Richard Sherman: "Players Have To Be Willing To Strike"

[KNUCKLEHEAD]

And say, right at 2 years, 7 months you wreck you knee, back, neck....or something you may wanna use for the next 45 years, is that a cool trade off for basically entertaining the masses?

I don't think I said that. Let me look again. Nope.... didn't say that. That's what disability policies are for. Or... they could strike and have the owners pay for it.

 

[Ramhusker]

Well, Sherman is right but it's easy for him to say. He's been in the league for some time and got his. What about the guy that is just getting started or been playing for league minimum? Not as easy for that guy. NFL players have got to know going in what they are getting into from the start. Sure, they are playing a game. Sure, they are living a dream. But the money most of them make isn't as big as it seems. Basically, they need to make 10 times a year what most people make because they stand a real chance of not being able to sustain a viable occupation after their careers are over. All of them don't get the $10 million a year deals and able to double that with endorsements. These "blue collar" guys are the ones that really need a pension and health package for their future and won't get it if they are not careful about their union leadership and agents. There are a lot of crappy contracts being written out there. At the end of the day, Sherman is right. "Players have to be willing to strike". A single fire ant is not noticed. A million fire ants can strike fear in the heart.

 

[Prime Time]

they stand a real chance of not being able to sustain a viable occupation after their careers are over

How so, aren't all of them college graduates? They have a better chance to start a business, due to their degrees, name recognition, and the chunk of change they earned during their playing days, than the average person.

If however by a "viable occupation" you mean they won't make the same amount of money they did in the NFL, then I agree.

 

[dieterbrock]

Some random thoughts here,

I think there is a simple solution to the rookie cap deal, they should allow a player exercised opt out clause after 2 years, and determine a rookie franchise tag

On guaranteed contracts, I just don't see it. Yes its not cool a player blows out his knee prior to completing the 3rd year of service time, why not require players to carry injury insurance until they reach it?

Other thing is that many players are out of the league in less than 3 years, and the immediate assumption is due to injury. Why is that? I'd love to see the numbers because I have to believe the players with the shortest careers are the players who aren't good enough to make a team. Somebody who rides pine for 3 years, never gets hurt "deserves" the same long term benefits?

I'm all for the players getting their share, its their right to fight for it. Just seems hypocritical for a fan base to want rid of a Greg Robinson and his "awful" contract but at the same time be demanding he have a guaranteed contract

 

[Ramhusker]

How so, aren't all of them college graduates? They have a better chance to start a business, due to their degrees, name recognition, and the chunk of change they earned during their playing days, than the average person.

If however by a "viable occupation" you mean they won't make the same amount of money they did in the NFL, then I agree.

We have to be realistic about many of these players. Their degrees aren't worth much. Many of them were ushered through the system. Many of them have useless degrees. Some aren't very educated at all despite holding a 4 yr degree. It's the ugly underbelly of the "football player factory" system of our higher education conglomerate. We enjoy the final product but there is an ugly side to it all.

 

[Ramhusker]

Some random thoughts here,

I think there is a simple solution to the rookie cap deal, they should allow a player exercised opt out clause after 2 years, and determine a rookie franchise tag

On guaranteed contracts, I just don't see it. Yes its not cool a player blows out his knee prior to completing the 3rd year of service time, why not require players to carry injury insurance until they reach it?

Other thing is that many players are out of the league in less than 3 years, and the immediate assumption is due to injury. Why is that? I'd love to see the numbers because I have to believe the players with the shortest careers are the players who aren't good enough to make a team. Somebody who rides pine for 3 years, never gets hurt "deserves" the same long term benefits?

