Finally!!!! The lockout is over!!! The long national nightmare has finally come to an end. No more condradictions on what the players and owners want, no more stupid emails from Drew Brees, it’s finally over! Anyways, this is my final post about the lockout…hence the title.
1) Two reasons why I was angry: I totally ran out of things to write about the Bills. I mean, how many times can I recycle the NFL free agent list and whether or not the Bills should sign Florence or Poz? Just too many. Finally, I will know what the Bills roster will look like by next week and can get into dissecting their strengths and weaknesses. The 2nd reason for my displeasure had to do with constant contradiction between media/reporters about the end of the lockout. Maybe my ADD came into play, but I had no clue what was being argued about anymore. I just didn’t care at that point. I was never worried that we were going to lose games and because of that, I didn’t want to know anything until the season was back. Because the media needs stuff to talk about, every single nuance was analyzed and debated, which made me want to unfollow every single NFL reporter on Twitter.
2) Why fans were angry: Peter King said it best: It’s horse crap to say NFL players have to “make it up” to the fans. Make up what? They got the deal done 45 days before the season. What exactly did the fans miss? Mini-camp coverage. The football world would have signed up for missing no real games.” He’s absolutely right. It’s a 10-year deal which means the NFL is going to go almost 35 years without missing a regular season game. Um, you think the other pro sports leagues would like to accomplish that? Honestly, I think the people who are pissed off in general, hate corporate America. Let’s be honest, regular Joes hate rich people. That’s why we bask in the glory of some Hollywood type who screws up. It makes us feel better about ourselves. This was the perfect opportunity for fans/media to give the finger to corporate America and rich athletes. It was our opening to really make a small problem into a gigantic complaint against the big GUYS. It’s like when the lockout started in March and I read all these articles killing the NFL for greed. Why the hell did it matter? I can’t tell you how stupid it is for fans to get upset about OTAs not happening. Were you really not going to buy new Bills jerseys because of it? I doubt it.
3) The little guy: Look, I know there are fans out there who are hurt by the economy and are just making ends meet. However, I don’t think we should get all pissed off about the NFL making tons of money while we are just scraping by. You control your own life and the NFL has no bearing on your paycheck. So why get upset at them? I realized a long time ago that when it comes to sports, we live in two different worlds. Sure, I’d love to make 10 million bucks a year by playing 16 games or make $500,000 for carrying a clip board, but I’ve learned how to separate the real world from the sports world and not hold it against athletes and owners for making more money and being greedy. The NFL entertains us and that’s all I want. Maybe if I have a family one day it will change that, but I seriously doubt it…on both counts. 🙂
4) The Bills kind of made out: Over the years one of my biggest fears for the Bills is them getting the first pick in the draft. Why? Because Ralph Wilson would be forced to pay almost 50 million dollars for a player who has never stepped foot on a NFL field. I think we all can agree that the Bills have been kind of frugal with their money, and I’ve always dreaded that they would balk at paying someone that sort of coin. Maybe they would have or maybe they wouldn’t. Well, now we don’t have to worry about that. Marcell Dareus is in line to get about 22 million dollars for 4 years which is almost equal to Aaron Maybin’s rookie deal. Plus, the Bills are now getting more revenue from the league than they did before. Hopefully, they spend that money on some solid players. Also, and this is being the most optimistic Bills fan ever, but maybe they were 30 million under the cap because they were waiting for a deal to get reached in their favor. I remember when the NHL went on lockdown in 2004, a lot of teams had like 5 players signed going into the lockout. Then, once the teams got a deal in their favor, they started spending money.
I use to always allude to how the Bills of the early 2000’s (Circa 2003) had at least 8 guys on their roster who made decent coin (Bledsoe, Moulds, Ruben, Mike Williams, Milloy, Adams, Spikes and Fletcher) for their position. I’m not even including rookie contracts like Willis McGahee and Nate Clements. Then, after the CBA was agreed to in 2006, Mr. Wilson didn’t get the deal and Cash to the Cap was born. I actually think the Bills started to not spend as much money because of that CBA agreement. Right now, the Bills only have three players who make decent money for their position by high NFL Standards (Evans, McGee and Kelsay). That’s a far cry from 2003. Again, I’m just thinking in a fantasy world of the Bills using the added revenue and Toronto money to really buy some players. Hey…I can dream, right?
Bottom line: The lockout didn’t really dent my enthusiam for the NFL product. I love the game and I can’t wait until September.
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