Cincinnati Bengals
The innocent bystander
By Scott Priestle, CNATI.com Posted August 27, 2009 9:48 PM ET
It is not often the big man on campus volunteers for a supporting role, but Andre Smith did. As a senior at Birmingham's Huffman High -- as the reigning Mr. Football in Alabama and one of the most coveted recruits in the nation -- he came off the bench for the basketball team, for the sheer joy of being part of the team.
"It's never about him. He's just a team guy," said Gabe Giardina, who worked closely with Smith the past three years as a graduate assistant coach at Alabama. "He's just a normal kid."
Three and a half years later, the normal kid who was so eager to be part of the high school basketball team sits at home while his new team moves on without him (and makes fun of him). He is without a contract because his agent and his would-be bosses are determined to "win" the negotiation.
All parties already have lost.
The Bengals are without a player they counted on to rebuild their offensive line. They lost three weeks of intense instruction, the type of coaching that is not possible during the regular season, which makes it difficult to imagine Smith being ready to contribute in 2009.
Smith's agent, Alvin Keels, has been unable to make Bengals ownership budge, and a national television audience is witnessing it weekly on HBO's Hard Knocks. It is a safe bet other agents will use that against Keels next winter when they are trying to attract new clients.
And Smith has lost a valuable opportunity to reshape his image after a run of bad publicity: the suspension from the Sugar Bowl for contact with an agent, leaving the NFL scouting combine early, being filmed shirtless at the Alabama pro day and twice switching agents.
None of his missteps were malicious. By all accounts, it is not Smith's nature to be malicious -- at least not off the football field. Those missteps were the result of being young, naïve and overwhelmed.
"He has such a good spirit about him," said Giardina, now an assistant coach at Charleston Southern. "You don't want to call him `sweet.' He's just a positive kid. He affected people in a positive manner every day. Whenever he gets to Cincinnati, people will be glad he's there."
Smith could benefit from the tough love of Bengals offensive line coach Paul Alexander and the guidance of veteran linemen Bobbie Williams and Andrew Whitworth. It had to sting watching other Bengals rookies making fun of him on Hard Knocks, and it surely aches every day the team gathers without him.
"I don't know what he's thinking, but to me he may be caught between a rock and a hard place," Giardina said. "He's not a selfish kid. He doesn't have a big ego. I think attention embarrasses him."
This would be a perfect time for Smith to become more assertive, join the negotiations and demand that a deal gets done. Develop the thick skin that a professional athlete needs in order to separate the business from the game. Take control of his career.
If only it were that easy. The innocence that ordinarily would be Smith's virtue now has him in a vice-grip, holding him back, making him a bystander rather than a football player. That is a difficult thing for anyone to reconcile, particularly a 22-year-old kid.
Maybe he should be expected to find his voice, since it's his rookie year and millions of dollars are at stake. Maybe he has found it, and he sees the Bengals' offer as an insult: As the sixth overall pick in the draft, Smith reportedly has been offered less than last year's No.6 (Jets linebacker Vernon Gholston) and this year's No.7 (Raiders receiver Darius Heyward-Bay).
The dollars are ridiculous either way. The cost of signing a top draft pick in the NFL and MLB almost defeats the purpose of allowing the worst teams to pick first: Make a mistake and you'll pay for it for years. So I understand the Brown family taking a stand. But until the other 31 owners join them, the Browns are only hurting their own team.
And a quiet young man who loves being part of a team.
Categories: Cincinnati Bengals, Columns, Featured Stories
Tags: Alvin Keels, Andre Smith, Bengals
Comments (9)
I'm with Smith on this one. After watching Pollack's career cut short in the manner it did I can't blame rookies in the NFL for getting what they deserve/can when they have the opportunity.
And I can't help but think that the Bengals are only one of a handful of teams that would still not have a deal in place in this instance.
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The Bengals are the ONLY team that wouldn't have a deal done here. The only other guy not signed thinks he should be paid for a slot he wasn't drafted in.
I feel bad for the kid. The point about Pollack is spot on.
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I can't blame the Bengals too much, the Heyward-Bey deal is ridiculous! He is getting an increase of at least 21% over the 7th round pick last year, in this fucked up economy!
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but the Bengals still insist on paying him less than the 6th pick last year. That's the sticking point. Katie's insists it a lot of money but if they don't want to pay the money - trade down and maintain the shittiest franchise status. This franchise is valued at a Billion dollars and they consistently profit in the 100 to 200 million dollar range each year.
The lesson here is the Bengals don't treat their players fairly. That is why the likes of Spikes and TJ bolt the first chance they get. The H-Bey deal may be over-reaching, but at least pay the kid more than last years pick- which they still refuse to do. Seeing all those empty seats down there, I doubt they will.
