No movement on Brees talks - Brees has had highest paid player in NFL deal on table since 6/11/12
 

Per Larry Holder

"With a week remaining until the July 16 deadline, there's been no movement on the Drew Brees contract talks, via a league source.

Brees has had a deal on the table for weeks to make him highest paid player in the NFL, via league source: "Ball is in (Brees') court."

Three times Brees has had deals on the table to make him the highest paid player: leading up to 2011 season, March 2012 and June 11, 2012."

https://twitter.com/LHolderCBS

Gotta wonder what golden parachute he is wanting?

For the first time, this has me worried. I know he'll play with the tag, but if this happens this could be the last year he's a Saint

Makes you wonder why everyone keeps repeating the same line, "pay the man". I don't know what Brees and his agent are using to calculate what they think he deserves, but offering highest paid player deals three times sounds like what he deserves. Yet they want more. I'm sorry but there have to be limits, no matter what you've achieved. And yes, I get it, the agent's job is to milk as much as they can out of you, but this is absurd. I've long said a deal will get done, and still believe that, but I would have thought the money he's been offered would have been enough.

-Amen, bro.

Dang Condon has got us by the balls for sure.

I think this further corroborates the theory he's in contact with Sean Payton.
I'm as nervous as anyone else and wish this would just get done.

He wants "more" up front. I don't blame him and won't, as I've said, until he fails to sign the deal. I don't blame him for holding out until the last second ticks off the clock, but not a second beyond that.

And I am also in line with the theory that he and Sean are probably communicating and that may have a lot to do with why he's waiting until the last minute to sign.

There's a reason why the Patriots have tried to stay away from Tom Condon players for years.

+1

Is this the same "league source" that leaked all the OVERWHELMING evidence regarding a Bounty System involving 22-27 Saints players?

You sure it is Condon...

The league has to approve any contract that gets agreed to. The grievance regarding the franchise tag could have a few additional clauses that either side wants to add.

This is sure getting ugly, we tried to sign a contract a year ago but he declined and now he has declined two offers for highest paid player, pending a 3rd offer

They are milking us for every penny, the money that will be needed at other positions when they begin to struggle, we will now not be able to address those positions

We don't know exactly what is holding the deal up, maybe its the finer details of it, maybe Drew wants a bit more than they have offered. Or like someone mentioned maybe its the up front $$$ or the guaranteed $$$. Whatever it is, I hope they get it hammered out soon and we can relax and get ready for training camp to begin.

I think he wants a load up front. A huge sum up front and he signs.

It's about the guaranteed money...

...and I'll say it - the deal won't be worth it, play him under the franchise tag this year and turn him loose next season...

If he get's hurt at his age and his health hx, we will be crippled with that contract...

We've got some up and coming players that are gonna need salary cap room for their contracts...

I just don't like where this is going and Brees needs to be the voice of reason and close this deal...

Isn't that what got the Skins and Cowgals in trouble during the "UNCAPPED" season. They lost cap room this season due to front loaded contracts the league had approved.

Be glad he is holding out.......

If we wasn't, it would have been his thumb that was broken and not Chase's...

Best thing to do is to ignore all the rhetoric from the people you would normally not pay any attention to, but because "Brees contract" is in their article or tweet everyone reads it...

Let this play out..

No it wasn't... They got in trouble because they rewrote existing contracts to put the load all into the uncapped year... Those were not restructured contracts to spread the pay out through capped years, or new contracts...

Its not so much about the loading as it is the guaranteed that Drew wants. Front loading screws up cap and Drew knows that, guaranteed does not screw up cap space.

Let's play this out......Alright, if we have to.:whatever:

We could sign him and trade him. I love Brees but at 33 how many more years are truly left, #1 picks for x amount of years we may get lucky. I don't like being taken advantage of and if this article is true that is what he he is doing.

He can't. Brees is still and employee of the NFL and Payton can have no contact with an NFL player without permission.

