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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:

Jim Rome’s Burn

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So Brett Favre is retiring from the NFL after 17 seasons, eh? What timing:

The news was first reported this morning by Foxsports.com’s Jay Glazer, who said that Favre informed the Packers of his decision over the last couple of days. In recent years, Favre has taken time after the season before deciding whether to return. Coming off one of his most successful seasons in years, you had to think Favre might make one more run at a Super Bowl.

Call me the hater, but when I think of Brett Favre I won’t remember the happy-go-lucky gunslinger of the mid 90’s. I’ll remember the surly standoffish guy who wouldn’t relate to his teammates, who admonished Javon Walker for trying to capitalize on his success and get a new contract, who held the franchise hostage year after year by hinting at retirement hamstringing the team’s plans in free agency and the draft, who criticized the team for not getting Randy Moss, who kept his consecutive games started streak to the detriment of the play of the offense at times.

And as a Dan Marino fan and cynic, it strikes me as odd that Favre didn’t retire when his team sucked last year and they didn’t get Randy Moss, but after a season where he broke all of Marino’s career records he chooses to hang it up when the Packers were a FG away from the Super Bowl and clearly on the up. It’s just like when he gave Michael Strahan the sack that broke Mark Gastineau’s single season record. Plus there’s speculation that there was a connection that he announced this the same day when the Randy Moss re-signed with the Patriots and the Packers again didn’t go after him as a free agent. Bush league. Sportsman of the year, my ass.

I’ve never liked Favre as a person and this just compounds it. Even though he’s a Jeff Tedford product and destined to fail in the NFL, I will now root for Aaron Rogers to take them to the Super Bowl next season. GO PACK GO.

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