I Would Admire Mike Brown for Standing Up for Principles if His Principles Made Any Sense.

You probably could not gain more insight into the psyche of Mike Brown if you spent 10 years being his friend, than if you simply listen to his stance on Carson Palmer.  In case you have not yet heard his stance on Carson, see this.  Money quote:

Carson signed a contract.  He made a commitment.  He gave his word.  We relied on his word.  We relied on his commitment.  We expected him to perform here.  If he's gonna walk away from his commitment, we aren't gonna reward him for doing it.

On its face, the above quote seems reasonable.  You might even be tempted (if you had no idea who Mike Brown was) to think it was a principled stance.  That could not be further from the truth though.  Coming from Mike Brown, that quote demonstrates a glaring hypocrisy and no Bengals fan should fall for this shit anymore.

In short, Mike Brown wishes to boil down the complex nature of player/owner contracts to Carson giving his word that he would play.  And to Mike Brown, a man does not violate his word.  As Carson will discover (if he has not already), God help the man who violates his word given to Mike Brown.

However, this ignores the fact that giving your word goes both ways.  If Mike Brown wants to make the contract nothing more than a folksy principle, based on a man's word, then fine.  But he gave his word implicitly too.  And he's violated his word to Carson by failing to support him and in some cases actively working to undermine his success due to his inept management of the Bengals.

I'll turn it over to commenter JM at this point because no one sums up this whole situation better (I did some very mild editing, see the whole comment here):

Carson Palmer's commitment was waiting on the bench patiently for a season. His commitment is a dead person's ligament that is surgically attached to his knee. His commitment is in the unprecedented work he put into rehab to be ready for '06. His commitment was watching you draft (and sign) thug after misadvised thug and never speaking out. His commitment was putting up with Bratkowski's stale offense for at least 3 seasons too long. His commitment was being chased by Giant defenders that your offensive line couldn't block that seriously injured his elbow (sorry I never saw the same zip or accuracy afterward). His commitment was watching you pass on Desean Jackson for Jerome Simpson, or watching Willie and Levi and Eric all go. Or taking 5 years to find a competent replacement for rich Braham.

And you come out today in front of fans and press and talk like you are some pillar of integrity and you are going to hold Carson to his commitment????

Fuck You! Where's your commitment asshole? To Carson? To fans? To taxpayers?

I have nothing else to add.

------------------------------------

Of course I have something else to add!  I am me.  One point I shy away from, emphasized by the Mike & Mike video you can find in the comments, is that it is hypocritical for any owner to talk about honoring contracts when they can terminate contracts at any time.  I have some sympathy to this angle, except for this ability for owners to terminate has been written into contracts themselves for a long time.  By their very nature, NFL contracts require players to make a more serious commitment to the team than the owners must make to the player.  The point is Mike Brown wants to make this about a man's word, not the contract per se, and he fails to acknowledge he violated his word to Carson by undermining the franchise with his terrible management. 

Comments

[Brown Stain Bratty]

This needs to be packaged up and delivered via regular US mail directly to the Bengals' front office by every reader of this website. I'm so fucking sick of this shit. The guy is an asshole. Period.

[CJ]

Well said. Just to add to that: MB's understanding of labor relations is hypocritical in another way: contracts don't mean shit in the NFL. Teams can cut whomever they want and walk away from a contract as they please, so to speak sanctimoniously about Carson's "committment" is hypocritical and disingenuous.

[whymikeywhy]

Wow, JM. That one paragraph sums it up beautifully. Nice work.

And for all those interested (which on this site, I assume is everyone), here's a link to Mike & Mike's reeming of Mike Brown from this morning: http://sports.espn.go.com/espnradio/show/_/showId/mikeandmike/postId/6807794/show-review Thanks counting_saturn for bringing this up.

[Kevin Jones]

Like CJ said, contracts aren't shit. Did MB keep his commitment to Rashad Jenty, Laverneous Coles, Willie Anderson, Levi Jones, Rudi Johnson or Kyries Herbert just to name a few? Not saying that some of those guys didn't need to go, but he made a commitment damn it, a commitment! Why did he reward them and excuse them from the punishment that is being a Cincinnati Bengal but not Carson?

Ohhhhhhh what a tangled web we weave.

[counting_saturn]

I'm just gonna say it. We need a quick Project Mayhem task, since the eyes of the (sports) world is somewhat fixated on the Bengals. Strike while the iron is hot.

