Ndamukong Suh: NFL Lion King Tricked Into Letting Wicked Genie Loose?

The NFL and the Kingdom

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom in which teams of warriors from across the land met other teams of warriors in a fierce battle every week to ultimately determine which team would be declared champion for a year.

The champion would then receive a rare trophy named after a legendary battle wizard. Each hero would receive a unique and valuable ring symbolizing their great triumph. They would be lauded far and wide by every scribe and town crier. Parades would be given in their honor and fans would shower adulation on them wherever they went.

Though the risks to individual warriors were great—injuries were common with the toll of frequent battles and time limited their opportunity to compete to just a few short years—the rewards were great. The best warriors were paid a king’s ransom. Average warriors were paid more each year than a peasant could earn in a lifetime.

Young men far and wide dreamed of joining one of these teams. Some dreamed of glory, some dreamed of wealth, and some simply wanted to prove to themselves that they were worthy of being a part of the best team in the world. For most part, it was a little of each.

This annual competition was held under the auspices of a group of wealthy nobles that were granted a special charter by the king. They called themselves the NFL and they called the battles a sport.

These nobles, along with a special warrior-appointed commission dubbed the NFLPA, created the rules of the competition and decided how to divide the immense wealth generated by the fans who adored the competitions.

Pay The Piper

So popular was the sport, that the wealthy nobles persuaded peasants to build them grand stadiums and then fill the stadiums up every week with paying spectators under penalty of blacking out broadcasts of the game to other peasants who couldn’t afford to buy tickets.

As with every enterprise known to mankind, some people fell all over themselves to take advantage of the opportunity to profit from the popularity of a successful enterprise. The NFL and individual teams and players granted lucrative licenses to sell everything from exclusive broadcast and commercial rights, to hot dogs and beer and replica player jerseys, helmets and bobble-heads.

Private and public academies established to educate citizens of the kingdom were granted the right to use the services of young men who desired to earn the opportunity to compete in the NFL in exchange for simply waving grossly overvalued tuition, book, and room and board fees.

Many of these academies permitted NFL-bound “student-athletes” to remain eligible for their programs by taking courses that a fifth-grader could pass in order for these schools to continue to benefit from lucrative television contracts and fund other academy athletic programs that could never support themselves but were nevertheless mandated by the king.

Agents—The 3% Solution

Agents specialize in luring talented young warriors to one academy or another. Officially, recruiters are limited to offering prospects full-paid scholarships in exchange for doing battle and risking serious injury on behalf of an academy.

In reality, as we continue to see almost every year, Agents offer much more, especially to promising undereducated warrior-wannabes from impoverished and troubled backgrounds. There is good reason why unscrupulous agents have been compared to “pimps.” Their primary inducements are cash, cars and clothes.

These Agents specialize in saying and doing anything in order to position their “talent” to obtain lucrative NFL contracts so the Agents can collect a percentage of their client's future contract earnings.

How Much Money Is That?

In the NFL, if a player like Sam Bradford has a six year contract for $76 million, his agent stands to earn about $380,000 per year or $2.280 million over six years plus a percentage of any endorsement agreements. Not bad for spending a few weeks ever five or six years negotiating with an NFL team.

Of course Agents sometimes provide other services to clients as well. They can help market their clients or the products their client endorses. They are paid to be responsible for communications between their clients and team owners, managers and coaches and helping manage their client’s public relations. Sometimes they are responsible for managing a client’s finances, including investments, filing taxes and paying their bills.

Most Agents are simply specialized sport lawyers, who like other highly paid lawyers, have a team of much lowered paid staff supporting them.

You might think that similar to other legal specialties, there would be a lot of competition to represent NFL warriors, but you’d be wrong.

Under the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the NFL and the NFLPA, the union has the sole right to determine the number of Agents available for NFL warriors to choose from and the qualifications of those Agents.

The current CBA limits basic Agent fees to a maximum of 3% of a client warrior’s NFL team compensation. This is in addition of the requirement for every NFL warrior to pay the NFLPA annual dues (doubled in 2009 to $15,000/year) and other union fees and potential union fines.

Because of the limited number of NFLPA-sanctioned Agents available to compete for NFL warriors, it’s very common for Agents to be in negotiations with several clients at one time before annual training camps begin.

Agents are naturally motivated to focus first and foremost on the deals that will earn them the most money, letting the concerns of other players and the needs of other teams languish in the meantime.

Additionally, the current situation creates clear conflict-of-interest problems that unscrupulous Agents are prone to exploit. The potential for an Agent representing multiple draft picks, for example, to manipulate contracts by playing one team’s signing and timing scenario against another’s for the Agent’s own benefit is relatively unchecked.

It’s simple for an Agent to appeal to a young warrior whose primary dream is quick riches and fame. To them, “Hey kid, look at the great warriors I represent. Look at the great office space that I work out of (that you’ll help pay for). Trust me. Stick with me, and I’ll make you a wealthy star” is an easy sell.

The much harder sell is to a quality warrior who knows that he will be successful and rich no matter who represents them as an Agent. How does an Agent convince this type of warrior to sign with them?

The Plot Thickens

Enter Ndamukong Suh.

