Originally Posted by
Hayvern
Ultimately, it does come down to the players in one major sense. To negotiate in good faith, one has to make demands and then counter demands. Typically, you would move off your position a little. The players NEVER EVER did that.
The owners got a raw deal in the last CBA. This is pretty well established, they are trying to close that gap a little bit, the players, who know they got a cream deal in the last CBA are not willing to give any back. This nonsense about opening the books is just that, nonsense. I get the feeling that the players only want to open the books so they can point out how a couple of teams, Dallas, New England, Pittsburgh perhaps, are all making tons of money, yet they forget about those teams like the Chiefs, Dolphins, Jaguars, who are not making all that much money.
In this case, it comes down to anamosity from the players towards the owners, the players were never interested in getting a deal done, this is more a political statement than trying to save the season. I maintain that, and stand by it until they prove me wrong, and so far, I am right.
And let's be clear, I doubt that even the majority of the players back this move if you asked them one on one over a beer and they were perfectly candid about it. But the nature of unions is such that you do not split ranks with the union if you want the union to help you in the future, so you go along even though you know the collective actions of the union are wrong.
You will see more players step out and go against the union the closer we get to actual game time. The last strike saw a great number of players cross the picket lines to play, and I believe the same will happen if we get to that at this point. Expecially when the wives start screaming about paying the bills.
To all of you saying that the players are one of a kind and cannot be replaced so they deserve this money. Let me give you another example. There are just under 1200 Cisco Certified Internetworking Experts in this country. These are the rock stars of the IT community, the cream of the crop so to speak. These guys get a huge salary compared to others in the field, but not so much that it is a factor of millions.
And before you go off and say that they are not as important as NFL players, lets consider the guy that works for Bank of America. Bank of America handles more money every week than the NFL handles in a year. The CCIEs are what keeps those systems talking. Bank of America probably only has 2 or 3 of these types of guys on payroll. Should they band together and demand 50% of all of Bank of America's revenue because without them, BofA would no longer be a viable business?
No, they should not, that would be classified as extortion, which brings me back to my point that unions are nothing more than legalized extortion.