This applies to all team sports–I’d love to get a worldwide perspective here. My question is quite simple: If you had a certain level of talent and skill such that you knew you could either (a) start every game for years on a team that would never make the playoffs (or continental club championships etc for you European fans out there–but assume it’s a midtable team that won’t get relegated) or (b) be a backup/reserve who got sparse playing time on a team that would seriously contend for a championship, which would you choose?
Whichever paid the most.
It’s probably safe to assume that’s the winning team.
For me, it’s all about winning a ring. Make me a bench player so I can win one, please.
cf’75
To me it’s about the game itself, so I’d be in the mid-of-the-table team.
Mind you, I’m a fan (inasmuch as I can be said to be a fan) of a mid-table soccer team. When there’s a competition they’re not taking part in, I usually cheer for whoever else is from the middle-of-the-table pack.
I’d want to play.
I hate losing, but I’d want to play.
Now if I was on my way out and had a chance to tag along with a team that was destined to win a ring (see Jerome Bettis, Pittsburgh Steelers), I’d probably take my chances and take a seat on the bench.
FTR, Jerome was a player, but not the horse he was when he was younger. He lost his starting role to Willie Parker and he took a massive pay-cut for a chance at the ring. That would make sense to me, but I’d do whatever I could to play as long as I could.
Winning it all is a much better feeling that being “good” for a long time.
No. It would be safe to assume that you’d be paid more if you played every day.
The average benchwarmer doesn’t make as much money as the average regular, in any major pro sport.
My family comes first and that means I need the money more. Jerome Bettis had the luxury if taking a pay cut to stay on a winning team; he’d already made more money than any person would ever need.
If I’m a young player, I want to be on the good team. Presumably I’d have access to better coaching and I’d practice against better players on the contending team than on some mid-level club. With a lot of hard work and a bit of luck (perhaps an injury to the guy who starts ahead of me) I might be able to get some playing time. Being on the bench in the championship game would be good “big game” experience, even if I don’t get in to play.
If I’m on my last legs as a player, I’d still want to be on the good team so I could get the ring.
If I’m 30 and possibly past my athletic peak, I’d probably want to play every day, not knowing how much longer my career was going to last.
I’m kinda in this situation now with my rowing team. We have boats that compete in individual events. We recently go a whole batch of very tall, atheletic rowers. As a result, I’m no longer in the top boat. We will do very well at nationals this year as a result but I won’t be in the boats the have a real chance of medalling.
Personally, I’d rather have been in the top boat and place lower than to not be in the top boat but be associated with a wining team.
I disagree. How much do you think Bledsoe cherishes his Superbowl ring? Not much, I’d wager. (I wonder if “courtesy of Tom Brady” is engraved on it? heh.)
Of course, it’s a different question depending on if you have the talent to be a starter or not. I’m not really familiar with sports leagues that have such a huge disparity in talent that a backup on one team is head and shoulders above the starter on another. Nor am I familiar with leagues where players have job security despite the team having no chance to make the playoffs.
But I would think that a guy like Bledsoe gets significantly less satisfaction out of his ring than a guy like Charlie Batch – a career backup for the Steelers – gets out of his. So I imagine both those guys would answer the OP’s question very differently.
I think this sums it up. No one likes losing (no one that I know, anyway), but I’d certainly be disheartened if I knew I’d never get to play. What’s the point of trying to do something you love if you never get to do it?
If we’re talking professional sports, then I’d go where the money is.
If there’s no money involved (or the money’s the same either way), then I want to play.
Which team?
I was envisioning more the fifth linebacker who sees a little bit of playing time every once in a while, or the backup goalie who plays a couple of games, or the backup outfielder who pinch-hits a little bit and comes in as a defensive sub when the team’s up by 5 runs and the old star doesn’t want to put any more stress on his knees–not the backup quarterback who never takes a snap. That’s an interesting perspective on it, though. Frankly I’ve never thought about it that way.
But for the guys you describe, if they are in those roles, how would they be able to start on another team in the same league? A lesser league, sure, but I think most people would rather be a role player in the bigs than a featured player in the minor leagues. But sticking with the pros, who do you think is happier with his lot:
Backup RBs on serious contenders that get 3-5 carries per game:
Chris Perry (Bengals)
Michael Turner (Chargers)
Dominic Rhodes (Colts)
Derrick Ward (Giants)
Nick Goings (Panthers)
Maurice Morris (Seahawks)
Verron Hayes (Steelers)
Featured backs on scrub teams that won’t sniff the playoffs for multiple seasons:
Reuben Droughns (Browns)
Curtis Martin (Jets)
Lamont Jordan (Raiders)
I would imagine the featured backs are happier. They are rich and famous; I listed the 3 starters off the top of my head, but had to look up all the backups except Ward. They get paid more, get more respect, have more responsibility, and in general are looked at as a guy who can help return their current franchise to respectability. (Well, not Martin, but that’s because he’s older than dirt.)
Interestingly, two of the three starters I listed bailed out of backup roles with serious contenders to take center stage on scrub teams. (The Jets were a serious contender when Jordan bailed to become a starter for the then laughingstock franchise in Oakland.)
