POSTED 11:26 p.m. EST, February 16, 2006

 

CULPEPPER SAYS HE PLANS TO STAY IN MINNY

 

Smarting from a persistent refusal to increase his salary and faced with reports that the team that drafted him in 1999 is trying to trade him, quarterback Daunte Culpepper said on Thursday that he's not aware of any effort to trade him, and that he plans to play for the Vikings in 2006.

 

Culpepper, who represents himself (and who consequently has a big, dumb, and ugly client), sent the following e-mail to Sid Hartman of The Minneapolis Star Tribune:

 

"Because I am getting so many requests to comment about reported trade talks, I thought it best to make a clear statement that hopefully won't be misinterpreted.  I have found over the years that 'people with knowledge of the situation' are usually the most ignorant, and 'anonymous sources' are usually synonymous with cowards who don't want to go on the record.

 

"My position has been and continues to be that I am focusing on rehabilitating my knee so that I can come back and play the game I love at the highest level.  Until I hear different from Mr. Wilf or the new 'triangle of authority' at the Vikings I plan on playing quarterback for Minnesota.

 

"Trying to delve into speculation, innuendo, rumor or anything else of this nature would be a waste of energy.  I choose at this time to spend my energy on getting healthy."

 

We don't know where to start, frankly.  First of all, folks who talk off the record aren't "cowards."  They're realists.  Certain things can only be said can be said only under an express condition of anonymity.  Absent such promises, most folks simply wouldn't talk.

 

It's a common practice in all sorts of journalism -- and it's likewise common for the people who don't like the things that folks are saying under a necessary veil of secrecy to claim that the people who are talking are 'fraidy cats.

 

More importantly, how can Culpepper claim that he's focused on rehabilitating his knee when he's spent much of the last six weeks trying to get rewarded for the worst season of his career by squeezing even more money out of the team with which he's under contract through 2013?  Or when he's been firing his agent and representing himself and popping in on the powers-that-be in an effort to parlay that Cade McNown passer rating into a $10 million raise?

 

We think that Culpepper chooses to ignore the report that the Vikings are shopping him for a second-round pick because he knows that guys who deserve (as he thinks he does) to be paid $18 million in 2006 will command far more than a second-round pick on the open market.

 

Daunte -- get yourself an agent, let him or her worry about the contractual issues, and focus all of your efforts on getting healthy.  That's the best way to get paid and, more importantly, it's the best way to be wanted again by a team that might be realizing that it traded away the wrong guy in 2005. 

 

COULD WE BE GOING MAINSTREAM?

 

We're feeling a little tingly tonight.  And it's got nothing to do with the fumes from that Sugar Bowl couch still smoldering in the back yard. 

 

Instead, we've suddenly realized that we're dangerously close to becoming a mainstream outlet for NFL news and information.

 

It started on Thursday morning, with a reference on ESPN Radio's Mike & Mike in the Morning.  Then, we got a mention during ESPN's Around the Horn.  Next up, Dan Patrick gave us a shout on SportsCenter.  (Patrick also referred to us during his radio show as "one of [his] favorite web sites.") And finally Darren Horton of The NFL Network referred to the site on Total Access Thursday evening.

 

All of that pub flowed from our report regarding the Vikings' interest in trading Daunte Culpepper for a second-round draft pick.

 

Hopefully, there will be more to come in the future, since it's the best way for us to expand our audience (especially when the budget doesn't allow for advertising . . . or salaries). 

 

For any of you who found us today for the first time, welcome.  Make yourself at home.  Take a look around.  Check out nearly four years of archived stories, some of which actually came to fruition. 

 

And please keep coming back.  Every day.  Because we'll be putting up new stuff -- every single day, usually multiple times per day -- unless and until the folks at the building and loan repossess our Commodore 64.     

 

POSTED 3:20 p.m. EST, February 16, 2006

 

BENGALS EXTEND MARVIN

 

Jay Glazer of FOXSports.com reports that the Cincinnati Bengals have given coach Marvin Lewis a new five-year contract, replacing a deal that still had three years remaining.

 

Per Glazer, Lewis will get a significant pay raise over his prior arrangement.

