Ben Reichelt’s Weblog

This is a completely non tech post, so I’m going to try to keep it off the codebetter.com front page.

I just wanted to comment on the recent news about the NFL holdouts,
Terrell Owens in particular.  Owens signed a 7 year $49 million
contract before the 2004 season started.  He had a fantastic 2004
season, and now hes holding out because he wants a NEW contract in
light of his spectacular stats.  Now, most players like the
stability of a long term deal, its nice to know that you’ve got a solid
contract for a few years.  Why the hell should Owens get to demand
a new contract?  If he wanted to hedge his bets and sign a one
year deal for 2004, have a great year, and then sign another deal, he
certainly could have done that and I’m sure the Eagles would have
complied.  If this becomes the precedent, why would a team ever
sign someone to anything other than a one year deal?  If the
player is simply going to play and then as soon as the time is right,
completely disregard the current contract, whats the point?  TO
wants to have the comfort of a long term deal, but he also wants a
sliding pay scale, which, I might add, he could have worked into his
current 7 year contract by putting in performance based incentives, but
apparently TO doesn’t believe in himself enough to make any extra money
contingent upon his performance. 

If his market value has gone up significantly since he signed his deal,
then kudos to the Eagles, they got a great deal.  Meanwhile TO has
to “get by” on a $7 million average salary, I mean surely he’s got a family to feed somewhere, right? Right?

I would love to hear Mark Cuban’s
comments on this situation, as hes got a great mixture of sports and
business knowledge, thats why his name is in the title of the post, if
hes like most bloggers, he probably watches for his name to appear in
posts, so hopefully he sees this in IceRocket .