whats going on with the NFL

[Channing]

After so many years of labor peace, the NFL seems to be at a junction point - and it isn't clear to me how the league will proceed.

There was obviously the lockout, but this litigation with the former players is reaching into the billions of dollars in potential liability. Also, and perhaps its because of the explosion in social media, the strained relationship between management and the players is on full display for everyone to see. Now, for the first time, there are certain franchises (e.g. the Dolphins) who are having trouble filling their stadiums, and it isn't particularly clear to me how the league will move on. On some level, the players and management all need to work together to move in the right direction... Mightier empires have fallen.

[greybeard]

It seems a bit like Alice in the looking glass. Management is looking down the barrel of a sport that WILL be changed, and perhaps more dramatically than anyone can imagine, unless some of the pressure building around the injury issue is released, and management appears to be going in the right direction. However, the players who made it through high school ball and then big time college programs in one piece, or nearly so, and have made it to the dance, want to get paid in the same windows most have in the pros. That translates into keeping the game as entertaining as it currently is, which is to say, as dangerous as it currently is.

So, players are pushing back against having to wear pads on thighs, hips , etc., because it will detract from the violence and violence sells. The more violent the hit, be it imparted by a running back or to a running back, etc, the more peple watch not only the games but the mind numbing clips of those hits on ESPN et. al.

I think much more ramatic changes will have to take place that will make the game less entertaining, and that the pressure will not come primarily from the lawsuits. I think that high schools and colleges are going to have to face facts about injury issues that people currently are not even talking about but in many cases will be life altering by the time high school and certainly college level football players reach middle age. When the studies underway start producing discernible and disturbing results regarding the detrimental effects of nonconcussive hits that cause an abrupt stop of a player's head so that the brain which keeps going slams into the player's skull, when those studies start coming out, what high school or school district will not insist on rule changes that will will have guys playing with the helmets of old and the shoulder pads of old? When the attention in communities focuses on the costs to health insurance that all these MRI's and surgeries and rehabs are having, will people start putting some pressure on the costs, the long term costs, of such injuries? You'd have to think so.

The pressure will come from the bottom of the sport up, the game will change at that level, and instead of the NFL setting the terms of play for the sport from the top down, the norms will come from the bottom up. Willie Lanier, the first prototype for the modern linebacker, that would be Hall of Fame Willie Lanier, said that in his rookie year he made one of those teeth jarring hits going horizontal on some running back and never did it again. He went old school, which is to say he wrestled with offensive linemen and wrestle guys with the ball to the ground. He was as good a linebacker as the game has known.

The current generation of pros who have been through the grist mill want to earn what they can in the 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 (depending on position) that they will have in the league on average. Who can blame them. Now, the game itself just can't afford it.

[sagegrouse]

Channing, Greybeard:

My take may be different from either of yours. The current lawsuit is a reverberation from last year's strife. The lockout last year was a big deal, showing the strength of the owners -- not really surprising in view of the relatively short careers of NFL players. There is residual unhappiness among the players, and some of it is directed at the union.

The NFLPA is alleging that the NFL owes it big time for "collusion" among the owners in 2010, when there was no cap in place. Likely fact #1 is that the agreement signed last year contained pages and pages of agreements that all prior issues are settled and that neither party could bring up issues from years past. Fact #2 is that the NFL is a legal cartel, exempted from anti-trust legislation by the Congress prior to the NFL-AFL merger in the 1960s.

The union is basically claiming that the antitrust exemption doesn't apply and that the NFL's own attorneys are incompetent. Well, ...

I suspect that union president DeMaurice Smith is under some heat from his members for the agreement signed last year and is now trying to appear feisty towards the owners and the league.

sage

[moonpie23]

it's always depressing when you've signed the agreement that takes advantage of you later....