Take notice, 49ers. Here's one way to end an ugly and public contract holdout -- trade the guy.
The Raiders finally completed a long-rumored trade of Derrick Burgess to the New England Patriots on Thursday. Reports say the Raiders dealt Burgess for, well, it seems complex. Do you have a few minutes?
The Boston Globe says the Patriots gave up their third and fourth round picks in the 2010 NFL Draft for Burgess. But if the Patriots, who are without a fifth-round pick in 2010, somehow acquire a fifth-round pick later on down the road then the Raiders would get that pick instead of the fourth-rounder. Make sense? If so, then please explain it to me because I don't understand that decision at all.
And it may not even be accurate. Adam Schefter reports on his Twitter account, in between complaints about his Twitter service, that "I'm told Raiders got more than a third- and fourth-round pick, though nothing confirmed yet. Remember, Pats were scheduled to have 3 2's."
Oh, baby! Please let that tweet be true, because if the Raiders got a second and a third-round pick for a declining commodity like Derrick Burgess, then that constitutes full and proper revenge for the Randy Moss trade. And the Tuck Rule game.
Burgess led the league in sacks in 2005, but became expendable with the Greg Ellis acquisition and because he hasn't reported to a single off-season activity this year. Just Blog Baby joked that "Burgess is in a contract year so this is his last shot before the Bengals come calling in 2010."
And coffee was spewed onto computer monitor screens all across the Bay Area.
Sports
Joe Kukura is a freelance writer who is wiping coffee of his computer monitor.
