Yesterday, NBC's Sunday football pregame show, "NFL on NBC,"
examined the NFL free agency system and its effect both off-the-
field and on-the-field.
THE PLAYERS: All players quoted were in favor of the
current system. Raiders' Harvey Williams: "It's all about
money, man. We only play this game for so long. You've got to
get as much as you can and get out of the game and then, go live
your life." NBC's Phil Simms: "The players are seeing all the
positives because it deals with money, money, and more money."
THE COACHES: From a coach's standpoint, Joe Gibbs said the
continual loss of a team's nucleus and the guaranteed money are
both "hurting the product on the field." Mike Ditka: "I don't
think free agency has really made our game any better. ... People
who don't play well are making a lot of money, and, to me, that's
totally wrong."
MANAGEMENT: NBC's Will McDonough, on the owners' original
belief the new CBA would bring labor peace and cost controls:
"Things have changed." Panthers GM Bill Polian: "The one area
that we did not anticipate was the huge signing bonuses."
Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones: "You know who started it were the
early quarterbacks who came out, when the first draft in '94 came
out, and they did the Bledsoe contracts. And they basically came
in with huge bonuses, spread those out over a large number of
years and made a mockery of the rookie cap." After the piece,
Greg Gumbel called Jones' comment "unbelievably ridiculous. ...
It's the owners who are paying out all of this money. And it's
the owners who thought they had a good deal." McDonough, on the
'93 suit that shaped the so-called hard cap and free agency
system: "The players went out and hired lawyers who had been
involved in the NBA and the NBA salary cap. And while they were
doing the deal with the NFL, their side knew how they were going
to break the deal, what the loopholes were." THE
COMMISSIONER: NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue was asked whether
he agreed with the coaches, owners and GMs that "something is
wrong with the game." Tagliabue: "No, I don't agree. ...
Sometimes in life we look at the past with rose colored glasses.
It tends to make the past look a little better than it maybe was.
And, number two, any system is going to have its pluses and its
minuses." Tagliabue, on the hard cap: "It's not a loophole.
We knew that signing bonuses were going to be amortized and that
they would be spread over a number of years. What we didn't
expect was that they would escalate the way they have as part of
player compensation." McDonough noted NFLPA Exec Dir Gene Upshaw
has given the league until Friday to agree to a new deal. He
asked what the NFL can do considering the union won't bend.
Tagliabue: "The question really is, can we do some things on our
side ... so that you can't dump money at the end of the cap"
("NFL on NBC," 12/10).
