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Thread: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

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    Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    I was in Ireland recently.

    At a pub.

    Shocker, right?

    I walked up to get a beer. An Irish guy was conversing with two Americans about sports.

    One of the Americans seemed to be talking about the differences between U.S. sports with and without salary caps, as opposed to transfer rules for European soccer.

    Here’s the last thing I heard one of the guys say before ordering my drink.

    “Why do you Americans make everything so complicated?” he asked.

    By that point, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t just talking about sports.

    Whether he was or wasn’t, he had a point.

    I don’t think the two Americans had even gotten close to introducing the concept of the franchise tag into the conversation yet, either.

    At this time last year, those of us in Pittsburgh were eyeballs deep in that concept because of Le’Veon Bell’s complicated contract status.

    Bell ended up staying away from the Steelers — and football entirely — for the 2018 season, and the Steelers were left with a $14.5 million empty roster spot.

    Why? Well, because Bell could get away with doing that, I guess.

    We all know how that turned out.

    A few months later, receiver Antonio Brown forced himself out of a valid contract and into a trade that pushed him out to Oakland.

    And into a big contract extension.

    Why? Again, because he could.

    Those things happened because the NFL collective bargaining agreement is complicated enough that it cedes just enough power to the players to muddle the control teams should have over those who are under valid contracts.

    In other words, the Irish guy at the bar was right.

    The popular thing to do on Twitter — and in most media outlets — these days is to take the side of the players on matters such as this.

    It’s very progressive and forward thinking to portray multimillionaire athletes as downtrodden working-class citizens who are painfully mistreated by their draconian owners.

    That’s stupid. But it’s what social media causes, nonetheless.

    The cliche move of the day is to let the NFL players cry over a collective bargaining agreement their own union signed. Then praise them for manipulating the rules of that same CBA.

    Ignoring that inconvenient reality is easy to do because NFL owners are largely the billionaire products of rich, white privilege so … whatever. Screw ‘em, right?

    Any opinion against the controlling class gets you lots of likes and retweets. So let’s all rage against the machine, n’at.

    But the truth remains that Brown weaseled himself out of a valid contract. And Bell went back on his stated intent to report under the franchise tag as he did in 2017.

    Now Chargers running back Melvin Gordon and Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott are threatening to sit out the whole year as well, despite the fact that both are on their entry deals.

    At least Bell and Brown played through that barrier.

    When the Steelers were going through contract drama with those two stars, I wrote a column stating that the NFL needed to change its collective bargaining agreement when the deal expires in 2020 because too many other players were going to follow their example.

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    https://triblive.com/sports/tim-benz...elers-anymore/

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    Cool. Cool. Tim Benz just wrote a several hundred word column that amounts to "I told you so.". That seems worth it.

    I have one question: Why should players have to honor contracts when the teams do not?

    There is one simple solution to all this. Guarantee these things and most of this goes away. For all the talk of how much power and control NBA players have, that is really only the top few super stars. The majority of the league is stable because of guaranteed contracts.

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Mojouw View Post
    Cool. Cool. Tim Benz just wrote a several hundred word column that amounts to "I told you so.". That seems worth it.

    I have one question: Why should players have to honor contracts when the teams do not?

    There is one simple solution to all this. Guarantee these things and most of this goes away. For all the talk of how much power and control NBA players have, that is really only the top few super stars. The majority of the league is stable because of guaranteed contracts.
    The problem is the CBA...they need to blame the CBA not the team

    I mean, they are the same idiots they gave too much power to Goodell and of course they only realized this mistake in the situation of the Saints in 2012 and Brady.

    I agree that the guaranteed contract could settle a lot of things, but if this is the case, the holdouts need to stop.

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by polamalubeast View Post
    The problem is the CBA...they need to blame the CBA not the team

    I mean, they are the same idiots they gave too much power to Goodell and of course they only realized this mistake in the situation of the Saints in 2012 and Brady.

    I agree that the guaranteed contract could settle a lot of things, but if this is the case, the holdouts need to stop.
    Ok. If the holdouts need to stop, then why don't the teams cutting guys because they don't want to pay them anymore also need to stop?

    If players have to accept being underpaid because of honoring a contract and the CBA, then the teams have to accept overpaying because of honoring a contract and the CBA.

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Mojouw View Post
    Ok. If the holdouts need to stop, then why don't the teams cutting guys because they don't want to pay them anymore also need to stop?

