Banner's Regrets
Eagles president Joe Banner appeared with Howard Eskin on WIP Radio Wednesday evening. He said the Eagles were not given an opportunity to match Denver's offer to Brian Dawkins.
Banner's Regrets
Les Bowen, Daily News Staff Writer
Regrets, Joe Banner has a few.
That might have been the most surprising thing about the Eagles' team president's appearance Wednesday evening with WIP Radio host Howard Eskin.
Heretofore, the assumption was that the Birds took their best shot at keeping Brian Dawkins and fell well short, that they declined to meet what Banner termed an "extremely, extremely aggressive" offer from the Denver Broncos. Banner sketched out a different scenario -- one in which the Eagles weren't immediately aware of how offended their seven-time Pro Bowl safety was coming out of their initial meeting over a new contract, and in which Dawkins and agent Jim Steiner did not come back to the Birds after getting a five-year, $17 million offer in Denver that will pay Dawkins $7.2 million even if he only plays one season.
"(Steiner) indicated Brian was going to take a trip to Denver. That was the last conversation we had," Banner said. "We found out Brian was doing a deal in Denver at the same time everybody else did. We didn't know what the deal was."
Banner said Dawkins and Steiner "were under the impression that we weren't going to change what we'd offered anyway, which may or may not be true."
Asked by Eskin if it was unusual for an agent not to call back in that situation, Banner said: "Trying to be fair ... they did have reason to believe that they had our best offer. It's not totally unreasonable that they didn't call back, though we've been in plenty of situations where somebody thought they had our best offer and in spite of that, just to be absolutely certain that we weren't bluffing or that we hadn't had second thoughts, frequently you still get that kind of one-to-one call.even though you've described something you've presented as your best offer."
Banner indicated that the two-year-total of the Broncos' offer -- a little more than $9 million -- wasn't dramatically different from what the Eagles offered, though the one-year total was.
"The longer the horizon got the smaller the difference there was in the proposals," Banner said.
Banner said he believes the Eagles will still be effective defensively in 2009, but he said they will not be able to really "replace" Dawkins. "None of the possible options are Brian Dawkins. They're never going to be Brian Dawkins. We'll all be very lucky if we ever see another Brian Dawkins," Banner said. "Whether it's his character, his charity, his family, his play on the field, his leadership -- we don't have any illusions, and nobody should, that somebody's going to step in and be the next Brian Dawkins. I don't know if we'll have another Brian Dawkins going forward at any position. As you look around, those are few-and-far-between types of guys. But we do believe we'll have another quality player prepared to step in."
More to come in Thursday's Daily News.
Why does there always have to be a villain in every thing, and why is it that there is a conspiracy behind every unsatisfactory result. Dawkins got a great contract and grabbed it. You sure cannot say he picked his team based on ability to win now, but hats off to him for taking care of himself. But why does that make the Eagles' stance wrong? If they made decisions based on sentiment, we would have had a lot of poor seasons with a washed up Bobby Taylor, Troy Vincent, Duce Staley, Jeremiah Trotter, Hugh Douglas, etc. The Eagles made the right call on these guys every single time. Keep bashing Banner and Reid, would you rather have Gamble and Kotite back. Rhodes went to the playoffs twice, is he better than Reid? How about Buddy Ryan? Three trips to the playoffs and they lost all three times. Even Vermeil, one Super Bowl and they were blown out, two other years (1978 and 1981) they blew playoff games they should have won. I am a big Vermeil fan, but lets keep the view of present management in perspective.— citizenkane- I cant believe these guys let franchise players like dawkins go, another great example was Brett Favre, common on whats 1 more year on the payroll GEEEEZ. notebook memory— russmarsha
