That Sound You Hear…

…is the sound of my foot tapping while waiting for Laron Landry to sign. But first, a Redskin said the following today, any guesses on who it is?

“I’ll try to be smart. That’s tough for me, but I’ll try.”

Back to Landry, according to Redskins.com, Joe Gibbs said, “I’m expecting [the contract signing] to happen any minute.” Of course yesterday he said he expected a deal to be done “shortly.”  The Washington Post points out that one of the problem is the one we’ve always known– the players slotted around Landry haven’t signed. I’m no agent, and I’ve never been considered talented enough at anything except maybe wasting time to be considered a first round draft pick.  But this seems ridiculous once training camp has started.  Laron Landry is about to become a rich man.  And while there is a chance if he waited a couple of days he could be a slightly richer man, the difference in money can’t be so much it is worth jeopardizing your career.

I don’t believe anyone has made a study (Football Outsiders, are you listening?) of how much or even whether holding out hurts a career, but there is clearly anecdotal evidence that it does.  The NFL is littered with holdouts who then turned into busts.  Of course, there are plenty of guys who signed early who turned out to be busts, too.  I can’t prove that there is a correlation between busts and holdouts but considering the odds against a long NFL career anyway, wouldn’t you sacrifice a little short term money (when you know you will be set for life with your signing bonus if you’re careful) to do all you could to get that chance? 

Oh well, looks like he’s coming, and three practices don’t seem like a lot. But don’t forget that he missed mini-camp with a paintball injury so it isn’t like he’s off to a great start.

The other half of that Post link was about injuries we’re nursing in camp. Every team goes through this and most of them are no big deal.  But I have to admit I’m frightened simply by the names of the players in the article: Washington, Moss, Portis, Springs, Thomas, Daniels and Wynn.

Oh and who made the quote above?  It was Marcus Washington talking about his injuries. Slightly less laughable in context, but still fun.

-DW