He's baaack

For the first time since February the New England Patriots have good news. Not that the aftermath of winning three of the last four Super Bowls was bad. Nor was the "rolling rally" as dubbed by the incumbent Mayor of Boston "Mumbles" Menino, boring by any means. Its just that when you lose the heart and soul of your team to a stroke, lose two thirds of your three headed coaching monster to other teams, your other starting middle linebacker retires, right before camp, and then one of the premier defensive linemen in all of the NFL holds out, its hard to look at the positives. Thats just the way it works in Boston.

But alas, Richard Seymour has returned to camp today. After missing mini-camp in June, Seymour had also been holding out of training camp which started last Friday. His contract was reworked only for this season, which brought his base salary up from $2.87 million to $4 million. The final remaining year on his contract for next season was not changed.

Other than getting one of the best defensive linemen in the game back onto your team, the most important thing about Seymour returning was that the Patriots did not set a precedent with him; keeping their 'team first' mentality intact. Luckily, the precedent was already set after the Pats first Super Bowl win in 2001 when they raised the base salaries for veterans Anthony Pleasant, Otis Smith and Bobby Hamilton during the offseason.

The Patriots brass could not have handled the situation any better. With fellow defensive starter Rodney Harrison also unhappy about his contract (but not holding out), the Patriots did not want to give the impression that any one player was more important than the rest of the team by re-working Seymours whole contract, a resolution they had already stated they would not use.

Said Harrison after hearing about Seymour returning, "He's one of my best friends. He's one of the best defensive tackles in the game. He's taking a stand for what he believes in. And I think Richard deserves everything he can get. I understand and respect what he's doing. I hope he gets everything he wants from them. He should be paid like the best, because he's the best in the game.''

So any feelings of ill-will or animosity clearly won't be an issue. The next step is to re-work Harrison's deal which has him vastly underpaid at $1.8 million, considering he's been one of the best safties in the league since joining the Patriots in 2003. Randy Moss can only hope a resolution is worked out before he comes to town to open the season with his new team in September. Because I don't know about you, but I don't want to be the guy Rodney Harrison uses to prove a point.