⁠If you want to know what “hire and fire” looks like in practice in the USA, you only have to follow the current situation of Jakob Johnson. With all due respect for the mechanisms in the NFL: This is not how it works. A commentary.

In many ways, the world ticks differently in the US than it does here, including in sports.

Whether footballer, basketball player or handball player – anyone in Germany who is under contract with a club and is paid is also guaranteed this place and does not have to fear being out on the street the next morning.

However, the situation is different in the NFL in particular. The widespread American “hire and fire” mentality, i.e. hiring someone knowing you can fire them at any time, is taken to the extreme in the football league. German professional Jakob Johnson is currently experiencing the effects of this questionable system almost every week.

On Tuesday, just two days after he played in the New York Giants’ win against the Cleveland Browns, he was released by the franchise – and not for the first time this season, but yet again.

Jakob Johnson at New York: That’s how it can go on now

Since signing his first contract in New York a good six weeks ago, Johnson has repeatedly moved between the practice squad, the active squad and unemployment. This is a normal process in the NFL business. But that doesn’t mean that certain mechanisms in the league can’t be critically questioned.

Of course, players in the NFL also enjoy certain privileges. It is common practice for professionals to be allowed to go on strike for new contracts. However, this usually only applies to the top stars who are difficult for a team to replace in terms of quality. Everyone else is interchangeable.

Small lights like Johnson don’t get respect in the NFL

In short: anyone who is a small fish in the NFL is treated like a replacement part. No trace of humanity.

Players without appropriate clauses can be sent away at any time during the trade period and have to change the center of their lives overnight, without even having any say in the matter. Others live with the fear at all times that their current working day may be their last.

The Johnson case, however, takes this already questionable system to the extreme. The Giants apparently see the 29-year-old as predestined to be able to move him back and forth within the rules at low cost. But here, too, the human aspect should be considered.

Yes, Johnson has a hard time as a fullback in the current NFL. His position is threatened with extinction, only a few teams even rely on a running back for the running back. Johnson lacks the skills for other positions, so it is certainly an honor for him to still be in the orbit of the best football league in the world.

But players like the Stuttgart native also have the right to be treated with respect. And respect also means being given a clear perspective. Is the franchise planning on keeping a player or not?

The attractiveness of the league and the knowledge that millions of American teenagers would like to be in Johnson’s position at some point in the future do not give the NFL the right to treat people like toys that are disposed of when they are no longer needed.

The argument that the USA is different and that’s just how the system works there is not an excuse.