Razor in hand, his sink covered in his own blood, A.J. Smith looks up at the mirror and dabs his face with a towel.
He’s cut off his nose and now is wondering how his face looks.
There is plenty of blame to go around in the contract disputes between Vincent Jackson, Marcus McNeill and the San Diego Chargers. Blame it on the uncapped year of the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement. Blame it on two stars who are apparently willing to risk a year cut out of the prime of their career in order to seek a pay raise. Blame it on the bad contracts handed out before, the numbers game, whatever you wish.
But the lion’s share has to rest at the feet of the intractable general manager whose hardball style has apparently deprived his team of two young All-Pros.
“We lost a couple of great players today, and it hurts,” A.J. told Kevin Acee yesterday.
Lost? Were they in a car wreck? Lost at sea? Downed on the field of battle?
Nobody’s lost. Marcus McNeill and Vincent Jackson can both be found today. They are one phone call away.
And the pain (other than that gaping hole in A.J.’s face where his nose once was) is going to be felt by Chargers fans, and by the team’s All-Pro quarterback.
When Philip Rivers’ blind side goes unprotected next year, and some pass rusher comes off the corner to wipe him out, then you might really have a player who is “lost”. And a season lost. And a window of championship opportunity lost.
It didn’t have to be this way. Certainly, the players could have caved. They might have signed their tender offers. Maybe they would have held out for a week of training camp, or the first preseason game, to make their point. Maybe one of them would have held out for the entire preseason, or both.
All of the above outcomes are preferable to a 10-week regular season standoff, hardened hearts, locker room questions, and a GM who has again made himself a big part of the story.
There was no absolute need to cut the tender offers to McNeill and Jackson. If the Chargers considered their 3+ million dollar offers to be fair, they could have left them on the table. The internal pressure felt by young athletes in their prime to play and earn would have taken over eventually.
A.J. Smith doesn’t do the contract negotiating for the San Diego Chargers. Ed McGuire does. I think we all know why. Smith is the poker player who shoves all in on every hand.
“In due time, Coach (Norv) Turner will name two new starters,” Smith told Acee, “We will rally as a team, compete and try to win as many games as we can. It was a very unpleasant situation we all had to deal with. It came to a conclusion today. We will now move forward and focus on the upcoming season.”
Does that sound like a negotiator to you? Or that there is any chance to have a negotiation?
If your end goal was to retain the services of either Marcus McNeill or Vincent Jackson via long term contract, why would you embarrass them with an 80% reduction of your tender offer? Why would you give them a deadline in the middle of June? Why would you speak of them as if they were deceased when they didn’t go along with your plan?
Just like there was no need to cut their tender offers, there was no need to publicly declare them dead and gone. Notice the players haven’t said anything. They’ve let Acee do the talking for them, and A.J. has responded. Now the onus is on Smith. He’s turned a negotiation into a standoff.
How does it look to Philip Rivers when your stud left tackle, a man who should have been your lifelong teammate, is replaced by an aging Tra Thomas and an inexperienced Brandyn Dombrowski? When your top target is replaced by Buster Davis?
When Chargers players look around their locker room and see Jyles Tucker and Luis Castillo with multi-year deals and two of their top performers on the outside fighting for dollars, how will it make them feel?
The Chargers aren’t the only team with unhappy players and restricted free agents who don’t want to sign their tenders. Darrelle Revis wants a lot more money in New York with the Jets, Albert Haynesworth is talking holdout in Washington, and the list goes on.
Where the Chargers seem unique is in their truculence, their hard headed attitude which seems more intended to piss the players off then nudge them into your desired negotiating position.
Maybe this will all work out for Smith in the end. Maybe the hardball moves will pay off, the players will cave and come back to the Chargers cowed, Smith will suspend them anyhow for insubordination, and then sign who he wants to sign at the price he desires. It’s certainly a dangerous, dangerous gamble for a professional football player to give up a year in the prime of their career. Maybe one or both will turn out to be bluffing.
But maybe not. Maybe, on June 16th, we can already say that the Chargers Super Bowl dreams for 2010-2011 were squashed by a hardball negotiation that went way south. And if that turned out to be the case, why should any of us be surprised?
In 2005, Antonio Gates was trying to get paid. Antonio Gates, one of the nicest men you’ll ever meet, and a true teammate. This is not a selfish man. He signed in plenty of time to be ready for the season, but he missed an artificial A.J. deadline by a week. Smith suspended him for the opener. Wouldn’t budge.
Without his top target, Drew Brees missed four straight passes in the red zone and the Chargers lost to the Cowboys. Set the tone for a 9-7 season that ended with Brees hurt and on his way out.
With A.J. Smith, it’s my way or the highway. Too many guys, good guys, are ready to hit the highway.
Craig Elsten -
Chris Ello -
Chainsaw -
