Pigskin tastes like sausage

But don't let the player off the hook, either. He did have a valid contract, and he wasn't starving. If he had another good year, the money truck would have been backed up to his dock. But he saw the big bucks going to other people now, right now, and one of them happened to be a guy (David Givens) who was below him on the pecking order. I guess that was just too much to take.

We, of course, will be told that had nothing to do with it. Deion just wanted the contract he deserved.

Well, OK, but here's some advice for Deion and his agent, Jason Chayut: Apologize to the fans for playing the reprehensible ``I've Got To Feed My Family" card, and do so immediately.

Use of that line is touching the third rail in player/fan relations. Branch may very well have been underpaid to some degree in the context of quality wide receivers, but according to Our Man Borges, he would have made $1,405,000 this coming season. I'll take a wild guess and assume Branch did not grow up with maids and European vacations, which means that $1,405,000 should constitute a whole lot of money to him, more than enough to feed him and his three children, plus any assorted relatives for whom he is financially responsible.

And it's not as if he hasn't been playing for four years while making far more money than, say, anyone he grew up with, or, most important, the vast number of his fans who can't even conceive of making $100,000 a year, let alone a figure 14 times that.

Pulling out the ``I've Got To Feed My Family" line is never the way to go.

But I have not come to bash the player. I like the player. More than that, the Patriots need the player. You would have thought reasonable men could have reached a suitable contract compromise. Richard Seymour went through this, and he's still here. Tom Brady is still here. So why isn't Deion Branch still here?

For one thing, he plays the wrong position.

Let's face facts: Many Football People don't value wide receivers. They prove it every draft weekend by allowing notable college wideouts to wait around while they go through the quarterbacks, defensive linemen, linebackers, defensive backs, running backs, and the Big Fat Guys before they take a wide receiver, no matter how many catches, yards, and TDs he rang up in college.