Someone Outside of Oakland Accuses Al Davis of Ruining Football

↵Nnamdi Asomugha is bloody rich, and NFL executives are steaming mad. Jason Cole of Yahoo! has some sour bosses miffed at Oakland owner Al Davis for having the temerity to give his best player lots of cash.↵↵⇥“How many different ways can you say, ‘What were they thinking?’ ” a team executive who declined to be identified said after being told the terms of Asomugha’s three-year, $45 million contract.
↵⇥
↵⇥“Insanity, stupidity, whatever you want to attach to it. Yeah, the kid is the best cornerback in the league. They paid for quality. I’ll give them that. But that deal wrecks the league. Absolutely wrecks it. … I’m sure Al doesn’t care, but it’s deals like that that change the league for the worse.”↵↵A terrible team with a serious talent deficiency pays admittedly huge money to keep its best (by far) young player ... and it’s worse for the league? Yeah, definitely. It would have been much better if the team a) franchised said young player against his wishes, leading said young player to being angry all season, or b) let the young player flee to a team which would have also paid him a remarkably large sum of money.
↵
↵Asomugha’s deal isn’t the reason for salaries getting out of control -- it’s a product of a league that has seen salaries get out of control. I’m all for tossing Al Davis under a steamroller (and six feet of dirt, while we’re at it*), but let’s not let our pouting over higher salaries for other free agent targets get in the way of reason.
↵
↵* I do not explicitly advocate for the death of Al Davis. I am, however, concerned with the coming zombie invasion he has planned. It’s for the good of man, man.↵