By all accounts, Suh is a bright, very talented and dedicated young man from the House of Spears who graduated from Nebraska with a degree in construction management. Suh was a highly celebrated five year college football warrior who earned numerous awards and accolades. Yet he is a modest, levelheaded young guy with a big heart.

There was no doubt at all that Suh would do very well in the NFL draft and become a very wealthy warrior. Every NFL agent in the kingdom competed to sign him. Why then did Suh agree to be represented by Eugene Parker’s Maximum Sports Management agency?

How could a young man like Suh who told Detroit fans, "I'm not a guy that likes to be a part of drama. I don't even like being in the limelight, so I definitely don't want to hold out" sign with an Agent who one esteemed contributor to the Bleacher Report, Mike Sudds, aptly referred to as “Eugene, the holdout machine?”

What might have induced Suh to sign with the infamous Agent who became even more of a reviled icon for foolhardiness by inducing San Francisco’s 2009 10th round overall pick, Michael Crabtree, to hold out until August to sign a deal and agree to terms that he could have easily obtained in July of that year?

One possibility might be that on April 17th 2010, big hearted Suh graciously announced a donation of $2.6 million to the University of Nebraska. $2 million to go to the Cornhuskers athletic department, and $600,000 to be used to create an endowed scholarship for the Nebraska College of Engineering.

And all of this, before Suh even sniffed his first NFL paycheck.

Could Parker have induced Suh to sign with him by suggesting this donation as a PR gambit, fronting the money and guaranteeing Suh an NFL contract that would cover the donation and still provide Suh with a record-earning contract for a second overall pick for a defensive lineman?

Revenge A Dish Best Served Cold?

After first overall 2010 NFL draft pick Sam Bradford and third overall draft pick Gerald McCoy were signed, many, many observers thought that a bracketed Suh signing would follow quickly. But it didn’t.

On August 1st, Mike Florio at PFT had this to say:

“Last year's second overall pick, Rams tackle Jason Smith, received a contract with $21.975 million guaranteed at the time of signing (i.e. , that's what he gets if he gets hit by a bus the next day), a post-option guarantee of $28.5675 million, and a post-one-timer guarantee (i.e. , not really a guarantee) of $33 million.

Even assuming that the one-timer will be earned, a 19.9 percent increase in guaranteed money over Smith's deal would put Suh at $39.567 million guaranteed. If we were running the Lions, that's the most we'd offer, since it represents the same percentage increase that Bradford received in comparison to Stafford's deal.”

Makes great sense.

Now today, on August 3rd, it’s being reported that Suh has agreed to end his four day holdout by inking a five year, $40 million guaranteed contract with a maximum value of $68 million.

The report, if correct, would have Suh earning more than  what Oklahoma defensive tackle Gerald McCoy got as the No. 3 overall pick from Tampa Bay (five years for $63 million, including $35 million guaranteed) but less that what Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford got (a six-year deal worth $78 million including $50 million in guaranteed money).

So why all the drama of the missed eight training practices for Suh when the outcome was so predictable?

Conspiracy theorists might point to the fact that Eugene Parker represents both Suh and Dallas’ 24th overall draft pick Dez Bryant. Surprisingly to some, Bryant signed with Dallas before training camp.

Some of these conspiracy buffs might remember that then brand new Detroit GM Martin Mayhew fleeced Dallas owner Jerry Jones with a 2008 trade deal that sent the Lions a first, a third and a sixth round pick in exchange for Roy Williams and a seventh round pick.

How’s that working out so far for you Jerry?

Could it be that old Jerry worked out an arrangement with Eugenie to get a little revenge by having Parker hold Suh out of camp for a while? Just asking.

In Any Event, Three Things Are Clear

-A rookie pay scale should be established and most of the money the NFL owners save as a result should be allocated to veteran players who have already proven themselves; and to retired players upon whose backs the modern NFL was built. It’s time to stuff the league’s Eugene Parker’s back into their bottles and keep them there for good.

-The NFLPA must do a far better job of preventing potential NFL Agent conflict of interest situations from arising. NFL football is too great a game to tarnish by shady behind-the-scene deals.

-Anything that causes ticket prices to go up more than they already have will be bad for the game. Blackouts are a slap in the face to loyal fans who can’t afford to sit in the stands and root for their favorite team. Playing any Super Bowl in any foreign country would be an unforgivable insult to American fans and a huge economic loss to American cities that would otherwise benefit by hosting the game.

Bottom Line

NFL fans ultimately pay all the bills. The NFL and NFLPA have together shown an alarming disregard for their fan base by allowing the cost of being a fan to spiral upward much faster than fan incomes have risen.

Why do we accept it as a given that players in this year's draft class must earn more than the players taken in the same draft spot during the preceeding year?

There is a rapidly shrinking sympathy among fans for either side of a potential 2011 strike/lockout (same thing, essentially) that pits multimillionaires against billionaires. The real challenge for the NFL/NFLPA is to begin to seriously rein in costs while still delivering quality weekly battles.

We are a nation of 300 million plus people. It wouldn’t be hard to find 1,696 unaffiliated players (32 teams times a 53 man roster) who are good enough for fans to get excited about watching that won’t cost a house and car payment or more every year to support.

Hey NFL/NFLPA, get re-connected with your fan base again!