Someone posted this on BZ, so I figured I would post it here. There are quite a few interesting things in here and the writer basically says that Jason Peters is by himself in all this. I think personally it's bad advice from his agent, who wants to get paid.



http://myespn.go.com/blogs/afceast/0-2-140...amp;sort=oldest

The most surprising part of that article is the last paragraph....



Wow! That says a lot! Not even the other agents can see Eugene Parker's side. Face it. This whole thing is caused by one agent that has replaced Drew Rosenhaus as the agent that I hate the most.

Hey, that is pretty good. Interesting insinuation about the mood in the locker room; I'd be VERY interested to know the source of that, because the players normally stick together on contract issues.

What was that writer's name again? Oh, yeah. This guy.

i liked the article too. graham capsulated all the important inforation in there -- nicely. i especially liked how he pointed out that peters dropped his old agent to hire parker -- the ball buster to get him more money. pure greed for a guy who is lucky to be in the league. what a fool.

if wilson caves in a pays $8 mil i will loose respect for wilson and the is front office. the case is clear cut that peters is in the wrong and must conform before money will be spent. he needs to proves his value past what he has -- which wsa he was rewarded for in 2006 -- with $3.5 m.

Maybe he will post on here about it.

We all think he is due a raise. But it seems he wont even put on a bills uniform untill the first regular season game, if then. The offensive line requires a lot of time to really get it together.

He is definatly hurting the team, his image, and his ability to play in the first few games of the season.

The bills made it clear they want to sign Evans (who could be a FA after this season) and Crowell first.

Peters is a Probowl LT, he will get paid, if hes healthy, but at some point you have to suck it up and play for the contract you signed just a few years ago.

Only 6 posts? This guy holds no water with me.

Finally, an article about this from the proper angle. I've been amazed by all the stupid "just pay him" posts around here.

F Peters - I've lost a lot of respect for this guy.

(He could earn it back by kicking some ass. and firing his agent.)

The longer Peters has been gone, the less I've missed him. He may be a great player, but we've got a team out there that is ready to compete.....without him.

Yea

He won't be donning any jersey anytime soon.

I will say this, Tim's off to a very good start in his new gig. I especially liked that he 'worked the story' and contacted at least seven agents, rather than simply regurgitate what we already know, or opinionize like most other writers/talking heads.

Maybe I shouldn't give up hope on the availability of worthwhile NFL coverage just yet...

Good read. Hopefully Peter's and his agent realize the difficulty of their negotiating position soon and he comes back

I totally agree. I was sick of seeing all the articles that said the Bills are wrong and that they should pay him the money now. It's about time someone shows you the other side of things. And this writer did that very well. I like how he even talked to a couple players that admitted they don't support him. I also thought it was interesting what the one agent said. If he were the Bills GM, he wouldn't cave either. Very nice!

I wonder if Peters would be so adamant about getting paid right now if Buffalo was NOT expected
to seriously compete for a playoff spot this year?

If he does continue to sit out, his ultimate pay day will almost certainly be smaller, Buffalo may be inclined to NOT give him money
this year, and oh yeah, he still has two more years left on the contract.

Nice job.

Hiring Parker as his agent reminds me of Brian Westbrook firing his to find someone who could get him 10M a year. Only one guy stepped up to be Westbrook's agent, and he still couldn't manage to do it.

Competition to be the best agent on the block is fierce, especially with the mega-houses that feature agents like Condon and Dogra. When this is all said and done, getting rid of the last agent (Taylor) may be the worst thing Peters has done.

I agree. One poster below the article started busting his nuts about regurgitating, but Graham actually went beyond the basic story, got some feedback from unnamed players and polled some other agents, and it is increasingly becoming a joke to virtually EVERYONE that Peters is fukcing this up in epic proportions.

Excellent piece. Very interesting commentary on how agents see this. It restores my faith in humanity just a teensy bit.

This holdout reeks of something else going on...it just doesn't make any sense. when players and other agents are agreeing with the team something is up.

