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zn

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Rams43
I have no desire to revisit the AD salary wars of last year, but I will say this.

AB was willing to cut off his nose to spite his face in his negotiations. Bell, too.

THAT is all a matter of subjective opinion. The Raiders story over the next few years has not been told yet. So who knows about that.

Fact is as I said before AB made himself virtually un-tradeable. AD would never have been in that position. High character, high motor, high integrity guy. AB is in a league full of receivers, AD is in a league where he has been the only elite DT since Sapp retired.

So with all that working against him AB still got the trade and the contract he wanted.

Given that example, you have to conclude AD would have been absolutely golden, with multiple options.

Bottomline: with star players, the entire idea that teams own "leverage" is just fanciful. It don't work like that. Like, at all.

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I agree with your first part about AB, but disagree about the AD options.

If the AD negotiations had gone sideways, Rams had virtually ALL of the leverage and they knew it. They could have tagged AD multiple times during his prime earning years which would have forced him to either sit out costing him millions that he could never recoup, or to play under the tag which would have still cost him millions vs what an offered salary would have been.

The fact that AD was a rare elite player only made him MORE tradable by the Rams IF they ultimately chose to go that route. An AD trade in his prime woulda yielded a king’s ransom.

But the Rams wisely chose to take the high road in the negotiations and the result was a happy ending for all.

Again, I have no desire for another “death match” with you on this topic. Neither of us will ever be able to convince the other on this particular topic. But I did want to put the other viewpoint out there for the record.