It’s an unwritten rule as a player that you don’t talk about another person’s contract. This is a sport with no guaranteed contracts except for your signing bonus. Compared to other sports, it’s an owner’s dream not to have to be tied to an underachieving star for 7 years (*cough*Barry*Zito*cough*). And with a salary cap in place for years and still in place, it’s no wonder why the NFL is the most financially healthy league. It’s clear that players need to take theirs when and where they can.
So when the Pats’ Wes Welker said that “Asante Samuel Chose Money Over Championships” after he signed as a free agent with Philadelphia, a year after the Patriots refused to give him the kind of contracts they gave other free agents like Adalius Thomas – it brought back memories of Tiki Barber criticizing Michael Strahan over his contract negotiations:
I was listening to ESPNRadio this morning, and the host mentioned that Wes Welker was quoted as saying something along the lines of, “He chose money over championships”, in reference to Asante Samuel’s six-year, $57M contract with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Osi Umenyiora was on the air, and said that he would have done the same thing, due to the fact that feeding his family comes first. This is a point of view that I just can’t wrap my head around.
Anybody who isn’t a professional athlete looks at a six-figure salary and considers it a dream (in some cases, a dream come true). These guys act like their families will go hungry if they don’t make millions of dollars every year. Can somebody explain this logic to me?
I understand that a person who chooses a career in professional sports has a time window that is much smaller than that of an IT technician or a nurse. You will not be celebrating 30 years with the company when you’re getting ready to retire.
But honestly…these guys make more in one year than most people’s 401k plan amounts to over the course of their entire life.
This topic even spills over into the debate about whether or not an athlete should stay in college until they have their degree. If these guys are so concerned about feeding their families, then why is it that they bet the bank on a long, prosperous career in sports?
Had you stayed in school and earned a degree, your time window would suddenly become a whole lot bigger, since you can go out and get a normal job once your career in sports has ended.
It’s all about Fair Market Value. If you can get it, you take it. If you don’t take it, then you’re a fool. This is a business just like any other business. The owners don’t ascribe to these warm-and-fuzzy ideals about going for championships over money – if they did they’d risk cap hell for a year or 2 to load up on free agents and make a run. Only Dan Snyder is dumb enough to try that.
What they know and what Wes Welker has yet to figure out (you know, since he DIDN’T win a championship) is – nothing is guaranteed in sports on the field. If Asante came back and Tom Brady broke his leg – what then? He would have lost his FMV AND his championship and what would Wes say then?
And who’s to say Philadelphia won’t have an easier time getting to the Super Bowl than New England? Their offense has been figured out, their defense is getting older in the back 7. Nothing is guaranteed. Except when you sign a contract.
The reason you leave college early is because you think you have a low risk of earning a high amount of money. It’s what you would do if you graduated college and had a set of job offers to choose from. Why is the decision different before or after graduation? In the unlikely case where something happens to impair a star athlete from making a large amount of money, they can always GO BACK to get that degree. It’s harder, yes, but it’s not impossible so as to render them useless.
It’s amazing how people think professional athletes should act any different than any high money earner in this country. I’m sure Steve Jobs and Dick Cheney want to “feed their families” as well.
Here’s Jim Rome’s take on it:
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