RIP: Ron Springs

Ohio State great Ron Springs recently passed away . He was co-captain of the Buckeyes in 1978.

Over the years, it's easy to note how many former NFL players die young. Springs was 54, there are many others. Reggie White was 43, Corey Stringer was 27, Mike Webster was 50, the list goes on and on. NFL players make sacrifices and endure damage to their body and as a consequence many die young.

Springs is one more bit of evidence that a football career creates serious risks for a player.

in the current labor dispute, a central point is NFL owners want to put a rookie salary cap in place for the first 1-3 years of a players career. The average career length of an NFL player is 3 years! The vast majority of players DO NOT play more than 3 years.

NFL owners are greedy and without conscience. It is a terrible wrong that the NFL wants to impose a socialist salary cap on players income instead of allowing the free market to guide salaries. Especially when you consider that the NFL are asking these same players to take physical risks that may indeed significantly reduce the years a player actually lives.

Draft comments

The Brown Log is staying locked out too in solidarity with NFL players, but since the owners opened their doors for a few short days after losing a court ruling a few days ago, we will unlock a short comment on the draft.

Most would agree the Browns had a very good draft. The absolutely one sided trade with the Falcons should go down in history as one of the most lopsided draft day trades in NFL history. 5 good players for one, another coup for Holmgren and team.

The only pick I would disagree with is using the 102nd pick to select USC back up tight end Jordan Cameron. I guess his athletic ability was too hard to resist but this guy could not even start for USC, how the hell is he supposed to play in the NFL?????????? Yes he can dunk a basketball but there aren't any rims in the end zone folks. As the Brown log has said a million times, football is a game, not a track meet.

Here is a short write up on Jordan Cameron

Moving on to the lock out, it's now back on after a court ruled that pending their review of the original decision the owners could in fact lock out the players. This week will be huge, if the courts rule in the players favor on Monday May 2, we will likely have a season in 2011. If the courts rule in the owners favor, it's very hard to imagine the 2011 season taking place in full.

The bitter irony is that conservative judges favor the owners and liberal judges are siding with the players. This in spite of the fact that the owners seek socialist solutions and the players seek only to let the free market rule.

Free market principals are the foundation of the laws that guide a judge's decisions yet conservative judges still side with owners, it's pure politics.

A solution to the NFL labor woes: Capitalism

There is a benchmark solution out there that the NFL should look to in order to solve it's labor woes: Professional soccer in Europe. Ironically, in professional soccer, our normally socialist friends in Europe actually utilize a nearly pure capitalist system.

Among the most important highlights of the European pro sports system are:

- Soccer leagues in Europe do not have a player draft, players are free to sign with any club they wish to sign up with.

- Salary caps do not exist.

- There is not a single nation in Europe that has athletic teams at the university level. If an 18 year is worthy of a professional career he gets a paying job on a pro team.

- The revenue stream associated with European soccer is every bit if not more lucrative than the NFL. Fans pay top prices for seats and for games on pay TV. Advertisers are tripping over themselves to pay millions to get in front of Europe's soccer fan base.

- Finally, far more pro teams exist per capita in Europe. There are more leagues and many more jobs for pro athletes. There is a population of about 857,000,000 in Europe compared to about 300,000,000 in the United States. But if you only count the top ten European soccer nations (Italy, England, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Scotland, Holland, Russia, Sweden and France) there are nearly 200 top flight professional teams in Europe. That compares to 32 in the USA. You do the math. The comps get even more obvious if you look at all of Europe and itìs entire minor league system. There are over 1000 professional soccer teams in Europe in which players earn somewhere between a decent to an extraordinary salary. The fact that there are fewer than 100 professional football teams in America bares witness to just how successful the NFL Politburo are at exterminating any and all competition. Start a professional league such as the USFL, off to the gulag for you!

Capitalism is the greatest economic system ever invented. I do not envision that the NFL Politburo will ever implement a capitalist system in the NFL but have no doubt if they did, that the league would thrive, hundreds of new teams would be created along with thousands of good paying jobs for athletes, and fans would rush to buy seats just as they do today.

The NFL Politburo: Comrade Jerry Jones speaks!

