A Compelling and Complicated Man

The announcement barely earned a mention in the Plain Dealer last week but Scott Fajita, the former linebacker for the Cleveland Browns, has officially retired.  He signed a one-day contract with the New Orleans Saints so that he could officially retire from the franchise that wouldn’t pay him enough to keep from becoming a free agent and signing with the Browns.  He never much liked the Browns anyway, just their money.

Fujita, for reasons that extend well beyond anything he’s done on the field, has become one of football’s more compelling personalities.  Usually thoughtful, often combative, Fujita seems to be coming to the role of the passionate advocate as his on field career ends.  It started with his front and center role in the labor dispute between the owners and players.  It got its sea legs when he found himself engulfed in the maelstrom that surrounded the Saints’ bounty scandal.  It’s taken wing on a variety of social issues, from player safety to gay marriage.

Admittedly I’ve not been the biggest fan of Fujita owing to in my view the destructive role he took in helping prolong the NFL lockout.  Sucked into an ill-conceived strategy by NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith that it was better to litigate than negotiate, Fujita and players like former teammate Drew Brees helped sell the strategy to the rank and file that failed miserably.  By believing they could force the owners’ to withdraw their demands for various concessions by first decertifying and then suing under anti-trust laws, the union essentially refused to negotiate until it became clear that the courts would offer no relief or even negotiating leveerage.  While this helped lengthen the overall dispute significantly, when it failed it helped get a deal done that was there for the taking months prior.

Fujita was on the wrong side of that issue and the damage it did to fringe players who lost real money and opportunity has mostly gone unnoticed.  But it did occur and Fujita owns part of that legacy.

The other thing about Fujita is that I initially saw him to be mostly a phony when it came to issues about player safety.  What’s probably more accurate is that he’s sincerely conflicted on the subject and he’s let that conflict at times blunt the noble attempts of his efforts.  Fujita, like other players, want to lay the league’s sorry record on concussions at the feat of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and yet see no contradiction as they unceremoniously criticize Goodell every time he punishes someone like James Harrison for trying to tackle opponents with his head.

Then there’s what took place in New Orleans and how that impacts on Fujita's attempts to make the game safer..  Fujita essentially turned a willful blind eye to the actions of his own teammates who were running a bounty system designed to put players from other teams (or, as I like to call them, Fujita’s union brothers) out of commission.

It’s hard to square Fujita’s role as a team leader in New Orleans with the fact that he did nothing to stop the bounty program.  It's tough to claim the safety higher ground if you don’t try to stop deliberate head and knee hunting by your teammates.  Even if that atmosphere was fostered by the coaching staff, like Gregg Williams, and that does appear to be the case, Fujita didn't stand up to them either.  Would taking a stand have been difficult for Fujita under those circumstances?  Most certainly.  But that's what leaders do.

There’s also the inconvenient fact that Fujita brought the maelstrom he incurred over this issue on himself by admitting at the outset that while he would never participate in a “bounty” system, narrowly defined as a scheme to pay teammates who deliberately injured opponents so that they couldn’t play, he did admittedly contribute to a pool to pay teammates for good, clean hits.  Such a fine line, though even what Fujita was doing was in contravention of salary cap rules.

It bears mentioning too because it reflects on what makes Fujita both compelling and complicated is that his exoneration from the bounty scandal was similarly tortuous because of his own hardheadedness.  Fujita wouldn’t participate in the league’s appeal process because he didn’t feel it was fair.  It was the appeal process laid out in the collective bargaining agreement he helped ratify but when it applied to him he wanted no part of it.  After being placated but not accommodated Fujita eventually did participate, had the chance to tell his story and present his evidence and then was exonerated months later than he would otherwise have been.

These complications in his thinking aside, part of presenting the entire picture of Fujita is to not just acknowledge but praise his other more worthy contributions, especially to the ongoing dialogue that is earnestly trying to make the sport and society better.

Fujita, despite of or perhaps because of his past, has kept up the pressure, mostly in the right way, on player safety issues.  What Fujita now seems to recognize is that the day has long since passed when we stopped viewing hard-nose football and player safety as contradictory concepts.  I’d like to see Fujita be more even-handed in his approach or at least be as critical of his union as he has been of management.  It’s a shared responsibility and perhaps as a retiree Fujita’s views will even out. But he's doing the right things now.

Then there’s his advocacy on the part of gay athletes.  Jason Collins, late of the Washington Wizards, came out Monday as the highest profile male athlete to declare he’s gay.  Someone had to go first.  It won’t be long before others follow.

Fujita for his part has been a passionate advocate for the rights of gays, generally, and gay athletes in particular.  It is just this kind of leadership that’s needed so that the specter of discrimination can be eradicated on this front.

It is simply shameful that in 2013 this country, as a matter of policy, still allows for the overt discrimination of gays.  We allow those who claim a sincerely held religious belief over a decidedly unreligious topic to control the debate when all that debate is really doing is masking irrational homophobia.  If your First Amendment right to free association allows you to hang with a large group of intolerant religious zealots to express your views publicly then it stands to reason that that same amendment allows the other person to hang with a group of overly liberal gay atheists doing likewise.  But more to the point that same amendment dictates that as a society we must allow these two disparate groups to coexist.  Majority rule by either extreme has no place at the table.  I don’t have to like your friends or your ideas and you don’t have to like mine.  That’s why we live in this country.  The entire underpinning of freedom rests on the peaceful coexistence of disparate thought.

It’s just a matter of time before it’s no longer a story when a male athlete declares that he’s gay just like it’s just a matter of time before no one seriously questions the rights of gays to marry each other.  Our disgusting history as a country that has taken too long to right the wrongs borne from discrimination time and time again will eventually catch up with us when it comes to gays and when that finally happens the society and our sports will be the better for it. The economic performance of our country has likewise shown time and again that each time discrimination in some form is eradicated, the economy expands.  Why do you think sensible immigration reform is finally getting the serious bi-partisan discussion it deserves?

Fujita was one of several athletes to sign a friend of the court brief in the Supreme Court cases pending over the issue of gay marriage.  He supports it.  The only question is why everyone else hasn’t? Hopefully Fujita and the handful of others like him with a larger pulpit can push the issue even harder.

