Beastmode

Hopefully we have learned some lessons. Make it more performance based and no long term contract, two years tops. We are just getting out of this mess.

SaintFanInATLHELL

The Saints are certainly within their rights to do that. Fairley as a free agent is within his rights to field and accept other offers.

My questions are:

1. If another team makes a bigger, better, longer, with more guaranteed money offer to Fairley, should he in fact take the Saints hometown discount?

2. If the two year performance based contract isn't competitive vs the market, should the Saints sweeten their offer, or let Fairley go?

3. If the Saints let Fairley go because their contract offer isn't competitive, then how do you fill that now vacant slot? And at what cost?

The contract you are describing was Fairley's contract last year. He produced. So now his value in the market is higher.

The real question is what is his real value to the Saints and are they willing to make an offer that represents that value?

Free agents cannot be strongarmed in contract negotiations. There are 31 other teams and many of them have a ton of money to spend. So offers need to both be competitive in the market and represent the true value to the team.

SFIAH

Super Bowl Championships: New Orleans Saints:1, Carolina:0, Atlanta Chokers: STILL ZERO

Only Atlanta choked in an unchokable situation... Life is definitely good.

AsylumGuido

The two part question is, is there another free agent out there that can perform as well as Fairley did for the Saints this past season and at a lower cost?

If the Saints went with another free agent that wouldn't perform as well the Saints would be weakened.

If there was another free agent out there that the Saints feel could perform as well could they get him at a lower cost?

As SFIAH said, the Saints, nor any other franchise, are in a position to strong-arm any free agent. The market will set the price.

Personally, I would be more comfortable with the Saints paying up for Fairley than paying less for any other free agent. Fairley has proven himself. We have been burned enough times by going to outside free agents.

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” — Winston Churchill

ScottF

Very true with market price, and if it is $5 mill or less I think it is a good match. He DID have his best year, but his stats don't merit top 10 money

Unfortunately we have been burned (often) paying up as well, particularly with def linemen