The cat and mouse game of contract holdouts is one of the more peculiar wrinkles in the NFL. If you want more money, you have to threaten the team to not even play or pay you at all. You have to really have leverage over the team for anything to take place.
Just take a look at Pittsburgh Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell, he should theoretically have leverage but has gotten nowhere. Circle back to other players’ holding out and you’ll see Seattle Seahawks safety Earl Thomas who wanted a restructured contract before the beginning of the 2018 season.
Thomas will be getting paid $8.5 million this year, but for someone heading into his final year with the team, he was hoping for a little more coin to sweeten the pot.
Just from the Instagram post alone, you can tell that Thomas will not be back in Seattle next season. He is going to be looking for a big payday and who is to blame him. In a violent sport that reduces your productive time to almost nothing, get the money as soon as you can.
If NFL teams can learn anything from these holdouts, it is to pay your star players a fair market rate. Otherwise, it is just going to bite you in the butt.
