Tom Brady signs very modest contract extension

Brady signs an extension paying him less than half of what he's worth.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl/news/20130225/tom-brady-new-england-patriots-contract/


Having the best QB in the league and taking a cap of a mid-level guy is not even fair for everyone else. In theory a team should easily be able to build a championship roster that way.

 

Not sure I see anything that isn't fair. Brady is clearly invested in the team's success. If it is easy to build a championship roster by signing guys for a lot less than they are worth, everyone would be doing it.

 

While most of us dislike him and the Pats...you gotta respect that and wish more players did things like that. Most of these huge contracts are just ridiculous today...in ALL sports. No way these guys should be making some of these outrageous numbers.

 

i have a problem with people complaining about what guys make. they make what they make because someone is willing to pay them. i feel pretty comfortable saying that anyone on this site would take that money if it was offered to them.

you have to put it all into perspective. these owners make 100's of millions for the ENTERTAINMENT they put out for the public and we as the public pay for it.

im not a Dodgers fan, but i remember everyone saying how stupid they were for taking on all those huge contracts they got from the Red Sox. a couple months later they signed a 7 BILLION dollar tv deal. the Steelers are always at or over the cap. its billionaires paying millionaires and as fans we sometimes have a hard time grasping that.

its not my money or yours that these guys are spending. i could care less how much they make. i say good for them. especially as football players they need to make as much money as they can while they can. they have a very small window to make a lot of money. remember their careers only last a short time. unlike a regular working person who can work for 30 plus years.

believe me im not shedding any tears for these guys that go broke a few years after they retire. i said i dont hate them for making all that money, but i never said they were all smart.

 

I do like Tom Brady. IMO hes the best in the league and I'd take him over Manning 8 days a week. This just cements the deal. Contrast this to Drew Brees and his attitude. This is actually refreshing to read. Too bad it isnt Ben Roethlisberger. Heres hoping BR follows suit when its his turn.

 

Absolutely Biz! I thought I was the only Brady lover on this board. I know you used the word "like" so I still may be but I think Tom Brady is the easily the best in this league today and probably ever when it's all said and done. I'd like to see more guys following suit and doing this. I actually think it would make free agency more interesting. Basically FA now is the highest bidder. But what if guys would start stepping up and saying "I wanna win and if that means less money for me and more money for the team then I am willing to do that." Then FA would be really fun to watch because you could see teams getting stacked big time. Don't MOST franchises have their money tied up in less than 5 or 6 guys? Imagine if those 5 or 6 would sacrifice just a little for the team to get some more talent there what the Steelers could look like. I don't begrudge guys getting paid I'm just saying I wonder what football would look like if that would happen.

 

And this will be the next big story for the next 2-3 weeks, How brady took less $ And how this will help the Ravens get a deal done with Flacco.

 

But it IS our money. How do you think the "billionaire" owners get their $$$? Follow the paper trail. Ticket sales, merch sales, TV contracts. We pay for the tickets and merch directly, by choice. But this is a drop in the bucket compared to the TV contracts. Set Direct TV aside for a moment and look at NBC, CBS, FOX, and ESPN. They dole out big money to broadcast games because it brings in ADVERTISING revenue. So every beer, cola, airline, car company, hotel chain, etc. that advertises during an NFL game passes that massive advertising expense on to us. In essence, we all overpay by at least 30% on our products and services due to advertising and marketing budgets. Let's add on to that the stadiums we paid for with our taxes...which contain MORE advertising for naming rights and bilboards. And add that to what we pay for.

Then there's the massively overpriced tickets, which have skyrocketed. For instance, face value for a ticket to the first Super Bowl was $12. Today it's on average about $700. That's about a 6000% increase. In the same period, a gallon of milk has gone from .99 to $3.50, about a 300% increase.

Indeed, every penny the players make is coming out of OUR pockets.

 

It's not like he needs the money because his wife makes a sh!t ton more than he does. I have to admit, even though I can't stand the guy, that this is a nice move by Brady and it seems to help the team.

 

of course we are paying for it. im not saying these billionaires are printing money in their basements and thats why they are rich, but a lot of these guys made their money before they owned a team.

i think its crazy what these guys make, but i pay the ridiculous price for Sunday Ticket which is contributing to their salaries. these owners make tons of money from tv deals, advertising, stadium naming rights, tickets, merchandise, their names and the players. these guys are dealing with monopoly money. a 27 million dollar contract like the one Brady just signed is like 2,700 bucks to the average person. 2,700 bucks is a good chunks of change, but its not huge money by any means. 27 million to these owners is a drop in the bucket.

