If I was Andrew Luck

[Punch]

Let's say Luck projects as a top three pick.

The league strikes.

he goes back to college.Plays for a team who's biggest shot would be the Rose Bowl. No shot at the national championship. Breaks his leg. He has just cost himself 50 million dollars. That is a lot of money. I don't care who you are.

Something to think about.

 

Especially in light of what has become (so far) of Jake Locker's draft stock, (or even Brian Brohm's from 2007 to 2008 for that matter) by staying another year after he was already declared the top QB prospect in the nation. There's nothing he can do to improve that by staying next year, although he could stand to spend another season learning how to be a starting QB. And of course, he wants to get his degree. But strike or not, it has to weigh on his mind that he could plummet in the eyes of GMs and draftniks if Stanford struggles next year.

[DIE HARD 1967]

Let's say Luck projects as a top three pick.

The league strikes.

he goes back to college.Plays for a team who's biggest shot would be the Rose Bowl. No shot at the national championship. Breaks his leg. He has just cost himself 50 million dollars. That is a lot of money. I don't care who you are.

Something to think about.

 

No player worries about injuries, NONE. You are talking about player agents.

 

A broken leg is nothing, 3 months

 

You guys assume these players are about money, most would play for free.

Edited October 12, 2010 by DIE HARD 1967

[bowery4]

Thanks for the insight. I hope they are getting mad, I can tell they are frustrated.

[DIE HARD 1967]

Especially in light of what has become (so far) of Jake Locker's draft stock, (or even Brian Brohm's from 2007 to 2008 for that matter) by staying another year after he was already declared the top QB prospect in the nation. There's nothing he can do to improve that by staying next year, although he could stand to spend another season learning how to be a starting QB. And of course, he wants to get his degree. But strike or not, it has to weigh on his mind that he could plummet in the eyes of GMs and draftniks if Stanford struggles next year.

 

You are thinking like an adult, these are kids and teammates.

[Punch]

You are thinking like an adult, these are kids and teammates.

 

That's true--- I guess my post is more in line with what I assume an agent might attempt to persuade the player with and not necessarily what the player himself would think on his own. FWIW, I agree with your assessment for the most part, although it saddens me that we may miss out on Luck for that (admittedly airtight) logic.

[DIE HARD 1967]

That's true--- I guess my post is more in line with what I assume an agent might attempt to persuade the player with and not necessarily what the player himself would think on his own. FWIW, I agree with your assessment for the most part, although it saddens me that we may miss out on Luck for that (admittedly airtight) logic.

 

I was only giving you my opinion,this may not be how it all unfolds.

 

There is no way I pass on "MY" senior year just to sit around for 1 or 2 years.

 

The NFL is different now and many players will just take the money and wait.

[Thoner7]

good point, but Luck has 2 yrs of eligibility as he is a RS Soph.

 

Hopefully this dpesnt screw us the one yr we are picking at the top. Figure this crap out already

[Sisyphean Bills]

good point, but Luck has 2 yrs of eligibility as he is a RS Soph.

 

Hopefully this dpesnt screw us the one yr we are picking at the top. Figure this crap out already

One year, eh? Well, there's kick in your Kool Aid. They're going to have to completely change philosophies to turn it around in one year. If there is even NFL football.

 

Even if things go well, I expect the Bills will follow the same shallow trajectory of the Lions and Browns, their fellow Lake Erie laughingstocks.

[Bflojohn]

Gentlemen, this is my understanding of the labor mess, so here goes... The players have what they want (60% of gross revenue) and do NOT wish to strike AT ALL. The issue is a lockout and restraint of trade by the NFL towards their players and that has prompted the vote for de-certification by each team! Those votes incidently are unanamous across the board. Additionally, the union has now launched into collusion charges against the entire NFL and this points to antitrust lawsuits aplenty! It is my opinion, that the Union and owners are going to screw the pooch royally, and the NFL, as we know it, will cease to exist. No revenue sharing, no cap, no draft, and numerous other realities we really don't want in Buffalo!!

[agardin]

Am I missing something? Apparently there will be a draft, once a player is drafted his rights would be retained by that team. There would be no OTAs or mini camps or pay cheques. Is that correct, if so there would be no impetus for a kid to declare, unless they thought that the strike or lock out at that point would be resolved in time for the upcoming season whereby the cheques would start to roll in. Again, if I am missing something let me know.

[TDawg1313]

There's also a chance that Harbaugh leaves Stanford which in turn would cause Luck to leave too IMO. Harbaugh will be a hot commodity this offseason, it just depends on if the right coaching situation opens up.

 

Especially in light of what has become (so far) of Jake Locker's draft stock, (or even Brian Brohm's from 2007 to 2008 for that matter) by staying another year after he was already declared the top QB prospect in the nation. There's nothing he can do to improve that by staying next year, although he could stand to spend another season learning how to be a starting QB. And of course, he wants to get his degree. But strike or not, it has to weigh on his mind that he could plummet in the eyes of GMs and draftniks if Stanford struggles next year.

