Bounty-gate punishment should be bountiful for Gregg Williams and NFL players

Last week the NFL exposed a bonus performance system that Gregg Williams used while he was the defensive coordinator for the New Orleans Saints that breaks the league’s rules.  In the system, players received cash for not only performance, but also bounty payments for injuring players. 

The NFL’s investigation which originally began in 2010 discovered that Saints players received $1,500 for a "knockout" hit and $1,000 for a "cart-off" hit, with payouts doubling or tripling during the team's three playoff appearances in 2009, 2010 and 2011.   Knockout hits refer to a player being knocked out cold.  As you can probably guess, a cart-off hit is an injury that leads the player to being taken out of the game.

This was the case for former Detroit Lions running back James Stewart.  Former Buffalo Bills safety, Coy Wire, ended Stewart’s career with a hit and was rewarded for it.   Stewart was just 31 and coming off of season in which he rushed for more than 1,000 yards when he stopped playing because of the injury.

Wire said, "I shattered James Stewart's shoulder, and he never played again. I was showered with praise for that. It's a shame that's how it was. Now I see how wrong that was."  Wire played for Williams from 2001 – 2003 when he was the Bills’ head coach.  He says that the environment was one of malicious intent.

Williams was summoned to the league’s headquarters in New York for a meeting today.  He will discuss the allegations with NFL security officials and general counsel, Jeff Pash.  He has already admitted that the bounty system existed in New Orleans and acknowledged that it was wrong.  The meeting will address whether he used a similar system at other teams he coached including the Buffalo Bills and Washington Redskins.  It is anticipated that Williams’ discipline will be severe and unprecedented.

I am disgusted by the bounty system.  I understand the physicality of the game and the competitive war mentality that these players have developed.  It has been engrained in them since they were little boys playing Pop Warner football.  A friend of mine shared that he remembers his little league team giving an award to the player who had the “hit of the week.”  What little boy would not want to receive that praise in front of his peers?  I get motivating players to perform at the best of their ability.  However, to coach or play this game with the cruel intention to injure another player and end his career is unconscionable.

Williams should not be the only person punished.  Players should be punished for their participation in funding these bounty payments.  They have damaged their counterpart’s careers and lives.  Their actions make a mockery of everything that the NFL and NFLPA are doing to increase safety, decrease injuries and protect THEM!

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith the executive director of the NFLPA need to send a strong message that this type of behavior will not be tolerated in professional football.

Ciao!

Heels & Helmets®

Combine is here, but no one knows if the NFL season will happen this fall

The NFL combine is starting this week.  College players lucky enough to receive an invitation will be in Indianapolis for a four-day intense interview starting on Wednesday.  Usually, at this time, all of the talk is about how the players will perform at the Combine.   This year things are a little different because the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the NFL and NFLPA (NFL Players Association) is expiring next week at the end of the day on March 3.  As a result, the negotiation on a new deal is overshadowing the Combine and leaving a lot of fans wondering if the NFL season will actually happen this fall.

The NFL led by its Commissioner, Roger Goodell and the NFLPA headed by Executive Director, DeMaurice Smith spent the entire weekend in federally mediated negotiations.  Since Friday, representatives from both sides were in a room for at least six hours negotiating in front of George Cohen, Director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in Washington, DC.  Surprisingly, everyone has adhered to Cohen’s request that no one comment publicly on the negotiations.  So, we do not have any information on the outcome of the negotiations. 

Here are some important points on the negotiation as I see it.

1. Perception that players get a bigger piece of the profit than owners is inaccurate.  60% of revenue is after owners get their money for operating expenses ($1B); so players are not getting more money than the owners now.  Both sides get about 50%.

2. Owners want to increase their expense credit to $2B and give the players less money.
3. NFL and its owners claim a decrease in profits, but won't share evidence to support this.  However, we know sponsorship is up and they were able to secure higher media deals.  With higher prices, Super Bowls ads for this year's game were completely sold out last October.  That’s three months prior to the game!  Plus, there is more ad time.  Ads during the Super Bowl have increased from 40 minutes to over 48 minutes.  The NFL is making money.
4. Players contracts are not guaranteed.  They make money only when they play.  Amount of pay during an injury depends on several factors including how many games were played prior to the injury.

5. Owners want to add two more games to the regular season while the players take a decrease in pay and increase their chances of injury.

The element that confuses me the most is that the NFL will not show financial information to validate their claim that profits are down.  In a special letter to ESPN.com, Greg Aiello, the NFL's Senior Vice President of Public Relations, wrote: “NFL players have an extremely favorable revenue-sharing deal and full access to all information on revenue and a great deal of information on costs, including the largest cost, which is for players.”

A “great deal”?  I think that this is very telling.  Why not share the entire story?

Let me explain it this way.  If I told my mortgage company that I needed to modify my loan because of financial hardship, they would require ALL of my financial information and expenses to make a decision.  A “great deal” would not be enough to even get my request considered.

This leads me to a deeper issue that I don’t think a lot of people observe and discuss.  The NFL and its club owners do not regard the players as equal business partners.  Their actions toward them illustrate a superior attitude.  They feel as if they don’t have to prove anything.  Players should just believe what they say simply because they said it.  In any other business negotiation, the partner would show the evidence of their claims and move forward with the negotiations.  No one makes a good business decision without ALL of the facts. 

Smith is law man, not a football man like his predecessor Gene Upshaw.  He does not know football, but he does know the law and how to negotiate.  With a background in litigation, he wants the best for his members and that is not just money.  With less than two years on the job, he is still new to sports; but he is not going to be bullied.  It’s a good thing for players that he isn’t afraid to stand up to “the shield” and demand facts to make a sound decision.

In short, it appears to me that the NFL is asking the players to work more for less money.  So, I propose this question that I feel is at the crux of this negotiation: 

Would you be willing to work more hours for less money while your partner reports record sales?

Ciao!

Heels & Helmets®