    If players have to accept being underpaid because of honoring a contract and the CBA, then the teams have to accept overpaying because of honoring a contract and the CBA.
    Maybe I wrote that wrong, but my point is that if the contracts become guaranteed, the holdouts need to stop.

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by polamalubeast View Post
    Maybe I wrote that wrong, but my point is that if the contracts become guaranteed, the holdouts need to stop.
    Doh! You wrote it correctly! I just read it wrong. I agree completely. My bad.

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Mojouw View Post
    I have one question: Why should players have to honor contracts when the teams do not?
    Because that's the way it works. The group controlling the money makes the rules. The government can fine you for not paying your taxes on time, but they can withhold your taxes if they please, with no penalty. If you sign up for the military, you can get thrown in jail for going AWOL and not honoring your contract. However, if you're under performing, they can kick you out on the drop of a dime. You can even honor you contract, but if a war hits, they can literally call you back, even out of retirement to tell you that you need to suit up and go to war (seen this happen to 2 people when 9-11 happened).

    If they don't like it? Fine, they can go work for another employer. But what other employer will pay them 10 million a year?

    Also, not any player has the leverage to do this. They need to be on that level of an AB or Bell to pull a power move like this. Other players would just get cut and forced to play for less somewhere else.

    Anyway the point I'm making is, the people who hold the money, hold the power, and of course the rules are going to be balanced in their favor. Is it 100% fair? No, nothing in life is fair. If a player doesn't like it he can go make his money elsewhere and good luck getting paid even a fraction of what the NFL pays. Sure, a player can successfully pull a power move like AB did, but at the same time they have to be a player who commands that much respect with his talent, or else the dude will be out of the league fast.

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    Guarantee contracts but put a rule that is very strict to stop the holdout, I would be happy

    But of course, like baseball in the last 2 off seasons, some are going to whine anyway because they do not have the contract that the player wants in open market like Bryce Harper (it's not really him who whined, but it was other player) even if the Nationals had offered 300 million at the start of the free agency and Harper outside at his MVP year in 2015, he has been up and down a lot.

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Mojouw View Post
    I have one question: Why should players have to honor contracts when the teams do not?
    Technically, both are free to walk away whenever they want. Of course, there are consequences for that for both sides.

    If you mean "How come the player isn't free to leave and become a free agent at will, if the team can basically 'fire' him at will" ... the first part is just necessary to have a league at all. I mean, otherwise, everyone would basically be on a week-to-week contract and there's no way that would even remotely work. The second part is all down to negotiating. If you have the leverage, you CAN get a guaranteed contract, or at least guaranteed enough that no one in their right mind would cut you because of the financial penalty. If you don't have as much leverage, you can still trade off between "security" (guaranteed money, length of contract) and total dollars. If you are an end-of-the-bench scrub, then sorry, but you have no leverage, just like any job where there is really nothing stopping your employer from replacing you except the pain in the ass of finding someone else. This is all the free market that people are always talking about. In the end, it is on YOU to produce enough to justify your pay, which is not really unfair nor any different from any other line of work.

    If you mean "Why do fans criticize the players more than the teams for walking away from a contract," well, that one is easy. As a fan, I'm rooting for the team to do well, not for my favorite players to be highly paid. I could care less about that. In fact, past a certain point, an individual player having a big salary is actually very BAD for the team's chances of winning. So there is a direct incentive to root against that, which is mainly mitigated by your own sense of common decency, e.g., what constitutes a "fair deal" in your mind.

    So anyone trying to squeeze more money out in the middle of an existing deal - guess what, they run into a completely understandable negative reaction from the fans, unless it's a rare case where they have so CLEARLY outperformed their contract that people's fair-deal moral compass outweighs that.

    Is this right or wrong? I guess that depends on your own sense of what's fair, but that's not the point; you asked why it is that way, so I explained why.


    Quote Originally Posted by Mojouw View Post
    There is one simple solution to all this. Guarantee these things and most of this goes away. For all the talk of how much power and control NBA players have, that is really only the top few super stars. The majority of the league is stable because of guaranteed contracts.
    It certainly is moving toward guaranteed contracts (or at least more-guaranteed contracts), and I think a lot of the apprehension about it from fans and owners is overblown. As long as they do it right. That would mean implementing NBA-style rules where it's common to see things like sign-and-trade deals, trades for expiring contracts, player buyouts, cap exemptions, cash exchanges, and so forth. Fully guaranteed contracts with the rest of the current NFL system remaining in place would be a disaster. Unfortunately, I fear that's what they'll first try to do, or else come up with some halfway, 20x overlawyered, convoluted nightmare of a system that sucks for everyone, and fans end up spending twice as much time arguing over accounting, when even now it's way too much.

