Football Fridays: Tuarmoil In Miami

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Happy Friday, folks.

He finally did it. Judge hit his 62nd home run, thus ending the obligato-

-ry MLB cut ins on every live sport broadcast in the country. Congrats to Judge on such a historic achievement, but even bigger congrats to those of us who just want to enjoy our college football in peace.

We've also reached that time of the year in which the leaves are changing colors, autumn decorations are out in full swing, and college football coaches are getting fired. We saw the fall of Scott Frost at Nebraska followed shortly by Herm Edwards at Arizona State and Geoff Collins at Georgia Tech. This week, it was Wisconsin's Paul Chryst and Colorado's Karl Dorrell that got ousted at their respective programs.

If you're thinking about shedding a tear or two for these poor, devastated coaches being handed the cardboard box, maybe preserve your hydration. Even the lowest paid among the bunch (Dorrell) is being paid nearly $9 million just to go away. I'm sure that they're all just heartbroken about not having to kiss ass to a bunch of 17 year old recruits and power-hungry boosters, and I'm positive that they are just going to hate getting to spend more time at home with their families instead of game planning until 3am every weeknight.

Over in the NBA, scouts and fans alike have been whispering about French boy wonder Victor Wembanyama for years. The 18 year old Frenchie is a 7'2", positionless anomaly as a player, combining more height and length than Giannis with the all-around offensive skillset of Kyrie Irving. He has quickly become the most hyped up prospect since Zion Williamson, and with 8 months still to go until the NBA draft, the noise is only likely to amplify.

It also helps that Victor made his American debut on Tuesday when his professional French squad made the trip to Vegas to party with play the G League Ignite, a team comprised mostly of former top high school players opting to spend their league-mandated intra high school/NBA draft year focusing on basketball full time rather than pretending to play school as a one and done.

The Americans came away with the victory behind fellow elite prospect and projected second pick Scott Henderson's elite performance, but Victor more than lived up to the hype, nearly bringing his team back from a big early deficit with 37 points. This performance, combined with the already pools of drool already filled by GMs over his unicorn combo of frame and skillset, all but cement his status as the top pick come next summer. This has prompted many to call for his agent to make the business decision to sit him until he hears his name called and walks across the stage to prevent injury, though Victor has shot these calls down, probably because he wants to earn more VC to level up his 2K MyPark profile.

However, the play or sit out mindset has emerged in other sports as well.

Just last year, at least 30 college football players sat out of bowl games to prepare for the NFL, not even including those that were injured or were unavailable because they had already entered the transfer portal. Most did so to avoid potential career-impacting injuries which could hurt their draft stock or playing career, and while many outsiders argue that players risk injury every time that they put the cleats on, whether in regular season games or even in practice, the rise of "meaningless bowl games" and a few recent examples of players missing out on millions of dollars because of bowl injuries has fueled the opt out trend.

In 2016, Notre Dame faced off with the Ohio State in The Fiesta Bowl, a non-playoff matchup but still one featuring two of the biggest brands in the sport. Entering the game, Irish linebacker Jaylon Smith was a lock to be a top ten draft pick and possibly go in the top five. Within the first few minutes of the game, Smith suffered a severe leg injury, tearing his ACL and MCL and sustaining nerve damage in his knee. The injury spooked pro teams, and he fell to the second round of the draft. He was sidelined for his entire rookie season before bursting onto the scene as a star defender the following year, but rather than earning $25 million over four years as a top five pick, he earned just $6 M on his rookie contract.

A similar situation played out the next year with Michigan tight end Jake Butt tearing his ACL in his bowl game, and since, more top players are sitting out. During the COVID-impacted 2020 season, some stars such as Ja'Marr Chase even sat out for the entire season because most were considering it a throwaway year, and it hasn't helped that CFB media has begun to label any non-playoff bowl game as "meaningless." Players are making decisions which they believe are best for their and their families' financial futures, decisions which are becoming even more impactful as rookie contracts have ballooned. Last year's top pick, Travon Walker, is making $37 million on his rookie deal because he went first overall.

