Peppers' tag numbers/Weekend roundup (Charlotte writers in hibernation)

This sucks ass

It's the cost of tagging Julius Peppers for the 2009 season, to prevent him from reaching the free agent market, and hope, just hope that we can trade him for at least a first round draft pick.

The cost of it? Almost 16.7 million ducats.

Is that some sort of unprecedented tag number or what? How the fuck did his salary get that out of hand? Peppers gets payed in the same neighborhood of cash as Tom Brady and Carson Palmer, guys who, arguably, could carry a team on their back (and say what you will about Palmer only leading the Bengals to the playoffs once, that team is fucking terrible. It would almost be like putting Peyton Manning on the Lions). So for the same amount of money as a franchise QB we're paying a DE who takes plays off, never led the league in sacks, and can't be counted on to be a locker room leader. That's great. Why don't we just give Jeff King 10 million a year while we're at it and promote Geep Chryst to vice president of football operations?

...and I guess we can believe him when he says it's not about the money. He makes a shitload here. This organization pampered the shit out of this guy and now he's going to leave us, and his posturing doesn't help our chances in getting compensation.

LOL I love how the tag will be 7.6 million more than it could be if we didn't toss money around like a corrupt politician pays out the ass for call girls and an overnight stay at Howard Johnson's with continental breakfast included.

In other news, Charlotte Observer Sports writers broke the world record for most days without any new information, and we're not even into that lifeless period of the offseason where absolutely nothing happens yet. The only junk we've heard about since the Meeks hiring Monday...

The Panthers field ranks high again: Whoopdee fucking doo. I bet it has nothing to do with the fact that Charlotte gets great sun compared to fucking Foxboro. Surveys like that just serve no purpose if the top 5 consistently is made up of cities like Tampa, Miami, San Diego, etc. It's just a big circle-jerk for those teams.

Charles Chandler, the best writer of all time, wrote an entire post about Jeff Reed's fucking haircut. I'm not kidding. Okay Charles, I know it's superbowl weekend, but...

A) Everybody hates the Steelers except Steeler fans, so fuck Jeff Reed

and

B) Really? You're talking about his fucking hair? Are you serious? At least ask him about the Cardinals kick return ability, or even the turf at Raymond James. Anything but his fucking haircut. Who were you seriously trying to get to read that? Football fans or Bravo network executives?

Chandler manages to exceed everybody's expectations and doesn't even talk about football here.

At least they asked Steve Smith about the Peppers situation, but Steve didn't tell them a damn thing. The rest of it is just talking about quotes from Cardinals players and they managed to get more in depth with the Meeks hiring. But NOTHING about prospective assistant coaches, ya know, what should be the top subject about Panthers ball.

You know sometimes they can come up with a really informative piece but the sports writing model for the Charlotte Observer leaves a lot to be fucking desired.