    I don't think the guaranteed salaries in the NBA have anything to do with the perception that the "players are running the league" or whatever - that has more to do with the game itself. One or two individual players can make an outsized difference in basketball, and it's got by FAR the smallest number of players of any professional sport, so that "player's fraternity" is going to be a lot stronger, with them knowing each other and being friends with each other a lot more. I also think the max contracts where you can fit exactly three top-tier players on a given team contribute a lot to that - in other leagues where it's not as rigidly defined, the situation's a lot more fluid. Whereas in the NBA, the question is, "They can fit me plus two other superstars - which two superstars should I choose to have the best chance at (winning / fame / fun / money / bitches / guns)" or whatever else is important to that person, so naturally you get a lot of decisions made based on that.
    See you Space Cowboy ...

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    The next CBA is going to be so hard ... I mean the players have so many things that they are unhappy about the current CBA (like the franchise TAG,non-guaranteed contract,the power of Goodell)that it's going to be very hard for the players to have his 3 things there against a power man like Goodell .... They're going to need to make major concessions like for the money maybe and even be forced to have a season of 18 games, unfortunately to have his things .... We all know that Goodell do not care about the players safety and the product, so its negotiations are going to be so long and ugly.It'll be awful.

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by steelreserve View Post
    Technically, both are free to walk away whenever they want. Of course, there are consequences for that for both sides.

    If you mean "How come the player isn't free to leave and become a free agent at will, if the team can basically 'fire' him at will" ... the first part is just necessary to have a league at all. I mean, otherwise, everyone would basically be on a week-to-week contract and there's no way that would even remotely work. The second part is all down to negotiating. If you have the leverage, you CAN get a guaranteed contract, or at least guaranteed enough that no one in their right mind would cut you because of the financial penalty. If you don't have as much leverage, you can still trade off between "security" (guaranteed money, length of contract) and total dollars. If you are an end-of-the-bench scrub, then sorry, but you have no leverage, just like any job where there is really nothing stopping your employer from replacing you except the pain in the ass of finding someone else. This is all the free market that people are always talking about. In the end, it is on YOU to produce enough to justify your pay, which is not really unfair nor any different from any other line of work.

    If you mean "Why do fans criticize the players more than the teams for walking away from a contract," well, that one is easy. As a fan, I'm rooting for the team to do well, not for my favorite players to be highly paid. I could care less about that. In fact, past a certain point, an individual player having a big salary is actually very BAD for the team's chances of winning. So there is a direct incentive to root against that, which is mainly mitigated by your own sense of common decency, e.g., what constitutes a "fair deal" in your mind.

    So anyone trying to squeeze more money out in the middle of an existing deal - guess what, they run into a completely understandable negative reaction from the fans, unless it's a rare case where they have so CLEARLY outperformed their contract that people's fair-deal moral compass outweighs that.

    Is this right or wrong? I guess that depends on your own sense of what's fair, but that's not the point; you asked why it is that way, so I explained why.




    It certainly is moving toward guaranteed contracts (or at least more-guaranteed contracts), and I think a lot of the apprehension about it from fans and owners is overblown. As long as they do it right. That would mean implementing NBA-style rules where it's common to see things like sign-and-trade deals, trades for expiring contracts, player buyouts, cap exemptions, cash exchanges, and so forth. Fully guaranteed contracts with the rest of the current NFL system remaining in place would be a disaster. Unfortunately, I fear that's what they'll first try to do, or else come up with some halfway, 20x overlawyered, convoluted nightmare of a system that sucks for everyone, and fans end up spending twice as much time arguing over accounting, when even now it's way too much.

