Tom Brady has set a precedent.
Not a precedent for how much money a player should ask for, nor for how a man should approach his financial obligations. The pecedent that Tom Brady set was a new standard for the term "The Patriot Way", and what it means to put team first while ensuring he recieved reasonable compensation.
The question comes to mind through this process is how come Tom Brady's agent, Don Yee, could get this deal done for Brady and Wes Welker's agent can't?
Does a player's agent work for the player, or does the player work for the agent. This is an important question to answer because in the case of Patriots Nation v. Wes Welker, the question can not be left as ambiguous as it seems to be with football fans...so that question remains:
Who works for whom?
Sports Illustrated's Peter King answers the question quite forcefully, as far as Brady goes anyway, in his Monday Morning Quarterback: Tuesday edition article, posted this morning:
"he's working for Brady, and he does what Brady wants him to do. Will the contract be used against Yee by his peers if they ever compete for a player? Absolutely. But the thing I have admired about Yee is that he doesn't care what other people think. He cares about what his client thinks."
Reports are now flowing out of Foxboro that optimism is high that Welker and the Patriots are going to be able to get a three year deal done before the start of free agency....which is cool, I suppose, but what has changed?
Last season, Welker hid behind his agent, David Dunn, last offseason, then emerged from the weeds to sign the franchise tag so fast that the ink on the contract didn't have time to dry.
Peter King made a very astute observation in his Monday Morning Quarterback - Tuesday edition this morning column
Now if Welker doesn't play ball, not only will he be playing for another team, but also he will become the scourge of New England, the guy that dropped the ball - not just once in the Super Bowl, not just a second time in last season's AFC title game, but a third time when his friend resturctured his own contract to give the team room to negotiate with him - and he passed on the opportunity.
4. The role of the agent. It's likely you don't know Don Yee. He's been an agent for more than two decades, and a very reputable one. Already, I hear the whispers and the charges that Yee made a bad deal; what in God's name is he doing signing Brady for such a relative pittance? I'll tell you why. Because he's working for Brady, and he does what Brady wants him to do. Will the contract be used against Yee by his peers if they ever compete for a player? Absolutely. But the thing I have admired about Yee is that he doesn't care what other people think. He cares about what his client thinks. And Brady clearly was on board for doing a sub-market deal if it meant the Patriots could be bigger players in free agency than they'd been scheduled to be. If Brady asked Yee to get him every last dime from New England, that's what Yee would have done. But he wanted to do something to help the team, and Yee, working with the Krafts, got it done the way Brady wanted. Regardless what the outside world thinks, Yee did the best job for his player. Which is why Brady has Yee for his representative.
Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl/news/20130226/tom-brady-new-england-patriots/#ixzz2M2PeWfXH
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