Remember when player movement was this really cool, novel idea? Remember when free agency hit the NFL and was supposed to revolutionize professional football, sling-shotting it out of the 19th century, where it had supposedly been stuck?

NFL free agency is fun, but most fans would argue that the offseason carousel hasn’t spun as quickly and as wildly as we all expected when the Green Bay Packers made that initial splash with Reggie White in 1993.

Franchise tags and hefty signing bonuses have made it so that while the NFL is a free market, teams and players are still encouraged, financially, to stick with their teams.

That’s why Peyton Manning is synonymous with the Indianapolis Colts, Tom Brady with the New England Patriots and Brian Urlacher with the Chicago Bears.

Tom Brady is slated to become a free agent next year, but no one believes he's going anywhere.

In the NFL, stars rarely get a chance to jump ship and ditch their original franchises; the system simply isn’t designed to make that process an easy one. When big names do move, it’s usually only once they’ve passed their prime (see: LaDainian Tomlinson, Jason Taylor, Tony Gonzalez).

Call me old-fashioned, but that’s the way I like it. I am intrigued by a hot trade rumour or a sexy new signing as much as the next sports fan, but I’ve also noticed that the novelty wears off quickly.

Take the NBA: Is this LeBron James-Chris Bosh-Dwyane Wade Miami Heat super team intriguing and exciting? Sure, just as the Kevin Garnett-Ray Allen-Paul Pierce Boston Celtics super team was, too. But the shock value of seeing a dude like Garnett in Celtic green or LeBron in Heat colours doesn’t last forever … and then, eventually, you’re just left with a disparity problem, which is fun for nobody (expect maybe Heat or Celtics fans).

I’m not ready to say that the NBA has a player movement problem on its hands, especially considering this offseason may very well be an anomaly. But if players like Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets continue to push for trades when they see fellow stars meet up in more luxurious locations, you could very well have an issue on your hands.

That’s exactly what Ken Berger of CBSSports.com drove at in a recent column questioning whether the NBA should adopt NFL-like player movement rules.

“As part of the labor negotiations that are expected to resume next month, should the NBA look at an NFL-style system with signing bonuses in lieu of guaranteed contracts? As a way to prevent star players from fleeing their teams as unrestricted free agents, would an NFL-style franchise tag be useful in the NBA?”

And from my NFL-centric perspective, that’s the key: the franchise tag. It’s an easy solution to keep a big-name player in his original city for at least one more year (or more, depending on how things are ironed out in collective bargaining). It rewards the star in question with a contract that immediately makes him one of the five highest paid guys at his position (again, that’s the NFL’s policy) while giving the team in question one more year to get said star the supporting cast he requires/requests/prays for at night.

Only problem: the players hate it.

Obviously, right? I mean, these guys want their money and they want their money now, but they also risk limbs every day they take the field/court/ice and they want long-term security as quickly as possible, which is understandable. As Berger states it, “a series of one-year deals” is not enticing.

And that’s why franchise tags and non-guaranteed contracts (both of which exist in the NFL and not in the NBA) are crucial poker chips in CBA negotiation process.

LeBron James jumped ship and took less money to team up with other stars in Miami.

Berger adds that “if the NFL’s system is so good, the NBA union would argue, why are so many people looking to change it?” And he’s got a point. The NFL’s CBA expires after the 2010 season and it’s completely possible that the franchise tag — again, dreaded by players and agents — ends up in the garbage bin behind the NFL offices at 280 Park Ave. in Manhattan.

And then there’s the idea that player movement isn’t such a bad thing. After all, it does spark interest from fans at what would otherwise be down times.

“Look how much interest there was in the NBA this year with all the player movement,” NFL and NBA agent Mark Bartelstein told Berger. “Look at how much interest there has been in the NFL in the last month with all the player movement and with no salary cap. People like player movement. It drives ticket sales. There’s no question the NBA had the biggest increase in ticket sales it’s probably had in a long, long time.”

But, amazingly, what sells tickets and jerseys (trades and free agency have undoubtedly boosted the jersey market), isn’t always what’s best for the game. And as someone who spends time with sports fans seven days a week at my job and in my personal life, I don’t think I’m off base in saying that the NBA has turned a significant number of fans against it in the last three weeks.

So what if the NBA had a franchise tag in place right now? One that, as Berger proposes, allowed teams to discount the salary of its franchise player from its annual payroll?

