Ballsy

Except take his team to Superbowls....

No problem with Cook holding out - he's free to work, or not work as he desires. Cook has already earned $4.6M. Playing this season on the existing contract earns him another $5.4M. He will have earned $10M before age 26. If you assume that between his agent and the tax man, he only nets half of that ($5M), he could have multi-generational wealth even if retired at the end of this upcoming season. If he controls his spending... My issue is with your two implications: First, that he needs this next contract to secure secure financial salvation for multiple generations. That the $10M in earnings on the first contract isn't enough for multi-generational wealth. Your second implication is that the difference between what the Bills would like to sign him to (probably around $10M/year) and what he wants, $15M/year) will be required for multi-generation wealth. With respect to issue #1: Studies about NFL player bankruptcies show that larger contracts and longer careers do NOT substantially reduce their risk of bankruptcy in retirement. This study (https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/beyond-bls/life-after-the-nfl.htm) projects 15%-40% of players, regardless of career duration and earnings, will file for bankruptcy within 25 years of retirement. As to implication #2, I would bet Beane would gladly sign him to a contract for $10M/year for 2 years right now. I'm not advocating that Cook accept $10M/year, just making a point that he could likely sign a contract today that guaranteed him $20M over 2 years. That would get him a total of 30M in career earnings before age 28. He has indicated he wants $15M+ year. Over 2 years, that would be an additional $10M+ in earnings. So $40M in career earnings vs. $30M. I would postulate that if an athlete (or person) doesn't have the financial discipline to create generational wealth on $30M in career earnings, the bump from $30M to $40M won't make a difference in financial salvation. Now, I don't have any issue with him (or anyone) holding out, refusing to play, holding in, etc. It's a free market. But let's not characterize this as "two generations of family wealth", or he's got to "feed his family" as Latrell Sprewell infamously said when rejecting a 3 year $21M contract 20 years ago. Speaking of Latrell, he had north of $100 million in career earnings and now has a net worth of about $150K. So much for financial salvation. Ronald Read, on the other hand never made more than minimum wage working as a janitor and gas station attendant yet died with a net worth of 8.6M I postulate, above $500K in annual income, financial salvation is only dependent on your spending....

Sure the flip side of that coin is you can be 3rd string, walk on, or no athlete. If you folks make less than 100K (200K at Harvard no) you will not pay a cent. I'm just pointing out that the Ivy League does not in fact provide any athletic scholarships.

No one at any Ivy is on an academic scholarship. All scholarship is need based. It doesn't matter how good at football, squash, lacrosse, etc. you are. If you or your parents can afford the full tuition you will pay it.

Your equivocations are impressive. Do you by chance moonlight in the executive branch of our government?

Can anyone speak to the financials of this? I assume that suspended players do not receive game checks. Does that mean their salary for next season is 6/18 less? Do this suspensions reduce the cap hit of these players at all?

Every NFL team is an extremely successful business.

Really? This is a family forum, otherwise....

The Bengals look to be starting similar to us last season. Week 1 loss to a terrible team, the fumlbing around. They have time to get their team together, but the wheels could completely come off it they flounder.

Why does it have to last them the rest of their lives? They can work after football.

Unfortunately, I imagine this is the same level of schadenfreude that KC fans had watching us lose at home in the playoffs....

Definitely not you. I'm new here (first post). I wish there was a way to ignore topics instead of people.