Imagine a gigantic station wagon driving down the highway on an interminable road trip toward the 2010 season, and the day along the way when Sam Bradford and the Rams agree to the largest-ever rookie contract in league history. How big? What clauses might it contain? How much will be guaranteed? That’s to be determined. But what’s important is that we Rams fans, bloggers, writers and sports pundits — even Bradford’s future teammates — are all riding in the back seat. We can yell and scream “are we there yet!” all we want, but it won’t change how long it takes them to reach their destination.
The important thing is whether or not we get there.
Yes, the team and agents met on Friday to officially open negotiations. But this is just the very beginning of this process, which will likely take us up to and possibly into training camp.
Meanwhile, knowing that we’re all hungry for updates, ESPN spoon-feeds us non-updates like today’s podcast interview with John Clayton.
The thing you have to understand is that people like Clayton are sitting right next to us in the back seat of this damn station wagon, and that he doesn’t know much more than we do — though he might have a better view out of the windshield. The only people driving this thing are Bradford, his agent, Billy Devaney and Kevin Demoff. And they aren’t telling us anything we want to know.
To mollify us, Demoff and Devaney will play the patient parent: “We’re on our way” or “Not there yet.” Condon, if he gets impatient with the process, will tweak us with words like “I don’t know if we’re going to get there” or “We’re going too slowly” or “I’ll pull over and stop right here, is that what you want?” It’s all a part of a really long and annoying journey that we have no control of.
How you ride along on this journey is up to you. You can jostle your fellow fans and jab and complain, or you can put on your headphones and tune out the distractions and wait patiently.
