The NFL Players Association did a little something sneaky in the newest collective bargaining agreement. They stuck a clause in there that says no player can be deactivated Terrell Owens/Keyshawn Johnson-style for disciplinary reasons.
If the clause had been in place last year, the Eagles wouldn’t have had a choice but to keep the cancer on the roster. They also can’t make a guy give back a portion of his signing bonus for bad behavior. That can only happen if a guy is actually refusing to play football.
This is great news for dickbags in the NFL everywhere… go ahead, pour sugar in the offensive coordinator’s gas tank if you feel like you aren’t getting your touches.. The most they can do is deactivate you on a week-to-week basis, and they can’t touch your money. So if you want to steal Jeff Garcia’s jersey the night before a game, rip his name off the back sew “HOMO” there in its place, you can do just that.
sideshow
I wonder how the NFLPA heads justified the signing bonus part? “Listen, we know the rank and file of this union is littered with spoiled, entitled, bratty little pissbuckets…BUT- It’s just not fair of you to take bonus money from a guy that’s tearing your team apart from the inside like Alien. These multimillionairemegalomaniacs have to survive somehow.”
March 10, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Bouj
The owwners are morons for agreeing to that. They’ll get what they deserve the next time TO or another Grade A douchebag decides to be a Grade A douchebag..
March 10, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Matt
I had a feeling this clause was going to give everyone a liscense to be a dick. Low and behold, Javon Walker (TO’s apprentice) has already started mouthing off. Next time I interview for a job, I’m gonna make sure there’s a clause in my contract that says I’m allowed spit in my boss’ face and sleep with his wife without getting fired.
March 10, 2006 at 2:52 pm
VTHokie01
I thought they didn’t have to keep the “cancer on the roster,” – I thought he could have been released? The Eagles could have cut him, no? They didn’t have to deactivate him, did they?
March 10, 2006 at 2:59 pm
The Big Picture
someone’s gonna be real eager to sign TO now.
March 10, 2006 at 3:00 pm
the mighty mjd
Yeah, I guess I worded that poorly… the Eagles could have indeed cut Owens, but… you know, they didn’t want to take the cap hit or allow him to sign with another team.
March 10, 2006 at 3:32 pm
Bouj
So that would mean that someone could be a complete prick and instead of being deactivated for the season or being fined, the team would have to sit him week-to-week but pay him or cut him outright, allowing him to sign on somewhere else?
That is genius on the part of the part of the player’s association.
March 10, 2006 at 3:53 pm
VTHokie01
Well, TO definitely had his faults, but Andy Reid and everybody else there should have known better when they brought him in. It’s kind of like saying to the UAE, “Yeah, we understand most of your citizens hate us infidels, a few of them were 9/11 attackers, but as long as you PROMISE you won’t bring any terrorists over here, you can make the deal. You DO promise, don’t you?”
“You do promise you’ll be on your best behaviour Terrell, don’t you? Well okay then.”
BTW, MJD- I’ve read some of your archives, and I noticed in ’04 you had a few more people posting on your site, in somewhat of a political nature. Whatever happened with that experiment? Decide to stick to sports only?
March 10, 2006 at 7:22 pm
highlifer
The difference between this and spitting in your bosses face is thus: if you did that, they could ignore it and keep paying you, or they could fire you. They couldn’t keep you on the payroll, but keep you from getting another job. Nor could they retroactively take your bonuses that you earned fair and square BEFORE the spitting occurred.
TO is going to have a tough enough time because his reputation is out there. But the Eagles were just vindictive. It’s exactly what is going on with the Howard Stern/Les Moonves thing – either fire someone or don’t, but don’t try to have it both ways.
March 10, 2006 at 7:58 pm
guy that's been to UAE
First, VTHokie, do some research before posting some random crap. UAE is probably the most westernized country in the middle east. Last I heard, the terrorists were living in caves, not ridiculously lavish island hotels and golfing on a beautiful PGA quality course in the desert. They have a friggin ice hockey team and they recently built an indoor skiing facility! There’s probably more hate for the states in New York than there is in the UAE. By the way, all those things weren’t paid for by oil, but because they’re successful as a central trading point(hmm, they’re interested in ports, you say?). Man, I hate when people spout off about stuff they know nothin about.
And on that note, I agree with the players association. If a guy’s a dick and hurting your organization, you fire him, you don’t keep him from getting another job while not paying him. Seriously, it’s not like the eagles didn’t know TO was a jackass when they got him.
March 11, 2006 at 12:58 pm
VTHokie01
Guy that’s been to UAE – My apologies if you were offended, but my point remains valid, and I don’t think your response addresses anything I posted.
The point is, it’s not necessarily the UAE, but you could take ANY Middle Eastern country, and allow them and their Middle Eastern employees to run aformenteioned ports, assuming THEY will do a sufficient job of screening backgrounds etc. The problem is that you’re potentially putting someone in a position to do harm, from a region that contains people that are more likely to do said harm. Probability.
As far as your assertion that “UAE is probably the most westernized country in the middle east,” maybe YOU should be doing some research instead of visiting sports arenas in the UAE. ONLY LAST YEAR, 2005, after significant foreign pressure, did your beloved UAE abandon Slave Children in use as Camel Jockeys. If you didn’t know that, watch it here:
http://www.ansarburney.org/videolinks/video-hbo1.html
and read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_racing
So, if you think still think UAE is the greatest place in the world, good for you. I hope you enjoy watching their “friggin ice hockey team,” and afterward you can go enjoy a cheap slave-prostitute courtesy of their huge illegal sex slave trade.
Sorry, MJD. I couldn’t help it. I won’t post on this anymore.
March 12, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Jimbo Mercy
You wanna know what I think? VTHokie- you got served.
March 13, 2006 at 12:57 am
Uae going guy
Heh, no country’s perfect. That actually sounds kinda funny(Slave Children in use as Camel Jockeys). Now that they’ve stopped it anyway. Don’t half the countries in the world have some sort of human rights abuses though? Actually, do we fall into that category now with the Abu Ghraib incidents? Bah, I like the states, and I like Dubai and the UAE too.
My main point was that it was a pretty stupid thing to do to give control of the ports to ANY foreign country. But picking on UAE, and specifically Dubai in that way, was unwarranted. It would be like saying we shouldn’t do business with Spain because they’re nazis just cuz they were near Germany in world war 2.
Wait, actually, my main point was that T.O. is a douche and the eagles knew that when they got him. Sorry about the non-sports politics. but really though, check out the islands they’re making shaped like different countries of the world off the coast of Dubai.
March 14, 2006 at 4:12 pm