Who was GM when Jason Peters was dealt?

[Thurman#1]

1 hour ago, LabattBlue said:

As I watched Peters dominate Mack for most of the game(as he continues down the road to the HoF), it got me thinking, who was the GM when the trade with Philly took place?

 

 

Russ was the guy who handled that negotiation. I never minded Russ much when he wasn't making personnel decisions, but he botched it.

 

He released some statements to try to pressure Peters and it didn't work a bit. It only angered Peters and his management. Peters was worth every penny Philly paid. We should have paid him what they did. Bills fans after those public statements simply never liked Peters again. To the point that for months after he left people would tell you that Peters had said publicly that he took plays off. He simply hadn't said that, and no matter how many times people asked for a link and never got one most of the boards hated him so much they were unwilling to face the facts about what he'd actually said being very different from what had been perceived.

 

Haven't seen the game yet, but Peters should have been a lifelong Bill. Particularly as they had a terrible time replacing him, with Bell, and a number of other poor attempts for three or four years of QBs taking far too many unexpected hits.

[DabillsDaBillsDaBills]

Peters situation was complicated.

 

The Bills took him in as an undrafted tight end and helped him become a solid RT. After 1 year as a starter we gave him a pretty decent 5 year contract for a RT. Halfway through the first year of that contract the Bills move him from RT to LT. Peters excelled as a LT for that half season, and for the entire next season. 

 

The offseason after his 2nd year of his contract is when he started holding out. I can see where Peters was coming from. LT's get paid more than RT's, and he was an elite LT getting paid average RT money. From the Bills perspective, this was an UDFA that we took a chance on and helped develop, and signed him to a fair contract (at the time). Perhaps the Bills were willing to re-negotiate but Peters demands were outlandish. Perhaps the Bills drew a line in the sand and said they would not re-negotiate under any circumstance. 

 

After sitting out the entire offseason (and getting fined a decent chunk of $$) Peters reported and started in week 1 of that season. IMO he was out of shape and his play was abysmal the first half of the season. He played better, but not great in the second half.  He led the league in sacks allowed that year (not an official stat recognized by the NFL). He was also selected to the Pro Bowl and 2nd team all pro. 

 

After that season the Bills traded him to the Eagles for a 1st, 4th, and 6th rd pick. 

 

On one hand, we traded away a (likely) HOF player in the prime of his career.

 

On the other, we turned a UDFA into a 1st, 4th, and 6th rd pick after an ugly contract dispute (with both sides sharing blame).

[Bad Things]

He's had a long $uccessful career in Philly, but I found him way overrated as a Bill.

[BADOLBILZ]

1 hour ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

Not to rehash all this but it was never clear cut one way or the other.  The Bills gave Peters a nice contract after his first season as a RT.  He wanted big time LT money.  He held out and refused to return their phone calls and when he should up, he was completely out of shape.  The Bills finally traded him and ended up with a decent return, I believe a 1st and something else.  If the Pats did this, we would praise their culture and getting rid of me guys.  

 

I know it’s impossible to take the middle ground in any debate but I completely see both sides. Peters is a HOF and a freak.  The Bills signed the guy as a UDFA TE and moved him.  Peters also has had some major injuries and missed most of last year.  But yup, that deal worked out well for them.

 

 

Dude.......you finally let go of your irrational raging crusade of support for Dick Jauron a few years ago("he's Belichick without Brady")............it's time to give up the freezing cold old Peters take too.

 

Peters followed Eugene Parker's direction..........if Russ wanted to negotiate with Peters he had to go thru his agent and he wasn't going to get sucked into debating it with the team.

 

This is STANDARD practice we take for granted now........if you are in a contract dispute with a player you go thru his agent.

 

Russ made a huge mis-step trying to negotiate the contract in the media.

 

"We already gave him a raise and he won't answer my calls"  was a dumb,  old-labor-management approach.........they had given him a raise to be a RT and THEN moved him to LT and he was the best LT in the NFL!........he warranted a new contract and his HOF career is proof.

 

Russ was a clueless newbie GM then........it bears mentioning that you loved the "out of the box" hire of Russ as GM as well........and years later Russ was effusive in his praise of Parker's character and work as a negotiator.

 

BTW..........back when people were singing the praises young Eric Wood.......I told the LONG LIST OF FOOLS here on TSW that Peters would still be playing in the league when Eric Wood was gone..........how ya' like me now!?

