These players are really out of their minds.
Seriously.
I truly believe most of them have no understanding of anything that goes on in the world. I'm going to destroy 4 people on here today. Adrian Peterson, Rashard Mendenhall, Leonard Weaver, and Kevin Mawae.
Adrian Peterson-
You've probably heard his idiotic remark by now. "The NFL...well it's pretty much modern day slavery.". NO YOU IDIOT!! MODERN DAY SLAVERY?! There is an estimated 1.2 million people who would take offense to that, Adrian. 1.2 million...hmmm what could that number represent? Can't be the players...no there are only 1,900 of them. The owners? No...only 32. Hummm...OH! I KNOW!! That's the number of TRUE modern day slaves. You know...those people who will never in their lifetime know what you said...because...they're you know...slaves.
All the way back to the Maurice Clarett case when ESPN was talking about you possibly being the first HS player drafted if he won the case, you understood the rules and regulations of the NFL. That was your desired career choice. I'm sure people idolized you back then. I'm sure people idolize you now. All the glory and fame and wealth you've accumulated. It must be nice to go home to the land YOU own. In the car YOU own. And have time off. And not be forced to work every single day without pay. Oh that's right. You get paid. Let's see how much modern slavery gets paid.
In 2011, if there's football (there may not be thanks to clowns like AP) Adrian Peterson, Zigy Wylf's slave, will be paid $10.2 Million. TEN MILLION, TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS. Let's put this into perspective. Say someone works for the federal minimum wage, $7.25. That is $7.25 an hour MORE than slaves got. Let's say the worked 40 hours a week for all 52 weeks. No vacations, no sick days. That comes out to $15,080. Now lets take AP's salary and divide it by what someone who makes minimum wage makes in a year. What does that come to??? 676.39 years. It will take someone making minimum wage SIX HUNDRED SEVENTY SIX POINT THREE NINE YEARS to make what he makes in ONE! Hey! Being a slave sounds pretty awesome! Oh and what happens when they become ill? Their employer takes money out of their pocket and pays for healthcare, just like the NFL right? Nope AP, sorry we're in the real world here. Most people don't get to play a childrens game for a living.
Rashard Mendenhall-
Now, it's one thing for AP to speak out of frustration (even though he said it twice and hasn't gone back on his word). It's another thing to blindly follow another players ignorant words and back them up even though the majority of people think he's an idiot for saying them. In the wise words of Rashard Mendenhall, "Learn to LISTEN before passing judgement." And then he goes and blindly agrees with AP, continuing to trivialize a horrific practice that still goes on TO THIS DAY.
This in itself is worse in a way than what AP said. Mendenhall had the time to think about the reaction. He saw how negatively it was taken and he could have drawn better parallels than slavery for the point he and AP were trying to make (I'll explain that later). Let's look at how much this slave makes (working for literally the most player friendly/civil rights friendly owner in the whole league). He doesn't make as much as AP. Oh god...how is he going to live off of...$3 Million a year..? Well put it this way...if he took a minimum wage job, he would have to work for 198.94 years to make what he makes in a year.
Leonard Weaver-
Now I have to admit, he redeemed himself just minutes before I started writing this. He publicly said he watched the clip of him agreeing to the other two players, I mean slaves...sorry...for some reason I keep thinking they play a childrens game for a living. Right, they're slaves. Sorry. He said publicly that he watched the video of him saying the NFL was like slavery made him embarrassed. He still claimed that the NFL was unfair...blah blah blah. I'll get to that after I break down this slave's contract. Wait...I thought the slave was supposed to have no rights...how can slaves sign a contract...
He makes slightly more than Mendenhall (I guess his Masta is better!!). $3.3 Million. Pssssssshhhh...that's nothing! Unless you're working for minimum wage. Then that's 218.83 years to you.
But okay, I can see you guys saying, "oh that's not fair nobody makes minimum wage for their entire life". Fair point, let's use $70,000 a year. You can live comfortably with that.
