The idea that NFL players might put themselves before their team is a scary proposition for the league. Because if the players really start understanding their own value, they just might get what they’re actually worth.
The wide receiver Antonio Brown did. After months of friction with the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he was a key piece of the offense, and with the quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, Brown pushed his way out of the team. Last week, the Steelers dealt him to the Oakland Raiders.
For this, Brown has been categorized as selfish and petulant. “To be able to play with an all-time quarterback like he’s able to play with, I don’t think he understands how good he has it,” the respected veteran wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald said at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference earlier this month, before the trade materialized. “It can get tough out there.” The additional $30 million in guaranteed salary that Brown received from his new team has been cast as a reward for abandoning his old one. “Antonio Brown quit on his teammates & exhibited highly erratic behavior,” the NFL analyst Ross Tucker tweeted, “and as a result got a $20M raise with $30M guaranteed. Great lesson for all the kids out there.”
NFL players are expected to sacrifice everything—from their body to their mental health—for the game and for their team. Yet there are more and more signs that players are starting to understand their leverage. Their increased awareness might be born out of professional jealousy. Brown’s contract with the Steelers contained no guaranteed money over the next three seasons. NFL players look over at their NBA brethren and see that they have guaranteed contracts—and far more say-so with their team and in league matters.
There is also a wide salary disparity between the leagues. In 2019, the Detroit Lions quarterback Matt Stafford is slated to make $29.5 million, the highest salary in the NFL. But that’s not even Mike Conley money. Conley, the Memphis Grizzlies point guard, is making a little more than $30 million this season.
It’s noteworthy that a few weeks before his trade, Brown appeared on LeBron James’s HBO talk show, The Shop. The point of the The Shop is to create a keep-it-a-buck vibe; guests like Brown can have candid conversations with other black superstar athletes and entertainers who face similar problems. The most revealing conversation during Brown’s appearance on the show came when Brown, James, the rapper 2 Chainz, the actor Jamie Foxx, and the NBA’s Anthony Davis spoke candidly about realizing their own power.
“As the CEO of my own business, I got the power,” said Davis, who also is dealing with serious criticism after telling his team, the New Orleans Pelicans, in late January that he wished to be traded. “I’m doing what I want to do and not what somebody’s telling me to do,” Davis added.
Davis’s feeling of empowerment owes something to James, who—through the way he’s handled his own free agency, his production company, and other Hollywood ventures—has given this generation of superstar athletes a blueprint for controlling their own careers. NBA players like Davis and James, unlike Brown under his Steelers contract, have what many would call “screw you” money. (...)
Not every player can do what Brown did, because not every player has Brown’s record-breaking abilities. He’s the first player in NFL history to have six straight seasons with 100 receptions or more. His talent all but ensured that another team was going to want him, regardless of his issues in Pittsburgh.
“I was proud of him,” said the former NFL star wide receiver Terrell Owens, who had such a vicious contract battle with the Philadelphia Eagles that it resulted in Owens being suspended for multiple games before being ruled inactive for the rest of the 2005 season. “He used his productivity to create leverage.”
The wide receiver Antonio Brown did. After months of friction with the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he was a key piece of the offense, and with the quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, Brown pushed his way out of the team. Last week, the Steelers dealt him to the Oakland Raiders.
For this, Brown has been categorized as selfish and petulant. “To be able to play with an all-time quarterback like he’s able to play with, I don’t think he understands how good he has it,” the respected veteran wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald said at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference earlier this month, before the trade materialized. “It can get tough out there.” The additional $30 million in guaranteed salary that Brown received from his new team has been cast as a reward for abandoning his old one. “Antonio Brown quit on his teammates & exhibited highly erratic behavior,” the NFL analyst Ross Tucker tweeted, “and as a result got a $20M raise with $30M guaranteed. Great lesson for all the kids out there.”
NFL players are expected to sacrifice everything—from their body to their mental health—for the game and for their team. Yet there are more and more signs that players are starting to understand their leverage. Their increased awareness might be born out of professional jealousy. Brown’s contract with the Steelers contained no guaranteed money over the next three seasons. NFL players look over at their NBA brethren and see that they have guaranteed contracts—and far more say-so with their team and in league matters.There is also a wide salary disparity between the leagues. In 2019, the Detroit Lions quarterback Matt Stafford is slated to make $29.5 million, the highest salary in the NFL. But that’s not even Mike Conley money. Conley, the Memphis Grizzlies point guard, is making a little more than $30 million this season.
It’s noteworthy that a few weeks before his trade, Brown appeared on LeBron James’s HBO talk show, The Shop. The point of the The Shop is to create a keep-it-a-buck vibe; guests like Brown can have candid conversations with other black superstar athletes and entertainers who face similar problems. The most revealing conversation during Brown’s appearance on the show came when Brown, James, the rapper 2 Chainz, the actor Jamie Foxx, and the NBA’s Anthony Davis spoke candidly about realizing their own power.
“As the CEO of my own business, I got the power,” said Davis, who also is dealing with serious criticism after telling his team, the New Orleans Pelicans, in late January that he wished to be traded. “I’m doing what I want to do and not what somebody’s telling me to do,” Davis added.
Davis’s feeling of empowerment owes something to James, who—through the way he’s handled his own free agency, his production company, and other Hollywood ventures—has given this generation of superstar athletes a blueprint for controlling their own careers. NBA players like Davis and James, unlike Brown under his Steelers contract, have what many would call “screw you” money. (...)
Not every player can do what Brown did, because not every player has Brown’s record-breaking abilities. He’s the first player in NFL history to have six straight seasons with 100 receptions or more. His talent all but ensured that another team was going to want him, regardless of his issues in Pittsburgh.
“I was proud of him,” said the former NFL star wide receiver Terrell Owens, who had such a vicious contract battle with the Philadelphia Eagles that it resulted in Owens being suspended for multiple games before being ruled inactive for the rest of the 2005 season. “He used his productivity to create leverage.”
by Jemele Hill, The Atlantic | Read more:
Image: Charles LeClaire/USA Today Sports/Reuters
