Super Bowl triumph, Brady was vegging out in Honolulu on the deck outside his hotel room, talking on the phone about what he wanted from the contract extension destined to get done this offseason.
"To be the highest-paid, or anything like that, is not going to make me feel any better,'' he told me. "That's not what makes me happy. In this game, the more one player gets, the more he takes away from what others can get. Is it going to make me feel any better to make an extra million, which, after taxes, is about $500,000? That million might be more important to the team.''
Read those words over again. I mean, how many guys in sports history, on the verge of signing the biggest contract they'll probably ever negotiate, have said to the team: "Hey Mr. Kraft! I really don't want that much money. Just be somewhat fair, OK? And have a nice day ..."?
The mark of Brady's self-assuredness and humility about his place in the football galaxy is that when he signed his six-year, $60 million contract in the middle of last week, I'm told he didn't even go out and celebrate. Neither he, his family nor his representative leaked the contract; I'm also told Brady's dad found out about the deal from a reporter.
The deal is about $4 million a year less than Manning's, $3 million a year less than Mike Vick's, who's really going to have to go out and perform for that deal to pay off for Atlanta. Give or take a few BMWs, Brady's contract averages out to about what Donovan McNabb and Chad Pennington make.
Let's see how, year to year, Brady's new contract compares to Peyton Manning's deal. I contrast these deals because Brady and Manning are the best two quarterbacks in football, in some order.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=310 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=300><!--tablemaker--><TABLE class=cnnTMbox cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=560 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=cnnIEBoxTitle></TD></TR><TR><TD class=cnnTMcontent><!-- tabled content area --><TABLE class=cnnTM cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR class=cnnIEHdrRowBG><TD class=cnnIEColHdrC>Season</TD><TD class=cnnIEColHdrC>Manning's cap number</TD><TD class=cnnIEColHdrC style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px">Brady's cap number</TD></TR><TR class=cnnIERowAltBG><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>2005</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>$8.43 million</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px">$3.417 million</TD></TR><TR><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>2006</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>$10.05 million</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px">$8.817 million</TD></TR><TR class=cnnIERowAltBG><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>2007</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>$7.69 million</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px">$10.817 million</TD></TR><TR><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>2008</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>$18.19 million</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px">$12.817 million</TD></TR><TR class=cnnIERowAltBG><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>2009</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>$20.69 million</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px">$12.817 million</TD></TR><TR><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>2010</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>$19.95 million</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px">$11.317 milion</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
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Let's assume each guy plays out his contract. (A bad assumption, particularly in Manning's case, because the Colts won't want to pay 18 percent of their cap total during the last three years of Manning's deal to one player.) But if you assume each player stays with the team until the end of the deal, Brady's contract is so much more team-friendly, obviously. He'll take up -- and I'm educated-guessing here -- the following percentages of the Patriots' cap over the next six years (keep in mind the cap will bump up significantly with the new network deal beginning next season): four percent, eight percent, 11 percent, 12 percent, 11 percent, 9.5 percent.
Which means the Patriots won't ever be able to say that in Brady's prime he took up too much salary space for the team to pay Richard Seymour and Deion Branch ... and, in the future, maybe Ben Watson and Dan Koppen and The New Running Back of 2009 and Eugene Wilson and whoever else surfaces that the team really needs.
What I really like about this, too, is it says to the rest of the players that the two big leaders have sacrificed personal gain for the team. Tedy Bruschi, whether he ever plays football again or not (and I still have no idea if he will), showed it last year by signing a four-year, $8.1 million contract with the Patriots while he had a deal twice that big on the horizon if he had put his foot down or chosen the free-agency path.
Now Brady. The Pats said no over the last couple of years to big money for Ty Law and Lawyer Milloy and to lesser money for Troy Brown and Joe Andruzzi, so they're able to distinguish between what they really need and what they think, based on experience, they can do without.
I'm not saying Seymour, who clearly is next in the financial line, should take 60 percent of his worth. But I am saying he should look at the landscape and think about whether one more Super Bowl win might cement his Hall of Fame bust someday and make him a lifetime legend in a rabid six-state region ... and he should consider that, like Bruschi and Brady, he shouldn't try to gouge the Patriots for every last dime.
