NFL owners are worried about how crazy free agency will be, so they reportedly are looking to have the “right of first refusal” for up to three free agents.
Florio took down the idea last week as one the players should summarily reject. Ross Tucker of ESPN.com, who looks a lot less scary than he did as a player, joined PFT Live Tuesday and pointed out it’s the owners fault there are so many free agents in the first place.
“It’s a joke . . . [the owners] wanted to have three or four right of first refusals on the guys with four or five years of service in order so that the market wasn’t quite as flooded. To which I would say, you’re the ones that made it rain!” Tucker said.
Tucker is right. Of all the owners’ ideas of the last few months, this may be the least fair. Further punishing free agents that were held over last year by the owners opting out of the CBA is illogical.
As Tucker points out, flooding the market with free agents will keep most prices down anyway.