James would likely still be a Cavalier and Bosh would likely still be a Raptor. The league would have more parity and — with the extra money made available by the payroll exemption — those teams would have a chance to spend money on complementary players to keep their stars in town long-term.

And what if the NBA had non-guaranteed contracts that hinged more heavily on signing bonuses and less on year-by-year commitments?

Chris Paul never would have had a chance to weasel his way out of New Orleans, as he very nearly did. He’d have had to play out his contract, because the Hornets wouldn’t have been able to cut bait and pay out his bonus all at once.

The beautiful thing about the NFL, especially this time of year, is the sense of optimism that flows in every city (except Cleveland). Never mind any given Sunday — in the NFL, it’s any given year. No North American sports league has as much balance. And with balance comes hope for every team (except Cleveland), which puts more fans in the seats than almost any trade or signing can.

How many NBA teams will realistically head into training camp in nine weeks thinking they can win an NBA championship? Based on what happened in July, that number probably won’t be very high.

The franchise tag and related restrictions on player movement might feel unfair, borderline anti-democratic. But sports are about the fans first, the people who pay big bucks so that the players and owners can make the big bucks. And while fans might be temporarily dazzled by glitzy trades and tantalizing signings, they ultimately want good games, which come from good competition.

And that’s something you can’t have when one or two super teams hijack a league.

Larry French/Getty Images

I haven’t formally announced it on here, so it legally hasn’t happened, but I’ve mentioned on Twitter here and there that the Baltimore Ravens are my early Super Bowl pick for 2010.

I love what the Ravens brought to the table in 2009 and think Joe Flacco will only get better with the addition of Anquan Boldin. I also love their top two picks in the draft, pass-rushing threat Sergio Kindle and run stuffer Terrence Cody.

But the summer hasn’t gone Baltimore’s way. Their weakest point — the defensive backfield — has taken several hits.

Superstar safety Ed Reed is already expected to miss a significant chunk of games as he recovers from offseason hip surgery; veteran cornerbacks Lardarius Webb and Fabian Washington are both trying to recover from ACL injuries; and another corner, Cary Williams, is suspended for the first two games of the season.

And now the biggest blow of all: Cornerback Dominique Foxworth has torn his ACL and is out for the season.

Making things extra tough for the secondary is that Kindle, who would have been able to relieve some pressure up front, recently fell down two flights of stairs and fractured his skull.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Considering how badly things have gone this offseason in Pittsburgh and considering that there’s no way the world would let Chad Ochocinco and Terrell Owens be successful together, I’m thinking we’re about to see a major surprise in that division.

Your 2010 AFC North champions: the Cleveland Browns.

From left to right: Vincent Jackson, Marcus McNeill and Shawne Merriman want new contracts.

I can’t for the life of me figure out what the San Diego Chargers are doing.

I understand that they’re uptight about the looming labour strife, but they’re on the verge of ruining a promising season simply because they’re too stubborn to open their wallet for three of their most important players.

It’s no secret that Vincent Jackson, Marcus McNeill and Shawne Merriman — respectively the best wide receiver, offensive lineman and pass rusher on the team — want new contracts. In fact, things are getting intense, according to ESPN.com’s Bill Williamson.

“Speaking about McNeill and Jackson, [general manager A.J. Smith] said in a phone interview Wednesday that he has been told that the two players will be ‘out for a considerable amount of time.’

“Smith said he, at this point, is expecting that both McNeill and Jackson will hold out for the first 10 games of the regular season and then report to accrue an NFL season. Smith admits he is disappointed that both players are likely to hold out for the long-term. Still, Smith said because of the CBA uncertainty the Chargers are reluctant to give out long-term deals.”

But the funny thing is that they do give long-term deals. Just today, they gave a lucrative five-year extension to Antonio Gates, according to ESPN’s Chris Mortensen.

So why give Gates more money when Jackson, McNeill and Merriman are the guys complaining? It could be marginally punitive. With three of his top players stumping for new contracts three weeks ago, Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum inexplicably re-signed D’Brickashaw Ferguson to a long-term deal. Maybe Smith is following suit.

Of course the more realistic explanation is that Smith is bluffing. I find it hard to believe he’d let Philip Rivers’ blind-side protector and best target sit out more than half the season.