I’m going to continue to disagree with Fujita on the uneven nature in which he sometimes ham handedly goes about being an advocate for the rights of his fellow athletes but I won’t disagree with him on his intentions any longer.  He’s just a man struggling to stay on the right side of history and sometimes finding that path isn’t nearly as elegant as we’d like it to be.

Lingering Items--Eternal Souls Edition

There's nothing like a redemption story. It's a yarn older than the written word, more beloved then a tale of true love and continues unabated in every form of entertainment today. It's nice to believe in the power of redemption evens when it's mostly just a dramatic device contrived as an efficient if not accurate way to convey complexity either the writer, the reader or both can’t fully understand.

Witness, if you'll excuse the reference, the common theme of LeBron James' capturing of his long sought after NBA Championship. Nearly every sportswriter with a breathless thought has defined the Miami Heat's triumph as the personal triumph of James as if he were a member of the Lost Tribes of Israel who suffered long and hard and made it out of the desert alive.

Some suffering. James is one of the richest athletes on the planet. He lives a life of opulence and privilege borne of his outsized athletic skills. That was true before the playoffs started and remains true today and for the foreseeable future.

But attaining the championship he previously couldn't is more a result of attrition than redemption. It was just James' turn in the barrel. The Heat's path to the finals was clear and easy, relatively speaking. The Oklahoma City Thunder's was harder and longer and their fatigue and inexperience showed in the end.

James already lived his redemption story anyway when he signed his first pro contract. It was the real triumph of overcoming the very long odds of his upbringing. Having long since arrived he long since surrendered any candidacy in the redemption sweepstakes.

Let's all be honest with one another about this. James was always going to win an NBA title at some point. He's the best player on the planet, he still works hard at his craft, and he makes those around him better. It was always just a matter of time. Now or next year or whenever.

The other reason James' championship can never be a redemption story though is far more central to the ultimate narrative. For redemption to work the protagonist has to reclaim his soul. That hasn't happened here because James remains soulless having sold himself for his quest. He's no Jabez Stone and he doesn't have Daniel Webster on retainer even if he was. The devil drives a hard bargain and never renegotiates.

James is a forever man-child perpetually caught up in an adult world he doesn't fully understand. He commands an audience because of fame and fortune but he'll never fully have their respect because children are mostly seen and rarely really heard.

There is no real chance that James will ever fully gain the perspective one needs for real individual growth. Fame and fortune obscure. Look at Michael Jordan. It hasn't yet occurred to him that he is the worst owner/basketball executive in history not named Isiah Thomas. Fame and fortune obscure.

James will go on to win a few maybe several more titles and earn more and more individual accolades. But they will never change the essential nothingness of his being.

It's not really that James stiffed the Cavaliers and did so like a total putz. That was just the gating charge when he entered the land of souls departed. It's that James divested himself of the value system he so richly earned by avoiding all the crap that life threw at him early for the fast track to a phony Promised Land.

Pat Riley, the NBA's Gordon Gekko in looks and outlook, was certainly a far more attractive option then a muddling Danny Ferry. And while Ferry probably did lack the chops to put all the pieces together it's not as if James wasn't complicit in Ferry's difficulty. Let's never forget the long shadow James cast on the Cavs franchise and how his every twitch and quirk set off alarms inside the Q.

The irony is that James isn't lazy. He works on his game in the same way every truly great athlete does. Perfect, to his way of thinking, is never the enemy of good.

And yet James just couldn't abide things not happening for him quickly enough. So he sought a shortcut, a stack decked and if that cost him his soul, so be it.

In certain ways James is like Roger Clemens another rare talent for whom great was never great enough. Clemens used more nefarious means to cheat the system but he was seeking the same kind of edge as James did.

Indeed there are plenty of characters thought the history of sports that sought a similar path. It's as old, too, as a redemption story.

There's no reason to begrudge James his accomplishments because rare is the goal achieved without some compromise. But James will always have to live with the fact that his goals weren't nearly as earned as they could have been.

**

Speaking of redemption stories, the Penn State apologists can begin theirs in earnest now that Jerry Sandusky has been convicted on 45 of 48 counts of child abuse. There will come a point this season, maybe the next, when someone isn’t writing about Penn State’s resurgence as a respectable university after if put Sandusky and his sick exploits in the rear view mirror.

Frankly I’m not sure that Penn State can ever be redeemed. Shouldn’t it be scarred for life for its complicity in the long term abuse by one of its more trusted employees? Most certainly each of Sandusky’s victims will be forever scarred so why should Penn State ever get a pass?

For those who always rushed to protect Joe Paterno by claiming he had done what he could to stop Jerry Sandusky, how in anyway has that view been vindicated now that Sandusky is a convict? It hasn’t. If anything that view becomes even more discredited when you consider the mountains of evidence that were stacked against Sandusky and realize that because Paterno hardly lifted a finger to have it stopped, the abuse continued long after it could have been stopped.

In so many ways Paterno was a virtuous soul. He did place great emphasis on academics. He worked hard to build the stature of Penn State. For so many and for so long he supposedly stood for what was right about college athletics.

But Paterno was never the country bumpkin character that he liked to fashion for himself when it was convenient to do so. More than anyone else, Paterno was well aware that all his good non-athletic deeds for the university gave him almost unchecked power on that campus. And Paterno wasn’t afraid to utilize that power when he needed it to ultimately advance the cause of his beloved football team. It’s been thoroughly documented, for example, how Paterno kept his misbehaving players out of the scope of normal university discipline. His greater good was always far more narrow then he'd admit.

So when Paterno supposedly reported the Sandusky allegations up the chain, Paterno had every reason to believe nothing would come of it unless he specifically gave the word to make something of it. That word never came and Sandusky continued in his employ subject only to a whisper campaign while he quietly went about abusing more vulnerable boys.

Penn State doesn’t get another chance. Paterno was complicit and so was the rest of the university administration. If the new administrative crew really wanted to show its worthy of some level of forgiveness then it would start by proving how much more important institutional integrity really is by abolishing the football program completely and take whatever other steps were necessary to reduce the importance of any remaining sports. They’d wash Paterno off the books completely and take down whatever statutes they erected.

