Do I understand why Sheldon Brown is upset about his contract and the fact that the Eagles aren't willing to give him a new one? Yes. I also understand the Eagles telling him they're not going to give him a new deal.
This is the way NFL business is conducted. Brown has seen his teammate Lito Sheppard create a disturbance on his team and get traded into a new contract with a $10 million dollar bonus and a much larger yearly salary.
He also has seen the guy who everybody in town is celebrating right now, Jason Peters, do the same thing in Buffalo and get traded into a $60 million dollar deal.
Yes, Sheldon did agree to a contract extension a few years back. Yes, he did get a healthy bonus. Yes it's understandable when the Eagles say he should honor his contract.
But to that I say, the Eagles should have to honor their contracts. All their contracts should be honored, even the ones they signed with Matt McCoy and Ryan Moats. They signed deals with these guys, then found out they couldn't play here and released them.
Why is it the players should be forced to honor contracts but the Eagles aren't asked to do the same thing?
If Brown's play had dipped after he had signed the contract, he would be somewhere selling insurance because the Birds would have released him.
I understand why both sides are making their moves they're making. The one mistake Sheldon made was waiting too long to start making noise.
if he had started complaining right after the season, there's a good chance he would be getting traded now. Teams make more trades before the draft than they do after it.
If the Eagles really wanted to be consistent about players honoring contracts, they wouldn't have signed Peters who wasn't willing to honor his contract in Buffalo.
Notice they didn't mention that in their statement.