I'm all for the players getting their share, its their right to fight for it. Just seems hypocritical for a fan base to want rid of a Greg Robinson and his "awful" contract but at the same time be demanding he have a guaranteed contract

It is isn't all black and white is it? Like all things in life, it has to be a merit based system. Some are good from god given talent alone. Others are good because of extreme effort and work ethic. The end measurement is always performance and results. You can be the fastest, strongest, smartest dude in the building but don't perform and you don't get rewarded. Even your daddy being the coach, general manager, scout, agent, or owner only goes so far in a performance based environment. Of course, our job from the peanut gallery is often to bitch about the end product and all its moving parts. :rant::icare:

 

[DCH]

Some random thoughts here,

I think there is a simple solution to the rookie cap deal, they should allow a player exercised opt out clause after 2 years, and determine a rookie franchise tag

I like this idea, although does it swing things too far out of a team's control? By rookie franchise tag, do you mean they could apply it to a guy who has opted out after 2 years, making the opt-out more of a guaranteed salary escalator?

On guaranteed contracts, I just don't see it. Yes its not cool a player blows out his knee prior to completing the 3rd year of service time, why not require players to carry injury insurance until they reach it?

I struggle with why the NBA, NHL, MLB can all guarantee contracts, but not the NFL.

I'm all for the players getting their share, its their right to fight for it. Just seems hypocritical for a fan base to want rid of a Greg Robinson and his "awful" contract but at the same time be demanding he have a guaranteed contract

Could end up like baseball, where trades for the purposes of eating salary are more common. More Osweiler trades.

 

[JIMERAMS]

We have to be realistic about many of these players. Their degrees aren't worth much. Many of them were ushered through the system. Many of them have useless degrees. Some aren't very educated at all despite holding a 4 yr degree. It's the ugly underbelly of the "football player factory" system of our higher education conglomerate. We enjoy the final product but there is an ugly side to it all.

im trying to understand what you are saying here. so its footballs fault that these kids don't want to work hard and get an education? or is it the players fault for taking the easy way out? I think some personal responsibility is in order here. there is plenty of players that have made it after football and they are the ones that put the work in.

 

[Mackeyser]

How so, aren't all of them college graduates? They have a better chance to start a business, due to their degrees, name recognition, and the chunk of change they earned during their playing days, than the average person.

If however by a "viable occupation" you mean they won't make the same amount of money they did in the NFL, then I agree.

I don't know the percentage, but I know that all of them aren't college graduates. Heck, many of those going in the first round aren't and have left college early to pursue their dreams in the NFL.

The problem is that this is a complicated issue with many facets, some of them opposite facing. It's not just owners versus players, but also stars versus minimum scale earners, rookies versus vets and injured versus healthy.

What we saw with the last strike is that the NFL has done an exceptional job of finding talent. We know that because the replacement players were laughably bad except in a few rare instances.

Because the NFL has a legal monopoly (this is why the congressional threat of reviewing their antitrust status always carries such weight), they are not just any business and as such the labor provisions must give additional weight to labor as a result.

It's possible that this could be remedied with some simple give and take.

1) Remove marijuana testing. Not only is the NFL behind society, but the latest research in other countries back up what players have been saying for decades, which is that marijuana helps recover from concussions faster and is a substantial aid in abating and mitigating pain. The NFL needs to get out in front of this and sponsor testing and push for legalization. And I don't have ANY patience for the "but, but, but...the kids" argument because they make BILLIONS selling all kinds of alcohol.

2) Phase in a salary increase over 5 years to be 50% of revenues. The NBA got significantly more, but the NFL has larger capital outlays like stadiums which WON'T be taxpayer funded for much longer. Fans want billion dollar stadiums (some do) and owners want them for the premiums they can charge. Moving to 50% won't kill owners and will make a huge difference for players.

3) Institute an individual Salary cap. There's no reason a single player should be able to make upwards of 20% of team's salary cap. Star players have other revenue streams available and not being able to pay mid-level players is why teams fall apart or what prevents bad teams from getting better over time. In part, anyway... Teams would still be required to pay the minimum cap as they do now. An individual salary cap again phased in over 5 years, will put teams on a better footing and will raise the mean salary of players at a rate greater than the average salary increase due to increased overall salary cap.

