Before You Rip Your Favorite Player For Not Showing Up To Camp...

Well, its that time of year again.  Time for fans to complain about who isn't in camp and how bad it is for the team that said player isn't there.  Well, remember Michael Strahan from last year; virtually no camp, but strong numbers:  45 tackles, 9 sacks and 1 forced fumble.  (Yes, those numbers would suck for a linebacker, but Strahan wasn't a linebacker, line-MAN!)

Anyway, I find it amazing how many people believe that the corporations in this country are taking over the world, but don't step up when they have a chance to negotiate their own wages.  Well, professional athletes can do what most of us dream to do and they do it. They negotiate a contract. Ryan Grant is doing it, but with a twist that doesn't normally get mentioned.

Ryan Grant cannot report to camp without accepting what he and is agent feel is a secondary deal from Green Bay, but the way most sports outlets tell you, Grant could be there...but let's say they are offering a two year deal worth 1 million for the two years, would you take that?  (Not the fat you that is reading this, but the you that actually would have the talent to do what Ryan Grant does.)  

You don't take a sub-par deal.  You never can.  Look at the NBA, how many players are "overpaid"?  I can think of one as of today, Luol Dang just signed some piece of paper that might end up being worth $80 million, but did he do anything to justify this cash?  No.  The reason the Bulls anted up was simple, they cannot lose two players in two years that were top ten picks (Ben Gordon is in the same boat).  If both Gordon and Deng were terrible, great, let them run Kwame Brown-style, but once again, they both turned down $50 million dollar contracts and for half of them, it has turned out quite profitable. (I like Deng and Gordon, but right now, they really haven't done enough to justify 60+ million dollar contracts.) 

How does this relate to Ryan Grant?  Well, it's the NFL.  Unlike the NBA, the contracts only have to guarantee the signing bonus...what happens if that bonus is only hundreds of thousands of dollars?  You can't sign it and hope to have the players look you in the eye with respect, it wouldn't be right to take below market value, which if you watched Ryan Grant last year, you could see that the guy was better than a lot of running backs in the NFL that got more playing time than he did for the first year(s) of his career.  (Of course he had some pretty good injuries early in his career that might have taken a lot of other players out for good.)

Point is, if you are a Green Bay fan, you might want to start yelling at management, not the player;  Green Bay has the cap room even if they do trade Favre (Remember, his bonus will prorate over either one or two seasons)  so they should do the right thing and give him some cash up front and realize what all educated sports fans know:  There are no "Guaranteed Contracts in the NFL" so what is the sticking point?

Do the right thing Green Bay and all other teams...if a guy gets you close to the Super Bowl, he might be worth re-signing.