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http://www.thefalcoholic.com/2012/4/16/ ... outs-today

He's not alone. Most, if not all 'Franchised' players around the league are also not reporting.

Why should he? I know we fans are supposed to be anti-holdout in all circumstances, but I've matured. But really if you were put in his shoes, why would you report. Not signing the tender is the only teensy weensy bit of leverage you have to force the team to negotiate a long-term deal. If you say that you're only going to play under a long-term deal, and if they want you to play, then they better sign you to one, that's your only bit of leverage.

People say he should take the $10.3 million guaranteed and be happy with it? And I say to that, why? If you can get $25 million guaranteed, why settle for $10.3 million? To do anything otherwise, frankly is un-American. Especially when you're Brent Grimes, who is almost 30 and you know this is probably your one and only chance of getting the most money you can possibly get, do whatever you gotta do to make sure you set up yourself and your family for as long as you can.

It's easy for someone that makes $30,000/yr. to say be happy with the $10.3 million. BUt if you were in his shoes, and you can skip OTAs (which you really don't need) and improve your chances of making $25 million by 10-20% or just simply settle for $10.3 million and hope (there's that word again) that they'll eventually take care of you, then you cannot/shouldn't fault a player for holding out.

Yeah, you can't blame the guy. Its rare that he would suffer a season/career ending injury but it does happen. Why risk it? Although with the new post lockout rules, I think all they do in OTA's is leap frogs and sock races.

I'm suprised this deal hasn't already gotten done. $10.3 million is alot for one year, why not 4 years 32-34 million and we can have the position locked down. It seems to be in both sides best interest to get a deal, Get it done Tom!!

If the Falcons gave Grimes the exact same contract of Cortland Finnegan, his cap hit this year would be $6 million. I've seen reports that we are $1.6 million under the cap, but I'm assuming that's including Grimes tender hit, which technically doesn't count.

It really bothers me how poorly the Falcons handled their money this off-season. IMHO, they should have approached Turner in February with an ultimatum, which was to cut his salary in half or get cut. At the least that would have saved us $2M (if he was cut), or $3.5M (if he agreed to the restructuring).

They should have at the very least approached Matt Ryan with a restructure. Take his $13M base salary, and reduce it to like $5.5M guaranteed. That would have basically doubled his guaranteed money for this year (only about $2.75M of his $13M deal was guaranteed) orgiinally. The difference ($7.5M), you can move to a roster bonus next year, which would give him like a cap hit of $18M in 2013. You do that so that you basically are forced to give him a long-term deal at some point in the next 12 months or decide to move on, a decision I think works out for both parties in the end. Ryan wins because he gets paid one way or the other (either by us or another team), and the Falcons win because they don't get into a situation like with Drew Brees where Ryan plays through the final year of his contract (2013) as a lame duck and have to deal with the issues of having your franchise QB holding out.

They should have taken more off the top of Dunta's restructuring, maybe another $1-2M.

If you make those 3 moves alone, $3.5M from Turner, $7.5M from Ryan, and $1M more from Dunta, you've just freed up $12M in 2012 cap space. Plus potentially $4M from Grimes long-term deal, and you have $16M in money that you could have thrown at Mario Williams in free agency. IINM, Williams cap hit for this year is about $9.1M from the deal he signed with the Bills. So you could have made all of the moves you made this off-season, signed Mario Williams, and still had up to $7M left over to get other deals done (about the cost of Carl Nicks in Year 1 in TB)...

So I'll once again point out if you are reading/listening to anybody that says that the Falcons couldn't afford to spend this off-seaosn, then they are talking out of their ass.

I'll say it again, Blank just didn't want to spend this year.....

As to Grimes I don't mind him holding out at all, but its not what I'd do.... I'd put 10 million under my mattress and feel pretty good about myself...... Then I'd make this year the toughest he's ever come to camp; and he could have a good year;
then negotiate the contract he wants next year......

I'm just saying what I'd do. I'd take the 10 million and chill out; yea he can get more money if he plays it right, but he can get
10 million now.

And I'll say again, Blank had nothing to do with it. It had everything to do with Thomas D. and Smitty being complacent about how close this team is to winning a championship. And if anything else past free agent mistakes making them wary of spending top dollar for another player. Mistakes compound mistakes.