The Truth is in the Middle

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What a weekend for a Tennessee Titans fans. It all started on Friday when reports came out about the contract status of Kevin Byard, and it never let up. Today, I am going to talk about this triggering topic, and how negotiations and public relations plays into it all.

Before we get into it, this is all my viewpoint. Nothing in this article is an actual report. I have always stated that when it comes to a they said/they said scenario in the NFL, that the truth always lands somewhere in the middle. You need to keep in mind who the leaks likely are, and how/who does the leaked information benefit.

You must take personal feelings out of it. You may not like the person releasing the sourced information and it’s quite likely they may have been wrong in the past, but where there is smoke there is always fire.

So, when reports like this come out with conflicting information, I always try to look at it from a logical point of view. For what it’s worth, I have been negotiating deals of some sort since I was 18 years old selling cars, eventually becoming General Manager of a car dealership. I am now 37 years old. I know very intricately how deals work, how sides try to sway things in their favor. The reason I say this is not to brag, but to give you background on my experience with such things.

Now, have I negotiated a NFL deal? No. However, I have dedicated the last few years to diving deep into this stuff. In fact, the offseason of Kevin Byard’s extension was when this obsession started in earnest. I predicted fairly easily how his contract extension would look, and I also put this entire Byard thing on your radar last month. On the money, negotiation, and contract side of things, I have one of the better track records out there. Not perfect, but no one is.

So, let’s get into it.

How We Got Here