This team has shown it will spend to stay great by adding good middle-class contributors such as the guy they'll sign today or tomorrow: free-agent linebacker Chad Brown. He's not the assassin he used to be, of course. But Brown, who'll likely get $4 million for two years, will be the new Roman Phifer, the 30-snap-a-game guy who can play inside or outside and make sure the possible loss of Bruschi would hurt a little bit less.
The Patriots have $4 million for a Chad Brown, and they may have $1.5 million left to sign the top player cut in the June market, because Bruschi and Brady see the big picture. I know it's absurd to think of the Patriots winning yet another Super Bowl next season, but I'll tell you this: They just had one hell of a week.
Quote of the Week
"Brett's never been undervalued -- I mean, he has a $100 million contract -- so how is it his place to say what Javon should be doing?''
-- Former Packers safety Darren Sharper, now with Minnesota, to S.I's Mike Silver about Brett Favre's claim that teammate Javon Walker shouldn't miss offseason workouts to protest the inactivity in negotiations for a new contract with Green Bay. Walker has two years left on his existing deal.
Stat of the Week
A comparison of the last three expansion teams shows just how horrendously the Cleveland Browns have drafted since they returned to the NFL in 1999.
Records of Jacksonville, Carolina and Cleveland in their first six seasons, including playoff games:
Jacksonville -- 60-44
Carolina -- 46-52
Cleveland -- 30-67
Number of Pro Bowl players drafted in the first three rounds of the first six seasons:
Jacksonville -- Five
Carolina -- Two
Cleveland -- Zero
Of the 20 players Cleveland has drafted in the first three rounds of its six inaugural drafts, only three are listed as starters on the offseason depth chart: center Jeff Faine (first round, 2003), safety Sean Jones (second round, 2004) and wide receiver Dennis Northcutt (second round, 2000).
That is some disgraceful player evaluation and development.
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think I think the Cowboys did a very smart thing by naming 35-year-old Jeff Ireland their director of college scouting. This game is about drafting smart. I know nobody out there could distinguish Jeff Ireland from Joe Scotland, but I've seen Ireland in action (preparing for the 2001 draft), and he is decisive, opinionated, open-minded and the ultimate worker bee. When I think of Ireland, I think of the football equivalent of Theo Epstein. With Ireland and underrated jack-of-all-trades scout Bryan Broaddus in house, Jerry Jones has the scouting staff in good shape for whenever Bill Parcells departs.
2. I think that if Deion Sanders doesn't want to go to training camp with the Ravens at age 37, they will be absolutely nuts to sign him. Sanders could pull that stuff when he could last a full 16-game season. But he's so fragile now that trusting him to be in great shape on opening day would be foolish for the Ravens.
3. I think I disagree with those who believe Doug Flutie's a bad signing for the Patriots. He's a me-first guy, you think. Well, my take is that Flutie is me-first when he thinks (as he did with Rob Johnson in Buffalo and Drew Brees in San Diego) he's clearly the better quarterback. But he will go to Foxboro knowing the absolute best he can do is be No. 2. And if he doesn't bring his A game, as they say, he'll be lucky to be No. 3 behind Rohan Davey. Mark my words: Flutie will be a perfect angel in New England.
4. I think I am totally befuddled as to why Brett Favre injected himself into the Javon Walker holdout.
5. I think if you were surprised the Eagles whacked Freddie Mitchell, you are missing a screw. I loved how Andy Reid said in the release statement that cutting Mitchell now would give the receiver a chance to catch on with another team. What a guffaw. Cutting Mitchell before the draft would have given him a great chance to catch on with another team. He'll end up somewhere, but it won't be nearly the opportunity he'd have had before teams drafted and signed the Ike Hilliards of the world.
6. I think I still am shaking my head over the Redskins trading first-, third- and fourth-round picks for the 25th selection in a mediocre draft.