It’s nice that Paterno had a positive influence on so many young men. But this isn’t a balancing act. You don’t get to cite those figures as a counterbalance because the unthinkable, unimaginable horror that Sandusky’s crimes visited upon all those victims trumps all.

If you want to understand how sad, how truly pathetic this will all become, just wait until the university finds it completely appropriate to play the victim card for itself. It will pay out millions to settle lawsuits and then use that blood money as some sort of proof that the university community has suffered enough. It hasn’t and it never will because money will never give these victims back what they lost most and it will never erase the insidious way the university and its most important employees allowed such atrocities to continue for years.

**

As a follow up to my column last week about Scott Fujita, it’s been interesting that Fujita has gone back underground, perhaps realizing that his mouth is his own worst enemy.

The other interesting thing is to listen to union chief DeMaurice Smith call for a new investigation into the Saints’ bounty case. That makes him an even bigger hypocrite then Fujita, if that’s possible.

Smith didn’t participate in any aspect of the first investigation. In fact, he specifically refused to participate in the investigation and actively encouraged the players to likewise not participate in it. If there was only one side of the story that was heard, all the blame for that goes to Smith.

But Smith has sensed, wrongly but that’s another matter, that public opinion is such that the average fan doesn’t think there was enough evidence to suspend the various coaches, administrators and players. The average fan, I think, doesn’t much care either way. No one’s going to march on NFL headquarters in New York because Jon Vilma’s been suspended.

Smith gave decidedly wrong headed advice to his members on this issue and now is deflecting by trying to put the heat back on Roger Goodell.

The NFL has certainly put together a strong case that the Saints had in place a bounty system and that all that have been suspended deserved to be. There isn’t one particularly smoking gun so much as it’s the evidence’s cumulative weight that matters. That said, there were arguments to make in rebuttal that never got made because of another failed strategy by the union.

Goodell will rule this week and for the most part close the book on this latest NFL scandal. Smith can grouse about the decision because that’s what he’s paid to do but hopefully the players’ whose lives and paychecks were adversely affected will eventually come to realize that those adverse affects were due in some part to the bad advice they got from Smith.

**

Since we’re on a litigation theme, this week’s question to ponder: Even though he was acquitted of lying to Congress, does Roger Clemens’ silence since that verdict came down tell us more than a guilty verdict ever could?

Smearing the Wrong Person

Cleveland Browns linebacker Scott Fujita says he’s being punished over semantics. He may be, but when that punished is finalized he’ll have only himself to blame.

On the day his appeal of a four game suspension for allegedly participating in the New Orleans’ Saints bounty program, Cleveland Browns linebacker Scott Fujita and his cohorts traded that appeal process for the court of public opinion.

And in the court of public opinion they are expending great effort to display themselves as victims of a smear campaign while engaging in a little smear campaign of their own.

Let’s get a few things straight at the outset. Fujita isn’t a victim, he’s a perpetrator. Whether he’s complicit in fostering a bounty system that paid off for vicious hits on competitors may be a matter of semantics, mostly his. Fujita readily admitted early on that he did contribute money to an off-the-books bonus pool that paid teammates for good clean hard hits and other forms of in-game excellence.

If that all begs the question as to why otherwise well compensated athletes needed a special bonus pool that maybe gave them a few extra hundred dollars each week for doing what they already were paid handsomely to do, then you’re starting to understand what Fujita ignores—his story cum excuse walks an awfully fine line that most people can’t abide because of sheer illogic of it all.

What exactly is the difference between a good, clean hard hit and a good, clean hard hit that knocks a competitor out of the game? Not much to the recipient certainly. Irrespective, it is that difficult question that Fujita would have to actually answer in order to defend himself. Instead he turned tail and ran, again.

If you’re counting this makes it twice that Fujita has refused to actually participate in the process that could clear his name all while claiming that his good name is being smeared. He refused to answer any questions during the initial investigation, choosing a strategy of omerta when honesty would have been better. Now that he got a suspension he refused to participate in his own appeal.

Fujita played the victim card righteously plight during a noisy withdrawal from the appeal process by complaining about its abject unfairness, a red herring if ever there was one. This isn’t a criminal court. It’s an appeal process under a collective bargaining agreement that Fujita and these same cohorts ratified just a year ago.

We’ll all recall with some wincing the NFL labor wars of last season. There were accusations about this and that but mostly it was about how to divide up a shit load of money. There were plenty of other issues on the table, including player safety. Fujita was one of the most vocal about it, in fact.

Those labor wars, which involved court actions and expired contracts, were settled with a peace accord that included a brand new, long term collective bargaining agreement. Presumably the union and its members, members like Fujita for example, read it before they approved it.

Contained there in its own separate chapter is the ambiguously titled “Commissioner Discipline.” In very clear words it gives the NFL Commissioner, in this case Roger Goodell, the absolute authority to fine or suspend a player “for conduct detrimental to the integrity of, or public confidence in, the game of professional football.”

In the same way, it gives the Commissioner the power to act as the hearing officer for any such discipline imposed for allegedly engaging in such conduct and to issue a final and binding decision after any such hearing. It’s all there in black and white. Nothing’s hidden.

In that light, Fujita’s complaint is merely that an agreement he signed last year doesn’t work for him this year. It’s the player mentality. When a player feels he’s outperformed his contract, he doesn’t much care that it binds him for another season or two. He’ll bitch and moan and sit out and suck his thumb or claim he’s got the miseries all in a way to get the other party to that contract to do something differently then what was already agreed to.

That’s Fujita’s problem here. Conditioned like most players to ignore contracts, he gets all indignant when the other side enforces it, which is exactly what the NFL is doing here. Recall that before Goodell held the grievance hearings on Monday, these same players tried an end around the process by claiming rather insincerely that because this conduct supposedly occurred before the new collective bargaining agreement was in effect, they couldn’t be disciplined by Goodell under it.

That argument was quickly shot down by two different arbitrators and so faced with the actual disciplinary hearing they were entitled to under the contract they fought for and signed and given the chance to clear their name, the players walked, like cowards and bullies they are.

