Wednesday, November 23, 2005
It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle!
Okay, the post title might be overstating my case somewhat, but the sport of football is better off today:
Terrell Owens’ season is effectively over after an arbitrator ruled Wednesday that the Philadelphia Eagles were justified in suspending him for four games.
Arbitrator Richard Bloch wrote that the Eagles clearly proved that the suspension was justified, and were within their right to pay their All-Pro receiver but not allow him to return “due to the nature of his conduct and its destructive and continuing threat to the team.”
Now, my stance isn’t just mindless anti-Owens hatred. I think that the sport is better when players know that they can be held accountable for their actions in the ways that hurt them most: their wallets and their stats. Owens will miss the spotlight and the dollars while the Eagles pay him the remainder of his salary (minus the four game suspension) and will, hopefully, have learned a lesson: he doesn’t get a perpetual free pass just because he runs good routes and has good hands.
Good.
Comments & Trackbacks
It’s my understanding that T.O. is going to be missing more than the pay for the four games he’s been suspended. I’ve heard that there’s a clause in his contract that allows the Eagles to get a part of his ridiculous “signing bonus” back if he’s suspended for four games or more for conduct detrimental to the team (or whatever the buzz words were).
Why is the signing bonus “ridiculous?”
The bonus was $10 million. The total contract (7 years) was $42 million. Giving nearly 25% of a seven-year contract as a front-loaded bonus to an employee as likely to become unavailable as a result of injury as a football player is ridiculous.
This is only to say that the Eagles were stupid, not morally wrong in some way. I’m all in favor of allowing people (broadly construed) to be stupid.
The whole bonus system in the NFL is used as a way to delay cap impacts into the future, and it often backfires spectacularly (see the 49ers for a particularly horrific example). NFL teams aren’t especially rational when it comes to money decisions.
I completely disagree. Having only 25% of a seven year deal guaranteed makes NFL contracts the most rational (for ownership) in professional sports. Contracts in baseball, basketball, and (I think) the NHL are guaranteed, period, except for in weird circumstances.
And signing bonuses aren’t just used to limit cap impact, but also because the players know that if they have a seven year contract they’re only going to get paid for three or four years. Then they’ll have to renegotiate or shop themselves to new teams, so they want as much money upfront that they get to keep if they’re cut as possible. Who can blame them?
Rosenhaus and Owens would prefer 100% guaranteed contracts (which is basically the reason for this whole fight). That would be ridiculous.
I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree. I’ll just say that “more rational” does not imply “rational”.
FWIW, I’ve come completely around to Gregg Easterbrook’s position: that the cap should be charged the full amount of every compensation check when the check is written.
(Depending on how much money the Eagles manage to claw back from Owens, after this debacle I suspect that even he might call his contract ridiculous. Not that that really helps anyone’s case.)