They can up their offer 3 million and make the team better. perhaps they will sell those last couple thousand tickets.
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Mike Brown is so consistently criticized that it's hard to separate legitimate criticism from more baseless, vitriloic claims. But here are my problems with Mike Brown not paying slot money for Smith.
1) You already have tons of money invested in Carson Palmer. Andre Smith helps protect that investment. So even if you think you are overpaying a little for Smith isn't that worth keeping Palmer on the field.
2) They are not overpaying by paying slot money. There are meritorious arguments against the current rookie compensation structure but it IS the current system. Should the Bengals have one model to pay rookies while the other 31 NFL teams have another model?
3) Yes the Heyward-Bey deal makes no sense but that is an argument for the Bengals setting the market by signing Smith before the Raiders signed Heyward-Bey. It is not an argument for offering a compensation package that ignores what the #5 pick (Sanchez) and the #7 pick (Heyward-Bey) accepted.
4) Yes the economy is bad but the NFL is still doing well. The salary cap for 2009 is $127 million up from $116.6 million in 2008. The salary cap is determined as a percentage of defined gross revenue (TV rights, ticket sales, mercahndise). Why should Smith take less than the 2008 #6 pick (Vernon Gholston) when league revenues are still increasing, albeit at a lower rate.
There are other issues here of course. The Brown family's stubbornness. Alvin Keels is a new agent with a small stable of clients and management probably thinks they don't have to offer that good a deal. As usual the loser in all of this is the fans.
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I'm sure I'll be called stupid, nuts, don't know what I'm talking about, etc., but....
This is a problem every season somewhere in the NFL (usually here!), so why doesn't the NFL try to do anything about it?
One solution would be to try what the NBA is doing; you get drafted 6th in the 1st round you get a $XX,000,000 amount. Such an obscene high number should be XXX.
OR, something that baseball does with veterans. Another obscenity---arbitration.
IF, players were smart(er); they'd write into their contracts with their agents; if you can complete the contract negotiations by Aug 1st the agent receives 25%, every week after that is 5% less.
If a contract is not completed by the beginning of the season everyone should be penalized.
-The team loses the draft pick. (and the same pick the next yeat?)
-The player must wait till the following year and reenter the draft.
In this scenario the agent and the player will WANT to get a contract in place, so they can get thier hands on the $XXX (obscene amount of money!)
Pretty stupid ideas, eh?
Oh yea, I know why this won't work-more obscene initials NFLPA.
NEVERMIND!!
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I really like this article, especially how Smith's innocence and kindness may be both virtues and vices in this scenario.
However, I do take umbrage with one section.
"This would be a perfect time for Smith to become more assertive, join the negotiations and demand that a deal gets done. Develop the thick skin that a professional athlete needs in order to separate the business from the game. Take control of his career."
This would seem to imply that what needs to happen for this deal to get done is Smith to force his agent to take the deal worse than last year's 6, since Smith has tons of leverage over his agent and none, via his agent or not, over the Bengals. Smith can't fire the Bengals. At best he can sit out the entire season, but then the 20 mil or less deal he gets next season will pale in comparison to even the 30 mil (lessor than last year's or no) he can get by signing now.
So if Smith's only leverage is over his agent, what this section seems to suggest is now would be the perfect time for Smith, via his agent, to cave and accept the worst first round deal of 2009. In an article that does a great job of showing the lose/lose nature of the situation and how it has created an innocent victim, this section seems to suggest that now is the perfect time for Smith to step up and victimize himself.
I actually think there is no winning in this unless something major is done to move the Browns' stance. Firing Keels, or putting pressure on him, is not the answer. The deal could be done today if Andre wanted it, true, but it would be a below slot deal that would only further the narrative as another mistake by a clueless individual whose career as a professional has been marked by a litany of them. Andre may be a babe in the woods. That does not mean he should lead himself into the mouth of the wolf.
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Good points, Antonio. I did not mean to imply that Smith should take the current offer, only that he should make sure the focus of the negotiations is on getting a deal done -- not on "winning" the negotiation. Both sides should be willing to move.
Ultimately, because the Bengals have more leverage, maybe Smith has to move more. Maybe he has to sign for less than Gholston and Heyward-Bay. Is that worse than sitting at home while his rookie year flies by?
I don't know. I'm not sure what I would do if I were in his shoes. I just hope he is comfortable with the way things are going, because my sense is that he is caught between two parties who do not necessarily have his best interests at heart.
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I'm not saying the Bengals aren't at fault for most of this, but Andre Smith (actually Alvin Keels) only has to decide if he wants to be rich or richer. We should all be so lucky to be in such a tough spot! COME ON!
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