- The Banner Segment on Eskin's show today was fine. Banner is a pro at speaking clearly, level headed. HOWEVER, is you paid close attention to the beginning of the segment, you caught the subtle slip up by the snake. He said the Eagles front office was as hear broken as the fans. That it was their desire to keep this defense in tact, that they wanted Dawkins to retire an Eagle. Banner THEN claimed that the negotiations were difficult to hammer down before free agency because Dawkins' agent was on vacation, and because of the pro bowl, that they didn't have time to get it done before the free agency period. Herein lies the rub - Are we REALLY to believe that a sports agent, guys that, by profession, carry around 2-3 cell phones at a time, and, even when on vacation NEVER REALLY go on vacation, was not reachable to work with? Come on, Banner, that excuse is the equivalent of "the dog ate my homework". Furthermore, it sounded as if Dawkins' agent may not have acted in the best interest of his client. If Dawkins REALLY wanted to stay with the Eagles, then Dawk's agent owed it to his client to go back to the Eagles and feel them out on a counter. Fact is that Dawk's agent gets a %, and, given that this is his last pay day on Dawk, it was in his agent's best interest to get a % of the Denver offer as opposed to seeing that Dawk took an increased, albeit smaller offer on Dawkins. Maybe he manipulated or twisted the Eagles actions to suade his client towards Denver and the bigger payout. Just sounds like something that would go down in a scum bag sport like boxing, rather than pro football. BS excuses by the team, and suspect actions by the agent. I refuse to accept it that in a hundred million dollar sports franchise/industry, something as lame as "we couldn't reach the agent on vacation" is being offered up as an excuse as to why a sports hero was let to walk.— Method
Comment removed.- Thank you #20, I hope you and Runyan know how much you were appreciated. Thank you.— hallux
- hey guit10, what is your position within the Eagles organization or are you just Dave Spedaro's wife? Stop defending these useless, gutless weasles. Anyone that buys Banners story is an idiot. They are trying their best to respond to the outrage they had no clue was coming which alone is enough evidence to how little these people care about the fans in Phillly.— Eagle GREEN Mt State
- ticket prices go up, on field product has gotten worse....thanks, I really appreciate my new season tix bill being larger along with the number in the L column— 32pitch
I'm happy for Dawk--this is a great deal for him. I'm getting to the point where I don't care about the Eagles and their front office nonsense, so at least I'll be happy for Dawkins. Unless they are quietly working a deal for Boldin behind the scenes, the fans will continue to be outraged and keep jumping ship on these guys. Think about the T.O. fiasco.... even though everyone knows it didn't work out as planned, almost no one blames the Eagles for pulling the trigger on the deal and AT LEAST taking a chance on something big. McNabb isn't getting any younger--TAKE A RISK for the fans sake and Donovan's sake. If it doesn't work out, at least we'll give you some respect for at least taking a shot......I think you owe it to the fans and McNabb to go all in for the next year or two. We feel like you're not even trying right now.........- Joe is right. The Eagles front office, as usually, underestimates things. " We can win with Thrash and Pinkston" "We aren't going to lose Brian" "Mark Simenou can replace Trotter" "We don't need to run the ball" I hate to say it but until the totally clean the front office out of non-football guys, it's going to look more like JP Morgan Chase and less like the Pittsburgh Steelers.— albertpa
- i don't believe a word of it! typical Eagles move.— aud
- terrible trade of Upshall today Banner...like the Midwest bosses in Casino, this is the guy who secretly controls Philadelphia...— rothstein12
- I agree w Joe. #20 made a most excellent business decision and is deserving of every penny. All the best!— Grazman
- Can someone tell me this? Why do the Eagles always expect a player to come back and let them meet an offer? Why would Denver let Dawkins even do that. I am sure they told Dawkins, this is our offer, you can take it or leave it. You arent going to take it to the Eagles and see if they will match and come back to us if they dont. I am sure Banner tells the free agents he has in. Most teams will do that. They dont want to be played like that. So Joe, get ofer it, you screwed up AGAIN in negotiating this.— BK Eskin
- Comment removed.
- Banner , You should have done your homework.. You mean to tell me a month before free ageny starts you have no idea what fair market value for someone like Brian Dawkins is ?? Not even curious ?? I think it's just a disgrace to have let such a good man go offended like that. How about This approach ?? " go out and shop for the best deal you can find with another team and we'll match it. Plus another Million." " We love you here and we need you"— MJPD345
