Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Sports columnist Aaron McFarling: Favre debacle dredges up flaw
Aaron McFarling
Recent columns
It’s going to crack. Someday, the world’s best football players are actually going to look around and decide to get as tough at the negotiating table as they are on the field. And the NFL as we know it will be changed forever.
Brett Favre will come back or he won’t. It’s an interesting soap opera, no doubt, rife with debate over legacy and selfishness and loyalty.
But the saga up in Green Bay is interesting for another reason, too.
Once again, it’s highlighting one of the biggest hypocrisies in sports.
Let’s strip all emotion and look at the abridged version of the facts:
1) Favre wants to come back.
2) He’d like a release from the Packers to explore options elsewhere.
3) The Packers have offered to “welcome” him back to their franchise but will not grant a release.
If this were baseball, basketball or hockey, Green Bay’s stance would be more than reasonable. A deal’s a deal. You signed a contract, you belong to that team.
But this is the NFL, where the system makes no sense. A deal is only a deal if the owner says it is.
So far — understandably — the debate has been over whether Favre is crazy, whether the Packers will trade him or start him or bench him and what this all means for Aaron Rodgers. But what’s lost in all this is a fundamental flaw in the NFL’s system: The one-sided contract.
Green Bay owns Favre’s rights for the next three years. If he plays for the Packers those three years, the team must pay him $39 million. Fair enough.
But if the Packers had wanted to tear up that contract and cut the quarterback after the NFC Championship game last January — not that they would have, but you get the point — they could have. And Favre would get nothing.
That’s usually what happens in the NFL. But contrast that with what’s happened the past few weeks. Favre wanted to tear up the deal himself, and he’s not allowed. See anything wrong with this?
If the deal is valid only on one side, there’s no point having multiyear contracts at all other than to keep the power in the owners’ hands.
Owners and fans love a system without guaranteed contracts. It keeps the players from getting complacent and protects the organization when inevitable injuries occur.
But the injury risk isn’t a reason not to have guaranteed contracts. It’s a reason for players to demand them.
Some day, players are going to embrace this and decide that signing bonuses aren’t enough. Until then, they only have themselves to blame for agreeing to a flawed system.
The NFL collective bargaining agreement expires in three years. The same amount of time Favre is committed to the Packers — but they don’t have to commit to him.
n n n
Kudos to Brandon Jennings, the former hot-shot Arizona basketball recruit who’s blowing off college to start his professional career in Europe.
Here’s hoping there are a lot more guys like Jennings who take this route. If you want to be in college, great. But if you’re going to make a mockery of education — thanks to NBA commissioner David Stern’s rule against players coming straight from high school — then you’re better off getting paid now than pretending to be a “student-athlete” for a year.
Best-case scenario? Enough Jennings-caliber players end up staying in Europe for a few years and weakening the NBA’s influx of young talent. This probably will never happen — the big bucks in the States are still too alluring — but that might be the only way the NBA would reconsider its un-American age policy.
n n n
Be warned: If Joe Saunders does anything special in tonight’s All-Star game, the guy’s head might explode.
Really, how much excitement can one man take?
It’s already been a whirlwind couple of months for the former Virginia Tech ace, who’s gone 12-5 with a 3.07 ERA with the first-place L.A. Angels. This from a lefty who was battling for the fifth-starter spot in spring training.
On Saturday, Saunders’ wife — former Tech softball player Shanel Garofalo — delivered a baby girl. The couple named the 8-pound, 21-inch newcomer Matea.
And now Saunders is set to make his first All-Star game appearance. At Yankee Stadium. At age 27.
You go, Joe.
Brett Favre will come back or he won’t. It’s an interesting soap opera, no doubt, rife with debate over legacy and selfishness and loyalty.
But the saga up in Green Bay is interesting for another reason, too.
Once again, it’s highlighting one of the biggest hypocrisies in sports.
Let’s strip all emotion and look at the abridged version of the facts:
1) Favre wants to come back.
2) He’d like a release from the Packers to explore options elsewhere.
3) The Packers have offered to “welcome” him back to their franchise but will not grant a release.
If this were baseball, basketball or hockey, Green Bay’s stance would be more than reasonable. A deal’s a deal. You signed a contract, you belong to that team.
But this is the NFL, where the system makes no sense. A deal is only a deal if the owner says it is.
So far — understandably — the debate has been over whether Favre is crazy, whether the Packers will trade him or start him or bench him and what this all means for Aaron Rodgers. But what’s lost in all this is a fundamental flaw in the NFL’s system: The one-sided contract.
Green Bay owns Favre’s rights for the next three years. If he plays for the Packers those three years, the team must pay him $39 million. Fair enough.
But if the Packers had wanted to tear up that contract and cut the quarterback after the NFC Championship game last January — not that they would have, but you get the point — they could have. And Favre would get nothing.
That’s usually what happens in the NFL. But contrast that with what’s happened the past few weeks. Favre wanted to tear up the deal himself, and he’s not allowed. See anything wrong with this?
If the deal is valid only on one side, there’s no point having multiyear contracts at all other than to keep the power in the owners’ hands.
Owners and fans love a system without guaranteed contracts. It keeps the players from getting complacent and protects the organization when inevitable injuries occur.
But the injury risk isn’t a reason not to have guaranteed contracts. It’s a reason for players to demand them.
Some day, players are going to embrace this and decide that signing bonuses aren’t enough. Until then, they only have themselves to blame for agreeing to a flawed system.
The NFL collective bargaining agreement expires in three years. The same amount of time Favre is committed to the Packers — but they don’t have to commit to him.
n n n
Kudos to Brandon Jennings, the former hot-shot Arizona basketball recruit who’s blowing off college to start his professional career in Europe.
Here’s hoping there are a lot more guys like Jennings who take this route. If you want to be in college, great. But if you’re going to make a mockery of education — thanks to NBA commissioner David Stern’s rule against players coming straight from high school — then you’re better off getting paid now than pretending to be a “student-athlete” for a year.
Best-case scenario? Enough Jennings-caliber players end up staying in Europe for a few years and weakening the NBA’s influx of young talent. This probably will never happen — the big bucks in the States are still too alluring — but that might be the only way the NBA would reconsider its un-American age policy.
n n n
Be warned: If Joe Saunders does anything special in tonight’s All-Star game, the guy’s head might explode.
Really, how much excitement can one man take?
It’s already been a whirlwind couple of months for the former Virginia Tech ace, who’s gone 12-5 with a 3.07 ERA with the first-place L.A. Angels. This from a lefty who was battling for the fifth-starter spot in spring training.
On Saturday, Saunders’ wife — former Tech softball player Shanel Garofalo — delivered a baby girl. The couple named the 8-pound, 21-inch newcomer Matea.
And now Saunders is set to make his first All-Star game appearance. At Yankee Stadium. At age 27.
You go, Joe.
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