Spikes to stay in Cincy!!

[Bulldog]

While listening to 107.7 WNSA this morning on my way to work, they were talking to a reporter who covers the Bengals for the paper in Cincy and he stated that the Bengals plan to tag Takeo Spikes with the transition tag. This means that Cincy could match any other teams offer and still retain his services.

According to the Begals owner, he said he is more than willing to allow another team to negotiate Spikes contract for him. He apparently pulled the same deal with Cory Dillon. Don't think we will see Spikes in a Bills uniform any time soon:mad:

[Ebenezer]

I can see Brown spending money on Dillion...how many others have left the Bengals because Brown let other teams negotiate the contract for him?? That is a convienent way out...if the price is right as set by somebody else just trip the switch and sign him.

[clumping platelets]

:sadwalk:

[Voltron]

I was really excited about this too :(


That Brown is an idiot!!!

[clumping platelets]

That's right........he's an idiot! He should let us have him :)

[THATHURMANATOR]

We can just get colvin then.

[Voltron]

Colvin just went in for surgery recently. I know that means his price MAY be down but do we want to gamble on that when we wouldn't even gamble on cowert last year?

[Voltron]

Originally posted by clumping platelets
That's right........he's an idiot! He should let us have him :)


Maybe he is not stupid cause of that ;)


Could be because he makes his team worse the tighter the hold he puts on it :laughter:


Riddle me this clumpman?

What is the difference between the transition tag and the franchise tag?

thanks!

[Earthquake Enyart]

Colvin is a pass rusher. Cowart was not. Go give Colvin the $$

[Bulldog]

I think that the only difference is that the franchise tag gurantees that the player will be paid the average of the top five paid players at his position. The transition tag just allows the team to match any offers with no specified salary range.

[Kelly The Dog]

I think that the franchise tag is average of the top five at the position and the transition tag is average of the top ten, unless someone signs player to offer sheet, and then they have to match it. But get compensation if they don't.

[Ingtar33]

The transition tag, I think, just means the team gets the chance to match any offer; it doesn't guarantee anything in terms of financial compensation. The big problem for the Bengals is that they really don't have a lot of money to spend in FA (I think their cap figure is a very poor, for their performance, 8mil under for next year), and they have so many holes the idea that they will pay Spikes big money is thin. This sounds like a lot of hot air to me.

[Ingtar33]

and if it (transitional tag) mean that the tag means Spikes is guaranteed the avg of the top ten LB salary then the Bengals will have given him a hefty raise (around 5 to 6 mil).

[clumping platelets]

Ingtar is partially correct. Transition tag gives a 1 yr tender of the top 10 salaries and it counts vs cap. Team only get "right of refusal" or more commonly right to match offer sheet. No compensation to team if they fail to match offer. Transition tags are not renewable like Franchise tags

2 types of Franchise tags: exclusive and non-exclusive

1) Exclusive: Franchised player gets 1 yr tender of top 5 salaries but cannot negotiate with other teams.

2) Non-exclusive: Franchised player gets 1 yr tender as above but can negotiate with other teams. Compensation is 2 #1 picks in consecutive years AND they must be the new teams original #1's not an acquired pick.

Much more to the Franchise tag, but this answers the above question :cp:

[DraftBoy]

Any official word fom Bungals camp yet to confirm this news?

[Bulldog]

No official word yet, however the reporter that they were talking to on the radio was pretty confident that this situation would unfold much like the Dillon situation did.

If it is any consolation to any of you, the reporter also said Spikes eyes lit up when they mentioned the possibility of him going to the Bills. He said he was impressed with the team and said he would love to play in front of the Buffalo fans on a regular basis.

[clumping platelets]

Cincy cannot re-use a transition tag.........they are not renewable. They may still have a transiton tag if they've only used 1 or 2.

They could franchise him.

[Pride]

cant we always sign a contract with spikes, then later renegotiate his contract? What is to stop us from doing that? I mean, if Spikes knows that is what we are doing, to help him out of Cincy, he will probably be all for it!

[itsandthings]

Why does this surprise anyone?

The Bengals have both their franchise and transition tags available to them.

The Bengals have plenty of cap room. They have about $65M currently committed to 2003, which is about $9M under the cap. Further, they have some deadweight contracts that they will be looking to shed (overpaid players they will release), so they will have more cap room than they need even if they dont' want to restructure any contacts, which they have been reluctant to do in the past.