Fujita can claim that Goodell and the NFL are running a kangaroo court but until he participates fully he loses the right to complain. He looks ridiculous and if he’s at all a victim here it’s either of bad public relations or legal advice and he should fire his advisors.

Let’s face it. Fujita isn’t really worried about some convenient sense of fairness that fits a narrative that he thinks will garner him sympathy. He’s worried about a far more inconvenient truth. Even if the pool he helped perpetuate wasn’t to act as bounty payments, it was still impermissible under the collective bargaining agreement for which he can and should be punished.

Fujita may think that the evidence against him for participating in a bounty pool is flimsy but much of it comes from his own mouth. In the legal business we call that direct evidence. Fujita isn’t participating in the process because it’s rigged. He isn’t participating in it because he’s guilty and recognizes the futility of going further.

The problem though is Fujita isn’t nearly that honest. He courts the reputation of a stand up guy always doing the right thing but he’s an abject phony. He’s a phony because he talks about player safety while secretly helping create a bonus pool that at the very least rewarded players for hitting competitors as hard as possible (since they were already paid plenty for hitting hard enough). If there’s one thing we know, players get hurt by hard hits, even clean hard hits.

Fujita’s a phony because he stood shoulder to shoulder with his fellow union advocates and ratified a new collective bargaining agreement but then decries its alleged unfairness when it happens to work against him personally. Finally Fujita is a phony because by not participating in the process and then publicly criticizing the Commissioner he’s doing exactly the thing he claims to detest the most—the smearing of a man’s good name.

Lingering Items--Public Relations Edition

During most weeks of the year, but most certainly the regular season, one NFL player or another runs afoul of some league rule.  Maybe he tested positive for a banned substance.  Maybe it was an illegal hit.  But in every case the league levies a punishment, the player appeals and eventually it gets resolved through the arbitration process.  And as that’s all taking place no one much pays attention, let alone complains about the process.

I mention this because in very large measure the punishment the league handed down to 4 current and former New Orleans Saints players for their alleged involvement in a pay-to-injure scheme are of the same ilk.  The allegations are a bit more salacious certainly but otherwise it doesn’t command any sort of resort to media handwringing.

Yet whether it’s Mike Florio over at ProFootballTalk.com or any number of other like-minded moralists, this situation is different and in their view the league should be handing over to the public all of its evidence against the accused so that everyone can pass premature judgment.  We don’t even demand such things in the prosecution of real criminals, but this is football so this kind of transparency obviously is much more important.

It’s a false argument and one the league most certainly will ignore.  The NFL doesn’t owe the public that kind of transparency any more than the Plain Dealer or ProFootballTalk or Yahoo or ESPN or the guy running the local 7-11 does in terms of how they deal with internal disciplinary matters.  There is an orderly process that will ultimately test the value of the league’s evidence against the defenses proffered and a decision will be rendered and we can all go about the business once again of wondering exactly why the Browns hate wide receivers.

The far more interesting dynamic in this Saints debacle is that of exactly how the union resolves its massive conflict of interest.  There’s no question that certain Saints players, including the Browns resident outhouse lawyer Scott Fujita, put money into a pool to reward other Saints players for playing with a certain, shall we say, intensity.  Fujita admitted this openly.  The dispute is whether the rewards were doled out for hits intended to injure the competitors.  Fujita’s spin is that they were simply for good, clean hits because, apparently, a million dollar salary isn’t enough of an incentive for a professional to perform as required, which means make good, clean hits.  Other players and the league say that it was a bounty program.

Common sense would indicate that the league has a good case if only because Fujita’s rationalization is idiotic.  But who knows?  The league has had seemingly open and shut cases before and they’ve managed to blow it so anything’s possible.

What really rubs the wrong day is as usual the strident views taken by a union run by an individual, DeMaurice Smith, who cares not a whit for the good of the game.  He fancies himself more in the vein of Marvin Miller when it comes to his role, as if protecting and defending his members is always at odds with acting in the best interests of the greater good.

This isn’t to suggest that the union shouldn’t mount a defense on behalf of the suspended players.  It’s their legal duty to do just that.  But to not denounce, even in the most general terms, any players who might have participated in a bounty system is reprehensible.  Smith and the cronies and lawyers that report to him are so blinded by their distaste for commissioner Roger Goodell and the owners that pay their salaries that they cannot even comprehend the awful message they are sending to the vast majority of their members with their odd defense of the Saints’ players.

Eli Manning, for one, had no such qualms in denouncing any of his fellow union members who would deliberately set out to injure another.  Same, too, for Aaron Rodgers.  But apparently Smith has forgotten that he is supposed to represent Manning, Rodgers and Brett Favre (the target of one of the alleged bounties) just as equally as Jon Vilma or Will Smith.  And because he has forgotten that charge, Smith has set up an internal civil war within the union that will not just hurt the union but also hurt the greater good.

I’ve been consistent in my views on Smith.  It was a mistake to hire him as the head of the union because he had absolutely no experience in labor-management relations.  He then proceeded to foolishly incite a lockout with a completely failed legal strategy, which wasn’t a surprise.  He didn’t negotiate any better deal then what he was offered before he pushed the union off the cliff.  That hurt his members most of whom are so disconnected to these matters anyway that they awarded Smith with a new contract.

Smith has once again taken his charges down the exact wrong path and that has nothing to do with whether or not the suspended players are guilty.  If Smith thinks it’s wrong for one union member to target another union member for injury, it’s his duty to say so and as publicly as possible.  Until Smith takes a stand as a real leader and finds a more elegant way to balance the sometimes competing interests of his members, he’ll continue to fail as a leader and the union will continue to look like the overmatched boobs they’ve become.

**

Colt McCoy showed up to work out for the Browns and a consensus seems to be emerging that mixes both surprise and bewilderment.  They’re surprised because McCoy didn’t kick up a fuss about the drafting of Brandon Weeden.  They’re bewildered because the Browns didn’t immediately trade McCoy in order to pave the way for Weeden.

