By not fixing contract issue, NFL is asking for trouble

If the Major League Baseball Players Association is the strongest in sports, then certainly the NFL Players Association is the weakest. Pro football is the only one of the four major sports that does not have guaranteed contracts. Baseball, basketball and hockey all continue to shell out dough for guys who no longer can play the game or, more sadly, have been cut (fired) by their teams.

When the Anaheim (nee Los Angeles) Angels rightfully dumped pitcher Kevin Appier three years ago, the team still had to pay him $16 million over two years. Conversely, when the St. Louis Rams cut All-Pro tackle Kyle Turley this season after he had a second surgery for a herniated disk in his back, all Turley got was a limp.

Guys like Terrell Owens do more than catch touchdown passes; they sully the image of their peers who are not as fortunate to be earning $7 million a year. Take Ephraim Salaam, for example. Salaam signed a below-market deal with the Broncos mostly because he wanted to play in Denver, and the contract was sweetened with a clause that called for him to earn a $5 million dollar bonus his third year with the team. Guess what happened shortly before his third year with the team? Salaam had a nagging knee injury and the Broncos used it as an excuse to cut him. Goodbye five freaking million dollars. The injury was not severe; in fact, Salaam now starts for the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Broncos, like all other NFL teams, saw a player's unfortunate situation as a swell reason to give him his walking papers and not have to pay him a dime.

For too long NFL owners have had it both ways. They have never agreed to guaranteed contracts because if they did the league would bleed cash as player after player sat at home collecting a check. The Players Association, being stonewalled for years over the guaranteed contract situation, has shifted its focus to lifetime medical benefits. The owners have shot this proposal down year after year because, in their view, football isn't really violent enough to warrant lifetime medical coverage.

How is it that in a league in which guys risk breaking legs, ribs and heads on every play, the owners, in good conscience, cannot negotiate some type of plan for guys who get injured? Whenever a player gets seriously injured, the media focuses on the "cap hit" the team will take. Seldom is anything written about the "lifestyle hit" the player must now face knowing he will no longer get paid.

It is because of this enormous chasm between ownership and players that contract holdouts are becoming more and more frequent. I am not talking about morons like Terrell Owens, who make $7 million a year. I am talking about guys like Vikings center Matt Birk, who told his team that he would play injured, VERY injured, if they would simply guarantee his 2006 salary. They didn't.

The NFL has become stick-up artists. Guys like the Chargers' Antonio Gates are left with no recourse but to hold out when the balance of money and talent shift and they realize they are grossly underpaid. You may ask, "Why doesn't Gates just keep his mouth shut and get back to work?" Gates was making in the neighborhood of $380,000 a year and his touchdown production could no longer be ignored in contrast. If he tore his ACL during a preseason game, he might have been shelved by the team or cut. It's hard to retire on $380,000 when you have your whole life ahead of you.

The behavior of the owners has directly dictated the behavior of the players in their attempts to get huge money in the beginning of their contracts, as well as signing bonuses. All one has to do is look at someone like Lawyer Milloy, who dutifully played stellar safety for the New England Patriots. Milloy's deal had him earning pay raises in each year of his contract. When the portion of his contract arrived when he was to get paid around $3 million, the Pats asked him to restructure his deal. He refused and they cut him.

The players union continues to sputter when it comes to negotiating with ownership. Led by Gene Upshaw, whose $2 million contract is guaranteed by the way, the union continues to win salary-cap raises in non-substantial increments, while the real elephant on the 50-yard-line goes unmentioned.

Coaches in the NFL have guaranteed contracts! Redskins owner Daniel Snyder just finished paying Marty Schottenheimer $5 million over two years after having fired him in 2002 to bring in Steve Spurrier.

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The NFL must do the right thing and either grant the players their wish for lifetime medical insurance or guarantee their contracts. By doing neither, the league leaves the door open for fans to watch in anger as players hold out. A monster two years in a row combined with one year left on the contract results in a holdout. Sadly, for the fans, this is the only part of the deal that is guaranteed.