Ego Vs Money

As the NFL contract season warms up, it becomes clear again:  most athletes cannot actually do the arithmetic to figure out what they need to live on quite nicely and then decide from there what other things are important to them in life that they might trade off - being near family; business opportunities; weather and familiar culture...there are many others. Le'Veon Bell did not make money in one of the most valuable years of his career, because he wants the ego stroke of having a higher "score" over other players in his contract. 

It is described as "respect," or "a team showing that they care about signing me," or some other synonym for "ego." Even with agents, who can do the arithmetic and tell them what their actual best deal is, they insist on the contracts that look like they are for the most years, at he most dollars-per-year, for the highest potential total, So that their $18M looks like a bigger swinging dick than the guy who gets $16M.

Now the 49ers kicker is insulted that the team tried to pursue another, better kicker briefly, so he's not sure he wants to play there.  He has to think of his family, he says.  Except he was fine with leaving his wife and young children in Chicago when San Francisco was stroking him.