I cant see that happening.
If Essendon show that we are willing to accept a subpar trade then it opens the door for other contracted players to demand a trade and other clubs will never again offer us equitable trades if they know that we will just bend over on the final day of trade week. Would rather hang onto paddy and get nothing for him to make a statement to other clubs than acccept the soft trade.
I see your point, but at the same time, I'm not sure that it's completely credible given the ASADA situation. My opinion has always been if a player wants to leave, let em go. Having a player that doesn't want to be there does nothing for a club. When you look at the Ryder situation, take out ASADA, and he wouldn't be leaving in the first place. It's a very unique situation. Anyone saying "well he's contracted so if no deal is struck, we'll keep him for next year" is kidding themselves. The bridges between Ryder and Essendon are burned, there's no going back.
I'm not trying to say that 17 is a great deal, I think it's unders but not by a ridiculous amount. 17 and 35 is imo a fair trade when you compare it to other similar type trades in the past 5 years (for instance, Jolly went for 14 and 46).
By dragging it out Essendon aren't really making any statement as such, they're just looking like fools. Asking for players like Wines, Wingard, Hartlett etc has made them look like idiots to everyone except the diehard Essendon supporters who are in a Dodoro state of denial. If there was no ASADA scandal, then yeah, I completely agree that Essendon should be holding out for more, and possibly risk losing him for nothing. Port did the same thing with Nick Stevens a decade ago and I personally agreed with it. That being said, the ASADA stuff does exist. Any player who wants to leave for reasons other than ASADA aren't going to be in a situation where the nominated club will try to pull Essendon's pants down and get said player for nothing. Ryder is in that position though, so you can't compare the two. Giving up Ryder for nothing would absolutely be pointless, given that such a scenario of what has played out the last month, is incredibly unlikely to ever happen again (I don't believe that any player can really pull the ASADA card after this season, it will likely be all over by the middle of next year anyway).