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Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Are guaranteed contracts required by the cba in MLB or the NBA? No. A lot of players--the younger ones--in MLB do not have contract guarantees any greater than those in the NFL--one year contracts.
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This response is purposefully misleading. Technically you are right. In practice, the two sports are very different. In the NFL you can be cut at any point in the season. In baseball, players are guaranteed their salaries if they spend one day on the active roster (one day of major league service that season). "Otherwise, the player may be released prior to Opening Day. If released on or prior to March 15th, his team only owes him 30 days termination or about 1/6 of his salary. If released between the 15th and/or on a specified date near the very end of March, the team owes him only 45 days termination pay or about 1/4 of his salary. After that date in March, if the player is released, the team owes him his full salary." It is my understanding that an NFL team can release you midseason without paying you the rest of your contract.
Quote:
Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Long-term guranteed contracts don't show up until free-agency, or close to it.
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Long-term guaranteed contracts don't show up in the NFL. Either you get a big, guranteed signing bonus or you don't. If I sign Eli to a 5 year deal at $10 mil per, and he sucks or gets injured after game 2, guess what? He's gone and I'm only out my signing bonus. While that tends to work out well for the superstars who sign huge guaranteed bonuses, it means most contracts aren't worth the paper they're printed on for other players.
Quote:
Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I agree that if contracts were guaranteed, some players' salaries would go up and others would go down. Of course that would happen. But the ones that would go down are the new players, and the ones that would go up are the aging veterans who would still be hanging on.
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I disagree. I believe that because of the nature of the sport, younger players would benefit as well. The draft is far more important in the NFL than MLB. Fewer teams would invest in aging veterans when they can sign a younger (and most likely healthier) kid. Contracts might end up being shorter because of the risk, but competition between teams would most likely end up lengthening them to a certain extent in the long run anyway.
Quote:
Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
It benefits the insiders at the cost of the outsiders. Remember a few years ago when the salary cap came in, and all kinds of veterans were getting cut because they had high salaries? Exactly--you'd get a bunch of over the hill veterans on the payroll instead of exciting younger players.
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Like I said, I don't think teams would be willing to sign aging veterans to long term deals because teams would prefer shorter contracts for younger players if they had to be guaranteed. The only vets who would get those types are contracts are the ones who have shown they are injury-free and have performed (the ones you're worrying about).
Quote:
Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
But to say that it benefits the "lion's share" of the plaintiffs is even more bullshit. It benefits the existing players at the expense of potential players.
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I don't think so, unless you're suggesting that all existing contracts be turned into guaranteed contracts. Again, would you sign some veteran to a 5 year contract and take that risk, or would you give them a 2-3 yr contract and renegotiate when the time comes? Hell, that's essentially what they do now. Offer a huge contract that's loaded on the back end and then terminate it before the payments get big and renegotiate.
Anyway, my point is that I don't understand why NFL teams shouldn't have to live with the deals they bargain for. If Dallas signed Bledsoe* for 5 years at $15 million per, they should be just as stuck with that contract as TO should have been when he signed for less to play for Philly.
TM
*And let me just add that I didn't think anyone could look as bad as Bledsoe did on Sunday and yet, there was Brooks, stepping up to suck like a champ.**
**And by "champ," I mean gwnc.