7. I think I don't want to jump all over the kid, but Kellen Winslow deserves whatever he gets in Cleveland. I happen to think the Browns will hang onto him and try to rework his contract so the team isn't screwed. But here's a guy who was still rehabbing from a broken leg then took up motorcycle-riding, and, evidently, motorcycle-trickery, doing wheelies and all this dangerous stuff before he's even very good at riding. It's downright stupid.
8. I think it's absurd Shawne Merriman isn't in camp in San Diego. Think of the last time a rookie got hurt then got totally jobbed on his first contract. Right. You can't think of one.
9. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
a. Memo to whoever is trying to turn golfer Natalie Gulbis into the new Anna Kournikova: It's not working.
b. I didn't miss TV in Ireland. I did miss baseball, real and rotisserie. I could really use a good outfield right about now. Looks like my seventh-round pick of Barry Bonds is going to be a waste. Very nice Wade Miller outing last night, even in a loss, for the Cherry Hose.
c. I strongly, strongly recommend 102 Minutes, the excruciatingly human and painful account of the demise of the Twin Towers. Incredibly detailed reporting, and I found it a Grisham-esque page-turner. Be ready to mist up at times, but you will really learn things you didn't know.
d. Do not gloat about the Yankees, all you anti-Yanks out there. Five months to go.
e. You really have to get to Ireland.
f. Coffeenerdness: Until we got to Dublin for the last two days of the trip, the coffee in Ireland was positively abysmal, the only daily disappointment of the trip. So weak, like coffee-flavored water. But Dublin had a couple of nice coffee bars ("Rio'' was our favorite) with legit dark roast. If that's the biggest complaint you have about a place, I'd say it's a pretty darned good country, folks.
10. I loved the Kentucky Derby. What mayhem out there. What excitement. You see in a 20-horse field that it's folly to call any horse a prohibitive favorite, because there are always a few car wrecks out there. But the drama of a schmoe winning such a big race -- well, I think it's great for sports.
Peter King S.I.com
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But Tom Brady gets it. He knows there have been only so many sporting Camelots in recent history, and he's smack-dab in the middle of one of them. Five days after this most recent Super Bowl triumph, Brady was vegging out in Honolulu on the deck outside his hotel room, talking on the phone about what he wanted from the contract extension destined to get done this offseason.
"To be the highest-paid, or anything like that, is not going to make me feel any better,'' he told me. "That's not what makes me happy. In this game, the more one player gets, the more he takes away from what others can get. Is it going to make me feel any better to make an extra million, which, after taxes, is about $500,000? That million might be more important to the team.''
Read those words over again. I mean, how many guys in sports history, on the verge of signing the biggest contract they'll probably ever negotiate, have said to the team: "Hey Mr. Kraft! I really don't want that much money. Just be somewhat fair, OK? And have a nice day ..."?
The mark of Brady's self-assuredness and humility about his place in the football galaxy is that when he signed his six-year, $60 million contract in the middle of last week, I'm told he didn't even go out and celebrate. Neither he, his family nor his representative leaked the contract; I'm also told Brady's dad found out about the deal from a reporter.
The deal is about $4 million a year less than Manning's, $3 million a year less than Mike Vick's, who's really going to have to go out and perform for that deal to pay off for Atlanta. Give or take a few BMWs, Brady's contract averages out to about what Donovan McNabb and Chad Pennington make.
