 |
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
|
 |
Waiting
for June 1 |
|
Comparing salaries |
| |
|
|
ProFootballWeekly.com
asks personnel expert Joel Buchsbaum for his thoughts on the hottest topics in
football.
Free-agent class to be bolstered
Saturday
June 1 is the deadline for teams to sign restricted free agents or retain exclusive
negotiating rights with their own unsigned players. Many teams who still have holes to
fill are anxiously marking time to see which veteran players will become available.
Don’t be surprised if some big names are released on June 1.
Buchsbaum: Right now, what you have is basically a waiting period, with clubs waiting
for June 1 to see who will be released. On the other hand, many clubs are trying to
restructure and redo players’ contracts so they will not have to release them.
Players have now had ample time to look at the market, and they see players who turned
down major reductions and were released originally and now are making just a fraction of
what they would’ve made even if they had redone their contracts at a lower rate.
That can be a sobering experience and could cause more re-signings at the last minute
than usual, as opposed to letting pride get in the way.
Players wrong to compare salaries with peers
It’s human nature to compare yourself with others who do the same thing you do.
However, some players lose touch with reality when they start holding out or being a
disruptive influence because they feel they are underpaid. This attitude has been
prevalent in baseball and basketball and is starting to occur more in football.
Buchsbaum: A tendency that is growing and growing in football and is just such a
negative is the fact that players don’t care how much money they make as long as they
make more than the other guy. So, you would be OK if Ray Lewis made $500,000 if no other
linebacker made $300,000. But if some other linebacker makes $100 million, Ray Lewis must
make $101 million because he views himself as the No. 1 linebacker in the game.
This is an absurd way of looking at things, and if players would just come back to the
real world and realize that their starting salaries are more than most human beings make
in five years, maybe they would wake up. |
|
 |
The Archives
2001 - 2002 Season |
| Online writers
— features and columns by our PFW staff, columnists, national correspondent, AFC
reporters, NFC reporters and contributing writers |
| College football
— articles, college notepad, key college game previews, PFW's college top 10,
Scouting Combine, Senior Bowl, top 25 predictions |
| Fantasy football
— articles, injury reports, weekly fantasy tips, weekly matchups, The Fantasy Doctor,
"In our opinion" daily fantasy columns, Fantasy spins |
| Free-agency
— news and notes, updates and features |
| General features
— Internet features, features from our print edition, MVP meter, Rookie meter, They
said it, team reports, training camp reports |
| Handicapper's
Corner — staff selections, games of the week, PFW Players of the Week, NFL
standings, weekly handicapping columns, predictions, trends, tips and timely stats |
| "In our
opinion" daily columns — opinions on general football topics |
| "PFW spins"
— short-takes on current events |
| Joel
Buchsbaum — college player evaluations, NFL player analysis, NFL draft coverage,
NFL notepad, NFList, college game previews and other NFL articles by PFW's contributing
editor |
| NFL Draft —
player evaluations, printouts, feature stories, commentaries, draft recaps |
| Ron
Pollack — articles and commentary by PFW's editor-in-chief |
| Season in
review — the 2001-2002 NFL season |
|