 

Locker is still #4 on Mel Kiper's Big Board and #5 overall on the Scouts, Inc list. Not a very significant drop considering he won't have a worse game than he did against Nebraska for the rest of his life. Locker will not drop past the mid first round, and it will probably be a blessing in disguise for him personally to not get picked #1 overall if that's the case.

[The Senator]

There's also a chance that Harbaugh leaves Stanford which in turn would cause Luck to leave too IMO. Harbaugh will be a hot commodity this offseason, it just depends on if the right coaching situation opens up.

 

 

 

Locker is still #4 on Mel Kiper's Big Board and #5 overall on the Scouts, Inc list. Not a very significant drop considering he won't have a worse game than he did against Nebraska for the rest of his life. Locker will not drop past the mid first round, and it will probably be a blessing in disguise for him personally to not get picked #1 overall if that's the case.

Jimmy Clausen. Colt McCoy.

 

Locker will be still be there in the 3rd round.

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

If there is NO NFL season next year, College football will be huge. BIG AUDIENCE, The national media will hype the year and the players.

 

Your Player agent would weigh the risks and most likely ask you to play.

 

 

Die hard... Does the impending risk of a rookie salary cap factor into the decision?

[CountDorkula]

This will be the last draft where the player has actual bargaining power. He will not be slotted into a draft position. With that I believe you will see a lot of the top prospects come out to avoid the new CBA.

[Sisyphean Bills]

Gentlemen, this is my understanding of the labor mess, so here goes... The players have what they want (60% of gross revenue) and do NOT wish to strike AT ALL. The issue is a lockout and restraint of trade by the NFL towards their players and that has prompted the vote for de-certification by each team! Those votes incidently are unanamous across the board. Additionally, the union has now launched into collusion charges against the entire NFL and this points to antitrust lawsuits aplenty! It is my opinion, that the Union and owners are going to screw the pooch royally, and the NFL, as we know it, will cease to exist. No revenue sharing, no cap, no draft, and numerous other realities we really don't want in Buffalo!!

As far as I know, the owners haven't been meeting all the spending requirements of the old CBA, so the cap growth was actually accelerated as a sort of "penalty". (For example, Washington in recent years has continued to throw huge contracts out there and one never hears that the Redskins are in any way hampered by the cap.) The corporate and civic welfare for NFL teams wasn't going to increase forever and certainly not with the economic bubble imploding. Ralph was correct; the CBA that Tagliabue ramrodded through at the last minute wasn't a good balance and has widened the gap between the high-capital teams and the rest.

[Another Point of View]

Am I missing something? Apparently there will be a draft, once a player is drafted his rights would be retained by that team. There would be no OTAs or mini camps or pay cheques. Is that correct, if so there would be no impetus for a kid to declare, unless they thought that the strike or lock out at that point would be resolved in time for the upcoming season whereby the cheques would start to roll in. Again, if I am missing something let me know.

 

Some of these QB's don't make in the NFL so their last fun year of football may be his senior year.

 

Unless there is a settlement the junior players will not skip. (most any way)

 

I wouldn't skip either, not in 2011

[Hplarrm]

As far as I know, the owners haven't been meeting all the spending requirements of the old CBA, so the cap growth was actually accelerated as a sort of "penalty". (For example, Washington in recent years has continued to throw huge contracts out there and one never hears that the Redskins are in any way hampered by the cap.) The corporate and civic welfare for NFL teams wasn't going to increase forever and certainly not with the economic bubble imploding. Ralph was correct; the CBA that Tagliabue ramrodded through at the last minute wasn't a good balance and has widened the gap between the high-capital teams and the rest.

My sense is that though Mr. Ralph may have been right in his analysis and thus cast his vote based on the discrepancy between big owners vs. small owners that this does not mean Tagliaboo-boo was wrong as I think he and Mr. Ralph actually had the same analysis.

 

Tags argued for agreement with the CBA because the analysis which he and Mr. Ralph likely shared saw the NFL as a collective making far more $ with the CBA than without it. The NFL tends to go where the money is thus they voted 30-2 to sign the CBA. 30 owners made the right decision for them because even getting 39.50% meant making gobs more money than getting 100% of 0 income is the players went on strike. Sure there is the potential that the NFL might go with some version of "Replacement Player II" in an attempt to replicate the lockout of the mid-80s when the owners kicked the AFL-CIO style the NFLPA went with.

 

However, the ironic comeuppance of the NFL is that they had been able to pass along all the training costs of a minor league to college football (in many cases to taxpayers who absorb virtually all the costs of training players at Football U state schools like U. Nebraska). NFL owners joined with the NFLPA to restrain the rights of individual to sell their services to the highest bidder (AKA the American Way)through the draft and even restrained the rights of adults to participate in a free market by restricting the draft to men whose senior class would have graduated (whether they went to college or not,

 

However, by living off this gravy train rather than buying (and thus educating and buying the loyalty of teenagers like the MLB or NHL, they instead dealt with making deals with adults (even worse for them a talented tenth of these adults became Gene Upshaw and other player leaders who understood and agreed with the tactics of smart NYC lawyers who proposed that the NFLPA would actually gain the most leverage over the owners by threatening to dissolve themselves. This would take away the union as a willing conspirator to restrain and regulate trade and force the individual owners into a true free market where they negotiated individual personal services contracts with individual players.