4) Expand the retirement and health plans offered to former players. I think 3 years is fair, but the benefits offered need to expand to include significant neurological screenings on a regular basis as well as palliative care for extraordinarily sick players. One thing that nearly had me quit watching football was finding out that a player with Lou Gehrig's disease, iirc, contracted as a result of playing football was bedridden and hooked up to machines and the league just fought tooth and nail to not have to pay out to him as was already written in the CBA.

5) Change the off-season. Shrink the period when teams and players can have no contact. Keep the rest of the off-season voluntary, unchanged. Increase the practice schedule by two weeks, 3 weeks for teams with new head coaches. Have those two weeks be non-contact so that the rest of the time already on the books can be contact at the team's discretion. With the extra practice time, allow for one inter-team scrimmage if teams agree, two practice games and an 18 game season. That would allow for owners to make more gross as well as players, would give coaches more time to install their plays while not endangering players as it is more likely that players will be injured in a game than practice.

This would put pressure on teams to run competitive practices and discern which players to keep. The practice games would be more meaningful in that we'd see more of the players that are likely to stick and less of the Game 4 of the preseason where it's more like replacement football.

6) Lastly, rework the rookie scale. The first round is terrible for players and star players would be better off going in the third round than the first. There either needs to be a formula for players who vastly outplay their rookie contract to opt out of their rookie contract after year 3 if certain milestones are met OR they need to restrict rookie contracts to 4 years with no fifth year option and remove the tag. The individual cap will prevent a massive escalation on the top end as the cap increases while allowing teams to avoid alienating their best players because the economic incentives to keep a star player at the lowest wage are so great. Moreover, because star wages aren't capped, teams try to put off that astronomically large contract as long as possible. With the rookie scale reworked, stars would get to their max earning potential earlier while expanding the pool of money available for veteran players.

These are just preliminary thoughts, but would go a really long way to both improving the game as well as establishing greater equity between owners and players.

 

[Loyal]

Can one not play for the honor and achievement of the game while also deserving and earning a respectable chunk of the money his efforts have earned a team and a league?

Never said any differently. I was responding to the idea that I wouldn't risk an injury that would last most of my life, for 3 years of great wages....But these guys obviously are willing to do so, and much more for a Ring. Even the league minimum players earn in 3 years ($1,620,000) what an average American does in almost 34 years,(per the 2015 national average wage index). I don't begrudge them the money, but don't act like even the NFL league minimum players,aren't well compensated for their risks.

Works will earn what the market bears, but the NFL has a legal monopoly on their primary marketable skill along with a cap on how much each team is permitted to pay its players. This is not a good example of a free market, because there is no option to go elsewhere and use the one skill these players have spent a lifetime developing.

Arena Football League? Canadian Football League? These are not great options for NFL players, but they ARE options. For normal workers, there are premium companies to work for, and those that are marginal. Some that have greater earnings, benefits, and recognition than others....

And no, the players don't care about an owner's responsibilities or troubles - that's the owner's job to deal with. They care about their own responsibilities and troubles, and thus will will do what is necessary to deal with that. Likewise, the owners don't care about the players' responsibilities and troubles, which is why having organized labor on the side of the players is necessary.

That's precisely why I brought up that the players want more than half of the league revenue as though they are partially owners. They want to be compensated like partial owners, when they are just hired hands. This isn't the early 20th century where basic human rights were being abused by the Trusts, when unions were actually helpful. We will radically disagree here, Dewey, because you obviously believe the opposite.

btw: the owners DO care that their players do their responsibilities, as it affects the team's mission (ie, winning).

 

[Alaskan Ram]

3) Institute an individual Salary cap.

Loved the entire post, but point 3 is important if a 50/50 share is reached.
The elite difference makers would take all of the increased take, while owners continue to plug and play the cheap role players.

