Return of TO?

Thursday November 17, 2005 - 5:05PM EDT

I'm waiting for the return of TO to the eagles to partner with Mike McMahon to lead the eagles to superbowl victory. Ha, yeah right. I'm dreading the Broncos picking up TO and the marching to superbowl victory with the game breaking receiver they need. Fucking eagles, ruining my year with their salary cap arrogance. How in the hell do you justify not paying the top receiver in football top receiver money. That is crazy. The eagles have never spent money on wide receivers. TO put his career on the line and he was called selfish. He wanted to play and help the team and he was villified for it. That is disgusting.

This whole suspended for the year thing is weird. I'd want to know how many healthy players who were starters for their team were suspended for the year. Essentially the eagles are taking advantage of a loophole in the 4 game suspension rule the union worked out. They call it deactivation which is within the bounds of the rules. But what team has done that to a player that has tried to overturn it. I don't think it has been done. Regardless of the disturbances, how in the hell do you skirt the 4 game penalty with this deactivation nonsense. It such a sinister bueracratic trick. I hope the arbitrator sees it for what it is and not what these crazy legal analysts are saying. If you don't want someone on the team you cut him. I don't get why they wouldn't cut him. It makes no sense except for the fact that they feel like they need to punish him beyond the 4 games allowed by a team. They may also feel that him going to another team damages they're own competitive chances. I just think the NFLPA can't let an organization get away with railroading a player like this. The proponents of the eagles decision will argue that it is all acceptable within the rules set forth. The crux of that arguement is that the 4 game rule is soley tied to monetary compensation. It is meant to prevent teams from damaging a players monetary compensation too much. That is all you can hope for legally. But the essense of the rule is much more than monetary compensation. It is to prevent a single team from inflicting overbearing punishment to a single player without the league getting involved. The essence I think is more like a player has to do something extraordinarly terrible to warrant massive punishment and that is something the league needs to be involved in. That a player did something so utterly horrible that the league cannot deal with is preposterous. This is a case of eagles orginzation and their own massive egos comming into conflict with TO. It is a bitter hurt feelings spat and has nothing to do with following rules. Eagles are just using loopholes to skirt the essence of league rules. I think you can argue essence in this case because there is no precendent set for the kind of game the eagles are playing. Allowing to eagles to get away with this would set a bad standard. It would mean any team could simply deactivate a player who they didn't like for whatever reason (the catch all is conduct detrimental to the team). The standard in the NFL has been for teams to cut players they don't want or who offend the organization. That is where I get confused. Besides all the rules and whatnot. Why do they hold a player that they have voiced their displeasure with? I'd maybe speculate that they want him back or they want to punish him more than they are allowed. It has to be one of the two.