Some teams dealing with issues heading into holiday weekend

[justasportsfan]

Bills waiting on Peters
A potentially volatile contract situation is brewing in Buffalo, and though no one wants to discuss it right now, actions will say plenty this summer.

Buffalo’s Pro Bowl offensive tackle Jason Peters, who many believe is the top young left tackle in the game, skipped the Bills' volunatry OTAs this week. Next up is next month’s mandatory minicamp.


Rick Stewart / Getty Images
Buffalo's Pro Bowl offensive tackle Jason Peters didn't attend the team's voluntary OTAs this week and could skip the mandatory minicamp in June, too.

If Peters is absent again –- and the smart money says he will be –- then it will become obvious that there is another sticky contract squabble to go along with Brian Urlacher’s, Anquan Boldin’s, and Albert Haynesworth’s.

Peters is scheduled to earn $3.25 million in base salary this year, $2.95 million next year and $3.4 million in the final year of his contract. Buffalo also paid Peters $5.75 million worth of bonuses in July 2006, when he signed his extension. But that extension now pales in comparison to the type of deal that Tennessee’s left tackle Michael Roos got last month, when he signed a six-year, $43 million deal.

Peters hasn’t complained publicly like other players. Instead he has remained silent, and probably will continue to do so. But Peters has hired agent Eugene Parker to assist in negotiations, and Parker has a track record with similar situations.

Back in 2005, two of Parker’s most high-profile clients, Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward and Patriots defensive lineman Richard Seymour, each skipped the first part of training camp in an effort to land a lucrative extension.

Ward missed over two weeks of camp before signing a four-year extension; Seymour missed nearly two weeks of practice before agreeing to a restructured deal that was extended the next summer. Peters could opt for the same approach, hoping for similar results.

But it is not going to be an easy situation for the Bills, potentially being without one of the league’s top linemen. The quietness surrounding the issue is an indication that it threatens to last at least a little while. And maybe a lot longer.


http://www.nfl.com/news/story;jsessionid=7D1EA9BACDFA667B2C6877FD8A6CC410?id=09000d5d80874d86&template=with-video&confirm=true

[LifetimeBillsFan]

....Peters is scheduled to earn $3.25 million in base salary this year, $2.95 million next year and $3.4 million in the final year of his contract. Buffalo also paid Peters $5.75 million worth of bonuses in July 2006, when he signed his extension. But that extension now pales in comparison to the type of deal that Tennessee’s left tackle Michael Roos got last month, when he signed a six-year, $43 million deal....

....Seymour missed nearly two weeks of practice before agreeing to a restructured deal that was extended the next summer. Peters could opt for the same approach, hoping for similar results.

But it is not going to be an easy situation for the Bills, potentially being without one of the league’s top linemen. The quietness surrounding the issue is an indication that it threatens to last at least a little while. And maybe a lot longer.


http://www.nfl.com/news/story;jsessionid=7D1EA9BACDFA667B2C6877FD8A6CC410?id=09000d5d80874d86&template=with-video&confirm=true

I think that the Roos contract and the deal that D.Diehl got from the NY Giants (that C.Brown mentioned on his blog on BB.com) have a lot to do with Peters wanting to get more money from the Bills. Peters is better than Diehl and probably Roos (who is also an up-and-coming player) and is making a lot less than either one of them.

I also think that the Bills, with Evans and Crowell needing to be addressed, would probably prefer to rework Peters' contract this season and see about negotiating an extension for him during next offseason--in the same way that it sounds like the Seymour deal was done--rather than have to give Peters big money now that would hand-cuff the team in its negotiations with Evans and Crowell.

I actually think that the silence surrounding all of this is a good sign. The Bills have a long track record of prefering to negotiate with their players very quietly. And, the advantage to both sides in doing so is that it can allow them to be flexible to, say, re-work a contract with an agreement to negotiate a full extension at a later date, etc. rather find themselves locked in by the positions that they have taken publicly.

Given Jauron's reluctance to even talk about the reason for Peters being absent from the first week of OTAs (not so much what he said, but how he said it), I would not be at all surprised if the two sides are already talking (and the Bills are being very careful not to say anything that could be seen as being the slightest bit critical because they do not want to upset those discussions in any way).

I can understand why Peters wants more money--he has certainly put in the work and done what he needed to do to deserve it. But, at the same time, wanting the Bills to re-structure and/or extend his deal at this point in time also puts the team in a very difficult position in "cash-to-the-cap" terms with regard to Evans and Crowell.

The question is whether, having just gotten an infusion of much needed cash from the Toronto deal, R.Wilson might be willing to use some of that Toronto money to "advance" the team enough out of next year's "cash-to-the-cap" budget to get all three deals done to everyone's satisfaction. I don't know if he can do that or would be willing to, but he may have to do it in order to get all three players locked up. (I think Clumpy would probably know more about this than I do, certainly!)