Yea he is 33 but who else is going to get us to the Super Bowl in the next 5 years. If we were to get a 1st given to us and used it to draft a QB it would be 5 years before he was good enough to get us to a Super Bowl anyway, especially since next years draft class is slim for QBs. If we want a SB in the next 5 years the only way we are going to get it is with Brees. After that we can rebuild. Why would we want to start now?

Plus you don't just let a once in a lifetime QB go without a contingency plan. The Colts had Andrew Luck we have nobody. Don't say Chase either because he is not the future here. I could see it happening if we had an idea of where we would pick in the first round and their was a QB that would fit our system or we could build around in the draft, but there is not.

We're not going to be in rebuilding mode for quite awhile; we have young promising players everywhere but QB.

And if our defense improves anything like we all think it will next year, a decent QB could probably get us to the playoffs, where the defense wins...

With that said, I want Drew to be with the team for the rest of his career, but I also don't want to sacrifice the team to sign him for an ungodly amount

The pieces to win a super bowl are in place, RIGHT NOW, the thought of rebuilding is idiocy and ignorant. So, for Drew and the Saints it's in the best interest of both parties to figure this out, which I'm confident they will. The thing everyone needs to ask themselves is this,"Do I want to win in the next 4-5 years? if so, we sign him and be on our way. If we care more about our team than any one player, then let him play under the tag this year and probably move with a different plan moving forward. I doubt if he plays under the tag this year, we tag him again next year. And then accept it. The decision is what does each of us want? I personally want him signed, to satisfy my selfish desires. Sorry.

The way our 1st round picks have gone, we'd be better of signing an UDFA as QB.

I don't think we draft a QB to be our next Brees. Payton will pluck a young FA starter/backup.

And this is why having Brees longterm is key - Brees, unlike many star QB's WILL MENTOR a younger guy.

That in itself is worth having Brees for 5-6 more seasons.

Are you serious? "Taken advantage of"?

It is the front offices job to get Brees as absolutely cheap as possible, and it is Brees's job to get as much money as he can. Negotiations always come down to the wire because both sides have directly conflicting interests.

The front office starts out at 1 and Brees starts out at 10.... No one jumps to 5 off the bat even though both parties know they will probably end up at 5. Each side moves at a very slow pace incrementally hoping the other side will panic and agree to a deal before it reaches the middle.

This exact reason is why not everyone is cut out or can stomach contract negotiations, it is why players have reps that can stomach the game... contract negotiations are a game of chicken to see who turns first.

What Brees KNOWS is that on the open market some team will be eager to pay him 25 mil a year to have a Superbowl winning caliber QB. There are presently ONLY 5 playing in the league that are proven, and none are on the market. There are a lot of teams that are a Drew Brees away from winning a Super Bowl. The 49er's with Brees at QB is a perfect example.

That is a really scary thought... Think of that defense with an elite quarterback, they'd be unstoppable

Wait, we may have the defense this year... :mrgreen: :bng:

And with SF having 20.7M in cap space... Everyone knows they wanted manning.

That could possibly be true, but keep in mind that there are presently no teams with the kind of talent the Saints have assembled around him. Green Bay and maybe New England were the only teams anywhere near our class in terms of offensive production last year, but neither of those teams has the depth of weapons we do. So if Drew is interested in winning, which I think he is, then he would be unwise to walk away from this team.

He's playing hardball now, but if the Saints don't cave first I think he will. No way he's leaving the Saints. So given the Saints cap situation, this is what has a lot of us annoyed that this contract isn't done. Because what the Saints have offered is probably more than they can truly afford without shuffling some existing contracts. Everyone seems to believe the hang up is guaranteed money... Well, guaranteed money is what counts against the cap in the first place. It's up to him whether he wants to win and make good money or be on a mediocre team (or at least a mediocre offense from a personnel standpoint) for slightly more money.

I believe Drew is the best QB in the league, but of all the great quarterbacks in the league, they've all had their success in one system. Nobody knows what any of them would do if they ran a different offense. It's risky for a man at 33 years of age to assume that he could go somewhere else and turn that team around quickly. All the pieces are in place here for him to simply continue his dominance.

