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“You guys are cattle and we’re the ranchers,” the late Dallas Cowboys president Tex Schramm once told Hall of Fame offensive lineman Gene Upshaw during a collective bargaining negotiation. It is an oft-quoted line that encapsulates the whole setup. Players get prodded, milked for all they’re worth, sold off, put out to pasture, and slaughtered. Implicit also here is that the cattle’s time is fleeting, like Not for Long football careers. “And ranchers can always get more cattle” is how Schramm’s quote concludes.
Likewise, the Patriots can always get another defensive lineman, which is why Nick Fairley, a veteran free agent previously of the Rams, was being whisked through the Boca Resort. Fairley is the rare cattle to be seen at this ranchers’ convention. Bill Belichick, the head coach, will inspect the livestock here along with the rest of the New England brass. (Fairley wound up signing with the Saints.) Upshaw said he had considered writing a memoir about his union activities—joking that its working title was “The Last Plantation.”
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