Gallery Signs

Another day, another top draft pick has signed, this time the highly coveted Robert Gallery. We now have the #2 and the #5 picks in the draft signed, and in a normal year that would probably be enough to set the benchmark for getting the #6 pick signed. The deal reportedly included 18-19 mil in guaranteed money, and I'd imagine the Browns would not even consider surpassing that kind of dough in signing Winslow.

I never commented on it cause I hadn't heard it until recently, but Winslow's comments to Roda a couple weeks back are pretty annoying -- how he was excited after the draft when he said he'd sign for #6-pick money, and that now he wants his "market value," which he believes is top-pick money. That is just absurd and, one hopes, purely posturing. Nevertheless it is this sort of crap that makes for contentious negotiations and a general foul atmosphere between clubs and agents. It's amazing anything ever gets done. It's dissappointing to hear a player say something like that too since it encourages making him out to be a pariah before the dude ever steps on the field. If I was his agent I would have told him to respond to questions like that with, "You know, I'm just gonna let me agent speak on those matters and you'll have to refer to what he says." That would at least allow the player to retain some goodwill from fans. And allow fans to keep believing (falsely) that players are good guys who care about cities like Cleveland (maybe they are good guys, but they are otherwise forced to live here).

Anyhow, it seems like there is at least a reasonable possibility that Winslow could be signed before next week. Certainly the more top picks who sign, the more the pressure is shifted to Winslow and the Postons to agree to a reasonable deal.