Dolphins Negotiating W/ Jake Long 2: The Deadline

[!Papacrunk!]

SI: DEADLINE

Item three: Miami is negotiating with one player right now -- Michigan tackle Jake Long. There is a deadline, yes; I don't know what it is. But if Long doesn't agree to a deal -- think of something less than the six-year, $62-million deal ($31 million guaranteed) signed by JaMarcus Russell last year -- Parcells will move to his next guy. My educated guess -- which an NFL front-office acquaintance of Parcells seems sure of -- is that the next candidate will be Gholston, the Ohio State defensive end.
If this were Parcells, acting alone, I think he'd try to break the first-round-rookie salary scale, because he doesn't care if some 22-year-old rich kid holds out and holds press conferences about how a team is ripping him off. But this is different. The Dolphins are so down and out right now, with a new owner, GM and coach -- and a community that can't stomach much more bad news regarding the team. So Parcells, I believe, will take a small victory if he can engineer it, the victory of paying this year's first pick less than the first pick earned last year.

[LtFinFan66]

[YardRat]

I read somewhere they were also negotiating with Gholston.

[Mike13]

Hmmmmmm its strange that Parcells would put this info out there.

[!Papacrunk!]

I think it's about time someone tries to buck the system and not have to sell the farm for someone's potential.

The worst team in the league gets to pick first, in hopes of improving, but even with the increased salary cap, rookie contracts are getting (even for the NFL) extremely unreasonable. Who knows if you're going to get a Peyton Manning or a Ryan Leaf. If you pick a Leaf, there goes a huge chunk of change down the drain. One could blame their own scouting department/GM for that mistake, but sometimes even the best of GMs can pick a lemon. Even if they pick a Manning, that's a huge amount of money tied into one person, obviously. I really think they need to develop the, somewhat recently, discussed rookie salary so that there can be true parity and have bad teams eventually become competitive w/o having extremely huge gobs of money tied into potential.

I wonder where Jake Long goes from here--does he take a contract that will be huge since it's the number pick, but not as huge as last year's (QB) contract? Or does he take the risk of taking the #2 or later contract? Let's say he turns it down--a player such as Vernon Gholston takes the similar lower contract, wouldn't that set the pace for the rest of the picks? If it was to set the pace, wouldn't that confirm the low contract Jake Long would get since he would get picked after the 1st pick? If it would work that way, then I don't see how he wouldn't take the contract, and by doing so, Parcells and Co. would re-establish some sort of control for teams that are worried about rolling the dice on the #1 pick contract future.