To that I would add my own surprise and bewilderment but not for anything that either the Browns or McCoy have done but for the simplistic reactions of those being paid to write about it.  What exactly about the current situation immediately demands that the Browns part with McCoy?  Stated differently, what about McCoy personally suggests that his default reaction would be to bitch and moan and demand a trade?

I sometimes wonder whether many in the media that cover professional athletes for a living have any real clue about what makes athletes tick.  Their view of the McCoy/Weeden dynamic suggests they don’t.

If there’s one thing professional athletes understand by this point is that they aren’t long for professional athletics if they can’t stand a challenge.  Nearly every aspect of their existence is built on competition.  They are constantly fighting off others for the right to be the starter and the moment they think they have it made is the exact moment they need to worry the most.

McCoy is under contract with the Browns.  That’s why he showed up to work out.  He didn’t bitch about the drafting of Weeden because he’s been fighting off competition since Pop Warner.  It’s the nature of the job.  McCoy might fall short as a quarterback because his physical skills aren’t quite sufficient for a league of all stars.  But he won’t fall short because he lacks the desire to compete.

Besides, there’s no specific reason for either the Browns or McCoy to conclude at this point that it’s best for McCoy to ply his trade elsewhere.  If you believe that Weeden should be the starting quarterback, then by default having McCoy as the backup is far better than having it be Seneca Wallace, who couldn’t even beat out McCoy for the starting job.

The other benefit is that McCoy may burn with the desire to remain a starter in this league but he’s not the kind of personality that would publicly undermine Weeden like Wallace did with McCoy last season.  And as a final measure, there’s little chance that if Weeden starts next season he’ll make it through the season unscathed.  He’ll likely suffer an injury if only because every quarterback seems to.  There’s also every reason to think that he’ll hit some real low points where it will make sense to go to the bullpen even temporarily.  Wouldn’t you rather have McCoy in that bullpen then Wallace?

When the Browns signed Gary Danielson to mentor Bernie Kosar it worked because Danielson was still a serviceable starter in his own right while simultaneously not just recognizing but embracing his role as a placeholder for the next generation.  McCoy isn’t Danielson, but then again very few are.  If the Browns in theory could find a Danielson clone to mentor Weeden then by all means have at it.  But that player isn’t out there for if he were every team with a young quarterback, and there are plenty of them, would have snatched him up by now.

Until that kind of player emerges there’s no reason to run McCoy out of town and deliberately undercut the one area on the team where some depth is finally starting to emerge.

**

In the last 9 seasons, the Browns have won as much as 6 games just twice.  The rest of the time they’ve been in the 4 and 5 win category.  This isn’t just a garden variety losing record of a club that just lacks a few breaks.  It’s long term incompetence running head long into long term mismanagement.

In that context it’s understandable that the fans are excited about anyone who might promise something more than 6 wins in a season.  Still, doesn’t the exuberance around Weeden seem a bit, well, irrational?

At any time other than perhaps the last week and a half, not just the average Browns’ fan but nearly any Browns’ fan couldn’t have picked Weeden out of a lineup let alone talked confidently or intelligently about his accomplishments at a near second-tier Big 12 college or how the hell it could possibly translate into NFL success.

The exuberance too seems in large part manufactured by the public relations department of the Browns who are selling attributes like his advanced rookie age as a benefit without mentioning that if Weeden is indeed successful he’ll be the first.  Age does bring maturity but let’s face it, Weeden’s old because he couldn’t make it as a baseball player, his preferred occupation.

I’m not down on Weeden because it would be impossible to have formed that opinion given absolutely no body of work on which to draw any such conclusion.  Which is the point, isn’t it?  

I don’t mind the Browns’ p.r. department doing what it should be doing.  But it seems incredibly premature to anoint Weeden the starter let alone the savior of this dysfunctional franchise.

I’m not sure when the Browns fell out of love with McCoy but it was somewhere around the time that Pat Shurmur was hired as head coach.  That’s fine because every coach has his views on what it takes to execute his vision.  But the reason this franchise has performed so miserably is completely related to its reaction to Weeden before he’s had even one practice.  It’s always cart first and then horse with this team and in simple terms that’s why the results for the last decade have been consistent and awful.

**

When people talk about Scott Fujita, it’s always in glowing terms.  And while it’s not always fair to judge someone by one mistake, including a mistake that lasted for years, it does lead to this week’s question to ponder:  If Fujita really has the stand up image he’s cultivated, wouldn’t he simply take his relatively mild medicine, apologize and vow to work even harder to improve player safety?

Lingering Items--Bounty Hunter Edition

The NFL, which is no stranger to scandal anyway, has another full fledged problem on its hands. After taking longer to investigate the New Orleans Saints’ bounty system then the Warren Commission took to investigate the assassination of the John F. Kennedy, the NFL concluded what had long been assumed anyway. NFL players are motivated by money to the point that they'd injure their opponents for more of it.

But the subtle subversion of the salary cap system, not to mention the tax laws, by paying defensive players to injure opposing players, is the least of the NFL’s problems. Far more of a problem is the pending lawsuits from dozens of former players who are claiming that the NFL did little to protect them from concussions and how these revelations play into that.

It’s one thing for a group of defensive players to pool their money and reward each other for particularly vicious hits. It’s a whole other matter when the activity was institutionally sponsored, as it appeared it was in New Orleans. That kind of thing tends to get the attention of plaintiffs lawyers.

And if this kind of unofficially official activity was present elsewhere around the league, and there seems to be evidence that it was, how can the NFL adequately defend itself from allegations that it was doing its level best to protect the players from unnecessary injuries?

The “Spygate” incident was a public relations nightmare for the NFL but it wasn’t team sponsored assaults on opposing players. But this Bountygate business creates a boatload of legal issues for the NFL just as it’s trying to defend itself from claims that it looked the other way as players came up lame over the years.

Gregg Williams, the defensive coordinator for the Saints in 2009, the year in which this activity appears to have peaked, has acknowledged that he oversaw this “reward” system not just in New Orleans but pretty much everywhere else he’s coached. That may tell you plenty about what a lousy coach Williams really is, but it also tells you plenty about why certain ex-players, those still suffering from the effects of all those concussions for example, feel the way they do about the league.