July 16 can't get here soon enough to end this one way or the other.

A deal will get done.

When you bring in a Brees, you bring in his system... Just like Denver converted to the "Manning Way".... You do not take in a Manning, Brees, or Brady and make them conform to your system. The New Orleans Saints offense was built around Drew Brees, he is what makes it work.

Drew makes everyone around him better, each and every players on that offense will tell you they have more confidence when Brees is on the field.

Not exactly a perfect example... but.... Indianapolis the year with out Payton Manning. Wayne was a top 10 receiver in 2009, 2010... In 2011 the year with no Manning he didn't break the top 20, and they went 2-14.


We should not get lulled into believing Drew can be replaced and the other 10 on the offense will preform as they did with him.

I'm not in any way saying we could replace him, I'm only suggesting he can't assume he'll have the same success elsewhere. We're assuming the Broncos will convert to Manning's system, but Manning didn't create that system. Tom Moore did. Is Peyton going to teach it to his new mates? That's an awful lot of responsibility, and we have yet to see him play with his new team. Everyone talks about how he called the plays in Indy, and while that may have been true a lot of the time, he had an offensive coordinator to teach it. I didn't really pay attention to any hires they may have made, so maybe they hired an OC who runs that style of offense.

I don't think it's as easy as just following a blueprint, though. There are a lot of teams trying to mimic each other right now, but it takes good coaching to make it run smoothly. Sean Payton has a proven track record as the best offensive mind in football, whereas Manning enters a franchise that hasn't been able to spell offense in recent years. I absolutely believe he makes that team better, but I don't think they're title contenders.

We'll see. This is only my opinion. I Just don't think there's anywhere Drew can go where he'd be better off.

Brees with San Francisco's Defense would be a top team.. Better off? Depends on how you look at it. If SF offered him the contract he wanted... financially he would be better off. If offensive production fell off 25 percent in SF the defense would make up for it.

Sure he'd be a little better off financially, which is why I said he'd have to make a choice of what's more important to him. As for the 49ers defense, they're alright right now, but in the era of the salary cap you can only place an emphasis on one side of the ball, and hope you get lucky on the other side. That being said, eventually the 49ers are going to have to pay some big bucks on their younger defensive players. If they commit 23 million or more a year on Drew, they won't be able to retain many of those players. It's a matter of stability that I'm trying to explain.

Things are constantly changing in the NFL. Dominant teams rise and fall just as quickly. But when I look back over the last 15 years, the only teams who have had any type of sustained success have been the Colts (until last year of course) and the Patriots. It takes a rare type of shrewd franchise to establish more than just a year or two of success in this age of the game. The Saints have shown all the characteristics of being the next team in that class. We've been a title contender for the last three years, have made the players 4 times in 6 years, but even when we went through that two year stretch of missing the playoffs we were able to keep the core of the team together. The ability to scout and develop so many under the radar players and turn them into stars, or at the very least major contributors, has been the key ingredient to this run and it's what separates us from other franchises.

Why would anyone want to walk away from that? Peyton Manning didn't want to leave the Colts, I'm quite sure of that. But he had no choice, because they felt that they had to be proactive in taking who they believe is their next franchise quarterback, and using the money they would have given to Manning to help build a team around Andrew Luck, rather than play out the string with Manning.

Those are the kinds of decisions that a good franchise has to make. But Drew, unlike Peyton, has a choice. Nobody is kicking him out the door. But if it's all about the money, then I guess he'll walk. I hope not.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing with you that Drew wouldn't give any team it's best chance at a title. You build your team around a great quarterback, as the Saints have with him. At 33, he's certainly got a lot left in the tank, but that's a little too old for some team to throw all their assets into. The Broncos decided to do that with a 36 year old, and personally I think they're idiots for it. For Peyton, it was the obvious choice considering his former team didn't want him anymore.