 

I can't stand him. There are few pro athletes I thoroughly despise, and he is one of them.

 

Whoops...forgot the rest of my post, for whatever it's worth:

I've said it time and again. Brady is one of the most overrated, overhyped players in NFL history. He is no doubt one of the top 20 QBs of all time. He is likely one of the top 10 of all time. But in my estimation, he is a system QB, a guy who plays well within a certain construct, and it's been proven that if you make him even the least bit uncomfortable, and force him to improvise, he looks downright mediocre. He's a 4-yard slant and bubble screen master, and anything thrown beyond ten yards usually goes to wide open receiver. Until Brady pulls a rabbit out of a hat in a big game, he won't crack my top 5 of all time. Just remember, this so-called "clutch" QB has NEVER thrown a game-winning 4th quarter TD pass in the post-season. Not once. Just something to gnaw on.

 

I have a feeling Ben is going to give the Steelers a break next year like Brady. He has said many times he only cares about winning and ending his career in Pittsburgh.

 

I think you're right.

 

Well why WOULDN'T Brady throw to a wide open receiver? I mean it's not like he should throw to a covered guy just to be considered great. A lot of qbs are pocket passers and as for saying he's a system guy they've had a lot of different coordinators in his time there and he has managed to thrive under them. As far as not throwing a td pass in the big game if you remember Welker dropped one wide open a couple of years ago and in 07 he led them down the field and hit Moss and then the greatest flop play in NFL history (manning to tyree) erased that. So really he would've had two Super Bowl winning td passes if A. His receiver would catch and B. If his defense could hold. Neither of those are his fault. If a qb leads a drive that puts his team in field goal position do you not consider that a game winning drive? But I totally respect the haterism. I feel the same way about Peyton that you do about Brady. I think every generation in sports has some guy that is considered awesome but you can always find a reason to justifiably say they are not awesome. My justification for not liking Manning is that he's nothing more than a regular season stat machine that has played in perfect weather conditions for most of his career and in a crappy division and in a system that was tailor made for him which was in place for 12 years and allowed him to have that success. But of course there are many who would disagree. To me Tom Brady is the ultimate competitor with a killer instinct like none other. Also I really feel he's had to work a lot harder than most being that he was drafted as late as he was. Most guys drafted that late are probably cut by training camp and yet he survived and worked hard and earned what he has now. I respect that.

 

I knew someone would mention that. LOL. I think the reason I put it on Welker is because I think he ran the wrong route. I think he went inside and was supposed to have went outside. That's why I put it on him. But I can totally see how there will probably forever be a dispute as to whether it was his fault or Brady's. I can definitely say that in New England they consider it Welker's fault. I can also say that Tom's wife also agrees with me. LOL!

 

While I'm not going to join the Brady love fest, I do respect what he's accomplished. But I have to say, some of the comments on this thread make me shake my head. Isn't the idea of taking less, with a salary cap, give the team more flexibility to improve the team? The owners aren't going to save any money with this deal, they are going to spend as much as they can under the cap to put a winning product on the field. So who cares if they have billions. The price of a jersey isn't going to rise or reduce simply because a player like Brees goes for more money or Brady takes a little less. All the jerseys are priced at what they think we the fans will pay for them. I have 3...

 

I think you're misinterpeting the "wide open" comment. What I mean is that when Brady throws deeper passes, it's the play design that works. he rarely has to fire the ball between receivers because, more often than not on those plays, his primary receiver is literally UNCOVERED. Furthermore, the guy gets line protection unlike any QB I have ever seen. What the Pats have done with that line, over the past decade plaus, is nothing short of spectacular.

 

It was a bad pass. All I know is that with a chance to put the game away, Montana and Bradshaw would have hit Welker in stride. Brady is not a big play QB, and so when called upon--in that moment--to make a huge play, he failed. Same thing on the deep ball to Gronlowski earlier in that game. In SB XLII, with a little less than a minute to play and needing to get down the field fast, he failed miserably: couldn't connect on 20/30-yard routes. In the 2006 AFC Champ game, he had a golden opportunity to lead the Pats down the field and win it...instead he threw a bad pass that was picked off...a pass he had to get down the field. In the game prior to that, he threw the pick that effectively ended the game against the Chargers and, what do you know, he was given a reprive by an idiot LB who tried to run it back and fumbled. Brady got a second chance. Brady is simply not the QB I want in the game when I want big chunks of yardage. If it's 4th and 12, with the game or season on the line, I'd actually take Ben in that situation over Brady.