Let's see how, year to year, Brady's new contract compares to Peyton Manning's deal. I contrast these deals because Brady and Manning are the best two quarterbacks in football, in some order.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=310 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=300><!--tablemaker--><TABLE class=cnnTMbox cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=560 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=cnnIEBoxTitle></TD></TR><TR><TD class=cnnTMcontent><!-- tabled content area --><TABLE class=cnnTM cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR class=cnnIEHdrRowBG><TD class=cnnIEColHdrC>Season</TD><TD class=cnnIEColHdrC>Manning's cap number</TD><TD class=cnnIEColHdrC style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px">Brady's cap number</TD></TR><TR class=cnnIERowAltBG><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>2005</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>$8.43 million</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px">$3.417 million</TD></TR><TR><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>2006</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>$10.05 million</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px">$8.817 million</TD></TR><TR class=cnnIERowAltBG><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>2007</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>$7.69 million</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px">$10.817 million</TD></TR><TR><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>2008</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>$18.19 million</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px">$12.817 million</TD></TR><TR class=cnnIERowAltBG><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>2009</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>$20.69 million</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px">$12.817 million</TD></TR><TR><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>2010</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC>$19.95 million</TD><TD class=cnnIEColTxtC style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px">$11.317 milion</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
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Let's assume each guy plays out his contract. (A bad assumption, particularly in Manning's case, because the Colts won't want to pay 18 percent of their cap total during the last three years of Manning's deal to one player.) But if you assume each player stays with the team until the end of the deal, Brady's contract is so much more team-friendly, obviously. He'll take up -- and I'm educated-guessing here -- the following percentages of the Patriots' cap over the next six years (keep in mind the cap will bump up significantly with the new network deal beginning next season): four percent, eight percent, 11 percent, 12 percent, 11 percent, 9.5 percent.
Which means the Patriots won't ever be able to say that in Brady's prime he took up too much salary space for the team to pay Richard Seymour and Deion Branch ... and, in the future, maybe Ben Watson and Dan Koppen and The New Running Back of 2009 and Eugene Wilson and whoever else surfaces that the team really needs.
What I really like about this, too, is it says to the rest of the players that the two big leaders have sacrificed personal gain for the team. Tedy Bruschi, whether he ever plays football again or not (and I still have no idea if he will), showed it last year by signing a four-year, $8.1 million contract with the Patriots while he had a deal twice that big on the horizon if he had put his foot down or chosen the free-agency path.
Now Brady. The Pats said no over the last couple of years to big money for Ty Law and Lawyer Milloy and to lesser money for Troy Brown and Joe Andruzzi, so they're able to distinguish between what they really need and what they think, based on experience, they can do without.
I'm not saying Seymour, who clearly is next in the financial line, should take 60 percent of his worth. But I am saying he should look at the landscape and think about whether one more Super Bowl win might cement his Hall of Fame bust someday and make him a lifetime legend in a rabid six-state region ... and he should consider that, like Bruschi and Brady, he shouldn't try to gouge the Patriots for every last dime.
This team has shown it will spend to stay great by adding good middle-class contributors such as the guy they'll sign today or tomorrow: free-agent linebacker Chad Brown. He's not the assassin he used to be, of course. But Brown, who'll likely get $4 million for two years, will be the new Roman Phifer, the 30-snap-a-game guy who can play inside or outside and make sure the possible loss of Bruschi would hurt a little bit less.
The Patriots have $4 million for a Chad Brown, and they may have $1.5 million left to sign the top player cut in the June market, because Bruschi and Brady see the big picture. I know it's absurd to think of the Patriots winning yet another Super Bowl next season, but I'll tell you this: They just had one hell of a week.
Quote of the Week
"Brett's never been undervalued -- I mean, he has a $100 million contract -- so how is it his place to say what Javon should be doing?''
-- Former Packers safety Darren Sharper, now with Minnesota, to S.I's Mike Silver about Brett Favre's claim that teammate Javon Walker shouldn't miss offseason workouts to protest the inactivity in negotiations for a new contract with Green Bay. Walker has two years left on his existing deal.
Stat of the Week
A comparison of the last three expansion teams shows just how horrendously the Cleveland Browns have drafted since they returned to the NFL in 1999.
Records of Jacksonville, Carolina and Cleveland in their first six seasons, including playoff games:
Jacksonville -- 60-44
Carolina -- 46-52
Cleveland -- 30-67
Number of Pro Bowl players drafted in the first three rounds of the first six seasons:
Jacksonville -- Five
Carolina -- Two
Cleveland -- Zero
Of the 20 players Cleveland has drafted in the first three rounds of its six inaugural drafts, only three are listed as starters on the offseason depth chart: center Jeff Faine (first round, 2003), safety Sean Jones (second round, 2004) and wide receiver Dennis Northcutt (second round, 2000).
