I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE !!

I am not hurting anyone, no one is forced to read my posts. Some people agree with me and some don’t.. If I am wasting my time, so be it.. Come September we will know.

Pretty much summed it up.
Stop bitching. We all hate it. It will get done. Life will go on. There is nothing we can do about it.

Nice.

I couldn’t have said this better, myself, PA (or even nearly as well)!
I didn’t get very far into this article (my first time seeing it) before I realized that I didn’t agree with what I was reading.
I didn’t get much further than that before I understood that the more I read, the more I was going to disagree!
And, I didn’t get very far into your post before I understood that it was going to be spot on the money!
Add another rec’d!

You don’t like the post? Don’t read it.

but this stuff just gets old. I get it, people are outraged. We all are. I guess some more than others. But this “rah rah” stuff isn’t going to do anything and just fills these discussion pages with clutter.

One post discussing the topic and gettting his thoughts out was fine, but I don’t want one of these each week, louder and more brash each time.

This same post was received very well at The Phinsider.

Baseball doesn’t really match with the situation of the NFL for many, many reasons but the biggest one has to do with the way money is shared regardless of any salary cap.

See in baseball there are so many games that the TV contracts can’t really be as centrally organized and distributed. As a result there are vast differences in how a team can really make money….and this plays out in the large market teams and small market teams.

The other big difference is in the game and how careers go. See baseball can be played for a long period of time. Players get better as they age typically and peak later in their careers. In football the average career is 3-4 years and is basically a meat grinder. How does this play out for a major difference? Well in baseball a team like the Yankees can wait until a player is starting to reach his talent and then swoop in pay out big bucks and secure the best team possible. Now this has been tried by the Skins, Boys, and Raiders, but those teams found that the big names typically have played out all their good years with other teams by the time the big contract comes around. This is even more emphasized when you look at the concept of restricted free agency.

No success doesn’t come to the team with the biggest wallet, it comes with the team that has the smartest scouts and best coaches. Here the money can make a difference, but really it’s about the smart choices and right roster moves….which is basically nothing like baseball at all.

Think about how long a baseball season is….and then reflect on 94. Not only did they lose a few games, but they lost a whole season including the World series. Literally they lost eight or nine months of play and hundreds upon hundreds of games.

Now, football A) doesn’t have as many games….and B) hasn’t lost a single game yet. Seriously, not a single game.

Yes, losing a season hurts the sport long term, no argument there, but before we start ringing the doom bell let’s pause and think through everything that has to happen before we even lose a preseason game….

1. The current mediation talks would have to fail. Okay this isn’t hard to see since they are court mandated and only four owners are there. Still each side is actually talking and reports are trickling out that fences are being mended.

2. When the judge in MN rules in the coming weeks she would have to rule for the NFL allowing the lockout to continue. Really this isn’t totally true since she could rule to have an injunction placed on the lockout and then the NFL appeals this and deals the injunction taking place…let’s call this option B, really though it doesn’t matter cause either way we end up at….

3. The Court of Appeals. Here for the lockout to continue the NFL has to win. I doubt the NFL would be able to fight this all the way to the Supreme Court and keep the injunction so this is the do or die point for the NFL. This should come around mid summer. Whoever wins this part of the case pretty much has all of the leverage leading us to…..

4. A failure of continuing negotiations / mediation. See to really get this lockout you have to see who is at the table and the emotions floating around. More than the money this is all about the trust and relationships between players and owners. Gene Upshaw wasn’t universally loved, neither was Tauliabu, but you know what? They knew each other. They understood each other. They trusted each other. Hell, they worked together for decades. So when it came time to deal each side knew how the other would react and could trust that things were mostly on the level. Since then just about every major power player has changed in the negotiations and so new norms and new trusts have to be formed. This is a painful process that takes time…and most of all no gamesmanship.

The first set of negotiations failed because each side held out their last best hope for leverage and so the negotiations couldn’t really take place….each side was holding back a bit. Once the smoke clears on whether decertification is legit and whether the owners can lock out the players, then the gamesmanship will stop and the nitty gritty talks will begin. This should also happen when players have their backs against the wall of really seeing game checks stop, the owners might lose ticket sales/TV revenue, and both sides will see the harm that can come to the game. Deadlines make deals, and this deadline with no more safety nets should get something together (again if and only if the NFL wins).

Every one of those four steps have to fail before a single regular season game is lost. Hell, before a single preseason game is lost. Will it take time? Sure….but odds are that it all gets resolved before we miss out on anything too major.