When a team has already told you they will pay you 19, then comes to you and tries to get you to play for less, that is horse****. That's why. Especially when you are worth 3x as much as the next best player on the team, and are the most important cog in the entire organization's wheel.

Peyton could easily walk for Houston and rape the easy AFCS. Denver's not in a position of power here. Strongarming Peyton in his final year is all the LOLZ if you are that organization.

If I'm an NFL player I'm never taking a paycut under any circumstance outside of having a millionaire wife and being in a situation where multiple millions of dollars are immaterial to me.

The money isn't guaranteed in your deal, and your beloved team will cut you or force you to restructure the second you start to regress. Injury risk is too high both for you and your teammates to give up nearly guaranteed money for future championship equity (and future earning potential by way of winning rangz).

It's not at all the same as taking a paycut in the NBA. Players are richer, deals are guaranteed, injuries are less of a concern and the saved cap space can more realistically translate to more title equity imo.

Well, no, not really. I mean, maybe in that exact situation, but if DEN came to Peyton and said, "We want you to take a $5M paycut, and we're going to use that money to sign/extend X, Y, and Z so we can make a run at a championship", and Peyton thinks it's a good plan, why not?

$5M means far less to Peyton then it does to most and a RANG is absolutely huge for him and his future earning potential (not that he's hurting for that either).

How does another SB affect his future earning potential? He's already a huge celebrity and lock HOFer.

Denver, according to Vegas, has like 13% SB equity tops right now. He's gonna forego $5 million guaranteed so he can have like 16% SB equity instead? lol at that. I don't think Peyton is so rich that $5 million means legit nothing to him

Seriously? I mean, I already said he wasn't hurting in that area anyway, but yeah, a second RANG pretty clearly helps him anyway.

Peyton is pretty rich. The amount of money that athletes that aren't dumb can save is staggering. Peyton is pretty likely to be wealthy enough that $5M doesn't have a ton of extra utility for him.

I really don't see how winning another SB moves the needle for Peyton's future earnings in any substantial way. Peyton wants to win a SB for his legacy. He's already going to have unlimited endorsement deals for the rest of his life

He also grew up in this beast:



Should be pretty set after a 30 year NFL career.

Damn, he should totally hire you to be his agent.

probably close to 0.

I think he and Condon are probably set, but I can pretty much guarantee that if they thought winning another SB would make him more than the difference he'd be giving up this year, they'd snap do it. As would anyone.

The problem is that this is a specific case, we aren't talking about Rodgers giving up money while he's in his prime or anything

Noze, to those of us not familiar with the NO housing market, how much does a house like that, in wherever it's located, typically cost?

Peyton has made $230m in NFL earnings as of this year. I would make a rough guess of another $100m in endorsements. Something like $350m vs $353m is obviously a lol difference

Do you really think 3-4 million dollars is going to have any material effect on Peyton's life at all?
You do realize he's easily worth north of $100 million, right?

Edit: Somewhere between 100 and 200 million dollars depending on source.

If Peyton was interested in playing for less than market value he would have done it when he first signed with Denver

eta: I wonder what kind of house Pat Bowlen grew up in

You're talking like Peyton hasn't thought of this. "If he wants to win another ring". Man, I wonder if Peyton ever had that thought cross his mind when he was 38 years old and being tackled by a 295 pound 26 year old.

I get what you're saying and to a poor guy like me it sounds obvious. Yet how often do we say this about the mega rich and it never works out this way? For whatever reason, they almost always prefer 21 million to 17. Also, you don't have any idea what Peyton's net worth is. I guarantee you it's not $353 Million. Depending on how he blows money it may be much closer to $100 Million.

It's also pretty hard to take a paycut when you know you'd be making $60 Million a year if there was no salary cap.

people generally prefer $21m to $17m b/c

a) most people are greedy
b) their agents much prefer that and the players association probably prefers it
c) for most people that is a material difference that will affect their lives

and yeah if Peyton has made $300m he might only have $100m in assets b/c of the tax man. same principle though, do you think a guy with $100m in assets makes any life decisions any different than a guy who has $102m in assets?

they buy the same houses, same boats, probably fly first class either way!

it also depends on the guy. Randy Moss is a hick who likes fishing on lakes. MC Hammer had a 100 person entourage. Curt Schilling decided he was a video game expert and bet his life savings on it. Peyton seems like he has his head on straighter than your Antoine Walker types.

