Ogun is a valuable commodity for us...He is very good at his position. He is not considered in the elite group of DEs because he plays opposite JT, but that should not diminish his worth to the Fins. However, he is asking for JT money and is NOT that caliber of player yet. I agree that he should be paid more commensurate with his value, but not Wistrom or Kearse money...he does NOT deserve that much.
The FO has the cards right now. They can decide to pony up and pay him now or wait until it gets closer to the season start or let it ride and have him either play next year or sit out or they can work a trade out.. but the problem Ogun faces here is that for a trade to occur, the other team would have to give up something in the way of players/draft choices and then have to pay him big bucks. Most have not been willing or able to do that so far. Chi has less cap space than the Fins do rigjt now...
Punk Drew (as you can tell, I am not a fan of his rhetoric) is pumping Ogun for everything he can get, which is his job. That is not a problem. The problem with Drew is that so far, everything he has been trying to do has been idle threats that have fallen on deaf ears. That is not because the FO does not want to work this out, it is because they don't have to work it out yet.
My take on Ogun's issue is that the Fins took a chance on him and paid him to rehab his knee. They brought him along, let him work with JT to fine tune his skills and now that he has blossomed, many are saying "Poor Ogun" because he doesn't get paid enough ?? Well he has an offer of $1.8 M. on the table. He can play for that which is, I think, about a 400% increase from last year (I love to have that kind of increase). Or he can take his chances and sit out, but that really hurts his value more than what he thinks right now. He can possibly take a one-year offer from the Fins and become a UFA next year (something more than the 1.8 but less than what he is asking for). Or the FO can play hardball and legally pay him about 400K next year unless he signs the tender (but if he does, he has to play for the $1.8) The choices are still his.
I have no problems with him getting more commensurate money. The money that he does not get will not just be going back into the owners pocket. There is a structured amount of salary ( in the form of the cap) of which our owner is always at or very near (so are most owners), so the arguement of have the $$$ go to Ogun or back into the owners pocket is not valid.
We all need to just let this play itself out and wait to see. It is a game of chicken for Ogun, but I feel the team has been fair with players in the past and will continue to do so.