Saints use franchise tender on Brees; QB's figure $14.4 million
 

Brees was designated an exclusive rights franchise player, which prevents Brees from having the ability to negotiate with other teams and secures him as the Saints quarterback in 2012.

The Saints' decision to use their tag on Brees adds another twist to what has been a surprisingly contentious round of negotiations between the Saints and their Super Bowl MVP quarterback.

NFL Network insider Jason La Canfora reported earlier this week that frustration had built with Brees, and the team planned to franchise him barring a late development, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.

The franchise tag figure for quarterbacks in 2012 is $14.4 million.

The development with Brees comes in the wake of a "bounty" scandal that has rocked the Saints organization. The NFL revealed Friday that 22-27 Saints defenders and then-defensive coordinator Gregg Williams administered a "pay for performance" system from 2009-2011 that included "bounty" payments.

They just had to put that bounty **** in there huh..keep dumping fuel on the fire.

So much for Brees wanting to keep the F'ing team in tact.
Sincerely,
Carl Nicks, Marques Colston

Yeah, as long as i get my money. I wonder how people will feel about him in New Orleans.

If they were offering him $18+ million a year in a multi year deal and he didn't take it, he and his agent were simply not smart. Now, God forbid, if he has a serious injury, he will never get another shot at that kind of money. And it's not impossible to franchise him again next year. Making the window of him getting paid $40+ million guaranteed even less likely. As far as the Saints are concerned, they did what they had to do. Now, at the worst, they can keep Nicks or Colston.

I wonder if he was thinking this just might be his last big money contract ! Greedy Greedy Greedy !

Just shows he should have taken 18 mil when he had the chance, now he gets an even lower figure

He's got more mouths to feed. A million dollars doesn't go as far as it used to.

Regardless of this contract speculation people should keep in mind that this man helped bring a championship to the Saints.

Nobody knows what's truly going on with these contract talks except the people involved in creating it. It's weird to see some people turn on him after what he's done for us as fans.

Well at that tag number the Saints have $3.5M more to use on Nicks' or Colston's contract than they would've with the $18M they offered Brees.


http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A..._pAQHbuwUQ&t=1

I just think this is funny...maybe one of my all-time favorite posts...can't explain it. :)

Can the sky fall yet?

Oh...btw. If all this stuff I'm reading is true, we are in deep doo-doo.

Now we will have a very unhappy QB and everybody in the world wondering wtf was he thinking.

I think the BS regarding the bounties is just that...BS. Here's what I don't understand...maybe somebody can clue me in.

Why do we have one sport...boxing...where the goal is to hurt the other guy and that is OK. Why doesn't the NFL just say that people getting hurt is part of the game and just try to eliminate the cheap shots. Legal hits can hurt people too,.

I tell you one thing...if they keep on people are gonna lose interest. People want to see the hits. Turn it into powderpuff and people will lose interest.

...and this bounty crap has been going on forever. Why do they want to make a deal out of it now? It is the nature of their business. Reminds me of every baseball player and his brother doing steroids and they just picked on the superstars.

My $.02

They want to make a deal out of it now because some twat handed them a 50k page diary about it, so they had to investigate it and make an example out of the Saints' franchise.

Another stupid angle to all of this, if the NFL is so worried about its image, then why did THEY break the story like they did? Seems that all the uproar is about only 2 things on the pay to play sheet. Knocking a player out and putting them on a stretcher.

No mention of any of the other things on the sheet. They could have broke the Bounty story but made it more like the big deal is breaking NFL rules on betting. Instead they singled out certain items knowing the uproar it would start.

They tarnished themselves as much as us IMO.

I love me some Drew Brees, but I applaud the Saints for this. One player should not hold an entire franchise hostage. There is a big part of me that wishes they would have let him become a FA.

Believe me, I'm not hatin' on Drew...but Manning deal was simply stupid, and we were offering pretty much the same thing Brady signed. If that's not good enough then oh well.

I agree.