Difference between a holdout and a hold in
In the lead up to kickoff to the NFL season coaches are preparing their teams for Week 1 while some owners have to deal with holdouts from star players.
Seven days. That’s all that remains until we finally have football back in our lives for the next five months. While next Thursday can’t come soon enough for most of us, for many GMs and owners around the league Week 1 is closing in a little too rapidly.
Lamb gets big bucks
As we highlighted yesterday, there are some big stars yet to join the their team as they await a new, or restructured deal. Ceedee Lamb just got a massive contract extension with the Dallas Cowboys after a brief, but tense standoff between the wide receiver and his franchise. There are still a couple of big name WRs that are holding on to hopes of getting a new deal before the season starts.
It was just a couple days ago that Bengals coach Zac Taylor reassured that his start pass catcher Ja’Marr Chase would be on the field ready to play for Week 1 against the New England Patriots. Now he says that he might have put his foot in his mouth after Chase showed up to practice 20 minutes late and in street clothes.
Unfortunately for coaches, there isn’t a lot they can do in these situations. Players are urged, most of the time by their agents, to sit out practice or even keep their distance from the facility while negotiations are ongoing. While coaches know they can discipline players for not showing up like Chase did yesterday, they do know that players that are holding out are fined $50,000 a day.
Reddick, Aiyuk and Williams still holding strong
There are different ways to holdout depending on how close or far a player wants to be to the team. A holdout is indeed that. The player doesn’t report to practice, and is not involved in team activities. If you avoid showing up to the facility and keep your distance from the team, that will result in the $50,000 daily fine.
That’s a hefty fine, especially if you don’t end up reaching a new deal with the team. For that reason, many players opt for the hold in. A hold in is when a player reports to camp at the facility, and practices on their own, away from the team. Players that hold in are not subject to the $50,000 fine, but they still miss those valuable days of practice.
That’s what it appears that Ja’Marr Chase is doing with the Bengals until a solution to the contract dispute is found. Others have opted to hold out and not show up to the facility. Haason Reddick has skipped almost 40 days of camp, and is now creeping up to $2 million in fines. Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams are doing the same thing in San Francisco as they await a solution to their holdout with the Niners.