Roger Goodell is searching for hand, the rest of us are just hoping for foot(ball)...see what I did there?
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So the NFL lockout is technically over, though nothing is immediately different and the billable hours involved are still very much a growth market, and regardless of which side you’re on this appears to be a positive move to ensure a 2011 season, and as an aside I do believe I just set a personal blog record for hyperlinks in one sentence.
Anyway, the NFL says it needs “a few days to sort this out,” — which is code for “how the EFF did we let this happen???” — and in the meantime Roger Goodell is pushing a ridiculous spin that the commissioner of the NFL should be above.
Now, loyal readers of this blog and my Twitter account might know that I’m rooting for the players in this battle so feel free to take that bias into account here.
But Goodell’s Chicken Little routine comes across as condescending, patronizing, insulting, and perhaps even dishonest. The spin and leaps in logic made int he editorial are big enough to erode credibility in the matter, which is too bad. He makes it sound like the players’ only goal in this whole mess is to ruin the league.
Taken in context of his league suffering a critical loss in the courts, his message is something like a very public temper tantrum.
The players have hand now, and Goodell is making it obvious he’s uncomfortable with that.
Rusty Porter
2 years agoTo continue your analogy if the players do have ‘hand’ then as George’s girlfriend said ‘they are going to need it’. Union or not you can’t force your employer to run his business the way you want it to be run. Players are not entitled to anything that wasn’t in the contract they signed (their personal contract - not the CBA, which is expired anyway).
Darren Peeler
2 years agoI really don’t care who’s right or who “wins.”
In my opinion, I don’t think the athletes have a right to expect that they should earn a lifetime’s wages in just 4-6 years just because they’ve been born with the physical skills to play a game. So when they cry about only having “a limited earning period” I think that is ridiculous. Play football for however long you can be a productive, valuable player and then if that doesn’t get you enough money to live comfortably for the rest of your life, then go back to school and get your degree or simply get a real job like the rest of us.
As far as the owners go, I have more confidence in them keeping the league together because it’s in their collective interests to do so. The owners of corporations don’t open their books to the employees. Why should the NFL do likewise? These conflicts usually occur when one side asks for too much at one time. We did not see these issues until this new Player’s Union boss took over for Upshaw. The players were generally happy. Now this guy comes in after Upshaw dies and stirs the pot to make a name for himself. I know Upshaw was not well liked but he kept the peace and didn’t incite a war with ownership either. This appears to be about the ego of a guy who’s trying to ingratiate himself with the players.
That being said, as a fan, what I and all fans (especially ones in small markets like KC) should care about is that the NFL does not become the mess that is Major League Baseball. That would be a disaster for cities like KC, Buffalo, Jacksonville, Green Bay, Oakland, Minnesota, Cincy and Tampa Bay. My fear is that the player’s demands will instigate ownership to re-organize how they do business. Then big market guys like Jerry Jones and Bob Kraft will run for cover, remove the salary cap and pull back revenue sharing dollars thereby creating a big market driven league where cities like KC will not be able to compete for the services of the best free agents or sign the best draft picks available.
Hopefully cooler heads will prevail and if that cost us the 2011 NFL season then so be it. Better than watching the KC Royals…er, Chiefs try to outspend the NY Yanks….er, Giants.
Josh Hall
2 years agoIts an ABSOLUTE joke to even consider the owners side in this situation, even more so after reading Goodells article. The players have nothing to do with this, the OWNERS voted to cancel the last two years of their contract they signed (CBA). So its a little ridiculous to talk about players wanting more than they are entitled too considering they are fighting for exactly what they were promised until the owners got greedy.
After reading the WSJ piece, I only have one question for the commissioner: IF it was so good and working fine, why did the owners vote to end the CBA early? The players are well within their rights, and the owners are being shown for the greedy shysters that they are.
Sco Jo
2 years agoWeeeeeell, rman33, to some degree the law of the land says you can.
I’ve got to agree with Darrel in Boston on the revenue sharing thing. Jerry Jones showed ambitions of that an unbalanced league when he came out against it in Minnesota last year.
I’ve got to wonder if that whole “Small Market” thing is as relevant to football. With so MANY teams from smaller cities - add Indianapolis, New Orleans, Cleveland, Tennessee and Pittsburgh to your list - and the shorter season with a high level of nationally televised games give everyone a lot of TV revenue.