...holding a NFL Draft in the first place.
The NFLPA “trade association” asked incoming college players, who are not members, to boycot the NFL Draft conducted by pro teams that will not negotiate with them.
So it goes with labor negotiations gone wild.
Two stories by Bloguin colleagues illuminate this madcap adventure of football players and team owners.
Nate Dunlevy at 18-88, covering the Colts, penned The Fans Aren’t Victims Yet (and other misconceptions) that takes aim at panic-stricken fans fearful of football withdrawal and taking names. Have some perspective people!
Nate didn’t put it that way, but that’s his point. We haven’t been denied a single minute of football yet and fans and players don’t actually owe anything to each other. Fans will jeer a player as soon as cheer him. Redskins cornerback Carlos Rogers once pointed that out and was jeered for it.
Player’s play for the team and indirectly for the fan. Poll the players and I bet most of them consider themselves employees of the NFL more than of the team that signed them. Redskins players sign NFL contracts after all and are just as happy to sign with the Cowboys if that’s where the best next deal is.
How many Redskins players know all the words to Hail To The Redskins?
Nate made three other good points in his piece. It’s worth the read.
After making such a point that the future of the game is in jeapardy because of player salaries, why on Earth would the owners stonewall players’ demand for proof? Will at RamsHerd.com suspects a divided owner’s group that doesn’t want to share the numbers with each other, much less the employees.
That would be the same divided group that rushed to accept the 2006 CBA extension after spending most of the owner’s meeting at war with each other. They regretted it immediately and planned to get out from it as soon as they could. The late Gene Upshaw then NFLPA Executive Director, predicted as much one year before the owners actually did it.
The conflict between big market teams and small market teams is not resolved. It is the underlying factor in the lockout. How prescient was Upshaw to sense that? How astute of him and then NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to craft a labor agreement that encompassed opt outs and lockouts, yet keep the Collective Bargaining Agreement in existance. When the legal maneuvers are done, owners and players will be operating under some form of the CBA until the issues are finally resolved.
The CBA must be there and thankfully so. Without it, Blaine Gabbert and Cam Newton would be cutting the best deal they could get from every NFL team, not just the one that drafts them.
Without the CBA, owners would get snookered everytime. Overbidding for a few stars would lead to less pay and shorter careers for most of the other players.
The owners didn’t have time to do the extension right in 2006, but plenty of time to do it over now. I’m all for them taking the time, stressful as it is, so long as they get it right this time..
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