    I don't think the guaranteed salaries in the NBA have anything to do with the perception that the "players are running the league" or whatever - that has more to do with the game itself. One or two individual players can make an outsized difference in basketball, and it's got by FAR the smallest number of players of any professional sport, so that "player's fraternity" is going to be a lot stronger, with them knowing each other and being friends with each other a lot more. I also think the max contracts where you can fit exactly three top-tier players on a given team contribute a lot to that - in other leagues where it's not as rigidly defined, the situation's a lot more fluid. Whereas in the NBA, the question is, "They can fit me plus two other superstars - which two superstars should I choose to have the best chance at (winning / fame / fun / money / bitches / guns)" or whatever else is important to that person, so naturally you get a lot of decisions made based on that.
    I agree with all of this. Think you’re gonna be right in the end.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    I couldn't get past a skim of that article....................

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by polamalubeast View Post
    The next CBA is going to be so hard ... I mean the players have so many things that they are unhappy about the current CBA (like the franchise TAG,non-guaranteed contract,the power of Goodell)that it's going to be very hard for the players to have his 3 things there against a power man like Goodell .... They're going to need to make major concessions like for the money maybe and even be forced to have a season of 18 games, unfortunately to have his things .... We all know that Goodell do not care about the players safety and the product, so its negotiations are going to be so long and ugly.It'll be awful.
    I am willing to bet a significant amount of money that there will be a strike or lockout, because there is no way these morons will figure it out a functional plan in time, even if they started working on it now. You will have a lot of people just making noise, and a lot of people making a big production out of proving their own tangential point in order to accumulate PR credits or whatever ... And everybody has their own personal grudges that they'll be looking to air and their own personal causes they want to bring into it. So I imagine that all the time up until about a week before the deadline will be used on that, and no realistic plan will be brought forward until then. It will be a complete clown show. Only question in my mind is the over/under on whether they cancel more than half the season or less. Probably 6 games, which will also include canceling the bye week and the extra media week before the Super Bowl; everyone plays their own division twice and another division once.

    The 18 games idea is a big fake-out, just a bullshit negotiating tactic. They're not actually serious about an 18-game season, it's just something the owners say in advance of the CBA negotiations. That way they can abandon it during the negotiations and say, "see, we gave you a concession!" Just creating a free bargaining chip for themselves. I think Ramon Foster called this out the last time they said it, and he is absolutely right.


    Quote Originally Posted by Mojouw View Post
    I agree with all of this. Think you’re gonna be right in the end.
    The only thing I hope is that they get it right the first time. The guaranteed money thing is coming one way or another, but if they fuck it up on this go-around, then guess what? We get TWO strikes, one now and another one the next time the CBA is up. Unless they fuck it up so badly that next time, there will be a few improvements that are obvious even to an idiot, and both sides are willing to settle for something that's not perfect just to avoid another disaster.
    See you Space Cowboy ...

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by steelreserve View Post
    The only thing I hope is that they get it right the first time. The guaranteed money thing is coming one way or another, but if they fuck it up on this go-around, then guess what? We get TWO strikes, one now and another one the next time the CBA is up. Unless they fuck it up so badly that next time, there will be a few improvements that are obvious even to an idiot, and both sides are willing to settle for something that's not perfect just to avoid another disaster.
    I have no faith that the current vocal and seemingly in charge owners (Jones, Kraft, some of the "new" guys on the block) will get it right. They will try and cobble together a deal that looks like what the players want on the surface and contains a bunch of loopholes that the NFLPA will be too stupid to see until about 1-2 seasons into the CBA when they realize they got screwed. I mean it is pretty clear how to pull one over on the rank and file of the NFLPA -- give them a shiny object up front in big letters (say a bigger cut of revenues) and then put them over a barrel on everything else (contract language, player discipline, etc).

    Between the total unwillingness of most owners to cede an inch of ground because they are awesome businessmen who won't take any crap from anyone so everyone recognizes how powerful and business savy they are and the total inability of the NFLPA to get its members to think past cartoon bags of money with dollar signs on them --- it is not going to go well.

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore


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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Mojouw View Post
    I have no faith that the current vocal and seemingly in charge owners (Jones, Kraft, some of the "new" guys on the block) will get it right. They will try and cobble together a deal that looks like what the players want on the surface and contains a bunch of loopholes that the NFLPA will be too stupid to see until about 1-2 seasons into the CBA when they realize they got screwed. I mean it is pretty clear how to pull one over on the rank and file of the NFLPA -- give them a shiny object up front in big letters (say a bigger cut of revenues) and then put them over a barrel on everything else (contract language, player discipline, etc).

