I think it would be hard to argue that Hines Ward is a selfish guy. Hines doesn’t grandstand, he doesn’t bitch if he doesn’t get the ball, he just shows up every day and goes to work. He loves to block. He loves to hit. He goes over the middle. He is the consumate team guy.

Which is what makes this so interesting. I think it makes it clear that you don’t have to be a selfish guy, or a bad guy, or a mercenary to be an NFL holdout. The NFL’s contracts are unfair… I mean, there are 6-year-old Vietnamese girls making Air Jordans that have better deals than NFL players. The average span of an NFL career is 3.2 years. Major injury is risked on almost every snap. And guys are supposed to sign for non-guaranteed money?

And not only that… but look at it in comparison to other sports. The Knicks signed Jerome James, who has been, most of the time, as lazy and underachieving as anyone in the history as sports… $6 million per year, guaranteed, for five years. Hines Ward doesn’t have a prayer of seeing that kind of money.

I have no idea how the NFLPA got stuck with saw a raw deal, but… it happened, and I guess they have to live with it. If a holdout is the only way a player can get some leverage, I think you’d have to be crazy to call him selfish for it. Hines has proved that he’ll go out there and break his back for the team, and clearly deserves to be paid as one of the top receivers in the game. The Steelers have a history of not giving in on such things, and I wouldn’t expect them to blink here. We’ll see what happens… but it’s probably not good news for Ben Roethlisberger or the Pittsburgh Steelers.