Cromartie Rips into Union Reps

[TheRealDeal]

Sooooo.... if you were offered a chance to play in the show, you'd turn it down because it's fiscally unsustainable?

That wasn't the topic. One person said he could live off 1mil the rest of his life.

If you told me I could play for 3 years, make 1mil dollars (standard rookie contract) and wouldn't make another dime the rest of my life or I could work a 9-5 and start out making 50,000 a year and could expect a cost of living raise between 3-5% for the next 42 years of my life (assuming starting work at 23 and retiring at 65), not including promotions and pay raises associated with them, I would choose the latter.

If I was to make between 3 and 6 mil a year and have a job for anywhere 4-8 years, I would obviously take that.

You missed the whole conversation trail I see.

[twylyght]

That wasn't the topic. One person said he could live off 1mil the rest of his life.

If you told me I could play for 3 years, make 1mil dollars (standard rookie contract) and wouldn't make another dime the rest of my life or I could work a 9-5 and start out making 50,000 a year and could expect a cost of living raise between 3-5% for the next 42 years of my life (assuming starting work at 23 and retiring at 65), not including promotions and pay raises associated with them, I would choose the latter.

If I was to make between 3 and 6 mil a year and have a job for anywhere 4-8 years, I would obviously take that.

You missed the whole conversation trail I see.

I didn't miss a thing... I merely got to the heart of the question at hand. With the world being what it is, is the hand these players have been dealt an unfair one?

Judging by your responses and those of others, one would believe that is exactly what you think. I simply wanted to ask the question that would bring that aspect of the conversation to light.

Given the choice of one professional track or another, people that don't know the challenges of managing that amount of money would take the deal without knowing what is involved. However, intelligent people would jump on it in a heartbeat and do quite well.

Either way, I get exactly that the life of an NFL player isn't all candies and roses... however, to say that their existence isn't priviledged is simply naive.

I am personally not inclined to feel sorry for employees that are vocal about their destitute circumstances when the vast majority of the planet would swap places in an instant. It has the airs of being ungrateful and petty to coax their own egos while being callous to their fellow man's plight.

The owners may be every bit the dickwads that everyone else assumes them to be... but they write the checks. If the business goes under, they've assumed all the risk entailed with a failed business of that magnitude. The market is a harsh and risky beast. Play your hand too tight and you put forth a crappy product that no one will buy. Play it too extravagantly and you've spent yourself out of a franchise.

The players' equivilant is how they live their lives. Like it or not, managing money is part of the deal... a deal that the vast majority of people on the planet would like a shot at dealing with.

[g5jamz]

These guys play a game.

Keep that in perspective.

[TheRealDeal]

So the scenario would be more like a 3 year deal at a million bucks then another 20 or 30 years of earning a salary that, depending on their degree, might start as low as 20k with annual cost of living increases of 3-5%.

No matter how you try you cant make these guys out to be lower middle class work a day Joes.

That's assuming most NFL players can get a 9-5 job. Honestly most of them can't put together a complete sentence let alone put together a forecast of future earnings and business development. They probably aren't qualified to take my order at Burger King.

Not a defense for them just reality.

[blackcatgrowl]

cromartie is an expert in labor at this point.

I'd say with certainty that he has more information available to him about the CBA issues, and more personally invested in them, than anyone posting on this message board.

[Zcustom]

I'd say with certainty that he has more information available to him about the CBA issues, and more personally invested in them, than anyone posting on this message board.

I think he was referring to a different type of labor

[TheRealDeal]

ok that's just silly.

Of course they can get jobs. They may not all have charitable foundations to run or a chain of restaurants but if they can learn an NFL playbook they can drive for UPS.

All they've been doing is playing football. Playbooks are a second language to them. You've heard some of the classes they take in school and you've seen some of them talk in interviews, etc.

You act like they are all upstanding citizens with a solid head on their shoulders and they can fall back on their accounting degrees or whatever but it's not like that.

No one is saying they will hurt missing a year of football unless they are morons, which most are. People just need to stop saying that all NFL players live the high life and have nothing to worry about in life because that's not the case.

[Zcustom]

All they've been doing is playing football. Playbooks are a second language to them. You've heard some of the classes they take in school and you've seen some of them talk in interviews, etc.

You act like they are all upstanding citizens with a solid head on their shoulders and they can fall back on their accounting degrees or whatever but it's not like that.

No one is saying they will hurt missing a year of football unless they are morons, which most are. People just need to stop saying that all NFL players live the high life and have nothing to worry about in life because that's not the case.

Nobody is saying they don't have anything to worry about.

All I see is people saying give me $310k-$12mil per year and I'll find a way to make it work.

[TheRealDeal]

Nobody is saying they don't have anything to worry about.

All I see is people saying give me $310k-$12mil per year and I'll find a way to make it work.

There is a lot more that goes into it though. I don't care either way and I'm not on anyone's side I just want to see some football next year.

[Mvp2014]

Cromartie literally has like 57 kids. Child support is a mofo. Guy needs to work.

hahahah, and that's what he knows about

[Zcustom]

There is a lot more that goes into it though. I don't care either way and I'm not on anyone's side I just want to see some football next year.

We all want to see football, no doubt. We're all on the same page there.

$310k is a lot of money no matter who you are or who you owe. Just straight facts homie

[Matthias]

I think the best thing that can happen for Cromartie and players like him who don't know how to manage their money, is a lockout. That will teach them the next time you receive a paycheck, save most of it and don't spend it all at one time. They are essentially millionaires living paycheck to paycheck, absolutely ridiculous. Maybe they need to put money management classes for rookies as a priority in the new CBA, and they must take it for a full year.

As a fan, there are some things worth fighting for. I'm willing for there to be a lockout if it meant keeping a 16 game season. That is one of the biggest problems with Baseball and Basketball. Way too many games. Football is the one sport where it is just right. (Plus if you're a middle of the road team, you will basically be holding your breathe longer, and that can't be good for people with high blood pressure.) Really both sides need to compromise here. The owners should have their way on giving less money on contracts, and players should have their way on keeping a 16 game schedule. Then we can all meet in the middle with the rookie cap. (You see how easy that is, it certainly didn't take me 3 years to come up with that deal.)