by C. Michael Lowery

Created on: March 08, 2007   Last Updated: April 27, 2007

To put this question into perspective, we are asked to choose which NFL player is the most over-rated. Yet every player in the NFL is, in a sense, over-rated. Each of these players, not just the big and obvious choices like Vick and Owens, get paid incredible amounts of money to play what is basically a kids' game.
Are each and every player on the field an incredible athlete in some regard? Most definitely. But are their salaries in line with their contributions? Not really.

Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs appears shocked at the prospect of playing for the Bears next year- an organization he says is 'cheap' because the Chicago Bears exercised the Franchise Tag option on Briggs for next season. This option allows the Bears to retain the services of Mr. Briggs for one year for a 'paltry' 7.5 million dollars. That, after taxes, comes to about a quarter of a million dollars-get this-a week in take home pay. Imagine a job where you could call your boss cheap and not only keep your job, but get a huge raise in the process.
Football players do put their bodies on the line for a living and they often pay the price in disabling injuries. No NFL player has lived to be 100 years old. Yes, their careers are usually brief and they are forced to earn their lives' income in a span generally around 5 years. But who considers 80 million an average lifetime earning? The man who signs my paychecks doesn't.
If the argument is that the players' contribution to society and the like are on par with their salaries, then what about the brave men and women of the United States military? Do we not live in a free country and have the freedom to watch sports because they gave us that right?
The men and women of the U.S. military put their lives in harms' way every single day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. More troops will die in combat THIS MONTH than the number of players in the NFL that have EVER died during an NFL game. Soldiers returning from combat with disabilities face a Government medical system that is arcane,over crowded, and vastly underfunded. While we remember with great zeal the names of players who have played the game in the past, the names of those lost in defense of freedom fade from memory almost the moment we hear them.
An NFL player can retire in their 30's and live in affluence the rest of their lives. Yet we allow more U.S. vets to fall into homelessness per capita than any other nation on Earth. The United States leads the entire world in the number of active duty soldiers who receive government assistance to pay for food. There are only a hand full of modern era NFL players on those rolls, and all had six figure salaries during their careers.
So, to answer the original question, when the topic is viewed as whole, every player in the NFL is over rated. These men will not die to defend your freedom this month or any month, they wont perform a life saving surgery on you and they likely wont spend their lives working long hours in a factory just to buy food. From the least man on the practice squad to the superstar QB, all are over rated.

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