[tshile]

Originally Posted by Southpaw

LaRon Landry, Carlos Rogers, and Antonio Pierce. As far as I can remember, the team did not feel they were worth what they were asking for. I'm not claiming any of them are all stars, but each of them was replaced with players worse than them.

The situation with each of those guys feels eerily similar to the current situation with Orakpo. Lukewarm fan response and local media outlets downplaying his contributions. It's pretty obvious when this team is preparing the fanbase for someone to be gone.

Landry wouldn't have a surgery the team wanted him to have. His health was an issue. It wasn't an issue of skill or anything like that. And when you look at how his career has gone since leaving...

Rogers wanted out.

I was a bit too young to really remember Pierce and the circumstances surrounding him leaving. If he fits the mold I'll trust you on it.

You've got 1 guy.

That's far from a trend of not paying guys...

You brought up Clark... they let him go not because they didn't want to pay him, but because they wanted to blow their wad on Adam Archuleta...

So, aside from your one guy... we're back to what I originally said...

...
over the last 10 years talent has walked for a variety of reasons, I don't recall any of them being because the team didn't think they were good enough.

I do recall it being because the player had a gripe with the fans, or the organization. Or because the player's wife had an issue with a certain mistress in the area. Or because the FO thought some top-dollar free agent that was past his prime would be a better person to pick up.

If you have more guys, please share. I've heard this argument before. I've yet to hear anyone actually put together a list of people over the last 15 years that actually match up to Orakpo's situation... where the FO and the player genuinely like each other, there are no off the field issues, the player just wants too much money and the FO is (so far) refusing to give it (though reluctant is probably the better way to word it, we did franchise him...)

The biggest criticism of Snyder over the last 15 years is that he *pays the wrong players too much money* often to the detriment of actually building a solid team.

In fact... the only good thing anyone could ever say about Snyder was that he was willing to throw his money around in an attempt to bring in talent. The talent evaluation was suspect at best, the contract decisions were harmful in the long run. But at least he'd throw his money around.

Originally Posted by Southpaw

If the new business model is not paying anyone, good luck attracting or holding on to talent.

That's not what anyone has said.

In fact, majority of fans from what I can tell want to keep Orakpo... they just want to pay a few less dollars to do so. Ie: pay him more appropriate to his level of expected contribution.

Ie: move away from the business model of the last 14 years that has completely sunk this organization.