There is also a significant market being created in player insurance. First, did you know that you can save when you bundle home and auto insurance with Progressive? Second, did you know there are actually loss of value policies being created to compensate athletes for any money lost because of injuries?

Butt was one of the first to opt for a loss of value policy, an add on provision to a more common permanent disability policy. Since, an entirely new segment of the industry has been created in response to the growing demand from colleges and players.

To assess the value of these policies, insurers are actually conducting investigations resembling the draft scouting process. Research is done to determine players' projected draft positions based on their position, physical attributes, and where they rank with other available players. Then, the going rates for past players are assessed (and adjusted for the i-word). In the end, projected top ten players are typically assigned $10 million in disability and $5 M in loss of value valuations with a downward scale for lower draft tiers.

It is likely that we will continue to see policies such as these being pursued as the value of sports, and the athletes playing them, continues to skyrocket. This means that injuries are even more costly than ever before. Just look at Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.

Tua suffered a concussion in last Thursday's Dolphins-Bengals game when his head was slammed into the turf on a tackle. While these plays are a part of the game, what really drew criticism was the fact that he had suffered a similar head injury just five days prior in the Dolphins' Sunday game when he appeared to stumble while trying to walk after getting up from the tackle. He was pulled from the game by medical officials for closer evaluation but was actually put back in after the team decided that he was okay. The evaluating doctor was actually even fired after giving the thumbs up, a decision he had apparently made after evaluating the quarterback's physical condition and asking him how he felt.

Yeah. I'm sure that the ultra competitive quarterback with the serious brain injury was capable of making the decision on whether he was good to go...

A few years ago, Tua actually experienced a draft day injury slide of his own because of a broken hip he had suffered midway through the regular season. Prior to his junior season, he had actually opted not to purchase the insurance policy, and there was concern that this decision might end up costing him millions.

Luckily, he was picked up fifth overall (though he might have gone first had he been healthy...), so he didn't lose out on as much, but as was seen with Smith, not every player gets so lucky. Tua's contract provides him with $30 million of guaranteed money, not even counting his many endorsement deals. What can I say? The guy has charisma out the wazoo.

Hopefully, Tua comes back completely healthy and never experiences any longterm effects of the injury en route to a long and successful multi-Super Bowl career. However, even if he never comes back because of the severity of successive head injuries or even if he makes the personal choice to retire, he and his family keep every cent of that money.

However, the going rate for free agent quarterbacks, even those with far less potential than Tua, are much higher than $30 million. Each of the top ten quarterbacks in the league makes more than that in a single season. Given that Tua has now suffered two severe injuries, there is a chance that his market value might take a hit. However, he would still make more than he is currently earning with his next contract, and that is where not having a loss of value clause could come back to hurt him.

Such clauses apply even once a player makes the jump to the professional level, so if a player can prove that his contract has been severely diminished because of injury, he is due financial compensation. The problem is that this sort of proof takes months of hard paperwork and effort to produce, and there have been few cases of players successfully being able to do so.

Prayers for Tua. It's a reminder of how brutal the sport that we all love can be. At the end of the day, these are people putting their lives on the line for our enjoyment. The least we can do is provide them every resource available to ensure that they can do so in the safest way possible and are compensated for this risk.

The investigation into how the Dolphins handled the whole situation is still underway, but if evidence suggests that the team knowingly put him into danger to win one game, every single person on that staff should never be allowed near the sport again. Players are treated like commodities by organizations and fans alike. Of course they're going to choose more money over "loyalty." FOH with the accusations of being greedy divas.

My Aggies aren't good this year. They're underdogs by about a quarter-century this weekend. I'll still subject myself to watching the massacre, but for the rest of you, there are a few big games worth checking out:

• #17 TCU @ #19 Kansas. Site of College Gameday and matchup between two undefeated teams. Just like we all expected before the season.

• #8 Tennessee @ #25 LSU. Huge matchup down in the Bayou, but I got Hooker and the Vols.

• #11 Utah @ #18 UCLA. Chip's chance for a big win, but the Utes are in must-win mode if they want a chance at the Playoffs. I like Whittingham and Cam Rising.

Should be another great weekend of football. More than anything, just hoping for no severe injuries🙏

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Cheers to another day,

Trey