It seems every day there are more and more players who decide to sit out or not attend training camps in the NFL instead of fulfilling their contracts in the hopes of forcing more money. I’ve noticed in the last 5 years or so this seems to have really ramped up. When I was younger (80’s/90’s) I don’t remember many, if any, hold outs during pre-season other than maybe some rookies and huge names, but nowadays it seems every random player that feels wronged TODAY by a contract they signed YESTERDAY feels compelled to kick up shit.
Am I imagining this? Did the players of the last millennium play fewer games and bullshit regarding their contracts once signed? Is the league full of primadonnas now? If so when did this change?
We didn’t have free agency until 1993, which is probably why you don’t remember holdouts from that far back. As far as whether today’s players are “playing games and bullshit”, it hardly makes sense to complain about the players doing it when the teams are free to tear up the contracts they signed at any time.
I recall the famous 1985 Chicago Bears had two of their best defensive players sit out the entire season due to a contract dispute. How did that work out for them? Wiki has a brief mention under Season review.
It was relatively common. Emmitt Smith sat out the first two games one year for the Dallas Cowboys, and they lost both games. The Cowboys caved and met Smith’s demands, and the Cowboys went on to win the Super Bowl. I’m too lazy to look up the year.
'93. They tried to replace him with 4th round pick Derrick Lassic, which didn’t work out very well.
Smith came back, won the NFL rushing title (for the third straight year) despite playing in only 14 games and separating his shoulder, and won the regular season and Super Bowl MVP.
It happened. There was a player’s agent named Howard Slusher who was infamous for having his players holdout for a season if necessary. Giants GM George Young called him a “terrorist”.
I think it was pretty common. Even though it was before '93, I seem to remember Lawrence Taylor being notorious for coming in late, but that could be a fuzzy memory. Any Giants fans want to confirm that?
Coming in to camp late is fairly common among veteran players. That’s not the same as holding out. I’m only aware of this because Bill Simmons wrote about it, but the Patriots had two players (John Hannah and Leon Gray) hold out for part of the season in 1977. They left camp before the final preseason game and wound up not playing the first three games.
In 1987 Kelly Stouffer, a quarterback from Colorado State, was a first-round draft pick by the St. Louis (soon to be Arizona) Cardinals. Only problem, Stouffer didn’t want to play for the Cardinals, no matter where they were located.
It might be inaccurate to call Stouffer a holdout, because there was nothing the Cardinals could have offered him that he would sign. Stouffer sat out the entire 1987 season rather than sign with the Cardinals.
Finally, with their rights about to expire, the Cardinals traded Stouffer to Seattle for a 1989 draft pick. Stouffer was somewhere between a disappoinmtnet and a bust. The Cardinals used the draft pick to get the completely forgettable Joe Wolf.
In that era, as training camps started, it was pretty common to see a couple of veterans, across the league, holding out for more money / restructured contracts. ISTR that Eric Dickerson did it at least once, if not twice. From what I can remember, it wasn’t a tactic which worked very often, but that didn’t stop players from doing it.