Suppose you were the arbitrator in the Terrell Owens case next week.
If it were up to you, would you set any limit to an NFL team’s right to “punitively deactivate” a player?
Your choices are basically:
0 games
Infinite games up to the end of the signed contract.
Or some number in between.
My first instinct when I heard about this case, was to say that the Eagles have the right to deactivate Terrell with pay for as long as they want. But after thinking about it, I don’t think that is how I would rule.
Everyone assumes that this is a one season deal and the Eagles will release Terrell before the March $5 Million dollar reporting bonus. But that is an assumption. What if the Eagles owners didn’t care about money? What if the Eagles owner decided he absolutely hated Terrell Owens and wanted to punish him for as long as possible? What if the owner decided he will pay Terrell through the end of the entire 7 year contract and simply leave Terrell deactivated that entire time?? This would give the owner the satisfaction of effectively ending Terrell Owens professional career. I think that is a bit unfair, but I am wondering what the rest of you think.
Personally, once I came to the conclusion it was unfair to allow the Eagles to punitively deactivate Terrell for 5 years if they felt like it, I also concluded it was unfair to allow them to do it at all.
So my question to you, if you are the arbitrator, would you limit the Eagle’s right to how long they could “punitively deactivate” Terrel Owens? And why.
Of course it’s a privilege. But is that privilege 100% in the control of any owner you sign a contract with? What if the Yankees owner signed ARod to a 15 year contract, got pissed at him, and decided to just end his career by deactivating him with pay for the entire contract? Does the owner have that right?
I believe that the collective bargaining agreement between the players’ union and the NFL says that a team can’t suspend a player for more than 4 games. The league can so more, but the league hasn’t taken action in this matter, suspension-wise.
If I was arbitrator, I’d say that the Eagles have to start paying him after the 4 game suspension. If they want to sit him, that’s their business. However, I think there might be something in the CBA that says you can’t bar him from team facilities after the current suspension because he has a right to maintain his market value or somesuch.
That’s what I’d do if I was the arbitrator. If I was the Eagles, I’d sit him at the far end of the bench for the rest of the season, and if he so much as picks his nose, I’d give him another 4 game suspension. Not sure how that works in the CBA, though. I know you can’t suspend a player for more than 4 games, but can you suspend him for 4 games more than once during a season?
Of course, if you can’t suspend him again, you just start calling lots and lots of pass routes across the middle, where there are lots and lots of speed-freak defensive backs just waiting for something like that.
There appear to be two issues. The first is the NFLPA’s appeal of the four-game suspension without pay. The second is their (unofficial?) objection to Owens’ ban from practice and all team facilities even after the suspension is over.
They intend to, but there’s some question over whether keeping him away from the team after that constitutes an additional “suspension.”
Perhaps a fair rule is that is a player is punitively deactivated with pay for more than so many consecutive games (maybe four?), inclusive of the team’s final regular season or playoff game, said player’s contract becomes void (summarily making him a free agent). Salary cap implication for bonus money already paid to the punitively deactivated player would still affect the franchise’s future salary cap (as it does now).
Not that the rule proposed above does not relate to team-imposed unpaid suspensions, which are currently capped at four games. The rule would cover only punitive deactivations.
This kind of punishment only happens when a team is prepared to cut a player in the offseason anyway (John Gruden vs Keyshawn Johnson). But it still might be a good idea to have a rule in place.
I think #2. 0 games is definitely too little, and #3 while sounds interesting is cutting off your nose to spite your face and also, I am not sure that he has done something so incredibly horrible that he should have to sit the bench for 5 years (yes I know it is with pay, but still).
Effectively impossible, because of the salary cap. Owens’ contract is big, and, like every other long-term NFL contract, becomes unrealistically huge over the later years because the teams (and the players) know that the contract will either be renegotiated or voided after about three years.
If the Eagles said they were going to pay Owens his entire contract and keep him on the bench, he would say, “Sounds good, Boss!” In that case, he would be (by far) the highest paid Wide Receiver in football in terms of actual money received. Doing so would be salary cap suicide for the Eagles, a team that manages the salary cap better than any other team inthe league (with the Patriots being the sole possible exception).
I guess it depends on how the CBA is worded, but no. The team doesn’t have to play him, and if they don’t want to play him, it’s crazy for him to take up a spot on the active roster.
Keeping him away from practice is a little murkier, since that makes it harder for him to stay football-ready, thus hurting his future prospects. I honestly don’t have a strong opinion one way or another about that.
He’s a receiver. Can’t they put him into each game for one running play, run to the side away from him, then bench him? That way he’s in the games, so to speak, but he’d be completely frustrated.
I’m pretty sure that if, in some weird world where the NFLPA actually managed to exercise power over the NFL owners(not going to happen) and forced The Eagles to have TO suited up every week, he’d never see the field. Not even for your one running play.
That being said, the four game suspension that was negotiated between the NFLPA and the owners is what the Eagles are using, and it’s being used in exactly the way it was intended. You have a player who is obviously being detrimental to your team, but maybe hasn’t violated a specific rule of the NFL. You get to suspend him for 4 games. After that, they pay him but don’t play him, and the was his contract is structured and the way free agency works means they only take a 1.5 million dollar cap hit next season if they cut him.
If I was personally the arbiter? I’d keep it at 4 games at The Eagles discretion. The NFLPA warned TO before he signed his contract that it was a bad contract, yet he signed it anyway. A year later he decides it’s bad, and hires Bob Sugar…I mean Drew Rosenhaus to get him more money in the only way he knows how, by acting like a 4 year old who wants more cookies.
Take a look at how Hines Ward of the Steelers and Brian Westbrook have handled their contract situations. Westbrook actually held out, but did so quietly, and got his new deal. TO makes The Eagles look bad and basically tries to publicly force their hand, thus, no deal.
To sum up: 4 games is a good discretionary amount of games to allow. Long enough to hurt the player, but not long enough to jeapordize a career.
I kinda agree with Upshaw. You get the 4 game suspension from the CBA, then you have to treat him like an inactive player, not a suspended player. It’s one thing to not activate a player for a game, it is another thing entirely to bar him from being a full member of the team with access to facilities, practices, etc. If he’s not allowed at the practice facility, it sure seems like more than just not letting him suit up for the game.
Teams always have a bunch of players “inactive”, and have 100% discretion in deciding who is and who isn’t, you can’t take that away from them just because you think TO is too good to be inactivated. If they treat him just like any other of the inactive players on the roster, then he’s SOL in my book, you don’t get to play, you don’t get to file a grievance, you DO get paid big bucks for doing nothing.
inkysplotchy is exactly right. The arbiter must rule based on the relevant contracts and laws.
In theory, the Eagles could take him back and merely bench him after 4 games and for the rest of his contract. TO would have no recourse in such a situation. After all, if the headcoach can’t decide who plays when, there isn’t much use for headcoaches. However, I would think TO could make a legitimate legal claim that such a move is vindictive and punitary, if the Eagles kept him and benched him for the next 5 years, and get his contract ripped up. However, the salary cap provides the Eagles with a strong motive to trade him or cut him.
To my thinking, if an arbitrator would say that inactivating or benching Owens for 5 years is an unallowable action, then why should the Eagles be allowed to do it for 5 games after the suspension?
If it is unallowable for 5 years it should be unallowable period. Deciding something in the middle is totally arbitrary and arbitrary rulings are not the arbitrators job.
