Alexander

The NFL and NFLPA couldn't come to an agreement, even though it was in both of their interests to do so. Both sides had ample opportunity to make one, but still, talks stalled.

On the other side of the country, it wasn't expected that the Shaun Alexander and the Seattle Seahawks would ever be able to come to an agreement on a contract extension.

But they have.

Seattle and the league MVP have reportedly come to an agreement on an 8-year, $62M contract extension with $15M in bonus money. Now, depending on how this contract is structured, it could be a very good, or a very bad, decision by Tim Ruskell (Seattle's Team President). The front office has done a tremendous job of having a healthy salary cap situation, and I can't see why they'd structure a deal that threatens it's overall health, especially for a RB that's 29-years old.

We shall see when the contract details are released, and until then, I'm reserving my judgment on this deal. I will say that I've always thought that a deal was in the best interests for both sides, and that Alexander deserves to be well paid for his record-breaking production the last few years.

In other NFL News

When I started writing this entry, talks had broken off and free agency was less than an hour away. Once again, that has changed. The NFL and NFLPA have delayed the start of the 2006 calendar year, pushing the date back to 12:01am on Thursday.

I don't expect (and neither should you) anything to come out of this. If neither side has been willing to make the appropriate concessions thus far, why should we think anything will change over the next 3 days?

Then again, the more they swing and miss, the more they realize that both sides are killing themselves financially by not making a deal.