Sometimes an agent can give teams a bad taste and essentially get their clients blacklisted because teams don't want to work with them. Take Steve Weinberg. He was one of the agents punished by the NFLPA back in 2003. He later sued them in 2006 for $36.7 millon, claiming they were "denying him the right to earn a living."
In 2014 Emmanuel Sanders fired Weinberg due to negotiation tactics which weren't illegal but frowned upon by the league and players union.
Eric Edholm of Yahoo sports quoted an NFL official as saying, "This was one of the worst situations in modern football negotiations. Totally wrong. This needs to be stopped."
In 2019 Randy Gregory of the Dallas Cowboys was suspended for marijuana. To get his suspension lifted he fired Weinberg. Gregory was reinstated in 2020.
So in 2020 there was a Kicker named Jonathan Song from TCU entering the draft. Song's leg was 95.8% accurate over his four years at TCU. His workout tapes show him hitting from near 60 yards. Yet he went not only undrafted but he's still unsigned.
If you read my blogs, you know I am a Patriots fan. The Patriots chose Justin Rohrwasser a kicker from Marshall in the fifth round, Rohrwasser who had a career college accuracy percentage of 78.6%.
I had been trying to scratch my head around why Song was and is a free agent. He's got the leg and the accuracy, what gives? There were teams besides the Patriots who needed a kicker. There still are.
Song's career average at TCU wasn't super long but he released enough video of him making long kicks up to 60 yards to ease NFL minds enough for at least a workout. So that eliminates any concern around his leg strength.
There is nothing I could find that said that Song was in legal trouble or had any red flags. He was also ranked higher than Rohrwasser coming out of the draft. The only thing against Song after everything I have researched, is his agent.
That begs the question, how many good players are being or have been blacklisted because they chose the wrong agent? It's a sad thing to think about but it clearly happens. I am certain it doesn't just happen in the NFL. When they're coming out of college, how are they to truly know who's gonna hurt their career?
All these agents are used car salesmen or ambulance chasers, just trying to make a sale. They've learned the art of the con, aka "the art of the deal," and young players are easy marks. Agents are sharks, they're vultures and anyone not prepared for them are easy pickings and as we've seen, it's something colleges need to do a better job of preparing student athletes for.
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