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I want to sympathize with Terrell Owens and his contract dispute. He’s a great athlete and the labor situation in the NFL is actually pretty unfair. Teams can cut athletes more or less whenever they want yet for some reason, athletes have no way of renegotiating their contract up if they outperform their contract. So, holding out or asking for a new contract doesn’t automatically make the athlete a bad guy.
I watched 3 separate interviews and watched T.O. today with his agent get ready for the live interview during halftime of tonight’s football game (one of the perks of working at ESPN is that we get to see and listen to remote production prep and what happens during commercials on the in-house closed circuit cable system). Each time I watched him, he reminded me of an 8 year old. For all of his skill, he’s got an underdeveloped sense of consequences. I think he truly, honestly doesn’t get that there are consequences to his behavior. He simply justifies EVERYTHING he does in the moment. No context is applied. Kind of like a kid who doesn’t understand why the teacher always picks on him.
I wonder if there’s a point at which pro athletes are just too coddled and pampered for their own good. TO just seems to lack any idea that, you know, calling out teammates doesn’t really endear you to the team. Or that a coach can tell a player to shut up. Or that burning bridges might not make it easier to negotiate a deal with the folks on the other side of that bridge. At the end, I’m just pretty much thinking that he has no idea why anyone would not like him or would not want him on their team. He just doesn’t get it.
And that’s just sad.
August 12th, 2005 at 9:10 am
Before I get into TO, The Labor situation in the NFL is unfair but the labor situation in baseball is unfair the other way. There has to be a happy medium between 100% guaranteed money and 0% guaranteed money. I think we are starting to see it in some of the NFL rookie and free agent contracts coming out this year and last. I keep hearing that between 40% and 60% of these contracts are for guaranteed money… you can ask at work as well, but that’s what I have heard in reports. If this is the case, it is a good move in the right direction and should be a model for the other major sports.
With that said:
I feel no sympathy for Terrell Owens.
a) TO and his agent missed a deadline to declare him a free agent. HIS mistake, not the 49ers… HIS!
b) TO became such a baby that he forced the 49ers to trade him.
c) TO was traded to the Ravens but that wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t where he wanted to go. He cried that he wanted to be in Philly and oh yeah, btw, had HIS agent and HE filed the paperwork on time, HE could have gone anywhere HE wanted.
d) HE cried so much about going to the Ravens that HE filed a grievance with the NFL and asked and arbiter to release him from the Ravens and give him to the Eagles… which for some ungodly reason, the arbiter did… because, btw, did I mention that TO and HIS agent missed the deadline to file for free agency… HE did, not the 49ers… HIM
e) The Ravens and the 49ers got screwed in the compensation to make HIM happy. The 49ers played by the rules, the Ravens played by the rules but because TO and his agent failed to file for free agency on time, HE get what HE wants and two franchises who make millions of dollars a year for the league get screwed.
I think a pattern is developing here, I wonder what it is?!
f) The Philadelphia Eagles take TO. They negotiate in good faith on a $49 million contract. He signed, he played…. oh, btw, he was still under contract when he got traded because HE and HIS agent forgot to file on time… so Philadelphia was under no obligation to offer him a new contract. They did but they did not have to.
g) Philadelphia has lived up to their end of the bargain. They pay HIM what HE agreed to last year. TO will screw the Eagles, the same way he screwed the 49ers, the Ravens and the NFL because HE made the mistake of not filing HIS free agency papers in time. HE didn’t do it in time, so HE was still under contract to the 49ers… Now after HE has played games and burned bridges, HE feels HE should get more…
I’m not feeling it. He has been a baby for two+ years and I stand behind the Philadelphia Eagles 100%. They have made the right decision in this case. They have proven that there is no I in team where TO has found the ME. And if he keeps playing a game of chicken with the Eagles, 500K is not a lot of money to do what Tampa Bay did to Keyshawn and let TO sit home all year playing video games.
August 12th, 2005 at 2:34 pm
This entire situation is of TOs making. Yes, of course teams can fire you, I work in the same situation, its called at-will. And the entire league knows about it.
Moreover, there are league mandated, CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED, places ALL players must be. Not TO, not Donovan McNAbb, not anyone from the best to the worst, can miss.
TO does not deserve to get paid any more than he was scheduled to get paid. Would it have been NICE of the Eagles management to offer to renegotiate? yes. Should it be a requirement that all players have their contract renegotiated after they have a good season? HELL NO! Baseball wrote it into their collective bargaining agreement. Football didn’t.
This is the price you pay for getting more money short term, but less security long term. Deal with it.
August 12th, 2005 at 9:42 pm
Technically, he’s not an at-will employee because he actually has an employment contract (I’m sure the lawyers will chime in if I’m wildly off, if they’re even reading an obviously football post).
And unlike your situation or mine, he can’t really quit… I mean, he can not show up and not get paid, but he can’t go to a competitor or to another team in the league. Whereas I could, say, quit and go to a Yahoo or Fox (folks at work, don’t worry, I’m not
) with no repercussions.
I agree with both of you that TO is the problem and he’s not deserving of a new contract, but I think it has nothing to do with whether it’s OK or not to hold out or ask for a new contract.
It has to do with being a complete jackass to the people around you, especially in a team situation. Even worse, it’s the obliviousness he displays… I don’t think he really realizes that he’s a complete jackass. In fact, I’m sure he thinks he’s a poor victim in all of this which is as sad as it is funny.
August 13th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
I agree with you, he is a jackass.
But he was a jackass in San Fran and in Baltimore… the league created the problem by allowing him to be a “big baby” and win… or at least an arbiter did.
The Eagles are right. I stand behind management 100%. The Eagles management is right. “Shut up and play.” or be benched.
If I were Philadelphia. I would pay him every dollar he is owed, on time and every single time it is due… Bonuses and everything…. and I wouldn’t let him step on the field for the next six years.
The $49 million to ruin his endorsement deals, future contracts, an HOF bid, a Super Bowl appearance, etc… No one is above the game and the Eagles could be in the unique position of being able to prove that… but then again, if it were my $49 million, that’s an expensive lesson to teach… but fun to think about.
This has been going on too long and it ruins what the Eagles have built… a solid team that is competitive…. as a Giant fan (Woo Hoo) but as a football fan it’s a disgrace.
He has been playing the part of the victim for 18 months… started by what? HIS and HIS agents own stupidity for failing to file for free agency on time… it’s time for the NFL to stop enabling star players and expecting them to live up to standards everyone else in the game is required to adhere too…
December 3rd, 2005 at 12:24 pm
“I wonder if there’s a point at which pro athletes are just too coddled and pampered for their own good.”
I don’t know if that’s completely fair. You have to consider that before they even get to the pros, they have to get through college. And that involves having a nice apartment that they don’t have to pay for, easy classes that they don’t have to study for (or even register for themselves), no need for jobs, and a quality of life that is only about 10 times better than the average college student.
And then when they get drafted, someone takes care of their every need so that all they need to do in life is show up for practice.
Now would you call that pampered?
Oh. Well, yeah I guess it is.