An Interesting Perspective on the Lockout

by Jason Garrison on Mar 29, 2011 11:00 AM EDT

Just to warn you, the following article has nothing to do, at least directly, with the Cincinnati Bengals. It does, however, shine some light on a side of the lockout story that you possibly haven't thought about yet. That side is the side of the practice squad players on every team.

Pro Football Talk's Gregg Rosenthal recently wrote about an article in Esquire, written by Peter Schrager, in which he interviewed Panthers second-year defensive back and practice squad player, R.J. Stanford, about how the lockout has changed the way he lives day to day.

"With my 401K contributions, all my health-benefit deductions, and my bills — I couldn’t save much last year," Stanford said.

"The nightlife thing has completely changed. I wasn’t ever an extravagant guy, but now it’s really toned-down," Stanford said, before describing his new meal plan. "I’ve gone back to basics. I had to. It’s like I’m in college all over again. I’m eating Ramen noodles, Cup-a-Soups, peanut butter and jelly, and oatmeal for dinner."

Rosenthal says that Stanford was likely exaggerating when it came to the kind of food he had to eat but that he did have to cancel vacation plans and he was forced to make the decision to rent for another year instead of buying a condo.

While any attempt from an NFL player or owner to solicit sympathy from the average NFL fan is largely an exercise in futility, the players that we normally don't think about, the practice squad players, may be hurting more than most people realize.

They can't sit back on their multi-million dollar salaries and survive through a long lockout. While I still don't really feel sorry for any player, mainly because they still get paid to play football, or owner, I will be the most happy for the practice squad players when the lockout ends.

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I always thought perspective was key.

People will look at it sarcastically (see the post above mine) and I don’t blame them but it is a lot tougher for them, considering we don’t know how much of said money went into the things he had to pay.

by Doc Scratch on Mar 29, 2011 11:28 AM EDT reply actions

Yeah, I would figure that the Briscoe thing would have let everyone know...

how much less the practice squad players get than the league minimum.

I guess not. It’s 100% screw-these-guys… I don’t even pretend to get it.

I’m a helluva lot closer to the players than the owners in terms of income and my relationship to my job.

Not that I am particularly interested in picking sides in this fight, but if the battle is between “millionaires and billionaires” well… I’m literally orders of magnitude further from being a billionaire than I am from being a millionaire. The concerted effort to equate the two as being of equal wealth or distance from the average man is laughable.

Players are largely accountable for their performance and have little job security beyond their ability to do a specific set of things. Most of them rely on their job to maintain their standard of living and to set themselves up for the future. Owners are just that… they own things. They are never going to feel any financial pressure in terms of covering their personal expenses, and the fact that they own an NFL team is not the source of their wealth but the result of it. The idea that they are in a similar situation to that of small business owners is silly in the extreme. Owning an NFL team is a vanity hobby for the obscenely wealthy. Being a player is a job… a nice job, but still a job.

by Boomer Lion on Mar 29, 2011 11:55 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

watch out

You’ll get called a socialist for those comments here, lol. Well said though.

by stripesinseattle on Mar 29, 2011 12:11 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

There's nothing wrong

With being a bit socialist.

by LooseCannon on Mar 29, 2011 1:01 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

Nothing at all, just don't blame America for being capitalist :)

Change gone come mane! Trust me! Cause i Bleed tigerblood!--Jerome Simpson

by Grizzlyfox on Mar 29, 2011 1:39 PM EDT up reply actions

I'm as American as you are.

Capitalism isn’t some sort of unmitigated success nor is socialism an unmitigated failure.

We live in a mixed public/private economy (even here is the good ol’ capitalist-ish USA). All the ‘capitalist’ jingoism aside, unregulated capitalism is an absolute horror. I don’t want the private sector providing vital services (including health care) any more than I would want the public sector to be in charge of designing and marketing my Bengals apparel.

Ideally we would be able to deal with the reality that there are certain (mostly trivial) things where an unregulated market can work, certain things where a market can work with properly scoped regulation, and other things where a market-based approach is wholly inappropriate.

But we can’t, so we sling the word socialist around like it’s some sort of insult that is simultaneously synonymous with public sector activity and insufficient reverence for the uber-wealthy.

by Boomer Lion on Mar 29, 2011 2:29 PM EDT up reply actions

I've seen practice squad play in 2010 is $5200 per week ...

so for 17 weeks you get $88,400.

Not a huge sum, but for a single guy living in Charlotte (cost of living there is probably similar to Cinci) you can live pretty well.

It’s way better than the Canadian Football League, where the league min is $43,000 a year (and that’s Canadian $$!) and the average player makes $80-90,000 – most CFL players have off-season jobs … kinda like the NFL was in the ‘old days.’

It is rough all over, isn’t it?

by Cincicougar on Mar 29, 2011 2:24 PM EDT reply actions

Of course, just looking at the annual salary of a Squad Player is deceiving, too.

$88K is nothing to sneeze at, by any stretch, but it’s not like I don’t know people who make that much money doing a regular job.

In 3 years, nearly everyone who makes $88K a year in a ‘regular job’ are still going to be doing that job, and probably be making $90K.

In 3 years, the VAST majority of practice squad players are going to be looking for a completely different job, while a select few will probably pull down the league minimum of $325,000 for a year or two and THEN be looking for a real job.

Most of the 53-man roster players probably never pull down $1 million in a career. I don’t begrudge a guy $1 million for being one of the 2000 or fewer guys who make the NFL go.

Even if you were to earn $1 million playing NFL football for 3 years, it’s not likely that you can just coast on that for the rest of your life. Sure it’ll make your life pretty easy, but in this day and age, it’s not like you’ll be living in a mansion and never have to work another day in your life.

by PeteRoseJr on Mar 29, 2011 2:40 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs