Here's an excerpt
from a lengthy Boston Globe piece from last Thursday about the negotiations for
WR David Givens, the Patriots free agent who ended up signing with
Tennessee.
Dolphins general manager Randy Mueller
was first to call and [Givens' agent Brad] Blank told him they needed
to know if at least $20 million over five years was too rich for Miami's blood.
Mueller told Blank, ''Put him on a plane," and later that morning Givens headed
to Miami, but before he left Blank had already arranged a trip to Houston
Sunday, was still in daily contact with Pioli, and had a discussion with both
Givens and the teams he was visiting to ensure neither tried to ''kidnap my
client." Then everything fell apart.
''About 12:45 a.m. Mueller called," Blank recalled. ''He said, 'What the
[expletive] are you doing to me? Do you think I'm an idiot?' I had no idea what
he was talking about."
What upset Mueller was that the Browns had posted a press release on their
website claiming Givens had agreed to terms with them when he hadn't even
scheduled a visit. Blank was shocked but he knew this was the kind of
disinformation that could knock his client out of the marketplace so he hit his
speed dial, frantically trying to learn what had happened. Eventually it became
clear an error by a Browns website employee caused the mistaken posting of three
bios of players the Browns were pursuing but hadn't signed. All three came down
within minutes but Blank feared the damage had been done.
In the sensitive world of free agency, anything can tip the balance, so trust
is important. Blank called all the teams he'd spoken with and told them the
report was untrue but his sense was people he'd had past dealings with, such as
Texans director of contract negotiations Don Ferens, accepted his explanation
while those less familiar with him, such as Seattle's assistant director of pro
personnel, Lake Dawson, were skeptical.
''Dawson kept saying 'It's on their official team website,' " Blank recalled.
'' 'How do I know who to trust?' "
Blank understood this was a problem unique to the Internet age, where every
word written, true or false, travels fast. Fiction mixes with fact until reality
becomes distorted and negotiations become difficult if not impossible. Because
of that Blank spent part of his Saturday on the phone with three of the Browns'
lawyers arguing over the wording of a retraction the Browns were reluctant to
make. Although they grew to learn otherwise, Cleveland kept insisting a hacker
had gotten into their computer system and posted the erroneous report.
While this was going on, Givens was in a first-class seat headed for Miami
while Blank was arguing with the Browns, trying to negotiate deals for former
Walpole High quarterback Todd Collins, Arizona safety Quentin Harris, and
Jacksonville defensive end Marcellus Wiley, as well as tend to the Givens calls
that continued to mount. Many balls were in the air and the problem with the
Browns was an unwelcome distraction, although ultimately it was corrected before
real damage was done.
All this talk of
lawyers, retractions, and hacking paints a pretty clear circumstantial case
concerning what happened to Dawg Talk. That's the official site's fan message
board. It was taken out of service without explanation shortly after the fiasco
of the premature signing announcements. Over nine days later, it remains
offline, supposedly "under repair."
It surely seems like
the team got backed into a very defensive position. As such, they would feel the
need to clamp down on any information originating from their official site. Even
though it was more of a fan forum (though with rather heavy-handed moderators)
than news organ, the message board was apparently part of this information
lockdown.
It's not hard to
envision what kind of conversation might have taken place among the
Browns' lawyers and team execs. Statements like these are entirely
plausible:
This Givens debacle
might cost us millions.
What the hell else
might happen?
If it's on our site,
we're the publisher.
Anybody can write
anything on that message board, right?
What kind of controls
do we have in place over that?
We better take that
thing down until we're sure we're covered.
Right now?
Yes, especially right
now. Free agency is just starting. And it's not like those message boards are a
profit center anyway.
Yeah, they've been a headache for a while now anyway.
So meanwhile, a
community of fans is suddenly abandoned by their host, by their team, in a new
and unexpected way. Not through any fault of their own, but in response to the
team's own fumbling.
Some might say, hey,
it was a free service anyway, and it was suddenly deemed to be a potential
liability. That's too lawyerly for me. If I showed up at my favorite grocery
store with a long list of shopping to do, and I found that they had suddenly
taken away all the carts, well ...
I suppose I'd take my
business elsewhere, for a while, at least. It would give me a chance to reflect
on why that store had been my favorite. I'd certainly feel unvalued that they
would remove a free but important service without warning or adequate explanation. If
they'd treat the public that way, what else might they do? But if I really
liked, say, their deli, then I'd probably go back for that limited purpose. But
I'd be disinclined to do anything else to fatten their wallets. Even if carts came back.