I hate the "Super Team" arms race movement happening in the NBA right now. 3 all stars taking up nearly the entire payroll? That model won't benefit the current NFL player's getting the shaft.

 

[Pape]

I struggle with why the NBA, NHL, MLB can all guarantee contracts, but not the NFL.

two points

1. The NFL requires a NFL team to fully fund any guarantee in a contract. So if a player has a deal with 40 million guaranteed, the team needs to actually have that 40 million put aside, even of its paid out over time.

2. Just think of the basic differences between the leagues:
NFL 16 games, 53 man roster
MLB 162 games, 25 man active/15 man inactive roster
NBA 82 games, 15 man roster
NHL 83 games, 20 (or maybe 23, not absolutely sure how it works in the NHL) man roster

So the NFL carries a large number of players in a short season, and none of this includes expanded rosters, including guys released, injured, suspended etc... Its a lot of contracts to guarantee.


And remember point 1, if a team is going to guarantee a contract, according to the current NFL rules, they need to fully fund the guarantee even if it is paid in installments. It could get mighty expensive for franchises if they needed to secure fund every contract in the league.

 

[Mackeyser]

Forgot one

7) Remove the inactive player list, thus expanding the active roster to 53 players. A player who can't play due to injury simply reduces the active roster by 1. This allows greater substitution as well as improving the overall quality of league play.

I bring this up because while uncommon, there have been instances, say, of multiple players at the same or similar positions being injured at the same time. If three OL go down, the substitution is likely to force a TE to play OT or pull the LS into service as the C. Having the full roster open would allow teams to not essentially forfeit a game because they literally have nobody to fill the position and have to scramble just to field a squad.

 

[Prime Time]

Heck, at my age I'm dealing with all sorts of problems resulting from injuries incurred from 10+ years of martial arts, high school sports, car wrecks and other mishaps and stupidities, and I didn't get paid for any of it.

I want the players to get the best medical care possible while playing and during retirement. But I don't feel sorry for them. They chose their profession and knew the risks going in. This is why some are retiring unusually early.

The players signed on to a really bad CBA and now they don't like it. Yes, the owners should renegotiate to make the players happy to avoid a strike but I doubt they will.

 

[Merlin]

The NFL owners are greedy pricks. We know this. Salary cap needs to go up, and I think it will.

But that said, I am not a fan of guaranteed contracts. We can act like the NBA is some holy grail of perfection, or we can ask the question of whether the NFL is the only league that was smart enough not to go down that road. I think it's the latter. If I am an NFL owner, I am prepared to break the NFL Player's Union if necessary even by shutting down for an entire season or more to avoid guaranteed contracts.

And it's all well and good for Richard Sherman to preach to the players that they need to hold out. But he represents that elite group of players that grab the biggest slice of the pie. Most players in this league are not going to want to sit out an entire season for any reason, because they will be under water financially.

Bottom line is I'm tired of hearing the NBA or MLB are so great because they have guaranteed contracts, or more of the revenue is going to the players. Guaranteed contracts are not good for the league. And more revenue to the players means the upper crust of players grab more. If it were me, I'd be willing to move up the salary cap to that 50% mark, but I would also increase minimum wage in the league to help the unwashed masses that make up most of the players. That way it's not just a money grab by the guys at the top. But no way I'd entertain guaranteed contracts.

 

[LesBaker]

health care should be the #1 priority for the NFLPA.

The NFL makes ridiculous money off of the backs of players, and NFL players get a smaller piece of a bigger pie when compared with NBA and MLB players.

You want the union to negotiate that for the players? LOL it'll end up being one blood pressure check at CVS and a free teeth cleaning. DSmith is incompetent.

To think that everyone really has a choice in careers is not entirely true

That's 100% correct

Also, note that that $770k/year is taxed at the highest bracket, so take-home is $400k. NFL players, in general, are not wealthy. Sherman is, but your average player isn't.

