Pop Quiz Hot Shot: What organization known by a 3-letter acronym apparently has no understanding of basic economic principles despite earning billions of dollars each year?
For those of you who immediately answered AIG – congratulations, you are up on your current events and have a deep understanding of and curiosity about the world around you.
Now, cinch up your Hugo Boss chinos, pack up your top-shelf MBA and go back to the economist.com because we have no use for your kind around here.
If you answered: “What is the NFL, Alex”. Welcome. Pull up a stool, we’ve got Budweiser on tap for a $2.00 special today.
It is interesting that in a time where very little news is coming out of the NFL (heck, even T.O. is staying out of the headlines), the two stories that caught my attention today were both about money. First up was Derrick Mason’s ‘retirement’, which is possibly just a Favre-ian tactic to gauge the Ravens interest in upping his contract and then the Chiefs signing of Matt Cassell to a reported 6-year $63million contract.
Does anyone else find it a little confusing that a player with years of solid, if not spectacular, play can’t beg for a raise, yet a guy who has played one season since high scool was offered a contract with more guaranteed money than all but 8 players in the entire NFL?
I am under no illusions that Mason is one of the top 5 wide receivers in the NFL. Believe me, I have had on my fantasy team a few times. But the fact remains that while he has never dominated he has years of experience and consistent performance. You know exactly what you get with Mason. That may not win too many fantasy championships but you sure can win NFL games.
The man has caught no less than 60 passes in any season since 1999. Excepting a subpar 2006 (68 catches, 750 yards), he has caught more than 85 passes and gained more than 1,000 yards every season since 2002.
Profootballreference.com helpfully compares his stats versus other players (for those of us without our own stats department). Mason’s best contemporary comparison for career totals? Hines Ward. Yet Smiley McCheapShots hasn’t caught more than 81 balls in any season since 2003. Hines also just happened to sign a 4 year, $22 million contract extension earlier this spring. Mason is entering the final year of 5-year $20 million contract signed in 2005.
So to re-cap for those of you scored less than average on your math SATs. Mason just saw a division rival sign a player with comparable career stats but whose recent performance has dropped more significantly sign for an extension worth more than the contract he signed five years ago.
Yeah, I would be a little miffed too.
On the other hand we have Cassell, who we could best describe as Stafford-Lite. He has done a little more on the field and is making a little less.
Apparently I am the only one that wasn’t completely sold on the 16-game performance of a guy who hadn’t started since high school. Sure he led his team to an 11-5 record, which is better than many other bigger name, more egotistical quarterbacks (Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Jay Cutler!) but he also did it with a team that came within one fluke catch and one dropped interception from going 19-0 the season before. So for leading a team to 5 less wins than the previous season, he is made the 9th richest player in the NFL? Really? I didn’t realize that Scott Pioli also got Wes Welker, Randy Moss, the menagerie of running backs and offensive linemen that surrounded Cassell last year as part of the trade with the Patriots. If not, I wouldn’t hold my breath expecting the same production out of Cassell this year with a washed up running back behind him, no Tony Gonzalez and a bevy of young unproven wide receivers.
Has a player (not named Stafford of course) ever been more richly rewarded for falling into the perfect confluence of events than Cassell? Excepting, of course, whatever token Pittsburgh Pirate played in St. Louis tonight and can forevermore be referred to as an ‘All Star’. Congratulations, you were the most mediocre player on a bad team. Sorry to burst your bubble, but if you were actually any good, the Yankees or Red Sox would have given up 2 prospects for you years ago.
This couldn’t have anything to do with the ego of new Chiefs GM Scott Pioli. A man who happened to also be the guy who drafted Cassell originally. Nothing like proving the brilliance of your original draft pick by drastically overpaying for that same player a few years later.
So kids remember, when it comes to the NFL, the math is simple:
Long, consistently good but not flashy career means you don’t deserve to even be paid as well as your peers.
Moderate, high-profile success amidst minimal expectations and you deserve to be paid more than just about anyone in the business.
I would love to see a real-world business justify that reward and recognition policy.
With economic geniuses like this running the NFL, I can’t be the only one wondering which team will be the first one to employ Defensive-End Sack Credit Swaps to get under the salary cap.