[BillsMan80]

The Bengals may slap the tag on Spikes, yet he doesn't have to sign the tender. If he doesn't want to, he doesn't have to sign their tender offer. Spikes has a way out of Cincinnati.

[BillsMan80]

And concerning Colvin and Cowart, Colvin is having shoulder surgery. Cowart had achillies tendon surgery. That is one of the toughest injuries to come back from in football.

[Bulldog]

I agree with you itsandthings. Why would Cincy let Spikes walk when there is a good possibility that Marvin Lewis will be their next head coach. I would assume that Lewis would love to have Spikes in the fold and build the defense around him like he did with Ray Lewis in Baltimore!!!

[ublinkwescore]

That doesn't mean he's gonna be stuck there.

I still think we should have gone after LeVon Kirkland last offseason when he was available - He looked pretty damn sharp for the Redskins after a few games (I think that's who he ended up with).

[Bulldog]

I think that if Cincy places the transition tag on him and they match the other teams offers then yes he would have to play for the Bungles.

[THATHURMANATOR]

Kirkland played for the Eagles this season and seems washed up to me...

[Bulldog]

Seems like the perfect fit, another washed up player with ties to TD.

[kgun12]

Originally posted by Bulldog
Seems like the perfect fit, another washed up player with ties to TD.

Bulldog, How many of those "washed up players with ties to TD" made the team. It's the front office's JOB to being in players, more importantly older players with NFL experience to try and help a rebuilding team. When they have shown to be too old you get rid of them nothing hurt. BTW Oakland brought in a few "washed up players" this year and just about every other year since the 70's I don't think it hurt them! Every coach and front office brings in there own. Chargers and Bills West, Atlanta and Bills South. C. Knox and Levy both did it when he came here I could keep going but you get the point I hope.

[don137]

Cincy IMO puts a transition tag on Spike to show the fans that they "tried" to sign him but they can alwsays say Spikes was not worth hurting the cap with the amount he was offered by some other team because they have so many other holes to fill...Yadda yadda yadda

[HenryRules]

I don't think Kirkland would have been a good fit at all with us ... IMO, he's too slow to play the middle in a 43 ... he'd work better like he did in Pittsburgh where he was an ILB in a 34.

[itsandthings]

Whether or not Spikes signs the tender or not, the mere act of Cincy designating him limits his options. No other team could negotiate with him, as the Bengals retain his rights. His signing the tender is irrelevant.

If a player doesn't sign his tender, there is a date (around June) where the tender amount is reduced and he could end up playing for less when he does eventually sign. He is not free to sign with another NFL team without compensation. He would be stuck.

The most likely option if he refuses to sign the tender and return to Cincy on the 1-year deal, is some team working a trade for him. In other words, the Bengals agree on terms, he signs the tender and is immediately traded. The new team then works out an extension with him.

That is what Cincinnati did with Dan Wilkerson. Washington surrendered 2 1st round picks for Wilkerson. Washington did the same thing with Sean Gilbert, trading him to Carolina for 2 1sts.

The Bills ability to trade for Spikes if he is playing on a 1-year tender is limited by their lack of a 1st round pick.

[TigerJ]

If Spikes is transitioned and signs an offer from Buffalo which the Bungles then match, his choice would be to play for the Bungles or sit. I suspect there are league rules to prevent playing contract games with another team's transition player. That is if Buffalo signed Spikes to a wildly insane contract that the Bungles couldn't match then renegotiated after Spikes was a Bill the league would step in and invallidate the Buffalo contract. In fact, I think the league tightened up its rules on signing franchize and transition players after Indianapolis screwed Buffalo by signing Will Wolford to a rigged contract. Besides, if Buffalo signed Spikes to a contract like that, what incentive would Spikes have to renegotiate.

If I were Buffalo, I would offer Spikes a contract worth as much as TD could possibly rationalize as Spikes worth. If Cincinnati signs him, then it ties up their cap dollars. Perhaps they have another free agent or two that we could then sign away from them, just to spite Mike Brown.