“Whether they come back as starters, role players, or as injury replacements, that remains to be seen and will be up to Norv Turner,” Smith told Williamson. “But six games is still a significant part of the season.”

 But 10 games is a more significant part, and a Week 12 return might be too little, too late.

From left to right: Dez Bryant, Terrell Owens and C.C. Brown are the latest NFL players to blame their problems on the media. (Getty Images)

It’s funny. Professional athletes have the thickest muscles, the thickest heads and the thickest wallets. But their skin? As thin as Saran Wrap.

The thin-skinned nature of star athletes has been epitomized in NFL circles over the last few weeks. July has been Blame the Media Month around the National Football League.

A few weeks ago, it was Terrell Owens blaming the media for his (hilarious) unemployment.

“People have listened to a lot of the commentaries throughout a lot of the media outlets, mainly ESPN, that has my character in question as far as things that have happened in the past … I may do 99 good things right and if I do one thing wrong, ESPN and the people on there … make it out to be the worst thing ever … I think with the years that I’ve had, the last three to four years, I feel like I’ve tried to turn over a new leaf. But still they won’t let go of what I did in the past.”

Then, last week, it was C.C. Brown who took shots at the New York media and the Giants, going as far as to say that the media controlled the team.

“I don’t even want to comment on that, because I still, at times, get sensitive about how they did me [wrong] there … The biggest thing with New York is the media controls the team. So whatever the media says, that’s what’s gonna happen.”

Now, this week, it’s Dez Bryant claiming that the whole hazing controversy where he refused to carry Roy Williams’ shoulder pads only became an issue because the media made it one.

“It was never an issue. Y’all made it an issue. It was never nothing. Y’all are trying to turn it into something … I have been trying to do the right thing. Y’all are trying to turn it into something negative. I am going to continue to do the right thing … Everybody on the team likes me and I like everybody on the team. Y’all are trying to put me and Roy against each other. That is not going to happen. We are trying to do something real special here. We are going to continue to keep trying to do that.”

This is nothing new; blaming the media is and always has been the easy way out. The media can’t sufficiently defend themselves without risking their reputation and/or burning bridges with the players and teams they cover.

So a guilty athlete pointing his finger at the media isn’t much different from a 4-year-old blaming his toddler brother for the crayon marks on the wall.

Some players simply can’t fathom that their own mistakes make them look bad, and the media is merely relaying said mistakes to fans.

And while we’ve already come to expect such absurdity from guys like Owens and Bryant, Brown’s bitter blast of all things New York is the best of the three examples, probably because there isn’t a single NFL coach who loathes the media quite as much as Tom Coughlin, Bill Belichick included.

Unless he’s a deadpan aficionado, Brown actually expects anyone — someone – to believe that grumpy old Coughlin opens up the New York Post and thinks, “That’s a genius idea!” The whole thing is straw-grasping at its best.

As for Bryant, an arrogant drama queen who’s never played a down of pro football – he just fails to see that  his far-fetched complaints about the media sensationalizing a story in Dallas, football’s sensationalism hub, only exacerbates a negative stigma that has surrounded him ever since he was (allegedly) a meeting-skipping, class-missing punk at Oklahoma State.

And when Owens is still a free agent in July, you’d have to assume that his past transgressions are a factor. Because he’s a simple-minded blockhead, T.O. assumed that he’d never pay the price, that he’d never face the consequences for insinuating that his quarterback in San Francisco was gay, for throwing his quarterback in Philadelphia under the bus, for wearing a throwback Michael Irvin jersey as a member of the Eagles, for fighting Hugh Douglas in the Eagles locker room, for calling the Eagles a classless organization while they paid him millions, for spitting in DeAngelo Hall’s face (and admitting to it). Should I stop there? I don’t think I even need to get into the whole hydrocodone overdose/suicide attempt nightmare to illustrate that the dude has baggage.

The point is that players like Owens — and now Brown and Bryant and many others — don’t seem to understand that it’s the media’s job to simply relay the facts. The above facts don’t make these respective players look good, but that isn’t the media’s fault.

Divas like Bryant and Owens and Chad Ochocinco, et al will always try to convince fans to shoot the messenger. And that’s because it’s usually either the easy way out or the only way out.

And for inflated egos with god complexes, any way out will do, so long as it doesn’t take the shine off of them.