I have no problem with a player trying to negotiate the best deal possible and using all of his leverage when he doesn't have a signed contract. I have yet to see a player return his guaranteed money if he performed well below expectations or got hurt early in his contract. The Titans took a risk giving him $7,000,000 guaranteed prior to him ever running one single play. If folks support players holding out with a signed contract, should they also return their guaranteed money if they get hurt or suck?
Playing football is the risk to his future. He is only whining about how much money he is getting paid to risk his future. He should not have signed his contract if his contract wasn't good enough to risk his future. If he doesn't want to risk his future, he can retire. Keeping one's word is a huge part of integrity and it is silly to think otherwise. If integrity is not important to you, just say that. Trying to change the terms of a deal after you get yourself into a better negotiating position is the opposite of integrity.
Integrity is over rated. Anywhere here saying that they wouldn't the exact same thing he's doing is full of ****.
Two very different situations. Also, i wouldnt say AF is better than CJ just yet. CJ has had three 1200+ yd seasons and has two years left on his current contract. His value cannot get higher with him playing and this is the best time for him to secure a large contract. AF has only had one productive season, and is a free agent after this season. Having consecutive productive seasons will raise his value significantly allowing him to secure a much larger contract than he would be able to now. That said, im not sure he made the best decision agreeing to play for $500k this year. You should always make the best decision for your situation today, because you never know what is going to happen tomorrow.
I also have yet to see a team cut a player and continue to pay him the money they agreed on either. If you don't support folks holding out to get a better deal, then I also assume you don't support teams cutting players to get from under deals when they feel players make too much? The Titans just ditched VY and got free from paying him a guarenteed $12M. If that's ok then I don't see the issue in a player who is clearly grossly underpaid holding out for more $$.
Bogus excuse. Players can't negotiate contracts where all the $$ is paid upfront. The system just doesn't work that way. Especially not when they are still on their rookie deal, which I believe CJ is. The fact is that teams have an out and players don't. A players only angle is to hold out. Let's not fault them for doing what's in their best interests when every one of our favorite teams cut dudes this summer for whatever reason. There is no integrity in the Texans deciding Amobi wasn't getting the job done so let's free up some money for a new secondary by cutting him. Both parties agreed to a deal. If you want to hop on players about honoring their committments then hop on the teams as well. Especially in this case, since the team promised him last year that he would get a new deal this year.
Good Article Because I don't believe in an NFL contract any more than I believe in the Tooth Fairy, I support Chris Johnson's holdout. The man has been dramatically underpaid by the Tennessee Titans, and for a year or two that was to their credit. They unearthed him toward the end of the first round in the 2008 draft, and they were rewarded with one of the best players in that draft, or in almost any draft in the past decade. But by last season the Titans no longer deserved applause for having the foresight to draft Chris Johnson. By last season, they deserved boos for ripping him off. Football is a brutal sport, see, and at all times Chris Johnson is one carry -- maybe his next carry -- from devastation. That's what the Titans are thinking, of course, and they're correct: Chris Johnson is one carry away from being finished. We have him under contract through 2012, so why give him a new deal? Answer: Because it's the right thing to do. Maybe not right in the football sense, no. But right in every other sense, whether we're talking fair compensation or employer loyalty or simply appreciation for a job well done. For three years, Chris Johnson has done his job better than anyone in the NFL. That's factual. Even with the dreck that has passed for quarterback play at Tennessee, he has run for more yards since 2008 than anyone in the league (4,598). Adrian Peterson is second at 4,441. Both players entered the league with five-year contracts. Peterson's is worth $40.5 million. Johnson's is worth $12 million. Obviously Johnson has been underpaid. Even if you have a bone to pick with his holdout, you wouldn't deny that. But lots of you do have a bone to pick with Johnson, and therefore with my filet mignon of a column, and your bone is this: Johnson signed a contract. He should honor the contract. That's an argument that makes sense only if you think NFL teams honor their contracts with players. And NFL teams do not. Player holdouts get the bad press, but player holdouts are uncommon compared to the number of times a team releases a player under contract. In this or any preseason you can count the number of player holdouts on one hand, maybe two -- but to count the times an NFL team has released a player under contract you would need the hands of the Jackson Five, plus all of the Osmonds, and maybe even a few Hanson brothers. And those dudes from Kings of Leon. Maybe Fifty Cent, too. When that happens -- when