For years players have held out of training camp to get a new deal. Before last year it had always seemed to work out. In the end, the player didn’t get a deal and was content or they got the deal they desired. Last year though showed a whole mess of things that have now given all the players the power. First came to the long-awaited Le’veon Bell hold out that people thought was a bluff but never ended. He took a whole year off and then still got paid tons of money this offseason. The other one was the Khalil Mack hold out that resulted in him being traded. This seems like no big deal but the Raiders got two first-round picks back for him which is huge. That trade now sets a precedent for any top their player that wants to be traded and what their value is while holding out. (This is not comparable to the Odell and AB situation cause I think in the end they would have shown up to camp and played for their former teams) By Mack and Bell holding out like this they have now shown that players that hold out are dangerous. Giving these players a contract is the opposite of what owners in the NFL want to do. They always want to show that they don’t care who anyone is and they will get rid of you in a second. Giving a contract though is the only move now for these teams to do. By trading Mack, they set a value of a top tier player holding out at one or two first-round picks. Most teams are not going to give that up for someone. NFL teams value their draft picks way to high, so trades involving their first-round picks are very scarce. What Levon did was show that these players can sit out a year and still get paid in free agency. NFL teams now have to pay their top guys when they ask to be paid or they risk losing their best player and having them sit on the sidelines the whole season. The NFL is notorious for having a bunch of greedy owners running teams who will do whatever they need to do to get the most money out of their team. With a top player holding out for a whole season significant money is lost and owners will begin to panic. I don’t know if there is one direct thing that is causing this problem in the NFL. I do think that part of the problem is the franchise tag. I have discussed this more in-depth before, but the idea of trapping players from not getting to free agency is a bad idea for the NFL. I think some sort of action needs to be taken on this sooner than later or slowly we will see more and more big names miss full seasons due to them holding out.

Categories: NFL

Dax