RiverDog wrote:
If our defense played better last season, then I could see it. But here's the statement he's making: "Yeah, we were the 31st ranked pass defense in the league and bottom third overall, and yeah, we got beat in the playoffs by a one armed quarterback, but so what! It wasn't my fault. I made the Pro Bowl. Now show me the money!"
He's not taking any responsibility for the team's performance. It's the absolute wrong message to be sending his coaches and teammates and one of the reasons why I'm not enamored with individual post season awards.
I still don’t get it. It’s a contract negotiation, why wouldn’t he use everything in his arsenal to earn the most amount of money. What would you do in that situation? Would you say “yeah I know I had a career year, but our D sucked so I won’t try and negotiate as much money as I can for myself. I’ll take less money because our FA totally botched last off-season and we started the year without a viable pass rush.” I could maybe see your point if there were multiple years left on his contract and this was coming out but that’s not the case. If they wanted to keep him they were going to try to do it this off-season anyway. I didn’t see this anger/frustration/confusion when #16 was resigned earlier this off-season. It’s almost the exact same situation. Do you think Tyler wanted to get paid like a Pro Bowler?? How did he and the offense perform in that playoff loss? Lockett had the best season of his career but the offense was terrible in the second half of the season. They were a top 3 offense through the first half of the season and then finished ranked 17th!! They were not good and the playoff loss was as much on them as it was on our D.