An NFL Executive Asks: How in the World is the NCAA's System Legal?

Here’s the full quote from this unnamed NFL executive to Robert Klemko. And it’s at the same time chilling and enraging:

“The NCAA, they’re all crooks. It’s extortion of these players, because they’re all beat up. In April I see 350 physicals [of draft-eligible players] and listen to all the injuries and it’s just brutal. They’re 22-years-old and we can’t draft him or we knock ‘em down the draft board and the doctor says we might be able to get one contact out of him.

“They’re never more marketable than the four years they’re in college. Their stadiums are bigger than ours and everyone paid 100 bucks to get in and $50 to park and the conference has a TV contract and there’s national TV and the players don’t get a dime? How in the world is this legal?

“If you or I were real talented at singing or playing guitar or rap, we could just go make a bunch of money. It’s not like we have to go to some music school and let them reap millions off of us first. We can go off on our own.

“These kids don’t have that option. You throw in the fact that the average NFL career is three years, and it’s just a travesty.”

First, I’ll concede this is not the most original thought ever put to words. There’s not one of us who hasn’t watched a coach in any NCAA sport leave to go make more money elsewhere, screwing over his recruits who can’t switch schools without sitting out a year, who hasn’t said the same thing. Or seen how Oklahoma can sell jerseys with Kyler Murray’s name and number on them and everyone gets paid except for Kyler Murray and realized who Bizarro World it is. Or watched a potential 1st rounder tear an ACL in a bowl game run by a CEO who makes six figures a year to put on one football game and wondered how this system was ever created.

Second, you can argue that the guy saying this is like Senator Geary telling Michael Corleone he doesn’t like his kind and the way he does business, as Michael shoots back “We’re all part of the same hypocrisy, Senator.” But in this case, I don’t think it’s fair. According to a subsequent Tweet, Klemko confirms that this guy works for a team, not the league office. This ridiculous and unholy alliance between the NCAA and NFL is happening above the paygrade of a guy who’s job it is to win Super Bowls under whatever system he hired to work in.

Regardless, this comes at a good time. When everything is stopping so we can watch three weeks of one of the great American institutions, March Madness. Yes, it’s also part of the same hypocrisy. But at least the players have options that tight ends, safeties and long snappers don’t. Sure, Duke will shamelessly price-gouge the hell out of their loyal fans who want to watch Zion Williamson play North Carolina in a February game. But at least he gets to stop showing his face on campus next month and will soon be making enough to buy the place. And if you’re part of the population who is not Zion Williamson, you can happily save your parents the $40,000 out-of-state tuition to get a degree from Vermont or wherever, just like this is a free country.

But when you’re an aspiring pro football player, that basic liberty is denied. For reasons. And it’s just rewarding somehow to know that someone inside an NFL office recognizes it.

Lastly, as we’re watching whatever it is, 67 games total in a dozen or so cities, remember that one of the reasons the NCAA gave for denying us a football playoff all those decades was that it would be a distraction and take away from academics. The hypocrisy of these dirtbags knows no limits. Now back to the tournament.