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Money Makes the Spin Go Around

The best way to think about contract negotiations in sports is never. But if you must, here a few helpful hints from someone who used to be paid for the brain pain involved with this topic.

Step 1. Ignore anything you read or hear about negotiations until they are over, even, no, make that especially, if the words come from the participants themselves. Premature comments and speculation run the gamut of information from irritating and meaningless white noise (at best) to downright malicious bullshit. Very few sportswriters and fewer talk radio hosts are privy to the actual decision-making process of sports franchises or sports stars when that process is in motion. The chances you're getting inside dope from a disinterested source are so low as to be statistically nil.

Step 2. Assume that bad feelings have arisen during negotiations and pay no attention to the fact. As any divorce lawyer will tell you, money and ego are always mixed, and the more money at stake, the bigger the ego stake in the argument, too. This applies equally to players and management alike. You think noted philanthropist Bob Kraft LIKES being portrayed as a cheapskate in the media? Happily for us fans, however, the fee-fees of athletes and owners are no concern of ours. If Tom Brady's in a snit, he has a life partner he can hit up for sympathy. Kraft can just endow another university building to cheer himself up.

Step 3, the only one requiring you to do something. Sit in a quiet room and consider what is the best conclusion to a two-party negotiation for both sides. This is by far the likeliest outcome of the talks. Free agency, which offers a player multiple options, is harder to assess. But a football contract extension? That almost always winds up as a deal both sides can live with. If not, free agency or a trade soon follows.

Spent the drive home from work trying to think of an NFL quarterback with a consistent record of success and of reasonable age who went free agent. I couldn't, because it's never happened. Quarterbacks move on when teams push them and not before. One is traded or released only when a team is certain, not confident, certain, they have a player to replace him. I think the Eagles were nuts to think Kevin Kolb can replace Donovan McNabb, but they disagree.

Linemen are labor, who'd leave for a better dollar whenever possible, even as you or I. Quarterbacks are, and think of themselves as, part of management. They have a smaller ego commitment to their franchise than does the owner, but it's still there. Joe Montana's departure from the 49ers was as bitter as it gets, but even today, I bet that's the uniform he wears in his dreams.

All of which is a fairly long-winded way of saying the obvious. Anybody who doesn't think Brady isn't going to re-up with the Pats, or Peyton Manning with the Colts, and get top dollar for doing so, is urged to post a comment including personal contact information. We have a wager to discuss. Anyone who has spent more than 20 seconds contemplating Brady's negotiations has wasted far too much of the only summer we've got this year.

posted by Michael Gee @ 2:53 PM