In a move that basically means nothing (except when mandatory offseason activities commence), Packers safety Nick Collins has signed his restricted free agency tender, according to Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“Based on the tender Nick received and based on Nick’s desire to stay with the Packers and to take part in the offseason program, which is something he really wanted to do, he elected to sign the tender,” agent Alan Herman told Silverstein. “Nick really likes it in Green Bay and wants to stay there. Hopefully, this will help us finalize a deal as we move forward.”
And so Collins is under contract for 2010, and he’ll earn a non-guaranteed base salary of $3.3 million.
If the goal is to get a long-term deal, the decision to sign the tender makes little sense. The only leverage that a player possesses flows from the withholding of services. With Collins signing his tender, he cannot stay away from mandatory workouts in order to pressure the team to agree to his long-term demands.
The move is even more surprising because it comes at a time when many believe that restricted free agents will refuse to sign their tender offers to protest the fact that the rules of the uncapped year prevented so many of them from becoming unrestricted free agents. To the extent, then, that the RFAs wanted to set up an informal picket line, Collins just crossed it.