8-16-05 [sports] - 1

8-16-05 [sports]

I can't wait for football season to start. Ah, the lazy days of drinking beer, eating barbecue, and yelling at the TV. Preseason football is disgusting, it's a sham, a mockery, I spit on it. Football is the perfect sport because it's full of excitement and drama, but gives you time to get to the fridge and back between plays. All sports have moments of action and down times, the nice thing about football is you know exactly when to watch and when to look away. Sports like soccer you just have to sort of stare at all the time, you don't know when to pay attention.

The hold-outs in football have become ridiculous. It would be very easy to fix. First of all, when someone enters the draft, they agree to play for whatever team drafts them (none of this Eli Manning nonsense). Also, players who enter the draft must report to camp & play. If the player cannot reach an agreement with the team, they must play for a preset pay scale on a year one contract. That pay scale would be set based on average NFL pay and would be scaled by the position in the draft, so eg. 1st pick might be 1 million a year, 2nd pick $900k, etc. Veterans that are signed normally must honor their contracts, eg. they must play and report to camp if they are able. If a player refuses to honor their contract, they receive no pay for that year AND cannot sign with another team unless the team they are signed with releases them or trades them. This is not "slavery" or any such nonsense that the players union would claim, it's simple reasonable business - when you sign an employment contract to deliver a service, you have to honor it, it should be the rule of the league.