Think beyond the individual. Think of him as an entity, a money making enterprise and you start to see the stance taken by the NFL is unconstitutional. They are attempting to unfairly restrict trade. This guy has a shelf life. He's no different from Britney Spears in that regard. I've heard all the subjective arguments but the bottomline is he is an industry unto himself and to deny that industry the right to sell it's product is an unfair restraint of trade.
No one doubts the NFL will lose this if and when someone sacrifices their career in order to be the trailblazer. This is because the NFL's strategy has always been to wait em out. Drag out the court proceedings so long that the player eventually folds due to that shelf life issue.
I've heard all the subjective arguments but the bottomline is he is an industry unto himself and to deny that industry the right to sell it's product is an unfair restraint of trade. The NFL is not denying him the right to sell, they are just saying we are not buying immature product. You don't go to the farmers market to buy unripe fruit do you?
If he wants to sell his unripe product he can go to the arena league or the CFL or some other league that will buy not-quite-ready-for-market produce
He has the right to sell, he does not have the right to force others to buy. And that is exactly what he is doing.