[Anonymous]

I guess we can do what I just did... First I apologize for plagarizing; however, I took JM's comments and forwarded an e-mail along to: mike.brown@bengals.nfl.net; katie.blackburn@bengals.nfl.net; and troy.blackburn@bengals.nfl.net

[JM]

Mike Brown has offended me with his football team before. Or his press conferences, and general disregard for fans. But these comments yesterday were principally by far the most offensive thing this guy has ever done.

Flip it around:

Mike the taxpayers made a commitment. You also made a commitment. You gave us your word. We expect you to honor that commitment, we expect you to perform here. Bengal fans do not feel that they should reward you for never performing to your word or commitment.

Next project mayhem: mass fan retirement on a pre printed letter basically saying just that.

Jim Rome hit MFB up pretty hard today too. Talking about your principles? Something to the effect of you're not the Patriots, this isn't the "Patriot way", this is the Bengal way, the way that has produced 2 winning seasons in 20 years. Definitely some national light on Paul's genetically challenged descendants right now.

[Principle Skinner]

Principles? How can anyone seriously talk as if they think any principle outside of profit guides a single thing Mike Brown does? A 'retiring' Palmer means a savings of what, 10 million? But because he might come back, Brown can't spend that money on other players. He *has* to keep it in reserve. It's a win/win for Mike. Which is the only kind of win he's interested in. It will be interesting if he get a GM bonus (10M?) this year to go with his well-deserved salary.

[JM]

Actually Carson goes on the retired list. John Clayton with ESPN was talking about it last night. The salary goes off of the books while he is on that list. There is a minimum cap number that Mike has to hit. If Carson unretures next year his salary goes back on the books.

The bengals would then have to trade him, or cut salary or not sign players to account for his salary. Carson has to report. If it gets nasty Carson could feign injury, or play poorly, or fight with the team to get a trade or release. If Mike doesn't do it then Carson can retire again. Then mike would have to sign players to hit the minimum cap number.

Jim Rome said it today that this is all stupid because Carson's value will be lower next year than this. But if he gets out, I'm all for it. Game on.

Carson if you're out there, it's time to talk. Spill the beans.

Sidenote, is it true that Dalton and Palmer have the same agent, David Dunn?

[wch]

Apparently you do not understand personal contract law. Carson signed to play here IF he was going to play professional football commensurate with NFL status (i.e., he couldn't go over to a mythical USFL and play there nor could he even go to the Canadian Football League -- but I am not sure if he wanted to go to AFL2 or something like that considering that it is not comparable to the NFL and NFL lawyers and MBB would have one HELL of a time trying to convince jurors that such is the case). Carson does not (in case you've missed it) require to play any football -- at least for financial gain -- he is quite well off in terms of money and will be for the rest of his life.

If anyone said that they were going to 'reward' (or not) Carson for what he's done (i.e., 'walking away from it' or staying to it) a private lawyer would have that person's ass in a veritable SLING before you could say 'David Verser'!

Let's get this straight now... Carson isn't being rewarded for anything. A reward by this definition and understanding would be EXTRA pay (etc.) as incentive for his skills on the football field and I don't think MBB could EVER find an example of him doing so as the owner of the Bengals. On the other hand, he and Carson Palmer (or agents for, therein) have arrived at a sum of money to be paid in salary, bonuses etc -- which are NOT REWARDS -- in recognition of the capabilities and the potential values that Carson Palmer would be to the club under NORMAL circumstances. That's it. There's no reward.

It is as simple as you taking a job at a prospective employer at a guaranteed wage. You get what's guaranteed to you and nothing else. If the employee decides to give you a 'bonus' tha't up to him but that REWARD is HIS doing, not yours. You may or may not deserve it but that does NOT matter.

In personal contract law (i.e. pay for play) the 'play' part does not mean that if you don't play, you don't get paid for if so, how does one blow out a knee on the third Suday of the season and still get paid? What it means is if you do not adhere to the terms of the contract, you don't get paid. In this case, one of the terms was that Carson would play. He isn't and thus he is NOT getting paid. No contract violation.

See the difference here that a lot of da 'wedneck' folk have is that they feel that they agree to terms with (name your shop here) and they have to carry them out. NO, 'braindammage' you don't. You can opt to drop what you're doing right now. However, your skills are not so irresplaceable that you won't be fired. Unless you can find a person with the skills that Palmer has, shut the hell up! Also for those STILL bemoaning that they can't quit, ever heard of a strike?