Comrade Jerry Jones speaks out about the NFL labor situation in the below video from 60 Minutes Overtime.

Comrade Jones mentions in the video that "the model we have doesn't work." The current model between NFL owners and players involves a socialist revenue sharing scheme. Comrade Jones does not want to move back to a free market, what he does want is to further reduce the players share of the revenue.

Let's see if I have the facts correct. Owners previously agreed to share revenues with players, something players actually fought against in the last negotiation. Players want a completely free market but it angers the 32 NFL owners that in a free market the players command over 50% of revenues. One could argue that a good capitalist owner would not spend money beyond his means, but NFL owners are famous for their lack of control and all it takes is one big spender to drive up salaries for the others. That stated, is the solution to force players into a communist system because the owners cannot control themselves?!?!

In the original agreement, owners sold the communist salary cap as "cost certainty" and the players relutantly agreed to the owners salary cap proposal because they were able to negotiate a share of revenues that was almost in line with their expectations in a free market. Today owners simply want to reduce players share from the amount that the NFL Politburo previously agreed to.

It is a highly distasteful irony that NFL owners made their fortunes in the greatest economic system the free world has ever witnessed, the free market system. Comrade Jones in his private political life professes to be an American Republican however the NFL Politburo's actions speak louder than words. The NFL Politburo wants us to believe that further use of communist principals are needed to manage the NFL so therefore bring on new rookie salary limits and reduce the players percentage of the salary cap.

Karl Marx would be filled with joy at Comrade Jerry Jones approach, but I suspect that Ronald Reagan is turning over in his grave. The real solution to the NFL's issues are further market freedom by elimination of the anti trust exemption that the NFL has. Let free markets rule. Only a communist could disagree with that statement.

Interesting to note that CBS chose not to air these comments on the nationally broadcost portion of 60 Minutes.

The NFL Politburo

With the Browns in an off week, the BL will start a new feature we've been thinking about from some time: The NFL Politburo, a regular feature that will explore the labor issues pending in 2011 between owners and players.

NFL owners are men who in private industry made fortunes for themselves in the free market system. However when they arrive to the NFL they morph into communists, in favor of imposing central controls and limits on the free market.

Most fans feel more anger towards the players, whom are very well paid. The Brown Log with this regular feature will dig into this issue point by point, trying to help fans understand the real villians in the pending labor issue. The problem rests firmly with the owners of today's NFL teams who wish to more deeply impose communist principles onto NFL players. Apparently NFL owners simply do not trust themselves to operate in a free market. They need rookie salary limits, salary caps and exemption from free markets. Pro football can be a brutal game in which the average player's career lasts 3 years. So please don't blame the players for fighting for the free market.

The real solution to the NFL's labor issues would be to remove anti-trust protection from the NFL and let the free market rule.

This Yahoo article does a great job of summing it up.

Here is an exerpt:

Which side is better positioned to withstand a work stoppage?

The owners, based on simple economics. In theory, they could reduce their operating expenses by 50 percent (an estimated $4.4 billion) via the elimination of player salaries and benefits and the temporary layoffs or salary reductions of various other employees. Meanwhile, thanks to the terms of the extensions to the lucrative TV deals the league has with DirecTV and several broadcast networks, the owners would continue to receive payments during a lockout – though the money would eventually have to be repaid via credits for future games. Still, that’s a serious cash-flow advantage that would, again in theory, allow the owners to realize more than 50 percent of their revenues (nearly $4 billion) and, therefore, to cover their operating expenses for an entire season if necessary. Players, meanwhile, would theoretically be much more financially stressed in the short term, and the relatively short career span of NFL players would make the prospect of missing games even more unpalatable.

Bottom line: The owners are going flaunt the free market, take advantage of their monopoly position that they have thanks to their anti trust exemption and crush the players, period. In a nation built on free market principals, it's astonishing that there is not outrage over the socialist behavior of NFL owners.

Finally, here is some insight from Browns linebacker Scott Fujita, who shared his dismay after meeting NFL commish Roger Goodell. Goodell has been brilliant as the leader of the league but in the labor issue he is stuck in the unenviable position of having to cowtow to the communists he answers to, aka the NFL Politburo....