It's actually even less than that. Agents get 3%, then because they have to pay all of their own taxes including all of the FICA (SS and Medicare) plus state taxes where they live and in many cases where they play each road game they take home about half.

So that 770K is about 380K

Still a damn good living.

 

[DCH]

Heck, at my age I'm dealing with all sorts of problems resulting from injuries incurred from 10+ years of martial arts, high school sports, car wrecks and other mishaps and stupidities, and I didn't get paid for any of it.

I want the players to get the best medical care possible while playing and during retirement. But I don't feel sorry for them. They chose their profession and knew the risks going in. This is why some are retiring unusually early.

The players signed on to a really bad CBA and now they don't like it. Yes, the owners should renegotiate to make the players happy to avoid a strike but I doubt they will.

I don't think people expect the players to strike to get rid of the CBA, but to be willing to strike when CBA negotiations come up in 2020.

 

[bnw]

I don't know the percentage, but I know that all of them aren't college graduates. Heck, many of those going in the first round aren't and have left college early to pursue their dreams in the NFL.

The problem is that this is a complicated issue with many facets, some of them opposite facing. It's not just owners versus players, but also stars versus minimum scale earners, rookies versus vets and injured versus healthy.

What we saw with the last strike is that the NFL has done an exceptional job of finding talent. We know that because the replacement players were laughably bad except in a few rare instances.

Because the NFL has a legal monopoly (this is why the congressional threat of reviewing their antitrust status always carries such weight), they are not just any business and as such the labor provisions must give additional weight to labor as a result.

It's possible that this could be remedied with some simple give and take.

1) Remove marijuana testing. Not only is the NFL behind society, but the latest research in other countries back up what players have been saying for decades, which is that marijuana helps recover from concussions faster and is a substantial aid in abating and mitigating pain. The NFL needs to get out in front of this and sponsor testing and push for legalization. And I don't have ANY patience for the "but, but, but...the kids" argument because they make BILLIONS selling all kinds of alcohol.

2) Phase in a salary increase over 5 years to be 50% of revenues. The NBA got significantly more, but the NFL has larger capital outlays like stadiums which WON'T be taxpayer funded for much longer. Fans want billion dollar stadiums (some do) and owners want them for the premiums they can charge. Moving to 50% won't kill owners and will make a huge difference for players.

3) Institute an individual Salary cap. There's no reason a single player should be able to make upwards of 20% of team's salary cap. Star players have other revenue streams available and not being able to pay mid-level players is why teams fall apart or what prevents bad teams from getting better over time. In part, anyway... Teams would still be required to pay the minimum cap as they do now. An individual salary cap again phased in over 5 years, will put teams on a better footing and will raise the mean salary of players at a rate greater than the average salary increase due to increased overall salary cap.

4) Expand the retirement and health plans offered to former players. I think 3 years is fair, but the benefits offered need to expand to include significant neurological screenings on a regular basis as well as palliative care for extraordinarily sick players. One thing that nearly had me quit watching football was finding out that a player with Lou Gehrig's disease, iirc, contracted as a result of playing football was bedridden and hooked up to machines and the league just fought tooth and nail to not have to pay out to him as was already written in the CBA.

5) Change the off-season. Shrink the period when teams and players can have no contact. Keep the rest of the off-season voluntary, unchanged. Increase the practice schedule by two weeks, 3 weeks for teams with new head coaches. Have those two weeks be non-contact so that the rest of the time already on the books can be contact at the team's discretion. With the extra practice time, allow for one inter-team scrimmage if teams agree, two practice games and an 18 game season. That would allow for owners to make more gross as well as players, would give coaches more time to install their plays while not endangering players as it is more likely that players will be injured in a game than practice.

This would put pressure on teams to run competitive practices and discern which players to keep. The practice games would be more meaningful in that we'd see more of the players that are likely to stick and less of the Game 4 of the preseason where it's more like replacement football.