I hope it doesn't have to do with his injury last year....I have to believe that he nor his agent are not THAT dumb.

So how long do the boos/jibes last from Bills fans at the stadium if/when Jason suits up?


Oh yeah, Eugene Parker can blow me.

Agreed. The exception that proves the rule? Or, maybe Tim just likes to do his job properly. Didn't he say he was a WNY guy? Jaworski, and maybe soon to be Tim here, the only NFL analysis worth bothering with?

They (or at least Pat Kirwan) say money is undefeated in the NFL. We shall soon see, but this has the makings of blemishing that undefeated record.

Why do we blame Parker?????? I mean peters can nut up and fire the dude anytime he wants. I may not know all the rules, but at least at this point( I think) Peters owes Parker squadoosh, as no new contract. Do not leave Peters totally out of the equation of being a meathead

Parker gets blamed because he is behind most of the holdouts in the NFL.

He only referred to two guys out of what, 75? I get it was JP and Edwards, its their keesters that are going to get killed if Peters doesn't play or plays out of step due to the missed time.

The article confirmed what a number of us have said all along, that his absence from camp isn't the issue, the team flatly refuses to give him a new deal this year and he flatly refuses to play without one:

"They also have made it known to Peters' agent, Eugene Parker, they're not willing to renegotiate 2008, insisting any additional money will be paid next year forward."

If either of them are bluffing, the team or Peters, we will know soon enough as pretty soon he is going to start missing game paychecks. Until then, this holdout just doesn't really cost Peters anything and as we saw with Walker's near injury, you never know how the deck could be reshuffled.

As for the 7 other agents, they are Parker's competitors and I bet they would love to see him get fired so they can take a run at a new client. Besides, they are agents for goodness sakes, if they told the truth to anyone besides their clients they wouldn't be doing their jobs.

Great article.

Two comments related to the article:

1) Maybe it's not Parker, but Peters driving this thing. If every agent in the world thinks this is stupid, maybe Parker does too, but Peters is calling the shots.

2) Great point in the article re. Peters falling behind. From what I recall, Peters isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Combine that with a new offense, being relatively new to the position, and being rusty, my guess is he might be useless for a while. And if that's the case, what does that do to his value on a new deal after 2008?

Wonderlic score = 9

And the part of that which galls me is he can at least still collect his $3.5 mil while being useless

He's replaced Drew Rosenhaus as the scum bag of the NFL. Rosenhaus learned his lesson and doesn't hold out his players anymore. He knows that it hurts in the long run.

Good point. It should blemish that undefeated record, unless Peters gets what he really wants and the Bills trade him.

I think the favored term is "peckerhead" at the moment. You have to judge them all on the end result. So far this hasn't really cost Peters much...providing that if nothing happens soon, he comes in soon enough so that he doesn't miss a game check. If he does come in, I don't think it costs him all that much. As for the team, they get him for one more year, but he won't be very effective for 2-3 weeks and yet they will have to pay him his salary. They also have to worry about the long term effect of a now disgruntled pro bowler. I imagine Parker will have to reduce the fee he takes when Peters does get a deal to cover the fines. So Parker loses some coin sooner or later, the team loses their best OT for 2-3 games and has a headache in the making for next year and Peters ends up with a much longer vacation and none the worse for the effort. He does have some fans calling him peckerhead though, so I guess he will have to somehow live with that.

It would really be something if he holds out long enough to start missing game checks. I can't recall the last time I saw that with a veteran player as opposed to a rookie like Russell. I have no idea how that would end up.

Parker's record speaks for itself.

You look at Parker's client list, google '[insert player] & holdout' and you will find that almost 1/2 of them have held out in some capacity.

Parker held out 3 veteran clients this year alone.




Just in case anyone is keeping track of my opinions, I am not switching sides, I am just offering facts that people seem to have missed.