AP-145.71 years at $70K
Mendenhall-42.86 years (might not sound like a lot, but he'd be able to retire after one year living on $70K per year)
Waver-45.71 (play a year on his plantation--football field--sorry...and you'll have worked 45.71 years in the shoes of a person making $70K)
(I'll rip on Mawae after this--stay tuned)
To be fair, let me explain to you why these guys think the NFL is like modern day slavery since their free education at esteemed universities didn't teach them how to articulate thoughts without resorting to buzz words in attempt to garner sympathy.
-The NFL Draft-This is the biggest one. The players fell that in order to play in the NFL, they are unfairly put on teams without their control. While this is true, there are several ways to circumvent this. First, nobody is forcing you to play football, or even NFL football. There's the CFL, UFL (though you may not even get a check...just ask last year's champs), AFL, afl2. It was the player's choice to pursue this career path. But let's assume that the player has his heart set on playing football and can't go into ANY OTHER career field. What do they do then? Make it clear you don't want to play for certain teams. Eli Manning did this in 2004, John Elway did this. To be fair, technically speaking the draft IS illegal without the CBA, but it is something that helps the league stay competitive. Without it, the league would have a few good teams and the rest garbage. Part of the reason the game is a $9 Billion industry is the fact that come week 1, teams are all 0-0 and teams all have a chance to improve thanks to the draft.
-The Combine-This is often compared to slave auctions. A bunch of scary rich old white men make a bunch of young black men (of course a lot of them are white too, but for argument's sake on their part, it's only blacks) run around in their underwear, get poked and prodded by doctors and take a test. There are a few things wrong with the theory. First off, the combine is VOLUNTARY. If you don't want to get poked and prodded and run and jump and lift weights and get a physical, you don't have to. It only helps you to do it though. See when slaves were auctioned off, the best ones were taken by the richest people and if you couldn't work, you were usually killed (yes...it was legal to kill slaves in some places). The combine HELPS these people make MILLIONS. And do you blame the owners for wanting these multi-million dollar investments to be inspected?? There's no insurance for them when they sink money into prospects who are huge busts (JaMarcus Russell??). Most of these guys have tons of money GUARNATEED. Those awful owners...wanting to make smart investments HOW DARE THEM.
-Racial remarks said by owners/coaches-This one is laughable at best. If those stories are true, then that only means one thing, the individual who said it is an asshole. It doesn't mean that the league itself is full of racist people and they're trying to oppress the blacks and make money off of them and leave them with nothing. The opposite is true.
Finally, Kevin Mawae-
He's not nearly as much of an idiot as the other 3 I mentioned. He technically IS doing his job the way it should be done. It doesn't mean he can't be wrong.
Kevin Mawae was quoted as saying that some of the players won't be able to afford insurance for the lockout. He quoted the price of about $2,400 a family a month for insurance. Okay, Kevin, let's use that number. How about we also use these numbers. League rookie minimum salary? $325K. So for the LOWEST PAID PLAYER IN THE NFL, he HAS TO MAKE $325K. But what about the league average salary?? What's the league average?!?! Surely it HAS to be HORRIBLY LOW!! Well just BASE SALARY (not including signing/incentive bonuses)?? $990,000 (this is the 2009 number, 2010 may be higher). Okay so let's look at this.
1 year of insurance at $2,400 a month/family= $28,800
Amount of insurance an NFL player can buy with 1 year worth of salary at NFL minimum= 11.28 years...for a player who likely didn't contribute much of ANYTHING to the game of football.
Amount of insurance an NFL player who makes the league average can buy after one year of work=35.36 years.
Each insurance payment for the mimumum salaried players is 1/135.42nd of their total annual salary.
Each insurance payment for the average player is 1/412.5th of their annual salary.
Those poor, awful players.
Now look, I don't have a problem with the players trying to get more. It's America and they have EVERY RIGHT to try and maximize their income. My problem is when they try to tug at the emotions of the public. How about they stop for one second and think about this:
The more they make, the more (some) owners have made, which means the more the league has made, which means the more YOU AND ME AND EVERY OTHER FAN HAS PAID OUT OF OUR SALARY THAT MIGHT NOT EVEN TOUCH WHAT THE NFL PLAYERS GET IN A SIGNING BONUS. By the players sobbing and wanting more, it's only going to drive up prices for EVERYTHING. Keep siding with the players, people.
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