NaVorro Bowman: Roger Goodell asking for $50 million is 'slap in the face' to players

NFL players love the idea of guaranteed contracts

Most NFL owners not named Jerry Jones want to extend commissioner Roger Goodell's contract, the particulars of which are a mystery, though according to ESPN, Goodell has asked for a salary of $49.5 million a year, access to a private jet and lifetime health insurance for him and his family.

Certainly middle-class America would consider this excessive but so too does a subset of the one-percenters. Namely, NFL players, some of whom were asked to give their opinion on Goodell's demands.

"In regards to [Goodell's] contract, I just don't think that's respectable," Raiders linebacker NaVorro Bowman told ESPN.com. "In regards to the players, and just a slap in the face just due to the job that we have. It just, it doesn't make sense, just because he's the commissioner that he gets to make that much money and it be guaranteed. No player in this league has that opportunity and I feel like we should."

We understand Bowman's frustration but in Goodell's defense, he asked for these things. The owners don't have to give them to him (and Jones doesn't want to). The players had an opportunity to ask for what they wanted back in 2011, when the last collective bargaining agreement was negotiated. When it was over, everyone agreed that the owners made out. Bills offensive lineman Richie Incognito reaffirmed as much this week.

"As far as the CBA goes, I think that we got hosed the last time we negotiated," Incognito told the Buffalo News' Tim Graham, "and I think we're going to get hosed again [in 2021] as players. I think we're just going to be taken behind the woodshed again."

Put another way: Players understand that Goodell has something they don't: a lot of leverage.

"...[I]f you got that type of power and leverage, I would ask for it, too," said Lorenzo Alexander, Incognito's teammate in Buffalo. "It's a multibillion-dollar industry and they say he's done a great job. He gets $44 million now, right, so what's six more million? At the end of the day, split up between 32 billionaires, it's nothing. It's a write-off for them. It's a business expense. I would ask for it if I could. I'm not mad at it."

Whether the players can negotiate better terms for themselves when the current CBA expires in 2021 remains to be seen. But it's clear they understand that, above all else, the NFL is a business. And it's in Goodell's interest to do one thing: Make money for the owners. He's done a good job of that during his tenure. So much so, in fact, that Goodell may come out of his latest negotiation with more power than Jones, previously considered one of the league's most powerful men.