Driver Wants A New Contract; Bigby Is Mistaken For Collins

by Brandon on Jun 1, 2009 7:00 AM CDT in Green Bay Packers News

Even at age 34, WR Donald Driver can still play. It's a big drop from Driver to either WR Jordy Nelson or WR James Jones. For about the 4th season in a row, Driver wants to renegotiate his contract, and I expect the Packers will offer him something. Probably an increase to his base salary. It doesn't bother me when players ask for more money when they are worth it and the team is under the salary cap. The Press-Gazette pointed out he's making a base salary of $3 to $4 million in each of the next two seasons, but really it's more like $6 to $7 million. Still, it's less than Seattle is paying WR T.J. Houshmandzadeh, who's getting $8 million per year, so Driver's' agent might be looking for a $1 to $2 million bump up into that neighborhood. But Driver could attend the OTA while his agent negotiates, and he could be a little bit more honest about it:

Driver was asked last week by WITI-TV Fox6 in Milwaukee whether he was happy with his contract. "Oh, I'm happy," Driver said. "They always say when you get later in your career you go out there and do your best and hopefully you'll get what you deserve."
"Naw, I think you've got the wrong guy." Yep, he was asking S Atari Bigby about S Nick Collins. Crack research by that radio host.
It's not a big deal that the Packers have at least five different players, currently OL Allen Barbre is in the lead, in the mix to replace RT Mark Tauscher in the starting lineup. Certainly it's a new position for some of them, and except for OL Tony Moll, none of them have started in the NFL before. But all these guys are talented, and the offense can be easily adjusted to help the new right tackle out in the early going by giving him some help from the tight end.
I'm not a fan of new Cleveland head coach Eric Mangini. Now he's looking like an idiot by forcing his rookies to show up for a charity event. Back in February, one of his first acts as Cleveland's new coach was to upset one of his star players. 2008 was a very disappointing season in Cleveland, but they made a mistake in firing GM Phil Savage for it. He had hired the wrong head coach in the beginning, Romeo Crennel, but Savage had a lot of work to do in rebuilding that team after the Butch Davis era.