To find out what's really happening in the Terrell Owens case let's hop in the time machine and review this AP article:
Brady
restructures contract
By HOWARD ULMAN, Associated Press writer
FOXBORO -- Tom Brady finally found time to catch his breath,
examine his cluttered life and make a to-do list.
Now he can cross out that line about restructuring his
contract.
Brady reworked the deal late last week to give the New
England Patriots more room under the salary cap. With two first-round draft
picks next month, they're sure to need it.
"You do whatever it takes to help the team get better
players and help the team win," he said Thursday. "Ultimately, the
only thing I care about is winning."
Brady's
base salary for 2003 was
to be
$3.125 million. That was reduced to $450,000, according to a report in the
Boston Herald. Unlike
most NFL player contracts, the Patriots agreed to guarantee some money, and
payments will be spread out over a longer period, Brady said.
"The salary cap is one thing that all these teams are trying to figure out
how to manipulate it best," he said. "I
think we freed up a couple of million bucks."
Now Brady can focus on other chores that have been ignored
during his whirlwind ride from backup quarterback to Super Bowl MVP to full-time
starter to a man without a playoff berth in less than two seasons.
"About a month ago, I made a list of all the things
that I needed to do," he said. "I had moved to a different place. I've
had boxes piled up all over the place. There were gifts for people that I've
wanted to buy, wedding gifts that I'm eight months late on."
He figures he'd been to his family's California home for
about 10 days during the past 18 months. And with the start of the Patriots
offseason training program last Monday, he's not likely to spend much, if any,
time there before training camp in mid-July.
For now, he'll work on conditioning,
sphincter exercises,
throwing and getting his right shoulder healthy. It hurt him late last season
and the only indication he gave Thursday of what was wrong was that it was
inflamed....
This article was first published in March, 2003. Mr. Brady went on to win the next two Superbowls.
Sounds like a happy ending, eh?
Perhaps. But let's pull out the magnifying glass and examine the fine print just to make sure.
When your paycheck dips down from over 3 million clams a year to under half a million clams a year, that's called a "reduction in pay." Sure, if you're lucky enough, and if your bosses draft, trade, and playcall intelligently enough, then you can add playoff bonuses to that base salary.
You can also, in the case of Mr. Brady and a handful of others, add lucrative deals with MasterCard, et al. Why? Because you're not a wave-maker and you win.
But the money you earn from that deal with Visa and those clothing contracts does not come from your football team. And these outside contracts don't always happen.
If my boss asked me to take a pay cut, a cut that would reduce my salary from, say, $700,000 a year to $100,000 a year, well, I'm not sure I'd be able to take that kind of hit. Could I still make my house payments? Would I still be able to purchase enough Big Gulps to not be thirsty all the time?
Who knows.
I think what happened to Terrell Owens is the Philadelphia Eagles asked him to take a pay cut. And he's no spring chicken. He's 32. He knows he doesn't have that many snaps left in him. Two good seasons maybe.
So he refused to do the Uncle Tom (Brady) thing. He told the Eagles, "Let's finish out my contract the way we both intended to finish it. You had good intentions when you signed my contract, right? I had good intentions when I signed it. Where's the problem?"
And now almost everyone hates him. Have I found one article depicting the Terrell Owens story from his wallet's point of view? No. Not one.
Say you're a burger flipper and you make seven bucks an hour. Then one day your boss asks you to start flipping burgers for a dollar an hour. Would that be a happy ending? For your boss, yes, but I was asking you, you the burger flipper.
What if you put out fires for the city, making 30 large per year. Then one day the city council mandates that you'll be making 5 large per year from now on... and you'd better like it or hit the road.
At that point do you--you the fast food worker or firefighter--get to do MasterCard commercials? No, you don't. But Tom Brady does.
What I'm saying is it doesn't hurt Mr. Brady to suck up to his bosses when they ask him to do certain kinds of exercises (see above). But it's a different story for you and me.
And probably for Mr. Owens. Evidently, T. O. saw that his endorsement possibilities didn't look that sweet. And factored in his age. So he told the Philadelphia Eagles exactly the same thing you'd tell your boss if you were asked to do something unreasonable.
And now all sportswriters everywhere have been given these orders by their bosses: "Tell them, tell them all, tell the world that he's bad. HE'S BADDD!! Nevermind that he doesn't have a criminal record--he picks his nose or something. Make something up, do what you have to do."
Well, I don't think Terrell Owens is bad.
Mr. Ulman's tone is so cute, too, isn't it? "Patriot owners sure are funny when they PLUCK YOU. Oh, it's just a to-do list, just getting a few nutty things out of the way, like reducing your salary by six-sevenths. Tee he he."