Players need to be united on contracts
The tension is growing, and there’s a possibility professional football won’t be televised in the near future because of it.
Many NFL players are fed up with the treatment they have received by their employers — and alleged business partners — and there’s been plenty of talk about the players taking a stand together in the coming years.
In fact, during the NFL Player’s Association summer tour to all 32 teams, the union’s leadership warned players to prepare for a lockout or work stoppage before the 2021 season, which is when the 10-year collective bargaining agreement — that many feel significantly favored the owners — expires.
Football players are becoming more educated and vocal about their frustration with the business side of the NFL, which is the only major professional league where contracts are not fully guaranteed.
But more importantly, they are doing something about it.
Last offseason quarterback Kirk Cousins pushed for the league’s first fully-guaranteed contract as a free agent, setting a precedence when Minnesota gave him a threeyear, $84 million deal.
The league’s top tailback, Le’Veon Bell won’t sign his franchise tag. He has missed Pittsburgh’s first four games of the season, forfeiting $3.4 million by not signing his $14.54 million franchise tender, which was supposed to pay Bell $855,000 a game.
That might seem like a lot for an elite player, but keep in mind that Bell plays the most abused position in America’s most-physical sport, and his salary would make him the NBA’s 85th highest-paid player, putting him ahead of Chicago’s Robin Lopez.
And that’s only for one season, which is why Bell continues to sit out games, saving his skills and body for the team willing to give him a multi-year deal.
Before breaking his leg on Sunday, Earl Thomas, an elite safety, only participated in his team’s walkthroughs and games because of his dispute with Seattle over his expiring contract, which pays him $8,500,000 this season.
Thomas didn’t want to risk injuries in practice for a team that he didn’t feel appreciated what he brought to the field. When he was being carted off the field on Sunday he likely ended his nine-year tenure with the Seahawks by giving the Seattle sidelines the middle finger.
“Smh, exactly...” Bell wrote on his Instagram account. “Get right bro bro (Thomas)! I’ll continue to be the “bad guy” for ALL of us.”
Rishard Matthews saw the writing on the wall in Tennessee, which was leaning more on its younger and cheaper receivers, and demanded his release, which the Titans granted.
If Matthews, who signed a contract extension before the season began, was going to start over with a new team why not do it this season, playing for someone that would utilize him, therefore keeping his value up?
For decades NFL players have annually been envious of the guaranteed contracts players in other professional leagues received, but they’ve never been upset enough to do anything about it.
You can sense a change is coming because the climate is changing in NFL locker rooms.
Players are tired of risking injury, which is a certainty in this sport, and being compensated less than what they feel their contributions are worth to the biggest and most profitable sports league in America.
The last CBA deal was a farce. While the leagues’ salary cap has risen every year, the average player continues to being squeezed out as teams push to find younger and cheaper talent.
Only a select few — mainly the quarterbacks and the top-10 percent of the league — are benefiting from the recent CBA, and that won’t change until the workforce does something about it by uniting.
The NFL owners have annually benefited from the workforce being too large to stand together, and from younger and cheaper players pushing the veterans out. But after years of unfair treatment and lack of proper compensation, let’s hope that the change that’s needed arrives, and that it provides NFL players more security and protection for the physically-taxing game they play, and we love.
Every NFL player needs to support Bell in his push for adequate compensation as one of the NFL’s best players because one day they could be in a similar situation to him and Thomas.
Players like Cousins, who are in a position to swing a hammer at the negotiating table, need to continue to do so, pushing for fully-guaranteed deals because that is the only way this disposable culture of football will learn to value its workforce.