Originally posted by pd24:
How did he undercut himself? He doesn't have to trade him. He is still young and can develop. It might light a fire under him, but he doesn't have the skill set as of now, and most teams knew that on draft day.
If he didn't want to trade Mays, why did he send out a mass email to all teams? This is unheard of in the business. It's not how things are done. If he wanted to trade Mays, he needed to identify potential trade partners (usually teams that might have a need as well as an asset worth getting back in return), and then contact those teams individually and negotiate.
How did he undercut himself? He broadcasted an email to the entire league, and word of it immediately leaked everywhere, so any potential trading partners immediately knew he was being shopped indiscriminately and thus did not have much value to the 49ers. That immediately made his value drop to basically nothing. When you shop that way, you look desperate, or at least give the perception that you are, which also means that you don't care what you get back, which means other teams think that Mays is damaged goods, or something is wrong with him.