“A person by the name of Saint Omni, who is not an NFLPA certified agent, is contacting clubs indicating that he is representing Roquan Smith, who is under contract to the Chicago Bears,” the memo, which was obtained by ESPN, says. “Mr. Omni is prohibited from negotiating player contracts or discussing potential trades on behalf of any NFL player or prospective player or assisting in or advising with respect to such negotiations.”
Roquan Smith is a great example of why having an agent (and financial advisor) is so important for NFL players. The drama, unprofessionalism, and skeeviness is hirting his market value.
Still hoping the Bears break the bank for him
I can’t help but feel you’re doxxing yourself. 
I think the best thing the Bears can do is let him negotiate with other teams. He’ll learn real quick that the market isn’t all that spicy for him. We’ll put a team friendly deal on the table and say…if you can find a team who will beat it, we’ll work on a trade.
You should see the people on my Colts fans Facebook page who looked at Sam Ehlinger’s 10-of-11 for 88 yards and 2 touchdowns (granted, he got sacked twice for a loss of 21 yards) and started proclaiming him the second coming of Peyton Manning, or at least of Jim Harbaugh, when he was facing the Bills’ third-string players in the preseason opener. Guys, chill, for the love of muffins.
No, it’s the preseason. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!
Your team might be going to the Super Bowl!!!
(Every fanbase feels like that right now.)
Watching Hard Knocks, I have one note: please stop showing the blonde Kardasian kin of Aidan Hutchinson. Their highly made up looks, the luxury box, and camera awareness is fucking annoying.
The NFL and NFLPA have reached a settlement in the matter of Deshaun Watson.
He will serve an 11-game suspension and be fined $5 million.
It’s better than what they originally proposed but still. It went from a slap on the wrist to a slightly stronger slap on the wrist.
What he did was horrific. The fine is pathetic. He’s making $46 million per year. He will barely even notice that. I think they should have, at minimum, kept him out for a year.
I’m happier about the mandatory mental counseling, but I don’t know what form that will take. As far as I know, they’re of the “daily affirmations” sort.
I hope there’s a no tolerance policy that if he does this again, he gets hit hard and faces stronger penalties.
The NFL probably figured any impartial third party arbitrator wouldn’t give them much more.
And that’s a problem of their own creation - their own penalties for misdeeds have been so lacking and lopsided (e.g. bigger penalties for PEDs over domestic abuse in many cases) in the past that the NFLPA would have a legitimate case that the league is singling out this case despite past precedent.
Basically, they’re all terrible people (some worse than others of course) and other people have and will continue to pay the price for all this.
It wasn’t another neutral arbitrator, it was a lawyer hand-picked by Goodell. And Goodell could’ve picked the punishment himself.
Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? And another example of the league shooting itself in the foot.
If Goodell does that, the NFLPA sues (which they’d probably lose) and accuses the league of not fairly and impartially hearing discipline cases in general (probably true). And it probably comes up in the next CBA negotiation. And this stays in the news cycle for a few more months rather than being done after this season.
They want the fig leaf of being above board and fair, even though that ship sailed a long time ago. And they want this done and over with.
Watson issued a statement where he said he’s taking full accountability for his actions. Then proceeded to have a press conference where he said he did nothing wrong.
There is no contradiction there, he’s taking full accountability for his absolutely wonderful actions.
The galling part is that keeping him out for a year really doesn’t punish him either. The Browns contract was structured in such a way that any suspension in 2022 would cost him close to zero in lost salary. The salary all kicks in in 2023. The league should have dragged their feet and suspended him at the start of next season. Let the Browns take the bad press by throwing him out there this season and then get disrupted by losing him in year two and have Watson actually lose serious game checks.
It also doesn’t hurt the Browns either; by pushing off the bulk of his contract for a year, they don’t have all that dead money to deal with.
If the NFL really wanted to screw him over, Goodell could have said, “You are suspended for a year, but we will be merciful and let you play this year. It kicks in next year.” (I mean, I’m not sure if he really could have done that.)
Yes, and they did that on purpose, expecting that Watson would get suspended for at least part of 2022.
This is a system that is comfortable with zero accountability.
Well, they could’ve fined him a lot more than 7 million.
Yell at the Grand Jury that refused to indict too. Or tell the 23 of 24 masseuses who settled their cases with Watson they took too little money to hold him accountable. Or the 30 who settled with the Texans.
Seahawks are going to have a bad year. They were barely hanging on even with Wilson and still finished last in their division. Schedule didn’t do them any favors, either.
On the other hand, the QB class for next year’s draft is looking much, much better than this year. Could be at least a couple of elite QB prospects coming up, and they’ll be in good draft position to get one of them.