the #1 overall?

Will the Lions throw Killer a bone and give him and local media the news first? I guess the agent could leak it to the national media so Killer wouldn't get it.

I choose b-diddy as the source, will appear on ESPN.

Kstat=PWNED.

I picked national, but damnit I want some news, the past couple of weeks have been boring as all shit.

I bet the Lions and Staff are negotiating pretty hard right now. Next week, late next week, something like that, I hope to hear something too.

^BREAKING NEWS

#5 Thats what my sources are telling me. :)

I bet Killer will have it.

It happened.

Will I know if I don't already?

Last week, we’ve heard that the Lions have locked onto Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.

The information came from a source with knowledge of the team’s thinking.

This week, we’re hearing the same thing, but from the player’s perspective.

As we hear it, Stafford is telling his former Bulldog teammates that he’ll be the pick, and that he’ll receive more than $40 million, guaranteed, under the contract that the team will pay him.

Stafford is characterizing the move as a “done deal.”

If true, there’s no further reason for the Lions to continue to push the “signability” nonsense, and for the Lions to announce that Stafford is the guy sooner rather than later.


Source (http://www.profootballtalk.com/2009/04/13/stafford-telling-teammates-hell-be-a-lion/)

Not the most reliable source, but yeah.

If they gave him $40mill guaranteed, they're fucking idiots.

Holy shit. Football aside for a sec...Could you imagine graduating from college and getting 40 mil guaranfuckinteed? Thats a lot of cheese sandwiches if you like cheese sandwiches.

Is Millen still on the payroll as a consultant?

Holy shit. Football aside for a sec...Could you imagine graduating from college and getting 40 mil guaranfuckinteed? Thats a lot of cheese sandwiches if you like cheese sandwiches.

Ryan got what, 34 million guaranteed as the #3 pick last year? 40 is not out of the question, not that I support that number.

You bargain with Stafford, Sanchez (not going to take him, but get his number to use against Stafford), and Smith, then you use them against each other as leverage and take whichever guy gives you the best deal (assuming you view them both equally). They either suck at negotiations or they really love Stafford and will do whatever it takes to sign him.

There are so many other factors, Zek, including the probable uncapped 2010 years. It's possible he could take less overall for more guaranteed money, with a large amount of that guaranteed coming as signing bonus in the 2010 year.

But doesn't the signing bonus get spread out (cap wise) over the full contract?

Meaning (just an example scenario to make sense of this), if we give him $40mill guaranteed on a 6 year deal, set it up so that he gets $30mill of it in 2010 and the other $10 spread out over the other 5 years of the contract, it wouldn't be a $2mill per year hit other than 2010. It would still be a $6.7mill hit each year plus salary, correct?

And what happens if we set it up in that sort of way, then they get the issue resolved before 2010 and it ends up being a capped year? It's not 100% that its going to be uncapped. We'd be fucked.

I know, but I'm just mentioning there may be other things in play, not that it would for sure be that way. If they properly weight the probabilities, it could be a good contract; Lewand is supposed to be very cap knowledgeable.

Source (http://www.profootballtalk.com/2009/04/13/stafford-telling-teammates-hell-be-a-lion/)

Not the most reliable source, but yeah.

PFT > ROTOWORLD

Eh, au contraire.

PFT has "had sources confirm" both Jason Smith and Matthew Stafford being #1 overall on separate occasions.

But doesn't the signing bonus get spread out (cap wise) over the full contract?

Meaning (just an example scenario to make sense of this), if we give him $40mill guaranteed on a 6 year deal, set it up so that he gets $30mill of it in 2010 and the other $10 spread out over the other 5 years of the contract, it wouldn't be a $2mill per year hit other than 2010. It would still be a $6.7mill hit each year plus salary, correct?

And what happens if we set it up in that sort of way, then they get the issue resolved before 2010 and it ends up being a capped year? It's not 100% that its going to be uncapped. We'd be fucked.

Signing bonuses are considered part of pay/compensation. Compensation can only increase by 30% per year according to the CBA. Stafford's contract will be signed this year (A capped year), so it will have to abide by the CBA. So his contract can't have an increase of 10 gazillion dollars next year, only 30%

But the signing bonus could be considerably larger this year and next and fall off after that.

Signing bonuses are never huge for a rookie in the 1st year of contract, iirc. Teams only have so much dough to work with cuz of the rookie pool. We'll only have 8ish-10ish million to sign all rookies with, afaict. He can't get much of signing bonus.

It'll hit next year.

You might be thinking about FA signing bonuses. Those normally hit immediately.

I guess for some reason I'm expecting some capfoolery due to Lewand's and co's talks about the "new contract language" that would be relevant to the first overall pick due to the 2010 uncapped year. So it may not be the norm, per se. Of course, it also may be the norm. We'll just have to wait and see.

So it was national, right?

In a global sense, yes. However, Killer Kowalski probably believes he once broke this story weeks ago (though it was impossible).