More Whining from Mankins

Or, in this case, Mankins’ agent.  Same difference in my book.  Today is the deadline for the teams to notify players “holding out” of their intentions to place them on the roster exempt list.  The reason that this matters is that players on this list are in jeopardy of losing a season towards free-agency. Players need to be on the roster for six games to accrue an additional year of service, which normally would mean that holdouts need to mend fences by Week 12.  However, ending up on the roster exempt list forces players to wait three games after joining the roster to take the field.  This puts some additional pressure on hold-out players as they’d need to be back on the roster before Week 9, to be eligible to play by Week 12.

Mankins normally would have been a free-agent this off-season, but due to the special rules from the final “uncapped” year of the CBA, an additional year of service was tacked on.  There’s a good chance that the rules will revert back to normal and Mankins can sit ou this season and still be eligible for free-agency in 2011, but there is some risk involved. Should the rules change during the next CBA negotiations, Mankins may need the 2010 season under his belt to have enough years to qualify for free-agency in 2011.

Mankin’s agent had the following to say about the letter…

We haven’t got it yet, but it’ll come.  They don’t care.  I would expect them to do everything nasty that they can.  They have totally lost this player mentally. For this young man to work like he has and play for the club for five years, and be promised he’d be taken care of, and to throw the offer they did across the table? It was never, ever a five-year deal. They wanted six years, they wanted seven. They have to do what they have to do, and we’ll do what we have to do.

Needless to say, I don’t see Mankins and the Patriots smoking the peace pipe any time soon.

In a somewhat ironic twist, though, Belichick shot down the tirade above, by notifying reporters that the Patriots will not be sending Mankins the letter that his agent was so certain he would find in the mail.  The reason?  Roster exempt status is only for players under contract.  Since Mankins and the Patriots have no deal in place, the Patriots couldn’t put him on the roster even if they wanted to.  You would think an agent would know this sort of thing, but obviously Logan and his counsel aren’t really thinking straight…