Can't wrap my head around guys wanting to cap jake longs number at $8 million per. I'm guessig it will be closer to $10mil per, and I cant' say that I would rather let him walk than give him the extra $2 mil a year. The alternative is, moving martin over to left tackle where he has shown to be a weakling, and was known to be weak physically when we drafted him, and thus draft a RT in the upcoming draft and hope he is solid. OR, drafting a left tackle with a high round pick instead of drafting a keenan allen, desmond trufant, quinton patton, cordarelle patterson, terry hawthorne, barkevious mingo... you name it...
personally, I think ireland will drive a hard bargain for a team friendly deal with long. I wouldn't venture a guess that it will be heavily incentive laden, but I would imagine it has some escalators in it, that will be geared towards games played and some sort of statistical verbage in regards to how his play affects the qb's play.
I dont' buy all the BS about long not fitting the scheme either. If the ****ing guy didn't fit the scheme, and our coach and gm still want him here, than we have more issues than I have time to talk about.
Please don't come back at me with some scenario where only ireland wants jake back and not philbin... these guys are obviously on the same page, so to try and tell me that ireand and philbin are on the same page with the senior bowl, combine, college scouting talent...etc etc... but cant agree on whether jake long fits the scheme or not, is beyond asinine IMO.
my hunch... jake long will be a miami dolphin in 2014... whether or not I agree with that, I guess depend on what the numbers are when they come out.