That is some disgraceful player evaluation and development.
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think I think the Cowboys did a very smart thing by naming 35-year-old Jeff Ireland their director of college scouting. This game is about drafting smart. I know nobody out there could distinguish Jeff Ireland from Joe Scotland, but I've seen Ireland in action (preparing for the 2001 draft), and he is decisive, opinionated, open-minded and the ultimate worker bee. When I think of Ireland, I think of the football equivalent of Theo Epstein. With Ireland and underrated jack-of-all-trades scout Bryan Broaddus in house, Jerry Jones has the scouting staff in good shape for whenever Bill Parcells departs.
2. I think that if Deion Sanders doesn't want to go to training camp with the Ravens at age 37, they will be absolutely nuts to sign him. Sanders could pull that stuff when he could last a full 16-game season. But he's so fragile now that trusting him to be in great shape on opening day would be foolish for the Ravens.
3. I think I disagree with those who believe Doug Flutie's a bad signing for the Patriots. He's a me-first guy, you think. Well, my take is that Flutie is me-first when he thinks (as he did with Rob Johnson in Buffalo and Drew Brees in San Diego) he's clearly the better quarterback. But he will go to Foxboro knowing the absolute best he can do is be No. 2. And if he doesn't bring his A game, as they say, he'll be lucky to be No. 3 behind Rohan Davey. Mark my words: Flutie will be a perfect angel in New England.
4. I think I am totally befuddled as to why Brett Favre injected himself into the Javon Walker holdout.
5. I think if you were surprised the Eagles whacked Freddie Mitchell, you are missing a screw. I loved how Andy Reid said in the release statement that cutting Mitchell now would give the receiver a chance to catch on with another team. What a guffaw. Cutting Mitchell before the draft would have given him a great chance to catch on with another team. He'll end up somewhere, but it won't be nearly the opportunity he'd have had before teams drafted and signed the Ike Hilliards of the world.
6. I think I still am shaking my head over the Redskins trading first-, third- and fourth-round picks for the 25th selection in a mediocre draft.
7. I think I don't want to jump all over the kid, but Kellen Winslow deserves whatever he gets in Cleveland. I happen to think the Browns will hang onto him and try to rework his contract so the team isn't screwed. But here's a guy who was still rehabbing from a broken leg then took up motorcycle-riding, and, evidently, motorcycle-trickery, doing wheelies and all this dangerous stuff before he's even very good at riding. It's downright stupid.
8. I think it's absurd Shawne Merriman isn't in camp in San Diego. Think of the last time a rookie got hurt then got totally jobbed on his first contract. Right. You can't think of one.
9. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
a. Memo to whoever is trying to turn golfer Natalie Gulbis into the new Anna Kournikova: It's not working.
b. I didn't miss TV in Ireland. I did miss baseball, real and rotisserie. I could really use a good outfield right about now. Looks like my seventh-round pick of Barry Bonds is going to be a waste. Very nice Wade Miller outing last night, even in a loss, for the Cherry Hose.
c. I strongly, strongly recommend 102 Minutes, the excruciatingly human and painful account of the demise of the Twin Towers. Incredibly detailed reporting, and I found it a Grisham-esque page-turner. Be ready to mist up at times, but you will really learn things you didn't know.
d. Do not gloat about the Yankees, all you anti-Yanks out there. Five months to go.
e. You really have to get to Ireland.
f. Coffeenerdness: Until we got to Dublin for the last two days of the trip, the coffee in Ireland was positively abysmal, the only daily disappointment of the trip. So weak, like coffee-flavored water. But Dublin had a couple of nice coffee bars ("Rio'' was our favorite) with legit dark roast. If that's the biggest complaint you have about a place, I'd say it's a pretty darned good country, folks.
10. I loved the Kentucky Derby. What mayhem out there. What excitement. You see in a 20-horse field that it's folly to call any horse a prohibitive favorite, because there are always a few car wrecks out there. But the drama of a schmoe winning such a big race -- well, I think it's great for sports.
Peter King S.I.com
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