The CBA is the CBA. The contract is the contract. The rules are the rules. Period. To talk about fair or not fair is pointless. To talk about what a player already under contract "deserves" is pointless....rookie deal, 2nd deal, 3rd deal...it doesn't matter. On the one hand a player wants a long term deal to guarantee his future; but on the other @#$%& and gripes when 3 years later another player of his same position makes more money than he does. Duh.
The Rams would be dumb to give AD a raise before they absolutely have to. That's the business side of it. And if I'm the Rams, I only give AD a deal that makes sense for the Rams. And if that means using the TAG a couple of times, so be it. After all, for a DT, the TAG number for this year is $13.9 mil. Let's say it goes up to $15.0 mil. The Rams still would be getting his services for at least $5 mil less than if they signed him long term.
AD has no leverage other than displaying unhappyness. And while none of us can say for sure what his and his agent's strategy is, so far the effect has been missing training camp and a couple of games. And no raise. So not very effective. What has AD gained from this? Are the Rams going to pay him, more, now, for doing this?
His drop dead date is Aug. 7. Or he won't be a UFA after this season. I can't imagine his agent is that dumb. That date is a couple of days before the 1st preseason game. So he'll be plenty good to go by regular season game one and no doubt will have played in at least the last two preseason games.
The Rams are slow rolling this thing, saying nothing but the nicest things about Donald, and (to their credit) Donald's side isn't saying bad things about the Rams either. That's the real positive in this whole thing.