 

The team owners ran kicking and screaming to accept the first true CBA. They did negotiate the salary cap coming from a designated gross (which did not include premium seats so owners like Mr. Ralph were happy to give up seats for 5,000+ fans they had to split the income with the players to get a fewer # of premium seats they got to keep 100% of the take from.

 

The NFLPA was even willing to accept this as under the new CBA they like the owners would make more money than they ever thought possible (by assuring the TV nets of a product without labor disruption the nets agreed to deals worth billions for team owners).

 

Going back to the title of the thread in terms of what this means for Luck. The great likelihood is that there will be no work stoppage. There is too much money in selling the product to stop producing the product. It is a negotiation however so each side will need to make a show of being ready to win a work stoppage and there may even be a short interruption if both sides miscalculate.

 

However, in the end, my sense is that too many of the owners are paying debt service on loans they took to buy or intelligently manage paying for this asset and the banks will not stop requiring payment simply because income is down or out, Further, the networks need product so they can sell beer and other ads and with no product or an inferior product income to the NFL will dry up.

 

The players will also face tough times as their huge salaries will also dry up. However, they have had tons of lead time (the key move the owners made in the 80s was to lock the players out before they had collected cash for regular season rather than the AFL-CIO led NFLPA plan to strike after the regular season when their members were flush and deny the NFL and nets playoff income- the owners then launched the replacement player move which threatened the players with loss of their jobs and the NFLPA came crawling back.

 

Now however, not only are the athletes smarter (men like Takeo Spikes and Troy Vincent going of to Wharton in the off-season) that most of these too rich athletes have planned for the stoppage. There are always Pac-Man type idiots who will not prepare but even they with a work stoppage will go collect money from WWE or card shows and other idiots like Travis Henry will go get arrested.

 

The big wildcard in this is that if the owners refuse to play the players I do not think it will take a bunch of time for the cream of NFL athletes to form their own league and compete with the NFL which is unilaterally under the CBA suspending the agreement.

 

Luck actually just needs to wait for reality and then make decisions.

[The Senator]

There is no way I enter the draft with any posibility of a NFL player strike.

 

I would be out of football for one full year, maybe 2.No money and too much uncertainy.

 

I have great teamamtes at Stanford and I don't sit at home while my senior classmates play.

 

Sorry, its the same deal for any Junior QB in this years draft.

 

The Pros can wait!!

If I was Andrew Luck, I'd be bangin' coeds two at a time.

[MissBufBills]

This board is like the Bills. As much as they try to push us away, we keep coming back...

 

 

Wow, My first post ever and I am posting about this...At least there are some who agree. When people ask me why I am still a Bills fan I tell them this - "Being a Bills fan is like being in an abusive relationship that you never wanted but just can't get out of. You love the extreme highs and extreme lows because they are exhilarating. We deal with it every week...all for that one great run or crazy catch in the endzone, and getting hammered with your friends and sharing the excitement or hurt. We are addicts my friend. Addicts." At least this week we aren't losing! I wonder if I might feel weird for having a happy Sunday...Oh wait, fantasy...it is definitely possible I will get my fix of disappointment and shame. =)

[MissBufBills]

The smart money right now for Andrew Luck is not found in a decision that the pros can wait but in understanding that reality must wait. It would be flat out stupid to make a decision right now when he does not have to. I know that in today's impatient culture we all want and demand a decision right now. However, there is nothing Luck can do to determine whether there is going to be a strike or not.

 

It is not predictable right now whether there will be a lockout or not (my bet is that there will not be because the NFL tends to go where the money is and there is more money to be made playing than not playing. Perhaps ego and hubris might win the day and a lockout happens, but to do this would mean a decision by the team owners not only to walk away from billions of dollars to be bad under the current deal, but also would place future money at substantial risk by pursuing a strategy which in the mid-80s kicked the NFLPA tail in the short term but quickly led to the current CBA Ralph and others hate so much). It is not predictable but my guess is that the owners go where the $ are and make a deal which allows play.

 

Still Luck would be simply dumb to make any decision now when he does not have to.

 

 

I agree completely - I do not see a lockout at all. Money Money Money. I know what the owners want, but no matter how good their lawyers are, the players are not gonna give. There could possibly be a few negotiations, but for the most part, lockout = no money anywhere. What would you want? No money or some? I vote no lockout, great spin on the story, money and publicity earned. And as for Luck, he should call an Alum, Mr. T. Edwards formally of the Buffalo Bills, and get some advice...And then possibly do the opposite of that advice. Basically, decisions do not always need to be made NOW. When he knows he ready, he will come, but you can't rush that. He needs to take it easy, stop worrying about money and contracts, and figure out if HE is ready to play in the NFL - NOT if the NFL is ready for him.