They plant the seed early in the year when he is playing well and we’re getting ‘better than expected’ results. It’ll be in the form of a puff piece like ‘imagine how good this team will be when you have x,y,z all flying and Draper is the cherry on the sundae signing’.
Then it builds as we perform better.
Then when we go through a rough patch, they’ll go hard on the narrative that ‘we need to sign Draper ASAP’. It’ll likely be leading in to and out of the bye rounds.
Then they’ll go all hyper with rumours of Draper visiting other teams, etc. It’s pretty normal for clubs to handle internally.
It affects fans far more which is the purpose of that kind of reporting.
Think you are a bit late on that call. Have previously been a big critic of Draper burning our mids running past for the receive… but it was really obvious in the 2nd half of 2024 that someone had been in his ears about that, to the point he would sometimes spend an absurd amount of time facing the wrong way looking for a runner.
Honestly with our track record of these big contracts we are better off letting him go because you can just about bank that next season he is trash or injured it’s the oldest Essendon curse in the book
I think thats a bad strategy. You can’t keep giving away good players in the hope that young draftees will come good in 2-3 years time. Besides, how often do we do well out of interstate trades. They usually hold all the cards.
And look how well the current dude did with the Stringer trade. We’d just be handing another team a chance at a flag while we’re treading water in the middle of the list…… again.
Like many bomber fans I love Sammy
He improves every year and provides a spark and heat beat on the field. Yeah he’s a bit raw -so what.
He has also shown loyalty to us rejecting a lucrative offer
Sam to kick 35+ goals this year as Ff and ruck. You will all love his work this year
We still might have enough for Reid if he wants to come
You need to let Stringer go buddy.
You are reaching Nino levels of man love.
We wanted to move him on to construct a new forwardline, and to get younger overall.
We clearly tried to obtain a better deal but GWS called our bluff.
Ultimately, he is worth 53 because that’s all they offered, and no other club showed enough interest to get involved.
He wanted 2 years, and we weren’t prepared to offer 2 given our current list build.
Edit. with Stringer, we’ve been treading water for 3 years and missed Finals.
In his best season by far with us in '21, we got smacked in the Elim Final.
What happens with Draper depends way more on Bryan’s year than Draper’s.
If Bryan can show that he can win his position and not need that dynamic switch-up that Draper provides, then it changes everything.
I can’t quite see it happening, but you never know.
Assuming they calculate that using the whole list (i.e. primary list and rookie lists) then:
We have 43 players. Need to be in the top ≈10 paid players to be in the top 25%.
Looking over our list I think he would sit inside the top 10. Somewhere between 7-10 I reckon. Because he’s always had strong interest from other suitors such as the Saints which we’ve had to ward off.
Draper is polarizing. As a footballer he still seems raw. He can do some spectacular things but geez he can frustrate you. I am not sure he will ever be an absolute star A grader.
I really sit on the fence here. If he wants to stay great. We will have a bloke who wants to wear the jumper, is invested and hopefully gets better.
If he wants to go, fair play. Adelaide really need a big man, get some high value in return and use it wisely.
