In the wake of a report by ESPN's Adam Schefter that the San Diego Chargers are not interested in trading restricted free agent wide receiver Vincent Jackson, Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com thinks Chargers general manager A.J. Smith risks losing the locker room and ticket sales by playing hardball with Jackson.

"Does Smith not realize that, in the end, he's dealing with human beings -- and that a locker-room full of them will be watching this situation closely?

....

Either way, his handling of Jackson makes no sense. The situation seems to be less about nudging the 2010 Chargers toward a championship (or at least winning a playoff game or two) and more about sending a message to Jackson and every other player regarding the power that NFL teams hold in the uncapped year.

And that could make it even harder for the 2010 Chargers to consistently sell those last couple of thousand tickets to their home games, unless the team plans to devote the money they won't be paying Jackson to buying the unsold seats at 34 cents on the dollar."

There's little doubt that Smith takes pride in his "hard-ass" persona, but other than reducing the value of the one-year tender to 110% of Jackson's 2009 base salary, which will cost the sixth-year receiver from Northern Colorado $2.586 million dollars in base salary in 2010, what has Smith done to Jackson? (Who could have avoided that reduction by signing his tender before June 15, long after the mandatory portion of the Chargers' off-season workouts were complete.)

As Florio notes, only one restricted free agent signed an offer sheet this off-season, but there was plenty of movement among the 200+ class of restricted free agents.

In addition to Mike Bell moving from New Orleans to Philadelphia, twelve restricted free agents were traded this off-season. Smith himself traded two restricted free agents--quarterback Charlie Whitehurst (Seattle) and linebacker Tim Dobbins (Miami)--but clearly had no interest in ever trading Jackson. Had San Diego been interested in doing so, they would not have placed the "First- and Third-Round" tender on him. That tender told the other 31 teams that it would take a huge financial offer, with a large amount of guaranteed money and multiple draft picks in 2010, to acquire Jackson, who had just been convicted of a second DUI and was facing a multi-game suspension to start the 2010 season.

That no other general manager chose to even dip a toe in the water isn't collusion, it's self-preservation. Even now, with the length of Jackson's suspension known, the teams allegedly interested in acquiring Jackson--Seattle, Chicago, and Washington--appear as uninterested in paying the freight, a Brandon Marshall-sized package of picks (Two #2s or one #1) and contract ($47.5M+), as ever.

When Jackson decides to not sign his tender, and hints at extending his absence well into the regular season, why is Smith in the wrong for not springing into action to do something he never had any interest in doing?

Florio is absolutely right about one thing: Players in the locker room will be watching the situation closely. And if a player successfully forces a front office to do something it didn't want to do by sitting out, Smith might as well resign his post immediately.