Williams may be portrayed as just some rogue coach and if I’m the NFL’s lawyers, I’m arguing just that. But the fact remains that Williams was a member of his team’s management and he had the power if not to fire players directly, to effectively recommend them for that fate. If Williams is telling players to injure opponents and is paying them to do it, what choice does a player have not to participate?

If you follow the Twitter feeds of NFL players, it’s been an interesting few days. Just as they did for James Harrison, you have a number of players defending the Saints' actions as just a part of the game. That should be expected, mainly because many players aren’t particularly deep thinkers.

But just as there are those that see this as no big deal, there are plenty that feel differently and I suspect most of them go by another name, “plaintiff.” They’re the ones suing the league who now have powerful evidence in the form of the league’s own report to help make their case.

The NFL knows it has a problem on its hands and though it should be given credit for announcing the results publicly, the low key approach to this situation as compared to its bombastic response to “Spygate” is directly attributable to the vast difference between the two situations.

“Spygate” was incredibly stupid and overblown. The NFL acted as if stealing another team’s signals, which is at the heart of the allegations, impacted the integrity of the game, despite the fact that no one gives a second thought, let alone raises integrity issues, when baseball does the same thing night after night.

“Bountygate” on the other hand spells real trouble for the NFL and they know it. Because the NFL can’t look as if it condones sponsored violence, except of the more typical variety for which it charges fans a small ransom, it will come down much harder on the Saints and their management then they did on the Patriots and its management in Spygate. Expect significant loss of draft picks and significant fines. If Williams is allowed to coach in the NFL this coming season, it will be a miracle.

The NFL really has no other choice. If it is ever going to defend itself against accusations that it is not indifferent to player injuries, it actually has to not be indifferent to player injuries.

When the Browns allowed Colt McCoy back on the field without adequately checking whether he was still functioning adequately, it didn't help the league's cause. But that was a mostly isolated incident. Long term sponsorship of brutal, incentivized head-hunting is a whole different matter. And the fact that it took this long for the NFL to root it out doesn't much help their cause either.

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There's a local angle to this Bountygate and it involves one of the team's best defensive players, the self-aggrandizing Scott Fujita.

As reported initially by Sports Illustrated's Peter King, Fujita is more than implicated in Bountygate. According to King, Fujita was one of a handful of Saints defensive players to pledge between $2,000 and $10,000 to the overall bounty pool, something Fujita both admits and denies. Yes to the pool, no to the whole injury aspect of the pool.

While King talks about all the good Fujita has done for Steve Gleason, a former player suffering from ALS as well as the work put Fujita put in on the NFL’s labor council, that doesn’t lessen the gravity of Fujita’s involvement here. If anything, it enhances it.

Fujita, who railed against the NFL this past offseason for all manner of sins, including what he termed was its lack of concern over safety issues, is nothing if not a hypocrite. While he was chidling the NFL for its approach, he knew full well that he was accomplice in it, not so much because he was a hard-nosed player but because he allegedly sanctioned with his own money bounty hunting on opposing players.

Off the field and completely away from football, Fujita may be a wonderful sort. But on it or near it is a different story. What we really know about Fujita in that regard is that he’s not just a hypocrite. He’s a phony. At no point did Fujita come to Colt McCoy’s defense publicly when James Harrison deliberately tried to sever his head. Instead Fujita took to criticizing team management and NFL brass for not having good enough procedures in place to deal with concussions, ignoring the fact that McCoy’s concussion was completely preventable. Maybe Fujita supported McCoy behind the scenes. I hope so. But given Fujita’s apparent role in Bountygate, his not backing McCoy publicly at the expense of Harrison now makes far more sense.

Screaming about solutions when you're part of the problem isn't the best recipe for success. But there's more.

We also know that Fujita isn’t just a hypocrite and a phony. He’s also a coward. During the heat of the NFL’s labor dispute, Fujita had his wife “write” (most likely ghostwrite) a column for The Nation in which she excoriated NFL owners for exploiting the players as mere pawns in a game of high commerce. (See my column here on this subject) She railed about their relative indifference to the care these fat cats showed for injured players to underscore her point.

Maybe she wrote those eloquent words without knowing that her own husband was effectively undermining her arguments by allegedly helping to incent his co-workers to injure opponents through whatever means possible, late hits or cheap hits be damned. But Fujita let his wife publish those comments knowing full well his role in all of this, which is a pretty cowardly act for a guy who paints himself as one of the NFL’s tough guys.

There is much that can and should be done to reduce injuries in the NFL. As much as I love the game, it’s frustrating each year to see teams decimated by injuries. Playoffs and Super Bowls increasingly aren’t won by the best teams but the least injured. So purely from an entertainment value, the quality of the NFL’s product is repeatedly compromised by the absence of so many players nursing injuries.

But the far bigger concern is the lingering effects of those injuries. You need only to meet retired players to understand how all those hits add up to permanent damage. It may be the mentality of NFL players that injuries are part of the game and must be endured. But is it really the mentality of NFL players that unnecessary injuries are a part of the game?

And while the primary obligation may fall on the NFL to find the best ways to reduce injuries, through a combination of technology and rules, it’s all for naught when players find ways around it just to earn a few extra bucks from a bounty pool.

If it turns out that Fujita actively participated in this system while in New Orleans, he should be punished and I wouldn’t care if it were for an entire season. The near term hit to the Browns is worth it if it brings this kind of activity to an end.

Indeed, if it does turn out the Fujita was one of the ringleaders, then considering that the Browns are trying to rebuild with better players of higher character, cutting Fujita would certainly qualify as addition by subtraction.

**

With the Bountygate scandal is expanding to other teams, this weeks’ question to ponder: Given the relatively weak performances by past Browns defenses, is it possible their was an organized effort within the Browns to pay players for deliberately trying not to hurt opposing players?

Cracks in the Foundation

The allegation on ProFootballTalk.com that some unnamed NFL teams are talking with some unnamed and undrafted free agents should hardly come as a surprise. If there is one thing that seems to be universal when it comes to the NFL’s labor situation, it’s that no one is overly thrilled with it and would do anything to just have the whole thing behind them.

