On Thursday, Adam Schefter of ESPN reported that Jeff Fisher isn’t leveraging the Dolphins against the Rams, and that neither team has made Fisher an offer.
Schefter elaborated on the situation during an appearance with Sid Rosenberg on WQAM radio. Although Schefter continues to insist that no financial offers have been made (and we continue to insist that’s ludicrous), it’s clear that leverage is being exercised in other ways.
“Jeff Fisher is trying to make sure that the situation is exactly the way that he wants it,” Schefter said. “OK, that the organization lays out the travel, the trainers, the chiropractors, the budgets, the payrolls. I mean, there’s a lot that goes into this, OK? And he’s trying to sew this up with both sides.”
In other words, Fisher is . . . wait for it . . . exerting leverage.
But Schefter insists Fisher isn’t exerting leverage: “This is 100 percent, and trust me I’ve spoken to enough people on this to know, not a leverage play, not a power play, not anything. It’s making sure when you’re in the position that he is to get the situation exactly the way you want it to be.”
Adam, we love you, but that’s the very definition of a leverage play. Even if no financial offers have been made, Fisher is pitting the two teams against each other in order to get what Fisher wants as to issues like, as summarized by Schefter: “Who’s got final authority? Who makes decisions? How does this work? Who gets final decision on draft day? Who gets final decision on the 53-man roster?”
After being badgered for several minutes by Rosenberg (in only the way that Rosenberg can), Schefter acknowledges (perhaps unwittingly) that, indeed, this is a leverage game: “He’s got leverage in the sense that he can create things the way that he’d like them to be.”
Bingo!
And that’s the bottom line. It is a leverage game. Fisher wants things his way. And he’s pitting the Rams against the Dolphins to get things his way -- “exactly” his way, as Schefter says.
Even if no offers will be made until Fisher completely gives up his leverage by telling one team to make like a tree and get out of here and then tells the other team to pay him whatever the winner chooses to pay him (which gets more ludicrous the more I think about it), the fact remains that Fisher is playing a leverage game between the two teams. Even Schefter, who in one breath denies it, can’t ultimately disagree with that reality.