[ad_1]
"Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said about Earl Thomas"hold back"- his decision not to practice because he wants a new contract – during his weekly interview with the local ESPN affiliate. "We try to understand what is best."
For Carroll and the Seahawks bureau members, this binary view of building the list might be accurate. There is the "business side" – the question of budgeting (the other) money – and there is the "bullet side": gains and, therefore, higher profits. Behind their big book, the "commercial decisions" about players to sign and cut are relatively black and white. The cost is money, and the advantage is a qualified body.
But with their holds and holds, players like Earl Thomas and running back Le'Veon Bell draw attention to a gray area. More specifically, the space where the inevitable damage caused by the game to this body – from normal wear and tear to serious injury – has long-term financial and personal consequences.
Bell has not contacted the Steelers since the team applied it earlier this year for the second consecutive season instead of consolidating a long-term contract. He is giving up nearly $ 1 million per game, but avoids a situation in which the Steelers could try to "earn their money" by giving him a heavy workload in one of the most vulnerable positions of the game, during his last season. with the team "I do not go out here to take the ball 400 times if I do not understand what I think," he told ESPN in January.
Thomas ended his run for a new contract before week 1, but was reluctant to participate in the activities and activities of the team more than he was absolutely necessary.
"I have to make sure my body is 100 years old," he told reporters after Sunday's match, probably referring to his impending free agency and the commercial market. "If they were invested in me, I would practice."
Even if the financial stakes increase, the physical stakes of football remain almost the same at all levels. Factor X is the level of leverage that each player feels they have to turn that wear into profit. As leading players, Bell and Thomas show viewers the mental math of each attack, the reality of the game as NFL players calculate the risk versus the reward. At a time when the imbalance of power in football has never been so obvious, it is a pragmatic approach to recognizing the dangers of gambling without abandoning it, or fatally accepting its brutality as an inevitable cost to becoming a "Team player".
In the current state of football, players assume the vast majority of risks. They are required to wager on themselves at the university, discovering the situation where they can generate staggering statistics and highlight the band while avoiding wounds that end while not making money. Then they have to bet on themselves to get into the project: leave early and get paid for something faster without having graduated from university, or leave later and may be get a higher circulation and win more (or, in both cases, not be written at all). Once in the league, they can be cut at any time.
Succeed on this path is presented as a question of strength, courage and loyalty and other similar qualifiers. On a team of 53 men, it is assumed that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That players must sacrifice themselves to win, give the game everything they have or leave the field.
Faced with a risk of concussion or other long-term injuries, some NFL players choose to do the same. Niners linebacker Chris Borland left the game in 2015 after playing for one season. "From what I've studied and lived, I do not think it's worth the risk," he told ESPN at the time. Linebacker Joshua Perry retired after two seasons this summer: "I think a lot of guys tend to understand the risks, but not necessarily to talk about it, because you can not book football," he said. he declared.
But taking it on the chin is much more common, even among high school players. "I know CTE can be a risk, but it's a risk I'm willing to take," said Florida State Offensive Officer Christian Meadows at USA Today last year. . The newspaper asked 40 high school players how the risk of concussion was taken into account in their decision to play. "I mean I could take care of my family and make a lot of money doing what I love," continued Meadows. "It's worth it for me."
The security of buccaneers Chris Conte, who became viral after being the victim of a cruel arm while he was playing in a ripped PCL last week, has made his point of view clear on this type of decisions. "I'd rather have the experience of playing and, who knows, die 10, 15 years earlier than not being able to play in the NFL and live long," he told The Denver Post in 2014. He must currently sit six weeks because his injury was exacerbated during Monday night's game.
Jets safety Jamal Adams said it more succinctly at a press conference during the training camp last year, where he was questioned about a study then published on football and CTE. "We live and breathe and that is what we are passionate about," he said. "Literally, I would like – if I had a perfect place to die, I would die on the ground. For example, we make a lot of team sacrifices and we connect like ball games. There is nothing better than playing football. "
But what is the place of self-sacrifice at this level in a company? This is the question posed by Thomas and Bell, because they allow fans to watch not only their negotiations with teams, but also with themselves. Both have already accepted the risks inherent in the game and, in particular for Bell, have sacrificed part of their long-term viability of football to the success of the team.
"I do not think it affected the way I played because I did not necessarily think," I do not want to be hurt, I do not want to be hurt, "said Bell earlier this year In 2017, he made 321 rush attempts, the highest number in the league, for 1,291 yards. "" I was just playing physically. "I knew afterwards [the 2017 season] that they had to put me in front. I felt that it inspired me.
While Bell and Thomas are negotiating, their cost-benefit equation has a heavy intangible element: the cost of potential damage not only for their future income, but for their future well-being. How much money is it worth for Bell to be at the bottom of a pile of more goals? He decided that it would be over $ 850,000. How much is it for Thomas not to put his pads in practice? For him, this is clearly more than anything imposed on him by the team.
Other actors intervene, illuminating the type of discussions that usually remain in the locker room. "For my part, I would give you everything you need to do in practice, you would see – the cameras would see – that I'm fine, I'm in good health," said the former Steelers linebacker, James Harrison, at Bell FS1 is undisputed. "But on Saturday there is something wrong, I can not play Sunday, because if I go out and spoil something, I lose a lot of money.
Adrian Peterson, whose 11 seasons in the league are an anomaly among half-strikers, agrees with Bell that his productivity on the franchise label should affect a future contract with the Steelers. He said: "I played with the franchise etiquette you gave me, and you still do not pay me what is due, which I feel as if I'm valued ", he told SI," I would be sitting outside too. "
The public battles of Thomas and Bell force NFL players to fight for the money they think is more valuable by highlighting the risks they face every time they play. Rather than simply claiming that they want to make more money (which is clearly the case), they are seeking – intentionally or not – to increase public awareness of the dangerousness of the game by indicating more specifically how and when they wish. to expand and adopt a transactional vision of how to deal with the brutality of football rather than romance. This is a direct challenge to the assumption that grit is enough to eliminate all the side effects of playing football, and that it is intrinsically useful to play through the pain and put the team first.
Bell and Thomas know that a quarterback will always be perceived as more valuable than a safety or a step back because its "mileage", as cynically said, is much slower. But they are people, not cars. When they are "lost" or "run out of gas", it hurts. How much is it worth? As it becomes more and more obvious, the only ones who can answer this question are the players themselves.
[ad_2]
Source link