 

Lewis has completed three seasons with the team, taking the franchise to the playoffs for the first time in the salary cap era.  But even with stability in the coaching ranks, there are some dark clouds over the organization.

 

Quarterback Carson Palmer is rehabbing a torn ACL suffered on the second offensive snap of the wild-card loss to the Steelers, and he might not be ready for the start of the 2006 season.  Receiver Chris Henry, on whom the team spent a third-round draft pick a year ago, is facing felony weapons charges in Florida and misdemeanor marijuana charges in Kentucky.  Finally, there is still lingering resentment within the team regarding the behavior of receiver Chad Johnson at halftime of the playoff loss -- and specifically regarding the perception that Lewis coddles the flamboyant pass-catcher.

 

The new contract is an endorsement from the powers-that-be of Marvin's approach to running the team.  Based on the things we've heard and seen over the past few months, however, some of the troops might not fully agree.

 

And if Marvin ever loses the locker room, any progress he's made in the past will be roughly as relevant as a comb in Mike Brown's shirt pocket. 

 

POSTED 12:40 p.m. EST, February 16, 2006

 

DUCE CHANGES HIS TUNE

 

Soon-to-be-former Steelers running back Duce Staley has revised the version of events that he previously gave to police in South Carolina regarding his recent loss of bling at a strip club.

 

Staley told investigators that he was grabbed around the throat and assaulted, and that he lost two earrings and a bracelet worth a total of $100,000.

 

Now, Staley says he wasn't in an altercation, and that no one stole anything from him.

 

"I wasn't robbed, and I had my two earrings," Staley told Sheldon Ingram of WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh.  "I lost my bracelet, that's all.  I had to file a police report in order to have it replaced by my insurance company."

 

Ding ding ding ding ding!  Staley said the secret word, and now the duck will come down and slap him in a pair of handcuffs.

 

"Insurance company."

 

That's what this is all about, folks.  Staley is looking to get some money under an insurance policy for stuff that might or might not have been stolen and/or might or might not have been lost.  The fact that he is telling multiple stories to different audiences is an invitation for the insurance company's fraud unit to shove the Hubble telescope up the thing that was parked on the Steelers' bench for most of the 2006 season.

 

Let's be clear on this, lest we end up having to call our own insurance company.  We're not saying that Duce lied to the cops or to anyone else.  We're only saying that there's more than enough smoke on this one to prompt someone in a position to investigate this matter to believe that Staley's pants are on fire.  

 

POSTED 8:35 a.m. EST; UPDATED 11:44 a.m. EST, February 16, 2006

 

DAUNTE DEMANDED $10 MILLION RAISE

 

Kevin Seifert of The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that Vikings quarterback Daunte Culpepper asked for a $10 million raise during a January 31 meeting with owner Zygi Wilf, coach Brad Childress, V.P. of Football Operations Rob Brzezinski, and other members of the ownership group.  Culpepper, who represented himself during the meeting, wanted the extra money to be paid in 2006.

 

Per the report, Wilf angrily denied the request, and no substantive communications have occurred since.

 

Culpepper is due to receive a $6 million roster bonus on March 14.  If a trade occurs before that date, Culpepper might have to be willing to restructure his contract.  The easiest course of action would be to transform the payment to a guaranteed amount, allowing the cap hit to be spread over the next four years, and reducing his 2006 cap number with a new team to $3.5 million, since he's due to earn $2 million in base salary.

 

But no one should count on Culpepper being reasonable at the bargaining table.  He is, frankly, stupid or delusional (or both) if he thinks that anyone will break the bank for a guy whose knee was torn apart in October, and who otherwise has shown to be streaky, at best.

 

One team to keep an eye on, in our opinion, is the Arizona Cardinals.  Even though Kurt Warner recently signed a three-year contract worth $18 million or more, we have a feeling that coach Dennis Green might be willing to try to bring Culpepper on board.  He'd likely sit out most if not all of the 2006 season, and then compete with Warner for the starting job in 2007.

 

Sure, it's a lot of money to invest into the quarterback position, but the Cards usually have plenty of cap room, and with tickets selling at an unprecedented pace as the team gets ready to open a new stadium this year, cash shouldn't be an issue, even for the notoriously stingy Bidwills.

