End Of The Line

For most American sports fans, July 16th is not an especially important day on the sports calendar. There is some baseball, but the pennant races haven't heated up yet. The NBA free agency period has run out of steam. There is Fed Cup tennis...but the USA has already been eliminated, so the small number of people that cared just got even smaller. So why should you care about today?

You should if you are an NFL fan.

Today is the deadline for players that have been franchised to either sign long-term deals with their club or be stuck with their franchise tender. In a nutshell, for the two prominent players who are threatening to hold out until the 10th week of the NFL season (Lance Briggs and Asante Samuel) today is the do or die day. If Briggs and Samuel are not able to come to terms with the Bears and Patriots respectively, they will be set on a path to self destruction. Because really, what does a ten week hold out accomplish? If a player does hold out, he loses ten weeks of checks and also gets fined for missing training camp. ($14,000 a day in case you were wondering) So why not just play the year out, get a fat paycheck, and then look to hit free agency the next year? It really boggles my mind.

Here is a look at where Briggs and Samuel stand this morning, with the 4:00 P.M. ET deadline looming:

Asante Samuel
From the Boston Globe:

Barring an unexpected turn, the Patriots and cornerback Asante Samuel will not reach a long-term contract agreement before today's 4 p.m. deadline for franchise players. The Patriots have not increased their most recent offer, according to a source directly involved in negotiations.

Samuel is seeking a deal from the Patriots in the neighborhood of the 8 year, $80 million contract that Nate Clements signed with the San Francisco 49ers earlier this offseason. Never mind the fact that Clements is a two time Pro Bowler and Samuel has yet to get there even once. Now lets compare Samuel to another corner, the Bears Nathan Vasher. Vasher is 25 years old, has 16 career interceptions in three seasons, and has been named to one Pro Bowl. Samuel is 26, has 16 career interceptions in four seasons, and has no Pro Bowl appearences to his credit. So Vasher would seem to be the better corner, correct? Now take into consideration the fact that Vasher recently signed an extension with the Bears for 5 years and $28 million. ($5.6 million a year) So why exactly is Samuel throwing a fit about taking a one year, $7.79 million deal from the Pats? It seems to me that he would be getting the better end in such a deal based on his actual market value.

Lance Briggs:
From the Chicago Tribune:

If no deal is completed -- and little progress has been evident since last year -- NFL rules stipulate that the only deal Briggs can sign is the franchise-tag tender offer of $7.2 million for 2007.

Briggs does have a better case than Samuel to be upset. The two time Pro Bowler is arguably one of the top outside linebackers in the NFL, and wishes to be paid as such. Briggs has taken a hard line stance with the Bears, going so far as to declare that he had played his last game for the organization. The situation was further complicated when the Redskins tried to horn in and trade for Briggs, offering their first round pick and agreeing in principle to a long term that would have paid Briggs $7.5 million a year with $20 million guaranteed. The Bears refused the trade offer, but now that Briggs has seen that other teams are indeed willing to give him a monster contract the prospects of reaching a deal with the Bears before 4:00 P.M. today are slim to none.

Power In Numbers

Did you think that the Lance Briggs situation in Chicago had gone away? Nope. Briggs is still holding out in protest of the Bears applying the franchise tag to him, and it seems that he has support from at least one of his teammates. The Chicago Tribune details an interesting silent protest that occurred at Bears practice yesterday:

With five weeks left until the start of training camp, linebacker Brian Urlacher understandably had nothing to say Wednesday on his way off the field after the Bears' final organized team activity.

Urlacher already had made a statement anyway, subtle yet significant, by wearing Lance Briggs' No. 55 during practice in support of a teammate locked in a contract dispute with the Bears bound only to get worse.

Without Briggs on the field the Bears look very thin at OLB, and without playing Briggs stands to lose $7.2 million this season. What this entire situation reveals is the inherent flaws in the franchise tag. When it was first created it was meant as a means for teams to be able to keep their franchise player, a player the likes of Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, or LaDanian Tomlinson. Since its inception however, the tag has been abused by teams. The mere fact that the tag has been used on a kicker not named Vinatieri should be a clear indication that the tag is being abused. As always, there is a simple solution to this problem. In the next collective bargaining agreement the franchise tag needs to be limited to one year. If a team can't work out a long term deal with a star given a year, why should that player be forced to play there for as long as the team is willing to franchise him? Limiting the ability of teams to franchise a player to one year would both maintain the original intent of the franchise tag as well as help to avoid situations such as the one unfolding right now in Chicago.