Again, it all depends on how you see yourself. Assuming you think you’re good enough to be the man, you want to start, no matter where you have to go to do it. If you’re just happy to have a job, then the backup role would probably be preferable to the pressure of shouldering the load in a lesser league.
Also, I chose Bledsoe as an example because he wasn’t your typical no-account backup QB; he was a legitimate contributor to that Superbowl run even moreso than your description of a backup linebacker who sees a little bit of playing time every once in a while would have been. Surely you remember:
Recently the Padres played the Giants (I think), and there was a lot of talk during the TV broadcast about a guy the Giants (maybe the Dodgers?) had recently picked up on a trade from Tampa Bay. In Tampa, the guy played every day because he was the closest they had to a star. When he was traded, he was a bench player, an occasional late-game substitute, pinch-hitter or spot start.
More extremely, I’m willing to bet a number of the Yankees’ bench players and “damage control” relief pitchers could start for Tampa Bay.
2002? I can hardly remember who started for the Chargers last season. 
(just kidding, of course, but yes I actually had forgotten about the game you mentioned).
I think depending on his personality, someone in Drew Bledsoe’s place there could be as happy as a QB who took every snap for, say, the Bengals that year. I doubt Drew Bledsoe himself would be, but others might. That’s what I’m asking in the OP, anyway.
Yeah, makes more sense with that example. And on re-reading the OP, I see you actually specified the talent level fairly precisely, and that talent level is a fair bit below Drew Bledsoe.
I think most journeymen would rather start. I just recently read an account of some trash talking back in the late 90s from an Eagles-Chargers game. Brian Mitchell, the special teamer, was talking smack to Rodney Harrison. The exchange went on for a bit, until Harrison ended it with the fatal shame blow:
“Go sit your ass back on the bench where you belong.”
I see by the crawl on ESPN this morning that Old Man Martin was relegated to the PUP list, so the odd man out on my list of starting scrubs is now consistent: Cedrick Houston is a scrub backup who’ll get the starting job because his whole team sucks balls.
It’s obviously a non-question when it comes to a guy who has legitimate starting talent like Bledsoe, so my apologies for the strawman. But I think that when you get to the pros, every single guy in the league grew up as the star of his neighborhood and school teams. They all grew up with the star mentality, and so I think even the scrubs want to start.
Another interesting perspective. I had only thought about it from the angle of trying to learn one’s trade, and the debate in my mind was between whether it was better to learn under a star’s tutelage or by engaging in trial by fire. The Rodney Harrison example is excellent, though; getting the chance to play every Sunday for the perpetually lacking San Diego secondary (although it wasn’t anywhere near as bad then as it is now IMO*) surely molded him into a much better player. However, I have to wonder if the NFL is very different from other sports in this regard; with only 16 games per year and only 5 years in the average NFL career (IIRC), it seems like most players don’t have a very long window of opportunity to make an impression–whereas in baseball you get to be around the guys 162 times a year for a decade or two if you’re even a half-decent niche guy. Hockey and basketball of course are somewhere in the middle. Thoughts? How bout you soccer fans out there?
- It was like a broken record in 2005. Every game there were at least two sure interceptions, which couldn’tve been easier to pick if they had been delicately placed into Bwawoh Jue’s/Drayton Florence’s/Quentin Jammer’s hands by the God of Football himself from a silver platter, which ended up getting dropped on the ground. It was uncanny. Drayton Florence in particular–I don’t think the guy can catch the common cold.
This is it in a nut, I think. Well, that and one other factor, that being the individual’s position in his career arc. You take a guy like Reggie Sanders, and I’d be willing to bet that his opinion on the matter is slightly different from that of, I don’t know, Wily Mo Pena’s. In other words, a guy in his early 20’s with only a few seasons’ worth of games played and who hasn’t yet tasted the spotlight is almost certainly going to prize an opportunity for an everyday spot more than an older guy who has earned a little respect already, and whose body’s starting to break down, but who’d love to earn a(nother) shot at a(nother) ring. Wily Mo might be on a division leader, but he’s never really had a shot at an everyday gig. Of course, some guys just accept that they’re backups, and are willing to just put their head down and serve in whatever role they’re given, but I think for the most part the majority of young professional players would take their chances as starters – because when it comes down to it, everybody wants to see their personal numbers maximized – and the majority of older players start to think about things like legacies and more permanent achievements. Which is about the same as it is in all walks of life, I guess.
Personally, I’d rather play. I’ve ridden the bench for a championship team and started for others (this was obviously on a somewhat less-than-professional level). If you love the game, you want to play the game and contribute, not bask in the reflected glory of others. Not that I didn’t bask, mind you.
PS - who would have thought that Ellis Dee would have contributed an anecdote in which an Eagle got bashed? What do you do, keep a journal, you swine?
PPS - Brian Mitchell actually wasn’t on the Eagles in the 90’s, I don’t think. Signed before '00, wasn’t he? I’m sure this means a great deal to a great many of you.
If I felt like I was fulfilling a role, it wouldn’t matter if I was on the field for every minute of every game. So I’d rather be on a winning team.
If the team wasn’t winning, then I’d want to play every day.