Like I have said before, Peters isn't really losing much by giving the holdout a try. In response, many have argued that had he reported he would have indeed been given that new deal but that notion has been debunked many times. This article does so one more time for old times sake:

"They also have made it known to Peters' agent, Eugene Parker, they're not willing to renegotiate 2008, insisting any additional money will be paid next year forward."

All he had to lose by giving it whirl was the fines and I doubt he ever pays them or if he does, it comes out of Parker's eventual fee.

Galling? Probably but definitely not stupid.

That's a good point. But even the other agents will tell you that it's a different story. Peters has 3 years left on his deal and that's already a new contract that was renegotiated 2 years ago and was a good contract back then.

Has it occurred to anyone that Peters is, you know, kinda dumb? As in 9-on-the-Wonderlic dumb? In other words, it's not just the agent. I can't say this with any certainty (no one can say anything with certainty), but I suspect that Bills will neither give him more money nor trade him come hell or high water. He will lose a year of his career plus 3+ million dollars that will not be reimbursed, while the Bills will have a worse offensive line. However, Langston Walker looks to be at least reasonably competent (as good as Jonas Jennings in his prime), and the team appears to be planning on winning with defense anyway given the looks of things. Given that the Bills have a better coordinator and an improved QB, I'm thinking that they're thinking they can get by. Whether Peters will be thinking he can get by come week 6 or whenever the final deadline kicks in is anyone's guess. At this point, he's not going to be any good for the first 2-4 games anyway, so why not stick it to him? Since it has dragged out so long, it's not as if they're going to be losing a pro-bowl caliber player for the first third of the season. They'll be losing an out-of-football shape malcontent who will bucking to get out of Buffalo. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

Peters is pretty football smart. I remember McNally saying how fast he picked things up. The play he made to block the kick and score a TD one of his first games, he fooled the OL. He played four different positions in college, and a couple years at Arkansas they didn't even have a TE coach, the position he mostly played. Then learned to play RT and then LT at an alarming pace, and he doesn't seem to make many mental mistakes at all. The guy just wants a lot of money, his linemate right next to him that he's better than makes 4 million more than him, and his contemporaries that he is as good as make 5-8 million more a year. It's pretty easy to see where Parker and Peters are coming from, just as easy as it is to see where The Bills are coming from.

He also hasn't missed a game yet. IF he decided to sit out this season, then I will re-evaluate his business acumen. But I very much doubt that he will.

I am repeating myself again, but at least 2 prior clients of Parker's who held out with 2 years left. Hester and Seymour. Both were rewarded with new contracts.

The other agents probably think the holdouts are stupid because they put teams in tough situations making negotiations very adversarial. You back someone into a corner and they will try to fight their way out.
I would much rather negotiate a deal when both sides are moving towards a goal that they feel will be mutually beneficial.

The problem is, Parker has been very succesful with holdouts.

1) You make a great point. Fans would rather blame an agent than the player. This is a fact. I don't pay $100.00 per ticket, airfare, hotels, and everything else to cheer agents. Anybody who has read any of my posts knows that Peters is my favorite Buffalo Bill and with good reason; he is the best player on the team. I wish it was close. Still, I refuse to blame Parker. This mess is the fault of Peters, Ralph, and his stooges.

2) You know, I read about his low wonderlic test score when he was playing RT. It concerned me to the point that I asked someone on this board who really knows his schitt if he could make the transition to LT. This poster told me it would be no problem whatsoever. He was right, and I am going to take this stance at this time. People laying on the turf that he just knocked on their asses aren't going to worry about his I.Q.

Good God I wish they would settle this mess.

It was shocking to see the reporter in this article actually add value to the story by making phone calls.

I used to devour all the stuff in the Buf News and D&C, but since we've had access to most of the press conferences, it's not worth it anymore. Almost all of the articles on the Bills are built on things any of us can see in the games and the press conferences. It's getting harder and harder to find a quote in an article that wasn't directly from a post-game/practice PC. Anyone here could transmit the information found in most articles, and some of the people here (e.g., Lori) could do it much more elegantly. What ever happened to developing relationships/sources over time so that a reporter could actually give us non-public insight into a team?

