Jared Allen, like many of us, spent last weekend watching the NFL Draft, and wasn't terribly impressed with some of the things that he saw. Specifically, he was a little. . .shall we say, displeased. . .with some of the "bling" that some of the young men that had never played a snap in the National Football League were sporting.
Allen expressed this sentiment in an interview with KTAR 620 in Phoenix.
"I think the bigger disappointment was to see the jewelry on these kids’ arms and ears. Are you kidding me? You haven’t played a down in the league yet and thousands and thousands of dollars on these kids arms and I’m like you guys understand you’re getting drafted into a lockout where you don’t know what rules you’re playing under or how much money you possibly might get."
You can check out a transcript of some of Allen's other thoughts from the interview right here.
While Allen might sound like he's just being all "get off my lawn" about this, he has got a point. In March, it came out that Dallas Cowboys' wide receiver Dez Bryant, a first-round selection in the 2010 NFL Draft, was being sued for over $850,000 by two different sources, due largely to non-payment for jewelry that Bryant had purchased from them. Bryant's rookie contract for being the 24th pick in 2010 was a 5-year, $11.8 million deal with a $1.95 million signing bonus. That's far from the only example of somebody that has spent foolishly before really getting themselves established in the league. . .it just happens to be the most recent one.
We've heard stories about players taking on loans with ridiculous interest rates because they didn't fully prepare themselves for the eventuality of a lockout. The interest rates on such loans are between 18 and 24 percent, and in the event of default can jump to as high as 36 percent, putting them on a par with the "payday" loans that have gotten a lot of folks in trouble.
At the risk of sounding a bit curmudgeonly myself. . .at least, I think 34 is too young to be a curmudgeon. . .I wish these guys wouldn't be so stupid with their money. I realize that it's their money and this is America and they can do whatever they want and all that, but if the worst happens and they're unable to play football for whatever reason, all that jewelry isn't going to do them any good. Hopefully with the lockout being what it's been so far, some of these young players will realize that.