6) Lastly, rework the rookie scale. The first round is terrible for players and star players would be better off going in the third round than the first. There either needs to be a formula for players who vastly outplay their rookie contract to opt out of their rookie contract after year 3 if certain milestones are met OR they need to restrict rookie contracts to 4 years with no fifth year option and remove the tag. The individual cap will prevent a massive escalation on the top end as the cap increases while allowing teams to avoid alienating their best players because the economic incentives to keep a star player at the lowest wage are so great. Moreover, because star wages aren't capped, teams try to put off that astronomically large contract as long as possible. With the rookie scale reworked, stars would get to their max earning potential earlier while expanding the pool of money available for veteran players.

These are just preliminary thoughts, but would go a really long way to both improving the game as well as establishing greater equity between owners and players.

Awesome post. I will regurgitate much of this in future conversations giving people the impression that I am smarter than I am. True win win.......but maybe not so much for the gene pool.

 

[Mackeyser]

The NFL owners are greedy pricks. We know this. Salary cap needs to go up, and I think it will.

But that said, I am not a fan of guaranteed contracts. We can act like the NBA is some holy grail of perfection, or we can ask the question of whether the NFL is the only league that was smart enough not to go down that road. I think it's the latter. If I am an NFL owner, I am prepared to break the NFL Player's Union if necessary even by shutting down for an entire season or more to avoid guaranteed contracts.

And it's all well and good for Richard Sherman to preach to the players that they need to hold out. But he represents that elite group of players that grab the biggest slice of the pie. Most players in this league are not going to want to sit out an entire season for any reason, because they will be under water financially.

Bottom line is I'm tired of hearing the NBA or MLB are so great because they have guaranteed contracts, or more of the revenue is going to the players. Guaranteed contracts are not good for the league. And more revenue to the players means the upper crust of players grab more. If it were me, I'd be willing to move up the salary cap to that 50% mark, but I would also increase the minimum wage in the league to help the unwashed masses that make up most of the players. That way it's not just a money grab by the guys at the top. But no way I'd entertain guaranteed contracts.

I hear you about guaranteed contracts. Grant Hill made many, many millions playing a few games a season. Fully guaranteed contracts allow some players to hang on too long. That said, with careers in the NFL being generally so short, I can't say I'd be in favor of nothing guaranteed because career ending injuries in the NBA are relatively rare. In the NFL, they're a significant reason why guys stop playing. I think the current levels of guarantees are about right for star players and should increase a bit for rookies and those players making less than 3x the league minimum. Beyond that, I think it would be fair to revisit guarantees.

As for breaking the union, that would be a disastrous idea. The NFL as an entity is grossly undervalued in terms of money. That has happened because of the monopoly status they enjoy. If they break the union, expect 3 things to happen:

1) Expect the draft to be successfully challenged in court. Successfully. Why? Because if players cannot collectively bargain once employed, then it violates labor law to disempower each laborer to find their best price in the market place. So, bust the union...bust the draft. And there's no way the NFL will ever do that.

2) Expect a new league to be created with better terms for players as an incentive to pull top talent away from the NFL. Granted, the USFL folded, but it really did pull talented players from Herschel Walker to Steve Young away from the NFL. With all of the NFL's issues, the last thing they can afford is to lose talent to a start-up league.

3) Expect such a move to put the NFL on thin ice with Congress such that it would take only a few Congressmen to mandate significant changes such as corporations being allowed to own a team. And again, THAT challenge would be successful. Which means...yet more NFL teams with fully open books.

I agree with you about raising the minimum. I addressed many of these points in another post, but for those that didn't read it, I suggested a single player salary cap as a percentage of the team salary cap. There's no reason a QB or anyone else should be able to draw more than 10% (or whatever is negotiated, but that's a decent place to start) of the team's overall cap. With the team cap around $140M give or take, that's $14M per season. Once the revenue sharing is raised to 50%, it's likely that the 10% would allow top players to make closer to $17M per. Maybe more if my suggestions for an 18 game season are taken into account. That's plenty.