One of the biggest stories opening the NFL season is the holdout of Pittsburgh Steeler Le'Veon Bell, one of the league's top 3 running backs and 25% of the Steelers offense. Bell has not reported to the team as of Wednesday of Week 2, and the rumor is that he won't show up for weeks more.
Bell's objection is that the team has put the franchise tag on him a second straight year, thus condemning him to a second straight one-year deal. Yes, the offer would be the top single-season running back salary in the NFL this year, at $14.5 million, but it's still a short-term deal. And in the NFL, at that position, the only guarantee is what's written in your contract. The Steelers worked him hard last year, with over 400 touches, and Bell's agent says he doesn't want to take on that kind of workload again without a long-term deal in place. So as of now, he's prepared to show up as late as contractually possible to minimize the damage to his body and the risk of injury, and then seek a long-term deal in his long-awaited free agency. Each week he sits out, he forfeits $853,000.
The situation is generating explosive takes in a host of interesting, sensitive areas: labor vs. capital, race, greed, the violation of football's sacred team ethos, etc. I admit that at first, I took perverse pleasure in the diminishment of Bell, hoping that his replacement RB James Conner would light it up and prove just how greedy and stupid Bell was being. The more I thought about it, tho, the more I came to empathize with him and actually kind of resent the football establishment for failing to consider his stance obvious.
If we're going to accept that the NFL (and all pro sports) is a business, then we need to judge every move on business terms. That's it. The fact that this obvious statement somehow jars the league's tradition or culture is purely a testament to how lucky the NFL has been to have an obedient labor force thus far.
Players holding out have always been vilified, have always been labeled malignant. "Honor the contract you signed," is the exhortation, as if holdout players are violating an ancient fraternity. But we never really hold teams to this standard. When the Bears offer Brian Urlacher an insultingly low offer to keep him around, basically telling him to go fuck himself, it's not because they're greedy. It's because this is a business.
Civic heroes get traded away; injured players get cut, jeopardizing their livelihood; all of it's just business. Yet when players shop around for the best deal, or pursue their careers in purely material terms instead of through this bullshit lens of winning, it's a (highly racialized) failure of character.
In a league with a hard salary cap like the NFL, payroll efficiency is almost exactly equivalent to winning. Each team is assessing the value a player offers, and if the value is below what the salary is, they cut him. The Patriots are really good at this. They're ruthless. But should a player outperform his rookie deal and hold out, he's being disruptive. That's bullshit.
In my opinion, it's bullshit that this doesn't happen all the time.
The Steelers didn't do anything wrong in failing to consider Bell worth $20 million a year. Probably no one will. But neither is Le'Veon Bell "wrong," morally or tactically, for doing what he needs to leverage his assets into maximal revenue. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this holdout ends up launching an entire era of mid-season holdouts.
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