I was reading professional football stories on the ESPN.com page a month ago, right before the 2026 NFL season was about to begin, where Pittsburgh Steelers’ veteran defensive tackle and Pro Bowler, Cameron Heyward, commented that it’s “stupid” and “backwards” to franchise a player for a one-year deal that “takes advantage” of them for $23 million.

The player he was referring to was Joey Porter Jr., a defensive back out of Penn State, who was just about to start his fourth year in the league, where he can now negotiate for a new contract. In the meantime, the Pittsburgh Steelers, who drafted him and don’t officially have to sign him to a new deal until next year, can “franchise” him for this final year alone at a tag price of $23 – $26 million. However, the top cornerbacks in the league are now making up to $33 million per year, where Joey Jr. would have to wait one more year before he can join them.

Well, speaking as a regular American citizen, who has watched NFL football for more than 50 years—before brother Cameron or Joey Jr. was born—I can say without a doubt that most people alive will never see $23 – $26 million dollars in 100 YEARS. But Joey Jr. can do that in just 1 YEAR! Yet… Cameron is complaining about it.

Now, I’m not naïve or living in a cave somewhere, so I understand what this is. Eight figures a year is what the top professional athletes are earning now. That’s their normal pay scale. So, I understand the argument… to a certain degree. But if I looked at Pittsburgh’s side of the coin, if they need to see one more year from a player, or they have some money issues, where they don’t feel comfortable signing him right now, they can franchise him for one year as he proves his worth, and they end up paying him $33+ million next year, which would likely be another 4 or even a 5-year deal, with bonuses and such. Hell, the yearly salary for defensive backs may even go up to $35 million after the next top guys get signed.

Then the players argue that they might get injured and lose the security of long-term money. Okay, but what about to the TEAM when players get signed for big money and then get injured. The TEAM doesn’t benefit from that. So, they want security too. And get this, Joey Porter Jr. was injured at the time of these negotiations… Or was he faking a hold out to get that next contract done now?

I don’t know, and I’m not speculating. I’m just stating the facts and options. And the fact is, the Pittsburgh brass didn’t like what was going on with the contract negotiations, so they ended up trading Joey Porter Jr. to the Dallas Cowboys, who now will pay him $4 million for that one year, because only Pittsburgh can franchise him as his initial drafting team.

So… how did that deal work out for Joey? He now drops from $23 – $26 million in Pittsburgh on a 1-year “franchise tag” to a 1-year, prove-it-to-me deal in Dallas for $4 million. That’s $19 million in change that Joey Jr. just lost and Pittsburgh just saved. And… he can still get hurt in Dallas, too.

But of course, the NFL talking heads are gonna run around saying that Joey Jr. is “betting on himself” as the cliché term. When the fact is, Joey Jr. is going to get PAID next year regardless. All he has to do is stay healthy and ball out. Which he had to do anyway. But now he’s doing it for $4 million in Dallas instead of $23 million in Pittsburgh.

That starts our conversation for the day. I wanted to play professional football too, when I was coming up in the late 1970s and 1980s of inner-city Philadelphia. Back then, we wanted to play more for the love of the game, the fame, and the money came last. Of course, athletes still made pretty good money, even back then. But the money they’re making now… MY GOD!

How dare you tell these young Black boys and girls, to stop thinking about playing professional sports, when these talented folks are now signing 300, 400, 500, 600 and $700 million dollar DEALS, while the students they go to college with are paying back $200,000 worth of loans, working temporary jobs that barely pay them $30,000 after taxes. And they still have to LIVE off of that $30,000 that a pro athlete can spend at a popular nightclub on any given Friday.

Can someone pronounce the word CAP-ITA-LISM. That’s what we’re dealing with here. It’s the American way, and we are all NOT created equal. Last time I checked, the average human in NOT 7’4” like Victor Wembanyama, nor can the average woman run 400-meter hurdles like Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Nope. Ain’t gonna happen. That’s why they get paid what they get paid. So, I’m not complaining about it. I’m just putting it all in proper perspective. The so-called “dumb jock” or yesterday, is now about to become the Billion Dollar Baby of tomorrow.

My mother told me when I was a senior in high school, playing football and running track myself, “You can’t just depend on academics anymore. You have to create an opportunity with whatever else you can do to get it.”

I remember her comments like it was yesterday, even though it was nearly forty years ago in 1987 when I graduated high school and attended the University of Pittsburgh, with plans of walking on to the football team, which never happened, as I found my new joy of writing.

I also remember the Cincinnati Reds Major League Baseball owner Marge Schott calling a few of her Black male baseball players “million-dollar n-words” at least 20 years ago. I wonder what she would call them now after a Japanese player, Shohei Ohtani, and Dominican player, Juan Soto, both passed the $700 million mark, with $765 million for Soto.

Imagine how much property Soto could now buy in his native land of the Dominican Republic? That’s a WHOOOLE lot of mangos! Ain’t it? But you’re gonna tell Dominican boys to do their school work instead of practicing baseball? Well, eventually, they’re gonna need lawyers and accountants to help them all to keep their money and not blow it on ridiculous spending and talkative conmen, and women. Especially with how the sports world ANNOUNCES their income as soon as they sign for it.

My mother told me that too, as early as seven years old with my first bank account at PSFS (Philadelphia Savings Fund Society) back in 1976, “Don’t ever let people know how much money you have. That’s your business.”

Not in professional sports. Can they even request that their contract be made confidential? I did so with my biggest book deal some twenty-five years ago. But hell, that was luxury car and starter house money compared to what these athletes are getting now.

And get this, LeBron James, the Holy Grail of professional basketball, who is now playing out his final basketball years in my home city of Philadelphia for the 76ers, is only being paid a veteran minimum of $4 million a year for $8 million over 2 YEARS!

Are you kidding me? For LeBron James?

But… King James’ net worth is now estimated at $1.4 billion, joining Michael Jordan at $3.5 billion, Magic Johnson at $1.5 billion, Tiger Woods at $1.3 billion, Roger Federer in tennis at $1.1 billion, and two South American soccer players, Christiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi who both toe the line over a billion each.

Even boxer Floyd “Money” Mayweather was estimated at being a billionaire at one point over his last 5 years of championship boxing as the pay-per-view king. That’s what these athletes are aiming for now. BILLIONS! In fact, if Kobe Bryant was still alive, he would be on his way up there as well. So is Steph Curry, who just signed a 2-year $116 million deal to remain with the Golden State Warriors. And how about Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs, who is now signed to a $500+ million deal in football, with endorsement money all over the place.

That’s the new world that we’re living in, folks. So, when you’re out there at the neighborhood park with your kids on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, make sure you put a ball, a racket, a stick, or a bat in their hands with some great performance shoes. And if they don’t have any athletic skills whatsoever, then make sure their medicine, their law, their business, their writings, reports, engineering, architecture, graphic designs and instruction, puts them around athletes. Because these talented, non-artificial intelligence HUMANS, will continue to get PAID and have plenty of money for everyone else’s services.

And the majority of them will continue to be MEN OF COLOR in fields where they can COMPETE, fairly, despite racism.

So, make sure you stay on their good side.

~ Omar Tyree is a New York Times bestselling author who has published more than 30 books and counting and won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Work of Fiction in 2001. He graduated from Howard University, cum laude, with a degree in Print Journalism from the School of Communications in 1991.