 

 

[Rico]

1 hour ago, Helpmenow said:

Peters is a much better player than Eric wood whom the bills drafted with that pick.

Light years better.

 

Let's not also forget the many more millions that Derrick Dockery was paid compared to him.

[Rico]

6 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

Dude.......you finally let go of your irrational raging crusade of support for Dick Jauron a few years ago("he's Belichick without Brady")............it's time to give up the freezing cold old Peters take too.

 

Peters followed Eugene Parker's direction..........if Russ wanted to negotiate with Peters he had to go thru his agent and he wasn't going to get sucked into debating it with the team.

 

This is STANDARD practice we take for granted now........if you are in a contract dispute with a player you go thru his agent.

 

Russ made a huge mis-step trying to negotiate the contract in the media.

 

"We already gave him a raise and he won't answer my calls"  was a dumb,  old-labor-management approach.........they had given him a raise to be a RT and THEN moved him to LT and he was the best LT in the NFL!........he warranted a new contract and his HOF career is proof.

 

Russ was a clueless newbie GM then........it bears mentioning that you loved the "out of the box" hire of Russ as GM as well........and years later Russ was effusive in his praise of Parker's character and work as a negotiator.

 

BTW..........back when people were singing the praises young Eric Wood.......I told the LONG LIST OF FOOLS here on TSW that Peters would still be playing in the league when Eric Wood was gone..........how ya' like me now!?

 

 

[BuffaloFan68]

If memory serves me correctly, Philly was fined for tampering because they were negotiating before they were allowed to be. 

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

1 hour ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

Yup.  But clearly if we had Peters, we would have been a powerhouse.  He would have taken Trent to the next level.

 

Hell's frozen over. I agree with biscuit

[BuffaloBill]

1 hour ago, LSHMEAB said:

Pretty sure it was Levy.

 

Incorrect. Twas the great Russell Brandon.

 

I still believe the Bills completely mishandled the entire Peters affair.  It’s easy to say from my position but the Bills let a once in a generation talent slip away from them.  It was sheer stupidity.

[Jauronimo]

1 hour ago, unbillievable said:

 

Everyone was making a big deal out of Mack's stats during that game. But if you watched Peters, which I did because I didn't care about either team, you would notice that he looked awful. His "dominance" consisted of being big enough to block a direct line to Foles. He barely got a hand on anyone and was consistently beat inside and out. The eagles just game planned to get the ball out quickly.

 

Edit: I guess being bull-rush proof is a good thing. Forcing Bears to run around you is a type of pass protection.

Yes.  Making players take the old Maybin trail around the pocket is excellent pass protection.  Zero sacks and two hits hardly sounds like consistently beat inside and out.

[JOE IN HAMPTON ROADS]

1 hour ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

Not to rehash all this but it was never clear cut one way or the other.  The Bills gave Peters a nice contract after his first season as a RT.  He wanted big time LT money.  He held out and refused to return their phone calls and when he should up, he was completely out of shape.  The Bills finally traded him and ended up with a decent return, I believe a 1st and something else.  If the Pats did this, we would praise their culture and getting rid of me guys.  

 

I know it’s impossible to take the middle ground in any debate but I completely see both sides. Peters is a HOF and a freak.  The Bills signed the guy as a UDFA TE and moved him.  Peters also has had some major injuries and missed most of last year.  But yup, that deal worked out well for them.

yes, and Peters did NOT want to be here.  I think RW felt he was ungrateful and refused to even consider mollifying him.  In fairness to Ralph, Peters was being a huge deuche about it.  In fairness to Peters, we were not paying him what we had made him worth.

[Jauronimo]

Beef Mo is only getting into Canton if he buys a ticket like everyone else.

[uticaclub]

1 hour ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

And how successful were we with Peters? 

 

Facts are:  Peters forced his way out.  Really was not the fault of the Bills front office.  They can be held accountable for a whole lot over most the past 2 decades, but this particular situation was all on Peters.

 

He got paid then wanted more and decided to stay home and get fat.  More importantly he led the league in sacks allowed the year before as well and yet was still asking for even more money after 1 year on his already new deal.

 

And we got Wood out of it, who did eventually help us make the playoffs last year while we never made the playoffs with Peters.  We also had a pretty good LT most the years since Peters has been gone, LT hasn’t been the WHY we struggled to win or make playoffs.  

 

It was a win-win for Bills and Eagles.

