Digger A Little Deeper

July 20, 2009 at 09:27am by Scott   •  1 Comment »

Here’s a brief article about the Bucs’ new contract/cap guy, Digger Daley. It’s framed as an article about how to get into the agent business, but it has some good information about Daley’s background.

That’s right, he plucked somebody out of the real estate business who was doing transactional deals in the $1-million to $200-million range. He hired someone with whom he had a long-term personal history, an individual he trusts and respects. Digger has never been to law school or grad school, nor has he ever worked with a professional sports team. He has his bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Cincinnati (side note: there are probably more people working in the NFL from a MAC school than any other conference), worked in sales after college and eventually bought, sold and managed real estate portfolios for the past six years.

Okay, that’s all well and good. You don’t need a doctorate to negotiate these deals. I get that. Here’s the part I don’t agree with:

Having to place values on properties is similar to placing values on players.

The author of this article is Jack Bechta, a well-known player agent who has represented such names as CB Al Harris, DT Jonathan Babineaux and even our own DE Greg White whereas I, the author of a nameless sports blog, once locked my keys outside the car. And yet even I can tell this is a stupid statement. When a property deteriorates over time, you can fix it up. Properties don’t have off-the-field issues like getting caught with weed or running over hookers with their Hummers. Properties won’t try to force a trade by saying ridiculous shit on camera. In short, properties aren’t people. It’s funny because you always hear players talking about how teams treat them as disposable or like a piece of meat. And yet it’s one of their agents that is telling us that placing a value on them is just like grading out an abandoned strip mall.

It’s great that Daley has “real world” experience and all that crap, and let’s hope it translates into a good roster with a well-regulated salary cap and players who are happy to play for their contracts. The nice thing about Bruce Allen was that he grew up around the game and used to be a player agent, so he knew football and he knew how to talk to players while still getting the best deal for the Bucs. I guess we all just have to trust that Mark Dominik knows Daley’s qualifications beyond his resume and that there’s nothing here to worry about.