I don't understand the argument. You (two) are saying Peyton should want to take less money to try to free up money for better parts. First of all, you aren't in a position to know what he should or should not do from a financial standpoint. And this could be said about any player in the league. Where does it end? Why the **** should Peyton Manning of all people take less money? Every other player on his team should take less money for the privilege of getting to play on Peyton Manning's Team.

Secondly, him and his agent have all the information you (two) have, and even more.

Thirdly, the argument that freeing up 3 million is somehow better for Denver's future is suspect. Once Peyton retires, they have no future. Wow, they'll have a slightly better outside linebacker and left guard. Stop the press.

He may take less money. I just think that if he says no it would be a really bad decision for Denver to try to strongarm him into doing so.

Is there a cap stipulation where a player has to count X amount toward the cap, regardless of his salary?

If you were Aaron Rodgers and you suddenly won the Powerball or we find out Andrew Luck is heir to a billion dollar fortune, it makes all the sense in the world to play for vet minimum. Though this would rustle the **** out of the PA. That said, is there a mechanism in place where this player would still count X toward the salary cap? X being his estimated fair market value? Because there should be.

I don't think either KB4Z or myself is planning a trip to Peyton's house to picket or something, it's just about putting forth an idea.

...no it can't, and each of us has said separately why not.

As with most things in life, there isn't a hard and fast end point here. It's not as if X player who is 38 and worth $Y should take a pay cut while A player who's 37 and worth $Y-1M shouldn't take a pay cut. We're talking about Peyton specifically.

This highlights what we're talking about. Some players absolutely should take a pay cut to play with Peyton. If you're an Eric Decker type WR, you should do anything up to and including blowing John Elway for the chance to play with Peyton for a year or two, put up inflated numbers, then soak up that undeserved guaranteed money and a year or two's worth of salary with some other team before getting cut.

That example shows the value of taking less now for more in the future, although unlike the Peyton situation, that player is making more in contracts, whereas Peyton would hypothetically be making more post-football.

And coaches have more info about their teams but we still criticize their playcalling sometimes. Just part of the fun.

Did KB4Z say this? I don't recall ever saying Peyton should give a single **** what happens post-him in Denver.

Duh, that was already covered, at least by me. DEN is dumb as hell if they try to **** with Peyton by not allowing him back (they can fail him during his physical if they want) or even threatening to do it if he doesn't take less money. That's a separate issue from Peyton choosing to take less money to help his team while he's there.

MJM may be right, and a second SB ring doesn't mean anything for Peyton's future earnings or even for his sense of self-accomplishment. If that's the case, he should make as much as possible now. But if he cares about a ring and is financially healthy (neither is a reach right now), then there may well be a case to take what is, to him, a trivially small paycut in order to maximize his chances of winning that ring.

No, only the vet. minimums and pre-existing dead money are "locked in". In either of those cases, each could take the min. and up their RANG equity by a huge amount.*

*Obv not in Luck's case because he'd just be giving Grigson more money, but the point stands.

The Brady restructure paid for both LaFell and Edelman this year, fwiw.

Just out of curiosity, is that number after taxes, agent fees, trainer fees, etc?

Likely not.

It would have been interesting if Bradys current deal ended this year or next to see what he did. I'm not sure a QB has ever taken a way below market deal before just to maximize the ability for his team to crush in FA etc but it would likely have been tempting. Though if a QB did do that late in their career it likely would need some type of no-trade clause in order to not get sent to the Raiders for like 3 1st round picks lol.

Yeah, it really made me dislike the Red Sox when Arroyo signed for well below market value after the 2005 offseason in a hometown discount deal to stay in Boston and then they proceeded to trade him to Ohio for Wily Mo Pena, before season one.

Nevermind that it was like 80 VORP vs 10 VORP over the life of that contract.

Then I think down the road it would be possible for the cap to be accounted for like this. From a "parity" standpoint, it would make no sense for a guy like Rodgers to suddenly play for vet minimum and free up millions in actual money as well as cap space. An arbitrator should come in and deem his cap hit at a certain number based on his estimated FMV looking at his comps and whatnot.

It's not a problem yet b/c I guess nobody has ever done it but the first person that does would rustle the hell out of everyone. I think Brady's thing this year has likely rustled people already. It's happened in other industries. Kelsey Grammer did his final season of Frasier for like $1 or something when he could have pulled in like $10 Million or more at fair value.