Tuck's Takes: NFLPA should allow underclassmen to talk to agents

Running back Knowshon Moreno is projected to be a first-round pick in April. Bob Rosato/SI Ross Tucker's Mailbag Ross Tucker will answer your questions every Friday in his mailbag. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND Follow Ross Tucker on Twitter

Even though Commissioner Roger Goodell recently said the rookie pay system would remain status quo until at least 2011, an unprecedented number of underclassmen are still expected to enter the 2009 draft. Blame it on their fear of a possible work stoppage and the fear of longer terms of service to reach free agency on the horizon.

Complicating matters is a rule implemented by the NFLPA to, ostensibly, help underclassmen. Enacted in 2007, it prohibits agents from having contact with underclassmen until they have declared for the draft, which is almost like asking a player to walk down the aisle to get married without deciding beforehand who his spouse will be. Give me a break. The rule may be great in principle, but it's poor in practice.

It has led to a myriad of techniques to try to circumvent the rule, since many underclassmen are leery of making such a big decision without knowing what agent they are going to sign with. Furthermore, the rule encourages and increases the power of handlers, financial advisors and ex-players hired by agents to strike up a relationship. These intermediaries are not bound by the same rules as NFLPA-certified agents. And that would be assuming that agents are following the rules, which many reportedly are not, according to reports posted at profootballtalk.com. Any rule that hurts the good guys while giving an advantage to the bad ones needs to be revisited. Quickly.

How does the player's association expect players to make an informed decision without having any feedback from the representation part of the business, which, like it or not, is a critical component of the process. It is a rule that ultimately hurts the players as much as it does the agents because the players are more likely to get attached to an unscrupulous agent breaking the rules by talking with them earlier in the process.

Yes, the league can provide an estimate of when a player can anticipate getting drafted, but that is before the combine and Pro Days, when a player can greatly enhance or diminish his stock. I would want to know where I was going to train and what I could expect in terms of guaranteed marketing compensation before making the life-altering decision of entering the draft early.

Even high school baseball players have advisors -- some of whom later become agents -- who help them decide whether to go to college or sign a professional contract. Juniors in high school can discuss their baseball future with a potential representative but juniors in college football can't? Why can't the NFLPA allow players to talk with these agents without the players signing anything or getting any monetary benefit? Let's end this new charade. A player should be able to have conversations with people in the industry who they believe have their best interests at heart, whether or not they really do, before making a decision.

While calling the Capital One Bowl for the Sports USA Radio Network, I had the opportunity to get Georgia head coach Mark Richt's thoughts on the current rule. Richt is an ideal guy to talk to given that his dynamic underclassmen duo of Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno are projected to be first-round picks should they declare (which they're expected to do today).

Richt is not naïve. He understands the business. He thinks it would be better for all involved if they waited until after the team's season was complete. That would mean Stafford and Moreno would have two weeks after their New Year's Day bowl game to talk with agents about their future before making a decision by the Jan. 15 deadline. I can live with that. Though the cynical among us would presume that Richt wants agents to wait until after the season so his players can focus on winning games for the Bulldogs, the reality is that it would also give the young men the opportunity to take care of business on the field before discussing business off of it.

His other point was more clairvoyant.

"No matter what the rule ends up being, there are going to be some people who will follow it, and some people who will break it."

That being the case, limiting the contact for the agents who would choose to follow the rules makes no sense.

Sacrificial Lambs

Hiring and firing season has begun in the NFL, which means it's time for the pawns otherwise known as assistant coaches to be discarded. Yep, many of the head coaches fortunate enough to keep their job will be letting assistants go in a sacrifice meant for the Roman gods.

Granted, some of the assistant coaches deserve to be cut as a result of their performance. This is a production-oriented business and the bottom line may be that their bosses did not think they were getting the job done. But for every defensive coordinator whose side of the ball tanked as a result of his poor game planning and play-calling, there are two position coaches who will lose their jobs even though they got the most out of their respective units. That is just business as usual in the NFL and it is neither right nor fair.

At least players in the NFL feel like they are evaluated, for the most part, based upon their performance on the field. If the front office feels a player is worth what the team is paying him, he stays. If not, he goes. Most of the time it is that simple.

For assistant coaches, objective evaluations sometimes take a back seat to closed door negotiations between the head coach and upper management. Head coaches who fall short of the postseason realize change is expected, and they tend to make a scapegoat of a position coach or coordinator than to fall on the sword themselves.

Not all coaches feel that way. Wade Phillips was famously released in Buffalo after refusing to dump some of his assistants. Mike Shanahan was reportedly fired after telling Broncos owner Pat Bowlen that he would not fire defensive coordinator Bob Slowik.

Don't get me wrong, neither one of these coaches is beyond reproach. Phillips recently fired special teams coach Bruce Read and Shanahan had a proven penchant for casting aside defensive coordinators before holding the line with Slowik. But these men, at least once, took the fall rather then making a change for the sake of change.

All this means is that the next time you read about a tight ends coach or a safeties coach getting fired, odds are the termination is without merit and the men pulling the trigger are likely just giving themselves a stay of execution. Maybe firing these foot soldiers to save one's own job is smart in the cut-throat business that is the National Football League. However, I have seen too many position coaches fired for no reason to believe that. I'll just describe it as cowardly.