[clumping platelets]

The problem with signing players to offer sheets is that say the Bills sign Spikes to an offer sheet as a transitioned player, Cincy has 1 week to match. Bills have that cap space tied up for a week. This would potentially limit, for that week, TD's ability to pursue other players. If he's "transitioned", Bills will likely go in another direction, say Anthony Simmons from Seattle or Mike Peterson from Indy. I'm kinda put off by Colvin's chronic shoulder problems, surgery notwithstanding!

[Voltron]

Originally posted by clumping platelets
I'm kinda put off by Colvin's chronic shoulder problems, surgery notwithstanding!

I am also worried about that. I think it will be good though because it may bring his price down.


:clap:

[The Natrix]

I don't care. No matter what, we are going to be nasty on defense next season.

In TD I trust

[TypicalBill]

sign Spikes to an offer sheet as a transitioned player then kidnap Brown for a week.

:tomato:

[clumping platelets]

I like your thinkin' :evil:

[don137]

Clump, is it still legal to do a contract like the one Indy did to Wil Wolford? If I recall Buffalo transitioned Wolford but Indy looked at the Bills cap and worded the contract in such a way that he would be paid equal to the top offensive player on the team for a certain year. Since Indy had squat on offense at the time and we had Kelly and Thurman it screwed Buffalo. If it was still legal and with Corey Dillon's contract so high couldn't they work the contract saying for the year 2003 he will be paid average of the top two players on the team or something like that so the salary he would be paid in Cincinnati would be higher than what he would receive in Buffalo...

[justasportsfan]

Originally posted by The Natrix

In TD I trust

The only sure thing in the Buffalo bills organization is TD (Moulds of course),IMO. Some of us have doubts about Drew as well.

We were in cap hell when TD came in. This team could've been in the playoffs this year , but came up one game short and this being only TD's secong year with the bills.

We will be one of the top teams in the AFC next year and that's because of TD.

[Bulldog]

Originally posted by kgun12


Bulldog, How many of those "washed up players with ties to TD" made the team. It's the front office's JOB to being in players, more importantly older players with NFL experience to try and help a rebuilding team. When they have shown to be too old you get rid of them nothing hurt. BTW Oakland brought in a few "washed up players" this year and just about every other year since the 70's I don't think it hurt them! Every coach and front office brings in there own. Chargers and Bills West, Atlanta and Bills South. C. Knox and Levy both did it when he came here I could keep going but you get the point I hope.

kgun12, name me one player that TD, or GW for that matter, had ties with that paid dividends for the Bills this past season. Richard Huntly, or perhaps Eddie "I got my ankles broken by Chad Pennington" Robinson. All I am saying is that if they want to bring in their own, they damn well better be players that can improve the team. I don't feel that was the case this past offseason.

[itsandthings]

The league closed all those loopholes due to situations like Wolford and Curtis Martin.

Among the rules for offers sheets to any kind of restricted FA (3-yr player, transition, franchise):

1) Once the offer is matched or refused and becomes a player contract, neither the player or the team can exercise an option in that contract that reduces the salary in the 1st league year until the date of the trading deadline in that league year. The Jets did this with Curtis Martin, signing him to an expensive 1-yr contract with a 5-yr option at Martin's option, which he then exercised after the Pats declined to match (reducing his cap hit that first year and making it a more standard 6-yr deal). Martin would still be a Patriot if the new rules were in place.

2) Salary must be a "fixed and specified dollar amount" (the Wolford contract can't happen).

3) LTBE incentives must not exceed 15% of the salary in offer sheet and can only be based upon "generally recognized league honors".

4) No property or investments can be offered

5) Only LTBE incentives need be matched, so any NLTBE incentives are voided on a matched contract (this is so the club making the offer sheet can't include NLTBE which will be LTBE by the old club)

6) No consideration can be given by the team making the offer in exchange for the old team not matching the offer. Also, no consideration can be given to a different team in exchange for them making an offer to a player so the old team can then match it. If an offer sheet is matched, then the team cannot trade the player to the team that made the offer for a full calendar year without the player's consent.

7) No franchise or transition prohibition can be negotiated into the offer sheet. This is to prohibit the player signing a 1-yr deal with another club only to become a free agent the following year without his team being able to tag him. Basically, the CBA doesn't allow any team making an offer to contractually eliminate the restricted franchise/transition right given to another team in the CBA.

8) No right of 1st refusal can be assigned to another club. Thus, you can't trade a tagged player until a contract is signed.