Peppers makes a clear statement

if they can't work out a new deal, but I'm fairly sure they can tear it up after the trade and just sign him to a new deal.

 

I have suggested for years that he would be better off playing OLB. I was scorned recently in fact for suggesting as much on this board. He is very inconsistent by any measure and HE DOES TAKE PLAYS AND SOMETIMES SERIES OFF. This is a problem for the Panthers because I thought it to be a lock that he was going to get the franchise tag. Peppers is not worth 17 million dollars for the upcoming season in light of his comments, he could become a polarizing element if he plays here next year.

If they can be assured of a deal by franchise and trade, do it before the other team backs off.

 

we'll have to franchise him to get a draft pick. That's going to be the cost to do so.

So, we'll have to hold $17 mil in cap space until something got done, or hold $17 mil all year for a potential holdout if we don't get it done.

 

So it's not as easy or likely as everyone is making it out to be right?

Wouldn't every team pretty much always do it if it were?

 

it's very risky, yes. It's going to be very tough. You don't do it for an average player, or a guy teams don't just want this badly. Guys like Peppers don't come along often, and when they do they traditionally get locked up forever ASAP. So he has a ton of value.
On the ideal of people wanting him gone, I thought a trade was a bad idea. You don't just decide to let a guy like that go, IMO, or use him to gain equity in other areas. But, like Jenkins, a lot of weight shifts when a player decides he doesn't want to be here and wants to show the media how much.



Granted most franchise tagged players won't cost $17 million. And franchise players have been traded. It's plausible. The risk is high, and they need to make sure they don't fuck it up, but if the option of him playing here is gone, this is the only shot of gaining something back.


Let's say we did it, we tag him. He pouts a little, we work proactively to get him gone for a first round pick, which is reasonable. Then he negotiates a huge contract with them, and everyone's happy, the trade goes through. That $17 mil is off the books with no dead money.

We tag him and he stays. Not likely, but he plays through the $17 million. We have nothing to show at the end of the year, tagging him again costs around $19.5 million. If he gets hurt he's on IR for $1 million per game check.

We tag him and he holds out, we're stuck with all that money on the cap, too.

 

He has to sign it to put it on the books, he can hold out without signing it and we don't have to do shit. unfortunately his agent knows this so he would be signing it fast to force us to act.

 

we have to hold the money against the cap regardless of whether he signs, I believe.


All this probably means they go ahead and patch a contract with Gross together quick, and they said they weren't that far apart (obviously, it would've been cheaper before this year).

 

I don't think there's any way Peppers holds out. Really, I don't see him making too big a public stink about it if we franchised him either. I'd guess he'd play it out and try to move next year.

 

You're right.

 

Very much agreed. I like Peppers, and it seems like he's finally come into his own both as a man and as a player. I never even considered the idea that he'd prefer to play somewhere else, I just assumed that he'd be around if the front office ponied up a good enough offer. That said, I can understand where he might be coming from. Think about all the times we've bitched about how Peppers was being used. Obviously it bothered him that much more.