HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. -- Over the weekend, one of my idols, Deion Sanders, sent out a tweet that sparked a lot of outrage and opposition on social media.
My brother and I once had his poster hanging up in our 3-bedroom trailer in west Tennessee. He was the greatest athlete we'd ever seen. My brother was lucky enough to get his signature shoe Nike had designed for him. Being only 18 months apart and pretty much identical in size, we wore the same size shoe throughout our childhood, him with the Nike Air DT Max ‘96, me with the basic white and blue Air Force 1s.
(At that time, rocking Air Force 1 shoes wasn't that popular. I was outsmarted by my older brother again. Why didn’t Nelly make the song 'Air Force Ones' earlier? But that’s besides the point I’m making here.)
The tweet that I’m referencing:
All Players OPTING out in all sports PLEASE BELIEVE the game will go on without u. This is a business & don’t u EVER forget that. There’s NO ONE that’s bigger than the game itself. Only the ref,umps & officials are that important that u can’t play without them. NOT YOU! #Truth
— Deion Sanders (@DeionSanders) August 7, 2020
The last word with the hashtag was important, because he is speaking truth. If you’re around professional sports, you realize that.
Deion received a lot of backlash from that tweet, to say the least. He had to go into defense mode to try to get his audience to understand his reasoning. I initially looked at his tweet with a side-eye, as well, but after reading through what he meant I fully supported it.
The guys who opt out weren’t being attacked for doing so. Instead, he was suggesting they be savvy enough to see that, if a season gets played out entirely without them, some of them will get left behind the following year.
We've seen it all over sports. We've seen it with some of the greatest Steelers. Players get passed up. Numbers get passed on. Some will ask, 'Where’s the respect? That guy was a legend here!' But that’s the business of professional football. And I do mean business. As legendary as Casey Hampton, Brett Keisel, James Harrison and Alan Faneca were to our Steelers Nation, their numbers still got passed on after they left. I think we can agree that those four guys will definitely be in the Steelers Hall of Honor and two could be in Canton.
This is no slight to those guys who received their numbers. Faneca's No. 66, for example, is worn with dignity by David DeCastro. It’s just a reality that the game goes on. The numbers stay the same but the stitching above the number changes.
The reality is that we all play a game, but the game is controlled by the business aspect of operation. General managers and coaches have a job to keep the ship moving. And that means finding a talent that’s as equal to or better than the guy who is missing. And it doesn't matter whether that's the result of an injury, a suspension or -- in these crazy times -- a pandemic. We’ve seen teams cutting an expensive player, an All-Pro, and getting not one but two cheaper options. We've seen it countless times.
You have to respect what Deion said.
Ask any player, current or former, and they'll tell you the biggest obstacle to overcome while being on injured reserve is the mental battle of realizing the team has moved on without you. You see another guy at your position. You see that guy making plays. You see that guy receiving the same love that you once did on gameday.
That's why some players don't even come into the team's facilities for rehab. Not while the healthy players are there. I was no different. In my personal experience undergoing rehab to get back before the 2018 season, I would do my rehab only early in the morning and during practice when no one else was around.
That's the business end. It hits everyone. And when it does, you’ll learn not to take everything in sports so personally.
I’ll reiterate: This isn’t an attack on guys opting out in the NFL, including anyone who might wind up doing so with the Steelers. I support the guys who choose to opt out because it takes a lot to actually let go of something you love, especially with all of the spoils that come with the game.
But don't forget the story of Wally Pipp, who missed a game with the Yankees on June 2, 1925, after asking his manager to be held out of the lineup because of a headache. His place at first base was taken by Lou Gehrig, and a Hall of Fame, iron-man career began.
Funny thing: Pipp had scouted Gehrig himself and recommended that the Yankees sign him out of college.
Pipp would say many years later, “I took the two most expensive aspirins in history.”
Imagine trying to help your team with young talent, and that young talent takes your position. It happens. It’s part of the business. All business in all sports.
Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady both displaced starting quarterbacks. A young Harrison made it easier for the Steelers to keep him over Joey Porter, although Joey continued to have a prosperous career elsewhere.
The game goes on, as Sanders said, and it’s not disrespectful to point out football can be a grimy but fair business.
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