 

The issue still comes back to whether Culpepper is willing to acknowledge and accept reality.  By all appearances, he isn't -- which would make it difficult for him to accept a trade without a raise.

 

Unless he knows that the current posture he's assuming in Minnesota is the only way to secure his exit from the team that drafted him seven years ago.

 

SABAN ACKNOWLEDGES CBA PROBLEM

 

Although most NFL officials have been tight lipped regarding the status of Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations, Dolphins coach Nick Saban acknowledged on Wednesday that the lack of a new deal will be a negative factor in free agency this year.

 

"It's going to be a very difficult circumstance for people to operate systematically and have the kind of money to be actively involved in free agency," Saban said, according to The South Florida Sun-Sentinel.  "It changes some of the rules relative to the system in how you can calculate a guy's salary.

 

"We've spent more of our time trying to figure out how we would manage [the cap] if there isn't a collective bargaining agreement because we're all in new territory," Saban said.

 

As we explained on Wednesday, issues like incentive payments, the 30 percent rule, and the treatment of 2007 roster bonuses and option bonuses will make it harder than ever to negotiate contracts.  Plus, the possibility that a new CBA will be finalized after some guys have signed deals under the current system could make for some unprecedented locker room tensions, given that the guys who sign before the new CBA is done likely will get relatively smaller deals than the guys who sign afterwards.

 

CBA DEAL COMING?
 

As the hand wringing begins regarding the absence of a new CBA, we're hearing quiet but clear indications of growing optimism that a new deal will be done in the near future.

 

Per a league source, the NFL and the NFLPA have reached an agreement regarding the contents of so-called "Defined Gross Revenues," which provides the basis for determining the total team-by-team salary cap. 

 

The thrust of the negotiations at this point, we're told, is the specific percentage of the DGR that will be earmarked for player salaries. 

 

Also, a source tells us that the negotiations aimed at ironing out player compensation are proceeding even though no agreement has been reached among owners regarding the local revenues that the NFL franchises don't share.  If, as we assume, the new DGR formula includes some of the unshared revenues and if the owners don't agree to expand their current practice of cutting up 32 equal pieces of Ben Franklin pie, teams with lower revenues will end up with an inflated salary cap due to the fact that teams with higher revenues will help to push the number for everyone up.  Likewise, teams with the higher local revenues will enjoy a salary maximum that is nudged lower down by the revenues of the other teams.

 

And that's why, as we've previously explained, the real focus of the talks should be the minimum team salary, not the maximum.  Absent expanded revenue sharing, franchises with lower total revenues might choose to implement their own artificial player spending limit in order to enhance, or preserve, the total margin.  To guard against abuses in that regard, the NFLPA needs to insist on pushing the spending floor as high as possible.   

 

CLARIFICATION ON 30 PERCENT RULE

 

Regarding Wednesday's item on the 30 percent rule, a league source who has been involved in the calculation of contracts pursuant to this staple of the final capped year advises us that included within the formula for determining the maximum salary in 2007 and beyond is the prorated portion of any 2006 option payment.  

 

A traditional signing bonus is not included in the calculation.

 

The difference is significant.  With a $1 million signing bonus and a $550,000 salary, the increase each year is limited to 30 percent of the $550,000.  With a $1 million option bonus paid, for example, five days after the contract is signed, the increase each year is limited to 30 percent of the sum of the base salary and the bonus proration.

 

If, in the above example, the $1 million is paid as a signing bonus, the maximum yearly increase can be only $165,000.  If the $1 million is paid as an option bonus, the maximum increase each year would be $240,000.  

 

Over a four-year deal, that projects to a total difference of $225,000.

 

The message here to every NFL player (including Ian Gold) is that you . . . need . . . an . . . agent.  And not some slappy who likes to flash his NFLPA card at the clubs to get broads (or, as the case may be, dudes); you need an agent who knows what's going on, especially in this goofy-ass last capped year.

 

Why?  Because under the $1 million option/$550,000 year one base salary example we've been using the team can say, "Sorry, we can only raise your salary $165,000 per season, because the signing bonus isn't included as part of the 30 percent rule."  If the agent doesn't know that the easy way around this is to use an option bonus paid after signing, the kid potentially gets screwed.