While I may not always like all the moves the Chiefs make (ie-this draft and not taking at least ONE more OL, lol), I do have faith that they are doing what they think is best for the team. Since I came to Kansas City I have found a passion for sports, and don’t see that fading anytime soon. I have the Mrs. and her family to thank for that… and their season tickets to Arrowhead probably didn’t hurt.

The first time I went to Arrowhead (2003) was an almost religious experience.

A contract may exacerbate pre-existing problems between teammates, but they aren’t generally the cause of problems. Most of the time when you hear players pouting, it’s because the market for them has changed and they’re trying to renegotiate their own deal…which is understandable. It’s often more an agent thing than anything else.

There are a few players who probably get jealous over contracts like that, but they’re generally either insanely talented and may be worth renegotiation or they’re just insane and have personal problems (in which case, they should be dumped the minute their performance doesn’t merit it). Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield are probably good examples of the first group, Dick Allen (form baseball player for Phillies and White Sox) is the poster child for the second group. Terrell Owens probably fits into both categories.

And I agree with him on much of that, actually. The draft is the worst of all possible worlds for stocking your team and I think it ought to be abolished in all sports. It gives the player superficial value based on draft position, not necessarily ability. It deprives more proven assets of revenue. It also deprives players of the ability to go to teams and situations that are best suited for their skills (which also hurts the teams). It also increases the cost for teams by restricting the pool of labor and preventing talent gluts (which could occasionally make salaries drop). The draft is a perfect example of why socialism and sports shouldn’t be mixed.

Cooley is wrong, however, in that players should be paid for what they’ve produced. Players are paid on what a projection of their abilities are, not on what they’ve already done. That’s how you end up with a lot of crappy contracts like the Chiefs had last year (Ty Law, LJ, Surtain, Edwards, Waters). When you pay players based on past and not future performance all you end up with is a lot of guys who are eating up your cap space while underachieving for the salary they make.

First of all, from your example your wife appears to work in an environment where the employer keeps salaries confidential to prevent people using co-workers as leverage to bargain up (which is usually what causes the jealousy, not the actual salary, because it keeps pay from reflecting merit and causes resentment when it’s found out). This doesn’t exist in the NFL, since all salaries must be declared and therefore everyone knows what everybody else makes going in so they can use it for leverage if there’s a pay disparity (something that your wife should probably do now that she’s got proof of what they paid the other guy…or she should shop around for a better employer). Your wife isn’t upset because she’s jealous that the other guy made more. She’s upset because she found out her employer was undervaluing what she did and underpaying her for what she produced. Secondly, it sounds as if your wife also works for a company that does a poor job of evaluating its personnel or offering feedback if they’re paying somebody who screws up more than the person who fixes the screw-ups. This exists less frequently in the NFL because player performance is evident for all to see and when someone shirks, it’s very evident to not only management but also the customer base. Professional sports are, in fact, probably the best example of meritocracy that you could find.

My point is, the reason most players complain about how much they make usually has more to do with the disparity between their paycheck and the market price they could demand for their skills…not personal jealousy. The players who are that wrapped up in personal jealousy and not their market value are usually that way because they’re screwed up in the head…which isn’t the fault of the player making the bigger salary or the GM who gave him that contract. It’s a problem with the player who’s being a malcontent because he wraps up his personal self-worth in the size of his paycheck.

It was more a minor annoyance on my part anyway. :) I just hate sending something off and then I see an error that might change the meaning of what I said. But I think most people realize that’s just how it goes sometimes.