Everything else aside, it's crazy how Berry went from being a borderline diety with the fan base on CP to a pariah in just a few weeks

In my defense, I've been riding him since he responded to the team giving him millions they didn't have to by waging a public smear campaign against them and then refusing to report to camp until he got (another) record contract.

My frustrations with Berry go back to how he and his camp handled their contract situation. That was seriously bush league by him and yes, it put him in a far different light for me.

Why is that an issue? 5 players sit every game and don't dress out. He isn't keeping anyone off the field.

That's what a De-formity will do for a fella.

It's sad as all get all, the way folks are treating poor EB. I mean, the man has a deformity. A DEFORMITY, for crying out loud. If these critics had a child with a deformity, would they be saying, "Get your butt out there, you lazy, punk-ass child! And stop that whining about your deformity!"

I think not.

FAX

They might if their child got paid $25 million the past 2 years to do absolutely nothing.

...be Berry Berry quiet, I'm hunting for a safety.

Hali, DJ, and even Houston all handled it much better.

So much is made of Berry’s character, you expect him to be more like those guys, especially after how the organization treated him in the past.

That's what happens when you are dealing with make-believe. Sports might as well be pro wrestling, it doesn't really mean anything. If the Chiefs win or lose, it doesn't mean anything unless fans make it mean something.

Eric Berry goes from football god to money-grubbing heel because the fans say so. Hulk Hogan goes from Hulkamaniac to NWO for fan entertainment.

Posts like this make it very easy to see where the anger comes from.

Jealousy is a mean bitch.

I'm not hating on the guy. I just doubt he'll ever play meaningful football again. I think it's a mistake to be thinking he ever will. I've mentally moved on is all.

And that's why I did such a hard turn. For everything that was said about the guy and after he had teammates in big time contract situations of their own, for him to go out and handle it the most poorly of all of them BY FAR just pissed me off.

It's the apostates that always get it the worst, right? Nobody hates someone more than the one they thought was different from the rest. A heel turn will make you more angry at someone than you'd have ever been had they started down that path from the start. So to spend literal years seeing him held out as a paragon of virtue; a model teammate and someone who loves this city and this organization for everything they've meant to him....to have that and then find out he's the most cutthroat mercenary of them all?

I said it a week ago - I'll full acknowledge that I may not be wholly rational in this one, but that's never going to sit right with me and it's due in large part to the sin of apostasy.

Pay the man his $25 million and take the cap impact off the books and ask how many of these people would still care.

What a dipshit response. I don't give a large rat **** about how much money these guys make or what they do with it. Why should I? It was never mine.

But the bottom line is that every dollar Eric Berry has failed to earn as a player is a dollar that could've been put towards a player that WILL produce for this team. It's a dollar that could've been rolled over and applied to an extension. It isn't jealousy, as much as some of you'd like to pat yourself on the back for being such an enlightened soul. It's nothing more than simple cap math.

The only reason the raw dollar values mean anything at all to me is that there comes a point when you've reached 'eh, **** it' money. You've now made enough that no amount of poor investments or luxury spending is likely to ever see you needing to work again. When a person reaches that point, he's just less likely to carry the same edge as he previously did. The only reason EB's take home pay matters is because I'm fairly certain his last contract brought him to that point. So that money that's going to him has served the dual purpose of NOT going to players that could've helped and actually set about discouraging him from helping the team himself.

I ask again because so far nobody's answered - if this were 2016, do you think he'd be sitting out right now? I do not. It's not jealousy talking, it's a simple admission of human frailty.

It's not jealousy. His salary, or the salary of any athlete for that matter, I so far out of the realm of what I'll ever make that it'd be silly to be jealous.

My anger is the amount of the salary cap he is eating up for zero production.

Well put me on the roster then and pay me millions since it simply means I get paid and it doesn't keep anybody off the field.

Great gig man...

Exactly

I've also said I can't totally fault him for his selfish attitude about everything. I imagine my priorities would change too if I survived cancer. He's totally within his right to think for himself before anything else.

But he's made more than enough money at this point and this is a business. He's highly unlikely to ever come close to living up to his contract. I'm not sure what options they have under the CBA, but negotiating an injury settlement or putting Berry on the NFI should be considered. The team simply can't afford to continue paying someone who probably will never be able to perform at a high level again, or is unwilling to do so.