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Atlantic Ram
Breer says there is a reason Suh, Peters and Talib were available... not good on the locker room.
Said Rams and Donald were far apart. Used 80% of Matt Ryan’s salary for a Mack or Donald figure... which is $24 million a year. Said that would reset the market to what it was for top defensive players. Mentioned that Miller won a championship (mvp? Can’t remember) and neither Donald or Mack have. Says he expects Rams and Donald to agree before Mack and Raiders. Credited Demoff and company for being creative with their contracts. Said he would expect Donald to sign and play in game 1 of the season.
Also said that Donald is a leader in he locker room and if things went sideways then he would be a positive leader.
Summaries are not easy. So good job, and I want to offer a bigger one that includes more. Where I mark yours with a red bit, I sort of disagree with your take on it and offer a small correction...I think a more complete summary is needed there.
You're right about Breer on Donald as a leader. To expand, his lead in to Donald was to focus on how there were a lot of big personalities in that locker room. Who leads if there's adversity? One reason Miami let Suh go was because he wasn't that guy. That puts a lot on McVay. But you have to have strong guys in the locker room. So Breer goes, who is that guy for the Rams? And to him it's Donald.
On contracts. There's 3 years of inflation at every position (that's true) except the top defender market is represent by a 3 year old contract (Von Miller). The market correction is looked for because top defender numbers slipped from 86% in 2016 to 63% now (while EVERYONE ELSE went up since Von Miller signed). Plus of course Gurley's deal represents a market correction so why not Donald. If you make it 80% now for the top defender (this applies to Mack and Donald) that would be 24 M.
Red bit---it's EISEN who poses the question, why wouldn't the Rams say go win a superbowl like Von Miller did? Breer doesn't make that argument, he argues against it. (Actually I don't think Eisen was making a case, he was posing a good question as an interviewer). Breer then goes, you could turn around to Les Snead if he says that and say you gave Todd Gurley a market correction.
Adding something here--they then go off on the August 7th thing. If Donald becomes an RFA, then, the Rams have less control over it and someone's going to give up a 1st round pick for Donald under those circumstances.
Agreed, he says in both cases the sides are far apart and they're having trouble finding a middle ground
(me: but then different people are saying different things about this so I don't know where Breer's info comes from, he could be as right or wrong as anyone else on that at this point).And yes he also said that you don''t want to mess up team morale and locker room dynamics by not coming through with guys like Donald. Breer says it can mess with your chemistry if there's that guy out there and you;re not taking care of him. That can screw up the message a little bit
(me: I've been saying that all along.)Says Breer, a market correction (for both Mack and AD) is a fair point. The team could say, we're not responsible for the market
(me: naw they follow the market in every other case, corrected it with Gurley, and will follow it with Goff).Yes, Breer predicts that of the 2, Donald is more likely to be there when games start. He also thinks that the Rams front office is creative enough with deals to get this done.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2018 02:45PM by zn.
