This week signalled the start of NFL Free Agency with the NFL Draft on its way teams are building for this September with hopes of giving their city a Super Bowl, well except for a handful of playoff teams from last season. The Minnesota Vikings sent Percy Harvin to the Seattle Seahwaks for a first round draft pick as well as some mid rounders, well the Super Bowl Champion Ravens have cut ties with Anquan Boldin and Bernard Pollard and are rumored to be set to cut ties with franchise legend Ed Reed. The New York Giants, Super Bowl Champs from 2012, are also rumored to be shopping their star wideout Victor Cruz for a first round draft pick after not being able to come to salary terms. These are just the highlights in two days of releases and player for draft pick trades that have been floating around the league, showing the game is very much all about money in this much more salary cap focused era of the National Football League.
Now a famous rap group once said "Cash Rules Everything Around Me" but the Wu Tang Clan has nothing on the money value of the NFL and its owners after this recent run of cuts/releases and trades. When a team with a 2,000 yard receiver trades potentially the best speed wide receiver in football to an in conference playoff rival because they didn't want to spend the money on what was going to be a huge payday for Percy Harvin, you have a problem.
When the Super Bowl Champs drop their; leading playoff receiver and likely two of their best players in their secondary because they didn't want to pay aging talent that got their city their first Super Bowl in over ten years, you have a problem.
Now what the problem is might be up for debate. On one hand you have players who ask for astronomical contracts based on their talents over asking for a fair salary to help build a team. Tom Brady did this for the Patriots not too long ago this offseason, but he was given unprecedented amounts of guaranteed money to do so. Now in a sport where it is a known fact that players can potentially see brain damage in their future once their careers are over, you would have to be completely irrational to expect these players to take a paycut. In a game where your entire career or life can change with one simple routine play the objective of any player should be get in, get money, and get out.
On the other hand of this you have GM's who in a world with a much harder salary cap after a lockout and the failures of megadeal contracts (See: Albert Haynesworth, anything the Washington Redskins have ever done) are attempting to spend their millions in the most efficient of ways possible in the name of keeping their jobs. With how intense the NFL is covered and with just a 16 game sample size to be judged upon with one day of action allowing for 24/7/365 analysis of every minute detail of the game and it's inner workings, general managers are less willing to throw money around and see how it goes. Their jobs depend on not looking stupid, and if playing it safe rather than keeping championship teams together is what will keep their jobs, they will do it nine times out of ten. They have to, their paycheck depends on it.
With the Ravens they have a different story, they just won the Super Bowl and gave their quarterback Joe Flacco a pile of money and due to giving their quarterback that money decided that they needed to disrespect three other players who played equal parts of them getting that ring this February. Anquan Boldin caught some huge passes for the Ravens, Bernard Pollard is one of the hardest hitting defensive backs in the world, Ed Reed just might be a first ballot Hall of Famer and was the last link to the Ogden/Lewis/Reed era of the Baltimore Ravens. Yes, they kept their franchise quarterback, but they pretty much sold everything else on the car just to keep the steering wheel in doing so.
This is the new NFL, it is pretty much exactly like your old NFL, but you are seeing some things that might change the entire course of how business is done in the league. When a young, mega talented player like Harvin gets traded for a first round pick in order to avoid his contractual demand in a market gearing up for a new stadium in one of the better markets in the league, you are seeing that the game is more and more becoming a dollar saving league.
Doesn't this show that money can in fact buy titles? The 49ers showed no qualms in quickly snapping up Anquan Boldin from the Ravens and will be adding pieces as their NFC West counterpart Seahawks did with Harvin and the Ravens win it all than sell the parts mentality this offseason shows that once you win once, maybe the pricetag of a title contending team isn't all that it is cracked up to be.
The words of the Wu-Tang Clan stay true in today's NFL. Cash rules the game, loyalty doesn't exist and defending your title for your fans and city might not be as important as your salary cap space.
