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Derrick Burgess, Brandon Marshall, and the Randy Moss Syndrome
Published: August 3, 2009
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Many factors conspire to make dealing unhappy players difficult for the teams holding those players contracts, not least of all, the Randy Moss syndrome.
Former Pro Bowl defensive end Derrick Burgess continues his holdout from Oakland Raider training camp accumulating fines to date totaling over $79,000 against the last year of his contract set to pay him as much as $3.5 million in 2009. Burgess reportedly faces daily fines in excess of $15,800 for refusing to report to camp.
Apparently Burgess is seeking either his release from the Raiders or is hoping the Raiders can negotiate his trade to another team. Depending on the reports you read Burgess is either unhappy with his contract, unhappy to be on a losing team for the last four years, or both.
While these causes for Burgess’ unhappiness are arguably understandable, his strategy for leaving the Raiders is not, on its face.
Not only is Burgess’ decision not to report costing him good money daily, but it is also driving down his trade value, thus impeding the result he seeks; his eventual move to another team. Also driving down Burgess’ value are his injury history and declining productivity the last two years.
Burgess, of course is by no means the only NFL player unhappy with his current team.
Denver Broncos Pro Bowl wide receiver Brandon Marshall is also in the final year of a contract set to pay him over $2.1 million in 2009. Marshall, it is widely reported, hates Denver, but that hasn’t stopped him from reporting to Broncos training camp and collecting his checks.
However, Marshall’s decision to report does not come without risk to both Marshall and the Broncos in terms of moving Marshall this year. Marshall reportedly has injured his leg at camp as he is currently not practicing. Marshall is also returning from offseason hip surgery.
So what are the Raiders and Broncos to do with their unhappy, damaged goods?
Basically, they have three options: release the players, trade them, or carry them on their rosters and risk the Randy Moss syndrome—in which a player devalues himself so much by his play that his team has no hope of recovering his value in a trade.
To be clear, let’s revisit the history of the Randy Moss trade from the Oakland Raiders to the New England Patriots. Essentially, Moss was so unhappy in Oakland he let it affect his play on the field and was accused of using his indifference as a weapon. Moss tanked so badly in Oakland in 2006 that he drove his trade value into the ground all the while collecting $8 million from the Raiders.
Al Davis continues to lament the trade and in hindsight Raiders fans say the team should have got more with escalator clauses, or what not. But the fact is the Raiders made the best deal they could at the time because Randy Moss had all the leverage and they had none. For the Raiders that truth is still little consolation.
Today’s players seeking release from teams they are unhappy with might look to the Randy Moss example as a means of gaining leverage. In Burgess’ case his strategy seems to be to create a preseason version of the Moss Syndrome, although at great risk. For Marshall, the Moss Syndrome is a non-starter.
To the outside observer, Derrick Burgess seems to have the most to gain from affecting the Randy Moss Syndrome again in Oakland. However, aside from the obvious “once bitten, twice shy” reticence of Al Davis in this situation, Burgess lacks the critical leverage Moss had; the current and remaining years on his contract.
Moss was signed with the Raiders for two more years at nearly $20 million at the time he was traded and his willingness to restructure with the Patriots was a major component to the deal, in fact was a big hurdle to getting the deal done. In no way could the Raiders keep Moss at those figures with the level of play they were getting from him, and they had to move him via trade because his release would create a massive cap hit.
Burgess, in the final year of a contract with a reasonable salary doesn’t have this leverage, which should improve his trade value. In fact his current contract should make him attractive to a team even if they are only interested in “renting” him during a contract year.
But without the contract leverage Moss had against the Raiders, Burgess has to create what leverage he can, a version of the Moss Syndrome. Burgess must understand that trading partners know that with Burgess out of camp, the Raiders either to have to release him at some point with a tolerable cap hit or carry his roster spot for the year, even without pay. This situation drives down Burgess’ trade value, as it did for Moss but in a different way, making it more unlikely the Raiders will trade him.
