The High Cost Of Respect

And the week had been going so well for Eagle Fan. We got to delight in what seems like the exceptionally reasonable purchase of one of the best offensive tackles in the game, as the team picked up Jason Peters from the Bills. And then, what do my forehead-smacked eyes do discover, but #2 CB Sheldon Brown giving voice to his considerable lack of respect for the team not being too interested in renegotiating his deal, which has four years left on it at what might be below current market value.

A few points here.

1) I'm almost *always* in favor of the player making more money. He's the guy who, you know, has to hit people for a living, and if he's not happy and plays badly, my football season is ruined. The Eagles have also been under the cap since there was a cap, really, so it's not like I'm even going to dork out and worry about their contract situation. From a macroeconomic view, the player having the money is better; they employ more people buying more fool things.

And even I don't want to see Brown get paid a lot more.

You have two choices as an NFL player when you are young and the team values your services. The first is to take the lock low pot and sign the extension. The second is to roll the dice and wait until you are a free agent. Every player gets this decision, assuming they are good. Brown took the first route, and now he wants this second.

The Eagles, sensibly, haven't shown a whole lot of interest in changing the terms of the deal, seeing how Brown is under contract until the Obama '12 campaign. Brown calls this "a total lack of respect."

Um, no, not really, Sheldon. It's the house having made the right call, and the cards falling the way they thought they would. Your role is to play well for the length of that deal, then get wildly overpaid by some dumb-ass AFC team for the last big payday of your life, when you are 34 and wind up playing for about half of the deal (but all of the signing bonus) before flushing out of the league. This is how it goes here. After the Brian Dawkins Experience, this should seem obvious to anyone, really.

2) If you are going to pule for big money, you really need to make more big plays.

Last year, Brown had one bad game. You might remember it; it was the NFC Championship Game. Until Larry Fitzgerald tore him a career-defining hole, Brown had been damn near pristine for 2008... and yet, as an Eagles Fan, I never *really* knew, emotionally, that he was having a great year.

Why? Because the man has gut-wrenchingly bad hands. And at age 30, that isn't going to change.

Coverage? He's also there. Tackling? Sure, solid, doesn't go for stupid kill shots, and did give Reggie Bush the ride of his life in that playoff loss a few years ago. Run support? Yes, he's not a Deion Sanders-esque coward.

But when it comes to making the couple of plays a year that help to clear the psychic slate of what a cornerback is -- i.e., a damage control manager in a zero-fail, no-win situation -- you have to get a couple back. Maybe you don't have to go all Ed Reed-ish and score more than you give up, but a touchdown or two every few years, especially when it comes in a big spot against a hated opponent (see the Lito Sheppard resume against Dallas, for instance) means a lot. If nothing else, you need to get a runback every once in a while.

In 112 career games, Brown has 14 interceptions, with 2 touchdowns. The last of those came in 2006. In the past two years, he's had four picks for 26 yards in returns, with only one of those picks coming last year. So he doesn't get a lot of picks, and when he does get them, he goes to ground.

Asante Samuel, by comparison, has 10 picks and two scores in the past two years. And that's with being the #1 CB, which is to say, getting much fewer opportunities for picks. And that's why Samuel makes ferocious bank, and no Eagle Fan has any kind of problem with that.

There's a reason for this, and that is...

3) Sheldon Brown has tragically awful hands.

Not to the point where he can't be a very good starting corner -- he is. Not to the point where he can't get paid -- he has, and could be again.

But to the point where a team is not, and should not, break the rules and the bank to make him happy.

However, and this is really crappy part of it...

4) Once a football player has gone public about being unhappy, especially in Philadelphia, he's more or less done. Especially when the team takes the time to smack him down in public, as the Eagles PR department did today.

In the current NFL, you need at least three very good corners to match up. When the Eagles signed Samuel a year ago, there was no reason why Sheppard had to go, but he was unhappy, and soon was supplanted by Joselio Hanson, who no one ever thought had more talent. But motivation is a powerful thing, and Sheppard is now a Jet. (Speaking of which, I bet Lito bounces back this year. He's young enough, has the pedigree, and will be in the clear #2 slot opposite Darrelle Revis. Jet Fan will need him to if they are going to have any chance to slow down the Patriots. But I digress.)

By popping off in public, Brown has probably forced the Eagles hand, and has in all likelihood made the team push a corner decision into their high pick consideration. Which they were probably going to do anyway, seeing how Brown is 30, but how the team also really needs a running back and a top-drawer wideout and a two-way tight end and a half dozen other things, really...

Well, no one needed this, really. Oh, and one final thing... given the state of the economy and the relative replaceability of what Brown does -- stop big plays, not make them -- there's no real guarantee that he'd get his big payday somewhere else, either.

Seeing as he's now, you know, something of a character risk, given that he took one deal, but now wants another...