If only there was a culturally aligned statistical data organisation that could record things like this…
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Why are we in a hurry to give big contract to a player coming off two (back to back) ACLs? You would give a 2 year contract and then go from there. Weird.
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from what we’ve heard, seemingly also spent the last year turning himself into more of an off-field leader and pseudo coach, as well.
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Club has lost the plot.
Should have been ten years.
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I came here for the happy feels but there’s a lot of gloom and doom. Personally I’m very happy with the news
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Happy with the news! We really missed him out there this year.
The re-injury to his knee was just so unlucky, hoping he stays injury free from here on out
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Don’t really agree, he is a high end B grader atm but has potential
Because Tassie or West Coast will offer more and a guy coming off an acl is likely to want longer term security.
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Hmm, I’d rather had seen how he goes for a year before this, but I think he has enough tricks that even if he isn’t the same player post-knee injuries, he’ll find a way to be a good player in a different capacity.
So, I’m neither here nor there about this one.
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It’s a risk that we probably had to take given how poor our list is, but I can’t deny that I’m a bit worried. You just don’t know how much the ACL injury will impact a guy who does as much running as Martin does on a football field. We’ve also rarely come out the other side of a long contract and felt better for it. Hopefully this is the first for a while which pays off.
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What would be really, really ■■■■■■■ stupid is letting one of your best players contract end in the trade period that Tasmania is entering.
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Didn’t seem to impact Bailey Smith too much
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He is our best player and 25 - Had to be done
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I would have preferred we wait until mid season or give a shorter extension.
TAS have an extra $5mil of salary cap in their first 2 seasons for players just like Martin. If they came out half way through next season and offered him an extra $500k per season on what we’re offering, that would be an enormous error on our side.
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If you show some doubt on his future then he has doubts on us.
If the decision was only ours, you’d wait, but it’s not.
Sure, but the flipside of that risk is he never returns to the level of player he was, and we are stuck with him on a long term deal.
I think even at absolute worst he’ll find a role to be useful in so I’m not hugely worried. But I’m not thinking “yay, we’ve locked in a key part of our future” just yet, either.
More than just money in these decisions. Just because he gets offered more doesn’t mean he will take it and leave. He seems pretty loyal and bought in to Essendon.
I don’t think it’s hard to explain to the player that you do want to keep him long term but you’re just being prudent given past experience. We’ve burnt ourselves on too many contracts in the last 10 years.
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We need to reach the salary cap floor. Probably fairly heavily front loaded. If he turns out to be average after this injury then the risk would be heavily weighted to the early part of the contract, when we’re going to suck and have cap space anyway. It’s a very low risk extension.
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Yeah, we want to keep you long term but if the injury you obtained playing for us renders you less valuable we want to be able to dump you.
No matter how loyal he is, his first priority will be his own long term security. If Tassie offer him 5 years and we offer him 2 because we think he may be useless after his injury, he’s signing with Tassie
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