Anyway, I would love it if more reporters actually bothered to do what this guy did.

As for analysis, the major media are only about 5% better than the unreadable speculation on RealFootball365. I can get WAY more insight into football in general and the state of the Bills in particular by reading the posters on here who watch the game with attention, intelligence, and knowledge (e.g., Simon, Dave McBride, Badol, Kelly, R. Rich, Bill in NYC (who else is going to spend the entire game maniacally staring at the right guard?), etc.). Imagine a professional commentator who actually took the trouble to RE-watch games and look for things that aren't obvious at first glance. I already freaking know if the quarterback played well, even though I never played football and might possibly be watching the game somewhat intoxicated.

Not getting a $200,000 check every Sunday afternoon could change his mind quickly.

dave,

i have to disagree about the bills not trading peters.

i could see him getting dealt for 2 firsts (or even a first and conditional). atl, houston, maybe even cinci could trade for him.

You're confusing being football smart (not that hard, actually -- my seven year old picked up the game very quickly last year and played more than one position) with analytical intelligence off the field. You said not very long ago that Peters wouldn't miss one game. It appears that he now will, so don't be shocked if he surprises you again. It's a pretty ugly situation.

You may be right. That may be my heart rather than my head talking. I don't want them to trade him under any circumstances, but perhaps I'm approaching this too emotionally.

Very good point, Parker uses holdouts because, as maddening as they are, they work. In that context, rather than being an idiot for advising a holdout, he would be an idiot to advise against one.

We have had confirmation from several sources now on a key point including this most recent article, that the team refuses to give him a new deal this year regardless of whether he reported on time or not. So there was never anything to negotiate given their starting positions.

The next decision point is whatever date costs Peters a game check. If he is still at home on that date, we will know that neither side is bluffing. That would be a helluva thing.

Kelly, what do you see as the possibilities if it becomes clear that the stalemate will continue past opening day?

I think Peters is getting bad advice from his agent. Remember, Peters is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Even if he did report, I think he will be too far behind in our new offense be be effective. He may even be a liability. I'm all for the Bills holding their ground. They kept this guy around for years developing him, renegotiate his contract in 06, and even offer to redo his deal again starting in 09. If he can't play this year for $3.2M thenlet him get nothing at all!

On point 2, you and some other posters make good points-- Peters may, in fact, have major "football smarts." I surely hope so, because I'd love to see him back on the field w/o a hitch asap.

I don't think I am confusing the two. He may not be an academic All-American but there isn't a lot to make me believe he doesn't know what he is doing. I found it pretty hard to believe that you compared your seven year old picking up a position in Pop Warner to playing LT in the NFL but okay.

I don't even think it is all that ugly a situation. People understand the business side. Both sides have valid points. The Bills have the most valid, IMO. He still has basically two weeks and we're simply coming down to the time where one of the sides gives in. I surely suspect that will be Peters and Parker that give in. I still don't think Peters misses a game (although he may not be in great shape or top form) although it's possible.

I would be surprised if he is not named to the Pro Bowl at the end of the year (partially, of course, because once you go once you're often annointed) and he will need to play at a top level to get the major contract next year. I still think this probably, ultimately, gets him a few more dollars on his deal, unfortunately rewarding bad behavior.

If 2008 is off the table, the Bills should talk to Peters about 2009. He may come in and play this year for the pitiful sum of 4 mil (if he meets incentives) if he signs a deal granting him a roster bonus of 10 mil on March 1st.

There is a solution to this problem.

Peters is to dumb to think of it.
Parker is to arogant to look for it.
Wilson is to stuborn to consider it.

That he will eventually come in. He has to. The Bills hold about 50 of the cards, and Peters holds something like a three of clubs and five of hearts, which do him little good. If he then plays great all will be forgotten. If he plays less than he did last year there will be a lot of grumbling from everyone, especially the fans, and he's not likely going to get the huge deal he would get if he just comes in and plays. That's why I think that Parker will get him in soon.