    Between the total unwillingness of most owners to cede an inch of ground because they are awesome businessmen who won't take any crap from anyone so everyone recognizes how powerful and business savy they are and the total inability of the NFLPA to get its members to think past cartoon bags of money with dollar signs on them --- it is not going to go well.
    What I expect to happen is this:

    6 months before deadline:


    Players: "We want 100% fully guaranteed contracts!"

    Owners: "No." (Or, "Only if you take a smaller share of total revenue, eliminate holdouts, etc.")

    Players: "Suck our dicks."


    5 months 29 days through 1 week before deadline:

    Media: "OMG UNFAIR!!! OWNERS ARE RACIST OMG SLAVERY PARALLEL!!! WHY IS KAEPERNICK STILL NOT PLAYING?????"

    Players:

    Owners:


    1 week before deadline:

    Both sides: "Oh shit, we're running out of time, we've gotta do something."

    Owners: "Here is an offer so lopsided it is almost embarrassing, but now that there is a lot of time pressure and no other starting point has been established, we are putting it out there so that it becomes the actual starting point that you must negotiate away from, and convince the public each step of the way, so it will be a huge effort even to get the terms back to neutral."

    Players: "For some unfathomable reason, we did not bother to put together a complete proposal of our own, and instead we will just poke holes in what the owners put out there and argue that one piece at a time, so the whole process is very slow and looks very jerk-like and gets stuck on minor details repeatedly."


    5 days before deadline:

    Both: "Let's get mad at each other and not talk at all for three days."


    4-2 days before deadline:

    Media: "Anonymous source X close to the situation says the sides are still very far apart." (repeat x100)


    Day before deadline:

    Both: "We'll have an emergency marathon negotiating session over the weekend to try and hammer out a last-ditch deal."

    Fans: "It's always on a weekend."

    Both: "Damn right."


    Day of deadline:

    Both: "Still negotiating at the 11th hour."

    Media: "Anonymous source Y says the substance abuse policy is a sticking point."

    Fans: "Yay weed! Maybe they'll finally get rid of that dumb rule!"

    Media: "Just kidding, that was only a tease from some third-rate source and it's being ignored."

    Fans: "Aww."


    Day after deadline:

    Players: "You know what, fuck it, we're walking away from this."

    Owners: "Yeah, it's not happening."

    Both: "Also, let's not bring this up at all for like 3 months, until training camp would've been over and we're about to start missing preseason games."

    Owners: "Sounds good, we'll be doing cocaine off of high-priced hookers' asses."

    Players: "Sounds good, we'll be smoking weed and frequenting trashy strip joints."

    Robert Kraft: "I'll be getting cut-rate handjobs at sketchy massage parlors."

    All: "Gross."


    3 months after deadline:

    Both: "Oh shit, we actually are not making money now, we'd better put together a hastily assembled ramjob to save the season."

    Fans: "Why didn't you morons use the past 3 months to do this?"

    Both: "I'll tell you why, it's just because."

    Donald Trump: "I saw some HuffPost article comparing the NFL to slavery. If players don't like playing in the NFL, why not get out of the country!"

    Media: "RRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! HIRE KAEPERNICK!!!!!"

    Jerry Jones: (throws shit)

    Players: (throws shit)

    Owners: (throws shit)



    God damn, I could teach a course in negotiating high-profile labor contracts.
    See you Space Cowboy ...

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    Re: Tim Benz: NFL contract issues aren’t just for the Steelers anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Mojouw View Post
    I have no faith that the current vocal and seemingly in charge owners (Jones, Kraft, some of the "new" guys on the block) will get it right. They will try and cobble together a deal that looks like what the players want on the surface and contains a bunch of loopholes that the NFLPA will be too stupid to see until about 1-2 seasons into the CBA when they realize they got screwed. I mean it is pretty clear how to pull one over on the rank and file of the NFLPA -- give them a shiny object up front in big letters (say a bigger cut of revenues) and then put them over a barrel on everything else (contract language, player discipline, etc).

    Between the total unwillingness of most owners to cede an inch of ground because they are awesome businessmen who won't take any crap from anyone so everyone recognizes how powerful and business savy they are and the total inability of the NFLPA to get its members to think past cartoon bags of money with dollar signs on them --- it is not going to go well.
    When the length of ownership of a team is measured in decades and the average length of a player's career is between 3 and 4 years guess who has the leverage in contract negotiations?

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