But labor disputes have a cycle of their own and so too will this one. At its flashpoint, both sides of the dispute are galvanized in their disdain for the opposition. Both promise solidarity among their ranks and, generally, talk a good game.

But as the cycle keeps on turning and the labor dispute lingers on, signs of wear and tear do emerge. In this case it may just be those unnamed teams covertly pursuing free agents in violation of the rules of the lockout. It may also be in the occasional frustration that boils over, usually via Twitter these days, from a player or two with too much time on his hands.

Perhaps the most honest reaction from a member of upper management in the NFL was from the Cleveland Browns’ own president, Mike Holmgren. It was Holmgren who was nearly over-the-moon giddy with the news that Judge Susan Richard Nelson had granted the players an injunction to prevent the lockout and said so publicly.

It was almost as if Holmgren forgot that he’s no longer a coach lamenting the fact that he’s currently without players to coach. But it would be best for him to remember that a far more entrenched member of management these days, even if he’s not quite an owner. As Randy Lerner’s de facto representative of all things Browns, Holmgren would more be expected to unconditionally support the lockout, at least publicly.

This isn’t to complain about Holmgren’s reaction so much as it is to underscore that management, at least that sliver of it that doesn’t pay the bills out of its pockets, isn’t any happier about the lockout then the players. It also underscores the one thing that ultimately tends to break a labor dispute: unrest.

Cracks in the management ranks are usually harder to discern. Players, like any other group of employees, are usually the first to fall apart, generally under the weight of all the overhead they take on by virtue of the salaries they earn. Plenty, probably too many, players are working on their second or third marriage already. There are kids to support and goods to purchase. Those multiple cars sitting in the garage aren’t just going to pay for themselves, you know.

Beyond just the occasional snipping from players who just want a deal done and say so publicly, the other way the frustration in the players is starting to show is their increasing willingness to publicly criticize NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for not being smart enough, strong enough, or something enough, to just get the owners to capitulate in this struggle. He’s an easy target and at the moment isn’t so much a person anyway but a symbol.

It's a measure of their frustration that they would take on the owners so overtly but ultimately harmlessly. It's also a measure of their lack of understanding of the issues in dispute.

Browns’ linebacker Scott Fujita, a member of the National Football League Players Association, has somewhat been the “go to” guy when a comment is needed to keep the pot simmering at a low boil. Follow the trail of what he’s talking about and you can get the sense that sooner or later his loose affiliation will collapse under the weight of its own naïveté.

When Goodell visited Browns’ training camp last August, Fujita wasn’t impressed and wasn’t hesitant to say so, according to an article in the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram at the time.

Fujita said that no matter what questions the players asked, Goodell didn’t have the answers. In truth, Goodell had answers, it just wasn’t ones that Fujita and hence the union wanted to hear. The biggest gripe then as it seems to be now, is that the owners won’t open their books to the unions’ band of forensic accountants, as if this was the Holy Grail to unlocking the labor dispute.

Fujita, articulating the sound bite given to him from DeMaurice Smith, the overmatched head of the NFLPA, at the time negotiations first broke off said that the players need to know what the owners are making before they’d be willing to give back any of the revenue pie they get. The fallacy of course is that as long as even one owner is making one dollar that will be more than enough for the union to claim that changes in the owners seek in the league’s financial structure aren’t needed. That’s why it’s a ridiculous and distracting issue in the first place.

Then came Fujita’s blasting of Dallas Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones who told 60 Minutes that a NFL lockout wouldn’t be the financial doomsday that may believe it would be. He called Jones’ comments the most irresponsible thing he had heard throughout this process.

Now I’m all for hyperbole, especially for hyberbole’s sake. But Jones’ comments aren’t even the most irresponsible thing I’ve heard today about the impact of the lockout.

Not content to sit on the sidelines and let her husband look foolish all by himself, Jacyln Fujita weighed in of her own accord in a lengthy editorial that appeared in The Nation. Essentially her view is that her husband, indeed all professional football players, are being exploited by billionaire owners who don’t really have the players’ best interests at heart. Yes, I know, professional athletes are our most exploited underclass.

Mrs. Fujita writes about the physical toll a NFL player takes, something that can’t be disputed. But she uses this as a platform to make vague complaints about how the owners aren’t really looking after the players’ health, forgetting all of the significant steps that Goodell, for instance, implemented even last season to reduce the number of concussions or other injuries. She doesn’t mention, by the way, how much resistance Goodell has met from the exploited players on these efforts because if James Harrison isn’t allowed to cheap shot two Browns’ players in one game without drawing a fine then the players might as well just go bowling.

While I certainly don’t begrudge a wife doing what she can to protect her husband, the last paragraph of her editorial seems particularly misguided in light of recent real-life events outside the bubble of the professional playground that’s given her the luxury to live better then she probably could have ever imagined:

That is my wish for tomorrow’s boys, men, mothers, fathers and wives who will build their lives around this American pastime. They will have something when their money runs out. And when their aches and pains become unbearable, they will have the comfort of knowing that their blood, sweat and tears will carry them for the rest of their lives. They did not sacrifice their health and well-being for nothing. They will not be forgotten.
Like our boys in Afghanistan or even Valley Forge.

It’s just inconceivable that her position is literally that anybody that suits up in a professional football game deserves to be set for life, but I guess you have to start somewhere. Oh well, there’s a reason it’s called rhetoric.

Finally, this past week, Mr. Fujita weighed in again, laying blame for all the labor woes at the feet of Goodell, evidence that the near final stage of the players' frustration toward a dispute that won't be resolved soon.

Fujita is now officially disappointed in Goodell because he's not the man he thought he was, not the man who Fujita thought could bring the owners together for a deal. If Fujita's being fair, he should similarly look at his own union leader and make the same assessment.

The issue isn't Goodell or a lack of consensus among the owners. It boils down to the simple fact that players like Fujita are interested in short term answers when the owners are posing long term questions.

But this divide, too, will eventually get bridged. If Fujita is really the barometer, the players are but a few months away from cracking completely.

Sanford and Son, NFL-style

It’s early March on the NFL calendar which can only mean one thing: the world’s costliest flea market is open for business, limited time only.