As well, you need to understand that there are several major differences between youe shop situation and that of being a Pro Football Player -- the main one being that you have no leverage because you CAN be REPLACED (and if you're thinking you can't, let me tell you here and now, you probably need to be replaced because you are a dumbass!)

You are trying to place the conditions and freedoms that you have or are exposed to or have to meet up to, with that of a Football player and this is a CLASSIC example of comparing Oranges to Rutabagas. So don't try to group him and his situation in with you. That's EXACTLY what MBB (IMHO) wants and he is preying on a bunch of dunderheads to continue this line of thought without thinking in the slightest (mostly because you are aforementioned dunderheads) of the situation. Say it ain't so?

When and if the Bengals get compensation for Carson Palmer (and that may be four years down the road and the only compensation would be a handshake and a hearty big and loud FUCK YOU for CP or a representative to MBB), that's it. You never know, Miami might come to MBB tomorrow and say that they need CP and are wiling to give that spoile brat -- well over and good of what CP's worth truly is. That is actually what MBB wants (IMO). He may not say but like anyone making a deal, they want to get more out of what their 'selling' than what it's worth. The difference is that MBB would rather hang on to watch person turn to a skeleton and then to dust, before he would ever have someone say that money can compromise his principles. To that, I good, I am proud to hear someone say that. But, at the same time, someone saying that they can't play for a particular person anymore (effectively) and thus are not receiving ANYTHING other than league negotiated benefits -- certainly nothing from the particular team or person, they too are not compromising their principles. If someone would show me where CP got paid for these next four years, then you've and argument. However, as noted, MBB isn't 'stoopid' in the sense that he's going to pay a whole back end of a contract to someone without having them earn it. That's what you get when these 'stoopids' like Eddie DeBartolo guaranteed contracts to so many people on the 49ers just to lock them up for a longer peiod because he knew that he was going to win some hardware with them. Problem is that these guarantees, people got hurt and DeBartolo lost the money. People retried, and he lost the money. He owed so many people so much money, they only way out was to play 'Whimpy' of Popeye fame -- 'I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a Hamburger today (deferration)'

His finances were a fucking 'lot' He had to sell the club because of his financial shenanigans. He got his hardware though. Bars -- the kind that clatter when the cell door is closed! He got so far into it that he couldn't write off his NFL losses on his taxes anymore without someone noticing. They did and audit and what did they find? Does Tax evasion mean anything? I have said in the past, that this was one of the major differences I saw between oweners who won by intent and owners like MBB who win due to fortune -- err -- accident. Drayton McLain, I think he ran a storage company and a financial company. Wellington Mara, I think he ran a good deal of the waste distribution in NJ. DeBartolo, he had a trucking company. That guy in Washington D.C., several private interests etc. The point being is that all of these guys had something to fall back on. MBB doesn't. Not all of those mentioned CHOSE DeBartolo's path, but there are others in the league that have. It's a good thing to know that when you fall 100 feet, you have a 99 foot airbag right below ya -- and that's what they had.

As I said, MBB, only had what his private famly had. If the world's best player became available today, he wouldn't get into the buying sweepstakes because he is not going to pay that much. DeBartolo, on the other hand, paid Montana and Rice and 'Steve-O' like he was shakin' the money tree -- because as far as he was concerned, it was coming off of the taxes (as I understand it).

So, in the end, please quit allowing yourselves to be used by MBB and his minions (and onions for that matter) to say that Carson hasn't done this or that -- make sure the statement are both complete and with context -- from now on. The moment that dunderhead goes on Radio -- very rarely, ask him to explain how Carson was being 'rewarded' as he was earning everything he made via the conditiions of his contracts and had NEVER gotten anything else from that idiot (MBB) previously in his life? Maybe that will shut Mike Brown up -- in the least stop his lying.

And finally, if you ever hear a radio or TV personality deny that they are a shill for the Bengals, tell them that they are fibbing their collective asses off. As them to call Mike Brown an impetulant and incredusou turdburger -- on the air -- and NO, that does not violate FCC rules on what's been said (and for those of you who agree with that statement but also say: "He wa right, I'll tell ya, he was right, I saw George Carlin on Comedy Central one time and I think I had an album that my brother-in-law has call 'Class Clown' and in it, he said that there were only seven words you couldn't say on television..." Wrong. Crawl back in your hole woobie! But I can assure you that 'turdburger' is acceptable to the FCC -- it won't be to MBB as he wants to fire the talking head that called him such! Brown's ego is so large that even being told beforehand, of what was going to be said, I don't think he could allow it or would do nothing once stated. But again, that's me. Prove my opinion wrong.