 

I wouldn’t call Langston Walker or Demeteris Bell pretty good. I remember wanting to run Peters out of town but it was all part of the losing culture that elite players didn’t want to be a part of 

[auburnbillsbacker]

The Bills signed a fat tight end then helped him become a great offensive tackle. They then gave him a significant pay raise.  Peters paid them back by holding out most of a season then playing awful for a couple of games forcing the bills to trade him.  

[BillyWhiteShows]

2 hours ago, MJS said:

Don't we just blame Doug Whaley for everything?

 

Yes because he’s screwed up a lot of stuff.  He wasn’t in Buffalo for this screw up though

[Manther]

2 hours ago, unbillievable said:

How many felt that letting Jarius Byrd go was history repeating itself?

Not at all!  The situations seemed similar.  BUT, you need to understand the player and what they are trying to accomplish.  So, after the fact and during BOTH times I thought they were different.  Peters wanting to be paid for playing well and Byrd trying to get paid and not really interested in playing football at a high level (just a pay day).

 

When paying a player big bucks I think the two important things are is that salary and cap hit worth it for that position and what will that player produce on the field after the pay day.

 

Peters - LT is worth the money.  What will he do after the pay day, not sure.

 

Byrd - S is not worth the money.  Confident he didn't care about football after being paid.

 

JMHO

[BADOLBILZ]

43 minutes ago, Rico said:

 

 

Biscuit's 4 year Baghdad Bob-esque defense of Dick Jauron remains the all-time worst take in the history of TSW.............both for sheer wrongness and duration.

 

With all of the information at our disposal now it's a standard of wrong that may be unreachable ever again.

 

Sorry Biscuit........but after that you basically can't dance again........guilty feet have got no rhythm. 

 

And since that's a McCoy thread let me ask people how my take that unnecessarily extending McCoy after the trade.......adding the 2018 and 2019 seasons and $26.5M guaranteed total to his Philly contract......was a mistake.......look now?

 

McCoy was being paid top dollar for a RB under his Eagles contract that ran thru 2017 when they acquired him.............I like how he's matured as a teammate but some takes are TOO EASY and yet vehemently opposed on TSW.

Edited January 8, 2019 by BADOLBILZ

[Thurman#1]

1 hour ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

Not to rehash all this but it was never clear cut one way or the other.  The Bills gave Peters a nice contract after his first season as a RT.  He wanted big time LT money.  He held out and refused to return their phone calls and when he should up, he was completely out of shape.  The Bills finally traded him and ended up with a decent return, I believe a 1st and something else.  If the Pats did this, we would praise their culture and getting rid of me guys.  

 

I know it’s impossible to take the middle ground in any debate but I completely see both sides. Peters is a HOF and a freak.  The Bills signed the guy as a UDFA TE and moved him.  Peters also has had some major injuries and missed most of last year.  But yup, that deal worked out well for them.

 

 

To correctly rehash all of this, the Bills paid him UDFA money and then put him at RT where he immediately was one of the two or three best in the league.

 

They then gave him a contract based on RT salaries and literally a few games later they switched him to LT, a much higher-paid position, and expected him to be happy with his contract which was drastically underpaying him. He didn't say anything for a year and a half but at that point he began to complain, and it was very very reasonable that he did so. He was one of the two or three best LTs in the league instantly and was the lowest-paid LT on a non-rookie contract in the league.

 

Of course he felt drastically underpaid.

 

And no, he wasn't out of shape. Even Jauron, the coach at the time, admitted he'd been working out hard. What was true was that he wasn't in game shape. And there's no way to get in game shape when you hold out. You have to play football to get in football shape. This is another thing which has been said by nobody at the Bills. In fact, they said the opposite, that he'd worked out a ton and was in great shape, but not in football shape. But you still hear people saying what you said, that he'd been in bad shape.

 

More, the fact that he was in good shape - but not good football shape - showed. The first four or five weeks he wasn't playing all that well, but after that he was once again absolutely dominating opponents. People forget that he was chosen for the Pro Bowl that year, and for good reason.

 

[K-9]

2 hours ago, unbillievable said:

Between Jason Peters and Marshawn Lynch, how many other future hall of famers did that regime give away?

Peters is a first ballot lock. 

 

I doubt Lynch garners any consideration at all. 

[MJS]

43 minutes ago, BillyWhiteShows said:

 

Yes because he’s screwed up a lot of stuff.  He wasn’t in Buffalo for this screw up though

 

That you know of ?