For dissatisfied QBs, there isn’t any easy exit strategy

Four months ago, it seemed as though the NFL was approaching a watershed moment. Superstar quarterbacks, dissatisfied and unwilling to keep quiet, were threatening to exert their independence and force their teams to trade them. Player empowerment, the term that transient NBA players made popular, appeared close to becoming football’s burden, too.

But it didn’t materialize. Aaron Rodgers is still in Green Bay, though he’s back with a revised contract that makes it easier for him to bounce after this season. Russell Wilson is still in Seattle. And Deshaun Watson is still in Houston, though his situation has turned troubling because of a slew of sexual misconduct allegations.

There was so much speculation, so much anticipation of league-altering chaos. And in the end, so much stayed the same.

Why? The quarterbacks, Rodgers and Wilson in particular, have tried to make disingenuous attempts to cast their frustration as more media fantasy than reality. But they’re also on the record expressing the discontent that they now claim was overblown. The drama is real and ongoing, but there is one mischaracterized part of each saga.

The problem involves pacing. In the reporting of the quarterbacks’ issues and in the incessant conversation about potential trades, we acted as though a breakup could happen at any minute. But we didn’t think enough about how entangled franchise QBs are with their teams and the many dimensions of those relationships. Combine those dynamics with both the mechanics and conventions of NFL team building, and there was little chance any of those situations would be resolved in a single offseason.

Even in the case of Rodgers, whose relationship with the Packers has deteriorated over several years, there was never going to be a wild, sudden movement. It doesn’t work that way. And in the NFL, it may never work that way.

The NBA’s constant star shuffling — and the desire of NFL players to have it more like basketball — can trick those who follow both sports into making a rigid comparison. But the leagues are fundamentally different, which means that any NFL star seeking greater control must take a divergent path to such influence.

Recall what LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh did in 2010 to orchestrate the opportunity to play together in Miami. Their decisions started this era of player movement and superstar impatience, and they changed the manner in which franchises navigate roster construction. It’s a multifaceted system now, but the revision began with NBA players using free agency and a willingness to take a little less money as leverage.

True free agency is harder to get to in the NFL because franchise tags add a layer of protection for teams. And for players, the greatest aspiration is to achieve some level of financial security in a violent sport that doesn’t fully guarantee contracts. NBA stars have the luxury of using shortterm contracts to apply pressure and gain a voice in decision-making. But in football, it’s too risky for players to bypass as much security as they can get.

The way the NFL is constructed, with its hard salary cap and the tricky math of what a contract is actually worth, the value of a franchise quarterback, or any elite talent, carries extraordinary weight. Great players and their organizations are more intertwined, contractually and emotionally.

For instance, the Seahawks weren’t going to trade Wilson - the quarterback who led them to their only Super Bowl triumph and a perennial MVP candidate - this offseason when it meant they would have to take a $39 million salary cap hit to make a deal. No realistic trade offer could have compensated the Seahawks sufficiently for throwing away a season with a roster built to win now and led by a coach, Pete Carroll, who turns 70 next month.

When Wilson signed his $140 million extension two years ago, he didn’t just get paid. The best quarterbacks become extensions of the entire organization. Their contracts are often both acknowledgments of their greatness and expensive, customizable puzzle pieces that give their teams cost certainty and the ability to restructure their deals in creative numbercrunching efforts to acquire or retain talent.

In 2019, Wilson recommitted to a franchise that, like every other team, has strict cap and roster projection models that it must follow with discipline. Wilson’s disenchantment with the offense and his concern about the team’s stagnant performance were issues destined to be addressed as they are now. The Seahawks and Wilson are basically in couples counseling this season. They’ll keep working on their relationship, trying to lift the team from good to great again. If they separate in a year or so, it will probably have to be a mutual decision.

So the idea of NFL player empowerment hinges on whether some of these irreplaceable athletes want to play the long game. In the NBA, once a mega talent such as James Harden decides he’s gone, it has gotten to the point in which he is done — and willing to make life uncomfortable to force an exit. The NFL doesn’t work that way, at least not yet.

Acting out to force a trade is too costly. Rodgers wasn’t going to be a training camp holdout and pay a $50,000 fine for every day he missed. It was much more reasonable to renegotiate and use the leverage he had to clarify his future. He has options after this season now.