Leigh Steinberg
Leigh Steinberg
Leigh William Steinbergis an American sports agent. During his 41-year career, Steinberg has represented over 300 professional athletes in football, baseball, basketball, boxing, and Olympic sports. He has represented the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft a record eight times, a milestone unmatched within the sports industry. Steinberg is later credited as the real life inspiration of the sports agent from Cameron Crowe's film Jerry Maguire in 1996...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth27 March 1949
CountryUnited States of America
Football's a team game, so if there's drug use going on there are other ways than testing to deduce if a player has problems, like if his coach and teammates are with him every day in practice. That's why this whole scenario seems unbelievable.
It was the most workouts any of the draftees did, ... and that competition against other players kept him in terrific shape. The summer league commenced July 5, which was soon after the NBA draft and he was in tiptop shape.
Without referring to anybody directly, one of the problems with confrontational public negotiating is that it runs the risk of alienating a public with a median family income of $35,000. So that when a player is complaining publicly that he's only being paid $7-million a year instead of $9-million, a fan can look at that with real anger. And an owner who's challenged publicly may simply become more locked in and less apt to ever compromise.
But the equipment to protect the players hasn't developed along with that, so now you have more players out with worse injuries, for longer periods of time.
When it comes to holdouts, there's a presupposition that the player is some angry rebel who's defying authority and only cares about the money.
When it came to football there was a certain age where I realized that my future in football was being a grease spot on the side of some bigger player.
A player cannot be part of the training camp experience as a rookie unless he is signed to a contract.
It's so much the cherry on top of compensation. It's the kind of thing that someone writes into a contract as the least-likely thing to happen.
The cost is minimal compared to the human cost and the enormous investments that these teams make in training and in contractual commitments to contemporary NFL players,
They are not getting hurt in some frivolous hobby. They are hurt applying themselves to the exact task they've been hired to do. This is a risk that ought to be shared in a fairer way.
Early on last season, a love affair was struck between Ben and Pittsburgh. His blue-collar roots, his Midwest values meshed perfectly with that city.
Duce was a Steelers fan growing up, so this represents the fulfillment of a childhood dream, ... At the end we did go back to Philly as he promised he would, but his re-involvement in their backfield rotation was a disincentive to re-signing there.
Five minutes later, he would turn, with a look of total sincerity, and ask the same questions, as if we had never discussed them. It was frightening to see how delicate was the boundary between rational consciousness and confusion.
Today, you've got Grade-A linemen backed up by Grade-C people. Teams could move back to an era where Joe Montana was backed up by Steve Young who was backed up by Steve Bono. The better clubs with better management would once again be able to hang on to more talent.