The Spaz
04-27-2004, 10:46 PM
Tom Donahoe:
On how this all came together:
It was probably initially started as much by Drew as it was by the organization. Drew had come to me on a couple of occasions and said that if there was ever anything he could do with his contract that would help the team, he would be interested in looking at it. We began to pursue it to see if there was a way to do it that made sense for both sides. We want to be fair to Drew. He is our starting quarterback. We recognize what he has done here and what he has done in his career. We need to be sensitive to that. We also recognize where his cap figure was headed. It makes it very difficult to give you, as a team, flexibility to do some other things. I have to applaud Drew for his efforts and his encouragement for us to try to do this. All you have to do is look around the league right now. Take a look in Pittsburgh and New York. See what's going on with some veteran quarterbacks. It makes you appreciate what we have here in Buffalo and how much of a team player Drew Bledsoe is.
On shuffling money:
There is some shuffling, but Drew also has made some concessions. There's no question about that. I won't get into those because that is Drew's business. It's not strictly just shuffling money. He's made some concessions this year and over the next couple of years to help the football team.
On showing Drew commitment with this contract reconstruction:
This probably helped Drew's mindset when he saw what we did in the draft. He was agreeable to do this even before the draft. We made it clear to Drew. I had a great conversation with Drew at the end of this season. I told him that we would probably look at taking a young quarterback in this draft to begin to get the quarterback ready. Drew understood it and as you heard him say, he'll try to help the young guy develop. That's Drew. If you look at what happened in New England and he did that in what had to be an uncomfortable situation for him. Drew's all about the team. That's the most important thing to him. He's not a player that just says that, he shows you by his actions that he means that.
http://www.buffalobills.com/news/index.cfm?cont_id=241961
On how this all came together:
It was probably initially started as much by Drew as it was by the organization. Drew had come to me on a couple of occasions and said that if there was ever anything he could do with his contract that would help the team, he would be interested in looking at it. We began to pursue it to see if there was a way to do it that made sense for both sides. We want to be fair to Drew. He is our starting quarterback. We recognize what he has done here and what he has done in his career. We need to be sensitive to that. We also recognize where his cap figure was headed. It makes it very difficult to give you, as a team, flexibility to do some other things. I have to applaud Drew for his efforts and his encouragement for us to try to do this. All you have to do is look around the league right now. Take a look in Pittsburgh and New York. See what's going on with some veteran quarterbacks. It makes you appreciate what we have here in Buffalo and how much of a team player Drew Bledsoe is.
On shuffling money:
There is some shuffling, but Drew also has made some concessions. There's no question about that. I won't get into those because that is Drew's business. It's not strictly just shuffling money. He's made some concessions this year and over the next couple of years to help the football team.
On showing Drew commitment with this contract reconstruction:
This probably helped Drew's mindset when he saw what we did in the draft. He was agreeable to do this even before the draft. We made it clear to Drew. I had a great conversation with Drew at the end of this season. I told him that we would probably look at taking a young quarterback in this draft to begin to get the quarterback ready. Drew understood it and as you heard him say, he'll try to help the young guy develop. That's Drew. If you look at what happened in New England and he did that in what had to be an uncomfortable situation for him. Drew's all about the team. That's the most important thing to him. He's not a player that just says that, he shows you by his actions that he means that.
http://www.buffalobills.com/news/index.cfm?cont_id=241961