Every year beginning in late February, just after the NFL combine closes and general managers and coaches have had their fill of poking, prodding and testing the new meat, each NFL team heads to the fair grounds and sets up a swap meet of sorts to poke, prod and test the old meat.

Each booth features a team’s cast offs in the form of restricted and unrestricted free agents just looking for a new buyer. And as these teams are arranging their slightly-worn trinkets just so, they’re also gazing out at what’s going on in the other booths. Sure, I don’t need this lamp shaped like a bowling pin anymore but that picture of dogs playing cards over in the next booth would look great in the den.

Welcome to Sanford and Son, NFL-style.

The Cleveland Browns aren’t any different than any other team. After carefully setting out their white elephants like Rex Hadnot, Hank Fraley, Brodney Pool, Jerome Harrison, among others, they’ve gone shopping for someone else’s gently-worn gems in the form of unrestricted free agent linebacker Scott Fujita and offensive lineman Tony Pashos. And they may not be done shopping, given the relative lack of furniture in their house.

This isn’t a knock on either Fujita or Pashos. Indeed both are upgrades for this team in the way that a full size mattress is an upgrade from a twin. But isn’t it just fascinating to watch year after year teams tire of players and cast them adrift only to see other teams become absolutely giddy at the chance to sign them?

In one sense, this can be attributable to teams using free agency to either rebalance or paper over the sins of the past. If a team has too many linebackers and not enough defensive backs, free agency gives it a chance to correct the disparity. If a team consistently drafts poorly in the second round and finds itself with gaping holes in key spots, free agency affords a chance to catch up with the pack.

But more often than not, free agency is far more about teams not wanting to overpay their current players so that they can overpay someone else’s.

Fujita is a good example. From a personal standpoint, he’s a class act, a pillar of the New Orleans community, the kind of guy any team should want on its roster. From a player perspective, he’s 31 years old in a league where players usually have a shelf life of about 5 good years and making too much money, at least from the Saints’ perspective. In other words, speaking strictly from a production standpoint, the Saints feel they have younger players making less money that can produce a roughly the same level. They’d rather use his money to potentially overpay someone else, such as a draft pick who’s yet to prove himself.

The Browns, on the other hand, aren’t so lucky. Sure, they have younger players. But stacked end to end these players can’t produce at roughly the same level Fujita projects for the next few seasons. Indeed, even though the young linebackers on this team chew up less salary than Fujita will be making, the drop off in production is too dramatic. Hence Fujita becomes a member of the Browns and general manager Tom Heckert can sing the praises of how a linebacker whose been productive in the 4-3 defense can suddenly be that missing inside presence in the Browns’ 3-4 scheme.

Pashos is in exactly the same spot except that he leaves a team in the San Francisco 49ers with nearly as many problems as the Browns. Indeed, if you follow Pashos’ career, he’s come from mostly marginally productive offenses in both Baltimore and Jacksonville as well.

This is the part of free agency that actually worries me. When a team like the Browns signs a player from a team with as many issues, I’m suspicious. I don’t need to look at the stats to know that the 49ers can’t possibly have a plethora of offensive linemen that can easily replace Pashos unless they are of the “can’t be any worse” variety. When I look at the stats, I become truly convinced.

The 49ers weren’t a rushing team last year, averaging just 23 attempts per game as compared to Cleveland’s 31. With similar yards/carry averages, the number of attempts accounts for the fact that the Browns averaged 30 more rushing yards per game than the 49ers.

When I look at the 49ers passing statistics, they were a fourth quartile team, just like the Browns. Sure, the Browns were at the bottom of the league when it came to passing, but the 49ers weren’t lighting it up, either.

All of this is a circuitous way of getting to the point that the 49ers themselves could use help on the offensive line, just like the Browns, and they don’t see Pashos as part of that process. They may be lacking in skill players, such as at quarterback and receiver, just like the Browns, but as we’ve seen in Cleveland when the offensive line plays well even Derek Anderson can be a Pro Bowler.

This makes me even more suspicious about Pashos except that I remember that the Browns still have Floyd Womack and John St. Clair anchoring, as it were, the right side of the offensive line and can’t help but think that Pashos has to be an upgrade, he just has to be.

The missing variable in all of this Pashos’ contract with the Browns. Unlike Fujita’s $16 million/3 year/$8 million guaranteed contract, I haven’t seen much said about Pashos’ contract. That means it’s either bigger than it has to be, which would be embarrassing to the Browns, or smaller than Pashos and his agent would like it known.


But this is the minor stuff. The real splash at the swap meet will be coming in the form of a new quarterback. Team president Mike Holmgren has said he’s still evaluating both Anderson and Brady Quinn but he’s also been quite candid in saying that he’s also looking elsewhere. That elsewhere will take up one of two forms: a veteran to help mentor Quinn or an up and comer to take over the team.

When I heard the Browns were interested in David Carr, the veteran-as-mentor concept seemed clear. Among the many problems with having both Anderson and Quinn on the roster is that both are still learning the position and are backed up by someone even more green in the form of Brett Ratliff. Having someone with significant NFL experience on the sidelines to back up someone still learning the position has always made more sense.

But then the Browns traded for Seneca Wallace, the back up in Seattle. That just muddles the situation even further but probably means Quinn will be traded along with Anderson and the Browns will then still be searching for a veteran quarterback to serve as a back up.

I can’t quite determine why the Browns would want Wallace. He’s a 29-year old, 5’11” career backup. Think Troy Smith without the Heisman. Five years in the league, he has exactly 12 starts under his belt, or exactly 20 less than Holmgren says are necessary for a proper evaluation.

Having obtained Wallace it's reasonable to presume it's with the intent to give him those 20 additional starts because he’s certainly not at that stage of his career or his development where he can mentor anyone. It also tells you plenty about what the Seahawks think of Wallace's chances as a long-term starter, which is something to chew on as well.

Which takes us right back to where we started, scouring the flea market for a priceless or at least pricey antique masquerading as a piece to tchotchke.

As a long-term strategy, it’s flawed. Just as the Indians’ Mark Shapiro whose used the strategy for years to little effect. For now, hope that it’s being used here only because the options are so otherwise limited and not because it’s a case of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”