Dallas releases Leonard Davis, nullifying a contract that says he was going make to $6 million this season -- fans don't get outraged like they do when a player like Chris Johnson holds out. The Cowboys aren't seen as greedy or deceitful. They're seen as a business operation making a business decision. So are the Rams for releasing Jacob Bell with three years and $18 million left on his contract. And the Dolphins for releasing Channing Crowder with a year and $2.5 million on his contract, and a pregnant wife at home. It's not personal, Mrs. Crowder. It's business. But when a player holds out, (some) people think it's personal. Because he's a person, I guess. But the truth is, an NFL player is a business operation just like an NFL team is a business operation. Chris Johnson is a person, sure, but he's a company unto himself. He's his own investment portfolio, and right now the market says he's worth 10 times the $800,000 his contract says he'll make this season. Johnson wants a piece of that, and he wants it today because tomorrow isn't guaranteed, and not just in the ethereal sense that we're all living from one day to the next. True, we are, but unless I get hit by a bus this afternoon, I'm going to have this job tomorrow. As soon as Johnson reports to camp, he will get hit by a bus. Or a 330-pound defensive tackle. Or a 250-pound linebacker who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds. Collisions are what he does. NFL collisions, and not just in games but also in practice, are car wrecks. And not everyone walks away. Look at former NFL running back Earl Campbell. Bless his heart, the guy is 56 going on 96. His quality of life is abysmal. It's tragic what has happened to him, and it didn't happen to him after he stopped playing football. It happened during his career, when he was getting all those carries and getting into all those collisions and sustaining invisible, irreversible damage that manifested itself later. Johnson has sustained invisible, irreversible damage too. He has carried the ball more than 900 times in three seasons. He has caught almost 70 passes. He didn't score every time, though sometimes it seems that way. He didn't run out of bounds very often, either. He has been hit hundreds of times at high rates of speed, maybe even higher rates of speed than anyone else in the league given that nobody runs as fast as Chris Johnson. The Titans have received their money's worth from Chris Johnson, and then some. And then some more. And then to the point where, good grief, the Titans are screwing Chris Johnson. They're ripping him off. Johnson knows it. They know it, too. Question is, what are they going to do about it? http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/story/15425324/dont-blame-holdout-johnson-its-just-business/rss
So what do y'all think will be the outcome here? He finally signs, he gets traded, Bud dies and the city of Houston gets the name "Oilers" back, etc?
How many days has he missed now? That 30,000 per day has to sting. If he gets a new contract he might already have burned 10% of it just by sitting out. And if he doesn't get a new contract he'll probably just sit out the year since he's already burned his former salary by missing camp. Silly.
Yes - both parties agreed to a deal. That deal included guaranteed money that teams are obligated to pay, and non-guaranteed money that teams are allowed to not pay. In exchange for not paying that money, they have to release you so you can go make money elsewhere. That's all spelled out in the contract. Holding out is NOT spelled out in the contract. In exchange for giving a player guaranteed money - taking on risk regardless of a player's performance - the player agrees to work for the non-guaranteed amount as well. Here, the player is not living up to his contract if he holds out. If the player underperforms, the team is stuck paying him the guaranteed money; if the player overperforms, the team is supposed to get a discount in exchange - that's the deal that the two parties generally make. If a player doesn't like that deal, they could choose to negotiate less guaranteed money in exchange for higher potential annual salaries. Or they could negotiate a shorter contract, so they have the option to be a free agent and seek market value at any time. I think CJ's case, however, is a bit unique, in that his ridiculous holdout was last year. The Titans caved, and in exchange, agreed to give him a big deal this year. They are now obligated to do that from an ethical standpoint. That said, they've apparently offered to make him the highest paid RB, which seems a reasonable offer. So if the two sides are "far apart" at this point, I have little sympathy for CJ.
The player is living up to his contract. His contract is for his services to play football. If he is not playing, then he is not being paid. The team has the right to cut his contract. The player has the right to pull a Carson Palmer and say I'm not interested in playing anymore, or pull a Chris Johnson and say I'm not interested in playing at a ridiculous discount (since he is still on his rookie deal I believe). CJ would not have been able to negotiate any contract worth his actual value as a rookie entering the league. At least not where he was drafted.
Depends. If he thought he was worth a lot, he could have negotiated a shorter-term deal and taken less guarantees. If he wanted the guarantees, then he's asking the Titans to take a risk on him. The tradeoff from the Titans' perspective is that if he overperforms, they get a discount.
