{image1}The first of several thousand NFL paychecks are due to be cut in about 10 days, and as usual in late August that means just one thing: formerly adamant players holding out for more money, get served a big ol' "steaming cup of STFU."

The NFL is the tyrannosaurus rex of professional sports leagues, and once again those players who chose to try to push back against the hard-capped system of non-guaranteed contracts have been squashed like bugs.

Let's take a moment to look at some of headline players.

Terrell Owens - WR - Eagles
The most high-profile of the summer malcontents, T.O. and his agent Drew Rosenholdout embarked on a scorched earth policy where they did everything but call out Ben Franklin as a Philadelphia fraud. T.O. walked his punkery right up the edge, when he pulled the now infamous driveway summit with reporters in his fatigues. But the Eagles had the drop on their cantankerous wideout, so when their letter threatened him with unpaid suspensions to come, Owens sure did find a way to show up and play. Meanwhile, I haven't seen his yapping agent Drew in weeks. Hmm.

Final verdict: Disaster for Owens, guarded win for Eagles. The wideout will surely be let go sometime in 2006, meaning he'll head out on the free market as a 32-year-old wide receiver who is liquid kryptonite. His agent will attempt to break some team's piggy bank as an "in your face" to the Eagles and also to make up what he couldn't get T.O. from Philly. Some team will pay him a lot, but I bet the contract length is far shorter than he hoped, and the overall signing bonus is under $10 million. As for Philly, I call it a "guarded" win only because you never know if the drama is over. Stay tuned.

Antonio Gates - TE - Chargers
The former D-I hoop star turned record-setting tight end was certainly due to be underpaid at his current rate of less than $500,000 per year. But he and his agent failed to realize that GM A.J. Smith is notoriously tough at the bargaining table, and it took the so-called "5-day letter" for him to come rushing back to camp. Problem was, he still missed the reporting deadline and thus will miss Week One due to procedural rules. He then signed a new long-term deal, which will be missing a meaty one-seventeenth of it thanks to his Week One suspension.

Final verdict: Borderline incompetent agent work. It would be hard to script a scenario to botch things even worse. How do you let your client wait until the last minute to try to travel and meet a very costly deadline? Amazing.

Javon Walker - WR - Packers
The Packers' Rosenhaus "product" was talking real big in March and April. Then Brett Favre spoke up and laid the smack down. Even if Walker was truly worth the money, and not an underachiever who finally broke out last season, once you get on the wrong side of #4 in Wisconsin, you're fighting an impossible battle. When it was time to pack his sleeping bag for camp, Javon's talk about getting "fair market value" sure did fade quickly.

Final verdict: I think everybody knew that this one was going nowhere for the player, and that included his agent.

Corey Simon - DT - Eagles
The Eagles were ready to give him a one-year franchise tender, until the holdout reached deep into August. That's when the team smartly realized that getting Simon this late, out of shape, and probably still unhappy wasn't even worth that one-year money. So they took it off the table, and wished him all the best in his future endeavors.

Final verdict: Hard to believe that a team which already had one defensive lineman (Jerome McDougal) shot in a carjacking this off-season would still have the guts to stand firm with another. But they did. This is what the Eagles do. How come players and agents don't get it? Add Simon's name to that of Hugh Douglas, Duce Staley, Jeremiah Trotter and Owens who thought they were "indispensable."

More Holdouts

Cedric Benson - RB - Bears: A holdout generally regarded as pointless and ill-conceived by most league observers, all it accomplished was getting Ricky Williams II off to a bad start as a pro.

John Abraham - DE - Jets: The Jets let him stay home all summer and pout, and all it got him was a sore lower lip. He signed his one-year tender on Monday.

Hines Ward - WR - Steelers: His holdout lasted until just before the first pre-season game, when he decided to report as a sign of good faith while the Steelers and his agent worked out a new deal. A classy player and a classy team, here's one case where common sense actually prevailed on both sides.

Adam "Pac-man" Jones - CB - Titans: Here's a guy to keep your eye on. His agent e-mailed the media claiming an "impasse" in negotiations -- something that surprised GM Floyd Reese since he didn't get the e-mail himself. Then when word gets out that several Titans players were chafing at his holdout, Jones publicly blasts them, saying that his teammates essentially needed to "have his back." Um, excuse me for asking, but don't you have to technically join the team before you can have "teammates?" Just wondering.

Sean Taylor - S - Redskins: Not really a holdout, but it was looking like a pretty sure thing before he got caught up in a south Florida shootout over allegedly stolen ATVs. Taylor purposely missed all of the Skins spring OTAs and Rosenhaus griped about re-doing his deal. Now he's just hoping he stays out of jail. "New contract? What new contract?"

Shaun Alexander - RB - Seahawks: Bitter at first about having the franchise tag slapped on him when he was ready to become one of the most elite free agent runners to come on the market in years, Alexander ended up with what might be a brilliant compromise. He'll get the one-year franchise money this season, but the Seahawks agreed in the contract that they won't be allowed to use it again next winter. Alexander is running for big cash this fall.

You'll notice in all of these cases, almost none of the players got what they were looking for. Perhaps, at best, they got a few extra dollars, but at what real cost to their career? Some fans will complain that this kind of power concentrated on the side of the owners is no better than the reverse situation in baseball where guys are overpaid on a regular basis.

Maybe they are right? Maybe NFL players deserve better? If the union feels this way too, then the time to fight it will be the next time both sides sit down at the collective bargaining table.

Until then, another summer has proven that individual players who feel ready to buck the system are just wasting their time, and money.