Burgess then is taking the risk that he may have to sit out 2009 which would lower his demand in free agency against the possibility that any team that might sign him as an unrestricted free agent in 2010, without a salary cap, might make it worthwhile financially.
In this way Burgess may be affecting the closest thing to the Moss Syndrome as possible as he is, like Moss was, an aging veteran with an injury history and diminishing productivity for the Raiders. He’s doing everything he can to force himself off the team by destroying his own trade value, but unlike Moss, at a far greater risk to himself than to the Raiders.
For Burgess there may be enough money in the future to make his gamble pay off, and while Brandon Marshall’s situation is somewhat similar, he lacks significant leverage points that Burgess has.
Most significantly, even though he is in the final year of his contract, Brandon Marshall does not have enough years in the league and will be a restricted free agent at the end of 2009 under the current bargaining agreement.
This is why Marshall is in camp—there is no unrestricted pay day waiting for him in 2010 like there is for Burgess. Marshall has almost no leverage. He can’t budge the Broncos because even by creating a Moss Syndrome in Denver, the lower he makes his value the easier it will be for the Broncos to block his signing to another team.
Compared to the Raiders, the Broncos, through no fault of their own, are in the better position, as the best way for Marshall to move on to another team is by actually producing in his final contract year. By tanking his play or going on injured-reserve, Marshall only hurts his chances of signing a contract he can be happy with on another team.
Brandon Marshall has to play his way out of Denver, which is why he is in camp. Derrick Burgess is willing to sit his way out of Oakland and every other team knows it.
Raiders “Al” in to Prove Experts Dumb
Published: April 26, 2009
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The NFL draft is nothing if not a crapshoot. After all the evaluation, hype, horse trading and strategizing, all NFL teams selections are at best, best guesses on the future.
The NFL and ESPN convert the entertainment value of professional football and this spring rite frenzy for new blood into big dollars.
To justify their expensive productions of a glorified job fair, the NFL and ESPN enlist “experts” to market players, evaluate and comment on picks the only way they can, subjectively.
In all forms of gambling, the NFL draft included, the main elements are risk and payoff. The NFL draft is televised for the same reasons poker is, and on the same channel. For NFL owners and GMs the gamble involves real money and real consequences, but network experts only have their marginal reputations at stake.
After all, if Charlie Casserly, Michael Lombardi and Mike Mayock were actually so good at evaluating talent for NFL teams, they’d still have real jobs, instead of peddling their “knowledge” as sales hacks for the networks.
To say nothing of Mel Kiper and Todd McShay who’ve never had real jobs in their lives (although McShay was once a Guess-Your-Weight carny.)
So after all that has been said about what has been done in the Oakland Raiders 2009 NFL draft room one thing clearly is going to come out of this: Somebody is going to look really stupid.
And for so many selfish reasons, I hope its the experts.
If the smug, blow-dried, clown-college, talking head ESPN/NFL network d-bags thought the Raiders taking wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey at No. 7 was a reach then they, and most Raider fans, weren’t even approaching ready for round two when Al Davis went all in selecting safety Michael Mitchell.
Indeed, so far Al Davis has played the 2009 Draft for exactly the crapshoot that it is. The Raiders have taken the players they wanted in the order they wanted them. Nobody can point fingers and say, “well the Raiders didn’t get their guy so they settled for so-and-so and all their talk about always wanting him is just spin.” Not in this draft.
The consensus is that NOBODY in or out of their right mind, would take the players the Raiders took in the spots they took them. Al Davis placed his bets, not only on the players he likes best based on his own standards, but has bet all-in against the field of “experts.”
Some Raiders fans are left questioning themselves as fans on days like this. And that’s too bahhahh-d for them. They’ve allowed the clowns to gin up hysteria based on baseless expectations.
But its days like this that I celebrate being a Raiders fan. I’m backing these bets, and why not, as a fan I have less to lose than any stupid expert. And nobody is a bigger threat than somebody with nothing to lose.
So how about a kicker in Round Three?
