BENGALSTRIPES – Oh my word. We had him in camp for two days and he’s injured already. Why did this happen? Was it the bengal curse? Was it Mike Brown’s fault? Was it Katie Blackburn’s fault? No, no, and no. The responsible parties are Andre Smith and his agent, Alvin Keels. If not for the pointless holdout that these two gentlemen orchestrated, Andre would have been in camp a month ago and this injury would not have occured.
Paul Daugherty absolutely nailed this story with his article in the Enquirer a couple weeks back, stating, “ Smith will sign in the next week or two, probably for pennies more than the club’s final offer,” and, “Keels’ … he sounds like he’s begging. At the negotiating table, The Family will salt him and eat him for lunch.” The soothsayer did not actually predict the injury, but Daugherty did correctly speculate that Smith would not show up in football shape. I’ll concede that Mr. Daugherty is a bit better at predicting the future than yours truly.
Smith and Keels are solely responsible for the recent demise of the Bengals’ first round selection. The 30-day holdout orchestrated by the aforementioned brain trust netted them absolutely zero. The offer that they accepted was virtually the same offer the Bengals had on the table for weeks. Smith and Keels did not get the slotted deal that they wanted, AND the Bengals were somehow able to get Smith to agree to a weight clause in his contract. Per Mike Florio of profootballtalk.com, “the contract contains a provision that slashes in half Smith’s pay for each game in which he weighs in at 350 pounds or higher — and in which he is not on the active 45-man roster…it’s a dramatic and (as far as we can tell) unprecedented move to compel a player to maintain a certain weight.”
Wow. The Bengals have negotiated an incredible deal with their first round pick. A+ to Katie Blackburn and to Mike Brown. They have really knocked this one out of the park. This is one of the shrewdest contract negotiations in the history of the NFL, and Bengal fans should be thrilled with the product on the field. My only question is, what was the point of the 30 day holdout? It yielded no financial benefits for the player, and his on-field performance has already suffered. The holdout was a horrible idea and will most definitely damage Keels’ chances for landing future work. One might say that Keels is regretting snatching Smith’s business back from Priority Sports. Then again, Al just made about $630,000 (3 percent of 21 million) for sitting around and doing nothing for a month, so I wouldn’t worry about the pool party being cancelled just yet.
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