Lockout

As you might’ve noticed I’ve yet to post anything on the latest news of Judge Nelson’s ruling that technically killed the lockout yesterday. I’m not really sure why any fans were rejoicing at the ruling, because this thing is still dragging well into summer, folks. I’m trying to distract myself with the draft, but I’ve been doing that for three months and the act is wearing thin.

Now you’ve got the NFL appealing, and asking for a stay to maintain some sense of order before everything descends even further into chaos like they started to this morning. You had players showing up at work, looking for workout bonuses, and being asked to leave. This whole thing is still a nightmare, and I’m skeptical that we’re any closer to a resolution today than we were before the lockout was “enjoined”.

The players meanwhile appear to be asking Judge Nelson to force the NFL to start the league year. Under what rules? No one is quite sure, but possibly just under the old CBA.

And of course the volleys back and forth keep on coming. In keeping with the snarky, finger-pointing tone this whole negotiation has had, we have DeMaurice Smith saying it’s the NFL’s fault that chaos is now ensuing.

Then you have Commissioner Goodell’s op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal which, in a nutshell, says that the players and their lawyers want the NFL to go to a completely free market system. No more draft. No more Franchise Tags. When a players contract expires he’s a free agent. No salary cap. Cats and Dogs living together. Total anarchy.

It’s really only one of the extreme lawyers on the players side who once made a comment that the picture Goodell painted is how he thinks it should be, not the entire FKA-NFLPA pushing for this completely new scenario, but you get the point.

All this rhetoric from both sides needs to end. They are just desperate attempts to win the fans and public opinion to their side. What they don’t realize is that they’re not winning anyone over, they’re just turning everyone away from football. The evidence is already there, people are less interested in the draft this year. Hits on NFL.com are down.

People get enough of this kind of thing from politics, especially in today’s climate in Washington. Sports are supposed to be an escape from petty arguments and the inability to compromise, not an extension of them. Damage has already been done to the sport, and the longer this drags on the NFL will no longer have to worry about “growing” the sport, they’ll just have to worry about getting it back to where it was before this whole debacle.

The NFL was preparing for a lockout for the last three years, going to specific measures to make sure that the owners would be able to shut their doors and still keep on chugging. It completely backfired for them.

They thought the deal they forced their TV partners into that pay them regardless of a lockout would hold up. It didn’t. They thought the dissolution of the NFLPA would be ruled null and void by a court. It wasn’t.

Let’s remember the wheels of this whole debacle began in 2006 when the players got a better cut of the big pie than the owners liked. Now everything the NFL has done has been to get part of that cut back, under the guise of continuing to grow the game.

I just like to watch football on Sundays. I like team building in the off-season. I don’t want my favorite form of entertainment to descend into a barely recognizable professional sport where only the teams with the most money win. Nor do I want to see a league where the players who put their life and limb on the line are not properly taken care of during and after their careers.

There are elements to both side’s arguments that the fans definitely side with so there has to be middle ground. There has to be a way to put aside all the vitriol that has built up and start from scratch to find a deal that both sides can live with.

Unfortunately given everything we’ve seen, from the petty shots via twitter to partisan and inflammatory press releases it doesn’t look like anything will get done until the sides are forced to talk again, or games begin getting cancelled.

Pretty shocking how hard it is to divide up $9 billion huh?

Lockout or no lockout the sides need to reconvene and get down to negotiating a new CBA. This is the one and only end game that will be satisfying to the NFL, the players, and the fans. Otherwise the great heyday of the NFL has passed us by.