And your point is? It does not change the fact that a team cannot force a pay cut. Its only out is the release (or threat thereof).
Sure it allows him to get market value. He’s free to sign with the Arena League, the CFL, or any of the numerous semipro leagues. The fact that they don’t pay nearly as much is irrelevant. He can also seek out any other employment; his possible lack of job skills is also irrelevant. The only restriction he is under is that if he wishes to play in the NFL – the entity with whom the CBA is signed – he agrees that his rights will be assigned to a specific team and he can negotiate with only them. That’s the deal. If he doesn’t like it, he can walk away any time (though, yes, he will be required to give back money already paid for the services he is now declining to render).
Despite their high salaries, Pro football players have a limited job skill set; as the 1982 strike demonstrated, they can, as a group, be replaced pretty damn easily. The CBA recognizes that: Players get to make huge salaries, but it is a tenuous career, one that can be ended with the slightest downtick in performance.
Pretty much.
Yes, there are allowances made in the CBA for routine holdouts … but arguing that that means that players are “allowed” to hold out is akin to saying that since the Library specifies late fees, you’re “allowed” to pay the ten cents a day and keep books as long as you like.
It also ignores the specifics of this situation: most people, including me, are inclined to cut some slack to a player who has been “underpaid” for several seasons, especially on a rookie contract, and who are not disrupting the team – note the indifference, even sympathy, towards Brian Westbrook’s holdout.
I certainly agree with you on T.O., and I don’t want to sound like I’m defending him. I will defend Westbrook, Hines Ward, and other players who have by any measure outperformed their current contracts.
That’s a good analogy, and I think it’s spot on. If you keep the library books out for a few days or weeks after their due, you might owe $0.10/day. But if you keep them for too long, the library charges you to replace the book under the contract that you entered when you got the library card. Once you pay that replacement fee, you’ve fulfilled your cnontractual obligations, and you can check out books again. If a player holds out, he might be fined daily for missing training camp, up to a point. If he’s out for too long, though, the team can suspend him and he loses that season; next year, he’s considered to be under the same contract that he didn’t like the last season.
The player isn’t playing, but (assuming he’s paying the fines and adhering to the CBA-specified provisions) he is providing the team the relief required by the governing agreements. I don’t think there’s any problem - legally, morally, or ethically - with that.
I do think that T.O. has got a bunch of ethical problems, but they stem from his handling of the situation - he is among the top paid receivers in the game, despite what he says; he’s badmouthing his teammates; he’s being insubordinate with the coaching staff. He’s a lousy person handling a situation in a lousy way. But the holdout, in and of itself, isn’t the problem - the guy doing it is.
Legally, no. But I think its rather ethically suspect from the standpoint of “doing what you said you would.” To keep with the analogy: if you honestly lose a book, yes, you can pay the relacement fee and it’s OK. It is unethical, IMO, to make it a matter of routine to take books out, decide you like them, and just pay the fee. It’s a library, not a book store, and using as such is abusing the privelege.
By the same token, the Eagles are a football team, not business that tries to somehow make money by suspending players. You sign a multi-year contract, I think there is a tacit understanding that you intend to live out, if not all, at least most of the contract. Yes, paying the fines and being suspended fulfills the letter of the contract; it does not satisfy the spirit.
To use the Ricky Williams situation last year: he had every right to walk away from the game, and I think relatively few people begrudged him that per se. And so long as he paid back his signing bonus, he had the legal right. But dropping out after one year was letting a number of people down, and most especially doing it on the eve of the season left a lot of people in the lurch. (Note the fact that Barry Sanders was never seen as a bad guy; strange, perhaps, but not bad.)
In the same way, while TO may live up to the letter of his deal by taking the suspension (as if he has a choice …), he is not living up to the spirit of it. That’s what pisses people off.