Vision Quest: The One Year Re-Do

The National Football League has had its share of hold outs since the Salary Cap era began in 1993. In fact there is no real surprise anymore. Many teams expect several of their stars to be out of camp until right before training camp or even the start of the season.

And most of the time I don’t blame the players for holding out. Hold outs usually occurred while a player was under a restrictive tag, such as Franchise, Transition, or some kind of RFA. In this case they have not agreed to a contract so why should they come to camp unless it is on their terms. Previous years you have seen Walter Jones and Orlando Pace be prime examples of this. In some other cases players are in the last year of an existing contract and trying to get an extension, for example Santana Moss and the Redskins. Not as noble but when a career can end in an instant in the NFL you have to protect your future, so I can understand it.

However a new phenomenon is happening in the NFL. I call it the one year “Redo”. Players in the NFL are demanding new contracts only a year after signing long term deals. Gone are the days of a long term contract giving peace of mind to an owner and fans. Now one year of increased stats are enough to ask for a new contract.

A Prime example of this is Terrell Owens of the Philadelphia Eagles. The Owens situation is incredibly ugly already and it should have never got this way. Here we have a wide receiver whose agent screwed up his contract last year nullifying his free agent status. His original team hated him and sent him packing to Baltimore. TO then went into arbitration to nullify the Baltimore trade and worked out a contract with Philly, where he wanted to go. So against all odds TO went to where he wanted for the contract he wanted to sign.

Now TO wants a new contract. He had a great year last year, some would say MVP year. He risked his career to come back for the Super Bowl and played on a just healed broken leg. And not just played, played well. If the Eagles had won TO would have been the MVP of the Super Bowl. Even the most grudging Redskin fan had to give a nod in TO’s direction. Here was a supposedly selfish cancer of a team mate giving it all in the pursuit of the ultimate team goal, a championship. One could actually hope that TO had turned a corner into a new more productive portion of his career. He was a hero in Philly and he could finally be loved and play football at a high level.

Uhm well, if you were think that I got some swamp land in Florida for you. Since the Super Bowl TO finally fired his agent that screwed up his free agency last year and hired Drew Rosenhaus. He then made it clearly known through the Media that he wanted, no demanded a new contract. All that could have been forgiven even excused, however then in a case of what I call “dick head momentum” he called out Donovan McNabb, a virtual patron saint in Philly. Now if you are a wide receiver why piss off the one guy on the team that will throw you the ball? He has already skipped a mandatory mini camp and the hold out looks like it is going to get uglier and uglier. The owner has sent a clear message they aren't budging and if TO's history is any clue, TO won't either.

Now before us Redskin fans get all giddy with the hopes of a protracted hold out with the Eagles we need only look to our backyard for another example of this. Sean Taylor, our #5 pick just last year, is trying to renegotiate his 7 year 18 million dollar contract. He is unhappy with the contract even though with incentives it could be worth up to $40 million dollars. He has stayed in Miami this off season instead of participating in the weight program at Redskin Park. Now so far Taylor has been silent, preferring to let his agent do the talking. The problem is that his agent is Drew Rosenhaus, the same agent as Owens.

Taylor and Drew Rosenhaus are in a different position then TO though. They believe the contract Taylor signed was unworthy of him because it was not negotiated properly by his agent at the time. They quickly side step the fact that Taylor had Rosenhaus as his agent, fired him, and played agent carousel for months before finally settling with a guy who is no longer in the sports agent business. Rosenhaus would have renegotiated the contract immediately after being re-hired if it was not for NFL rules disallowing renegotiating a rookie contract in its first year.

In Taylor’s case this could be a multi-year effort to get a better contract. TO is 32 and realizes he will never see the full worth of his 7 year contract and if he does nothing he will never get another big pay day. However Taylor is young. He and his agent could be setting up the Redskins for renegotiations next year. They know the skins won’t do something this year, so they let the Redskins know that Taylor is not kidding about a new contract. Taylor shows up for mini-camp, has a great season, then Drew goes to Danny next year and says “Ok we played ball, now lets sign a contract that makes Sean a Redskin forever.”

But TO and Taylor are certainly not the only players holding out this year. The “one year redo” is starting to become more and more common. Is this new trend just selfish players or is it symptomatic of a larger problem? The NFL is not totally blameless. This is the only professional sport where player contracts are not guaranteed. Teams can routinely release a player and be free of the salary for the remaining years of the contract. To offset this signing bonuses have become more important in negotiations and are usually the only guaranteed money a player will have. So why should the player be the only held to the contract if the team is not?

The answer is simple, “Because that is the way it is”. This is not new. The NFL busted the player’s union years ago and this particular bargaining agreement has been in place for almost 10 years. Guaranteed contracts are killing competition in Baseball and Basketball (and don’t get me started on Hockey’s financial problems). So the NFL is performance based. Many contracts, including Taylor’s, have escalators tied to production. You produce you get paid.

Perhaps the NFL should look into guaranteeing contracts for 1/3 of the life of that contract. You sign a 7 year deal and not only is the SB guaranteed but the first two years salary. That may be a compromise worth investigating when the Union goes back to the bargaining table next year. But individual players need to honor the contracts they have signed. Jeffrey Lurie of the Eagles has it right when he says there will be no renegotiation of TO’s deal. So does Gibbs when he says Taylor is under contract and needs to be at mini-camp.

Mr. Taylor we will be seeing you on July 17th.