The bolded section is where you are totally off. Brees is not demanding anything. He signed a contract with Condon's sports agency to handle his negotiations. I assure you that it includes verbiage alluding to the fact that Condon makes the calls on the process.

Surely Brees himself is overseeing the negotiations or do you think he just signed a deal with Condon, which states that Condon can freely handle the negotiations as he best sees fit, and meanwhile Brees takes off for a round of golf?

I'm not saying that you aren't right, but it seems a bit strange if Brees has completely removed himself from the negotiation process or is that the way Condon's agency prefers to handle these things?

In my opinion (however misguided it might be), the contract is ultimately between Brees and the Saints, and the agent(s) and Saints' personnel involved are only acting as intermediaries between the two sides. Therefore, I think it is correct to say that "Brees demanded" a certain contract, because his agents are only speaking in his behalf.

That is the way all agencies handle these things. Players hires agents to handle everything. If it wasn't for agents most players would play for much less. The Agent protects the player's interest by maximizing the contract. That's his job and to be able to do his job the player has to agree to be hands off.

And that player can always decide to fire the agent he is with. With how active Drew was in the lock-out you really thing he is not sitting at the table with his agent saying yes or no... really. Lets face it Drew is not who we thought he was but that is our fault no one could hold themselves to the standard that we put on Drew (Bresus)...

You can't just fire your agent.

Sure you can. It happens all the time.

Not in the middle of contract negotiations. The only time I have heard of players firing agents is when the agent couldn't get what the player wanted. I have never heard of a player firing an agent for getting too much. That's just plain dumb.

That is the way all agencies handle these things. Players hires agents to handle everything. If it wasn't for agents most players would play for much less. The Agent protects the player's interest by maximizing the contract. That's his job and to be able to do his job the player has to agree to be hands off.

I can understand your though process, but I can't completely agree with your perception of the issue.

If, as you claim, Brees has left the whole matter of negotiating his contract in the hands of Condon without giving him any guidelines to follow or reserving any oversight over the decisions made - why would Brees make a statement like "I want to see the team's competitiveness preserved" and directly stating that it is important to take into account the signing of other key FAs when negotiating the details of his contract?

I mean, if he couldn't affect the way the actual negotiations proceeded or the details involved, why would he make such a statement, which implied he could in effect do so?

And in what way does what he said counter what is going on? The fact is that even if an $18 million deal per year was agreed upon it would have killed any chance at signing both Nicks and Colston. Now they have a chance with the lower tag amount.

Besides, he can mean what he said but that doesn't mean it was possible.