The Destruction Of A Legacy

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Gene Upshaw. He was The Raiders' first round draft pick in 1967 (#17 overall) and started at their left guard spot for 207 straight games. He took part in three Super Bowls, winning two, and was widely considered to be one of the best offensive linemen of the 1970s. The seven-time Pro Bowler was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987.

It's because of his former greatness and dominance that it's so sad to have to introduce you to the tired, bitter, arrogant, loudmouthed, crazy shitbox that is the current Gene Upshaw.

The concept is simple: Rookie contracts are too high. They should be reduced for the first year of a player's NFL career and that money should be re-allocated to veterans who have been playing for a while. I mean, even an Alabama grad can follow the logic, right? Upshaw evidently cannot.

"If you have a rookie player who gets $10 million, $20 million, maybe even $30 million in guaranteed money, what do you think that means for a veteran player? That means he can ask for that or more," Upshaw said.

No, see, there is a limited pool of money. Not everyone can get big contracts. The salary cap wouldn't change.

"We're not willing to adjust our thinking right now because we're in a situation that we think works for all the players," Upshaw said.

Really? Because I find it hard to believe that Jake Long being the highest paid offensive lineman in the NFL sits well with, oh... every other offensive lineman in the NFL. A lot of them had great college careers, too, plus they've performed well at the next level. Long could be the next Orlando Pace or he could be the next Robert Gallery. No one knows. But Upshaw thinks he should be paid like the best of the best and let the Dolphins live with the consequences either way.

"What the teams want is for us to make them bulletproof from their own mistakes," Upshaw said. "I hear Bill Polian talking about how he's so worried about the cost of signing a No. 1 pick, but I don't hear him talk about how happy he is he took Peyton Manning over Ryan Leaf. What teams need to do is spend more money on their scouting and player evaluation to make sure they don't make mistakes."

Holy Jesus Christ with a faux-hawk is this guy insane. First of all, no one is asking the rookies to work for free. The clubs would still have plenty of exposure with unproven rookies. I don't know what the limit would be for a single rookie year for the #1 pick. $5 million? Does that sound fair? One year, five million dollars guaranteed to see if you can play football at the NFL level. If you can, you get the big deal like you have been getting. If not, you get a lesser deal and all the other veterans on the team benefit from the difference.

Second, scouting is a year-round process that NFL teams invest millions in. They have scouts for all different parts of the country, some specializing in particular positions. They have thousands of contacts from coaches to teammates to teachers to family to friends that they call upon to make sure they know every single aspect of a college player's life. Sometimes every scout in the world agrees that a player will be great in the NFL only to lay a huge egg when they finally get to the big time. There are several every year. It is reasonable to want to pay someone at least partly based on proven production. In any other job on the earth you start working, prove your worth, and get raises. Maybe because you got the Harvard MBA, you start off at a pretty high level because of your potential. But you don't start off making more money than the CEO.

The Manning/Leaf argument makes absolutely no sense. Manning didn't have a great year as a rookie, so he may not have been paid as much as he was based on my formula, but he would have been retained and then been given his huge second contract like he was. In the meantime, the money he wasn't paid as a rookie would have gone to other players. This isn't advanced mathematics.

This stance shouldn't surprise any older veterans like Dave Pear who were injured playing the game and are just trying to get the union to take a small piece out of everyone's check to get their medical bills covered. Upshaw won't have any of that, either. But of course, he isn't living off of his NFL pension. He's making more than most of the players he represents as head of their union. It's sad, because I really respected Upshaw's attitude and his game when he was a player. But there's no way he's remembered as anything but a greedy and corrupt tool now, regardless of the efforts that got him into the Hall of Fame.