Who to side with

[BackwoodsSteeler]

Re: Who to side with

If the players really want to take a stand, start a new league. But that would make them owners and they'd have to fight themselves.

And the NFL with all it's power, would draft other players and market them making these players just like the USFL.....they would all come back crying to the league for jobs when they folded.

[flippy]

Re: Who to side with

If the players really want to take a stand, start a new league. But that would make them owners and they'd have to fight themselves.

And the NFL with all it's power, would draft other players and market them making these players just like the USFL.....they would all come back crying to the league for jobs when they folded.

All the new league would need is a few big names. I'd watch Adrain Peterson for example even if he played with a bunch of scrubs. Heck, I'd watch Dennis Dixon and a bunch of scrubs.

WHo am I kidding? I'd watch high school players if that was the only game that was on.

And if there's no rules, why couldn't they just create the Harlem Globetrotters of football with an All Star cast to play some tackling dummies? I'd watch that too.

James Harrison could be the poster child of this league. I bet you could talk him into walking away from the NFL cause he's targetted for hitting too hard.

And while they're at it, they could play without helmets. Maybe the old leather ones would do.

They could call it the RFL - Real Football League.

Heck they could probably even bring back Herschel Walker who I saw in a StrikeForce fight not too long ago. He's probably got an itch to play.

And hire guys like Bill Cowher as coaches. I'd watch him spit on scrubs.

[calmkiller]

Re: Who to side with

I am for the Owners. I wish the players would tell the Union to go F themselves and work without a Union. I don't like unions. But I think the owners tried and the NFLPA* was being selfish and are going to ruin the game.

[feltdizz]

Re: Who to side with

Owners should offer 3 mill for players? The union is ruining the league?

Yeah.. that makes perfect sense, we should all work for minimum wage and let our owners keep all the money.

Those damn unions... they ruin everything. Michigan would be rolling in the money with those awesome designs that put the Japanese to shame the last 20 years. Pittsburgh would be the Steel capital of the world if it wasn't for those damn unions. Surely they could compete with China and other 3rd world industries who pay 25 cents a week.

Those damn unions... they even broke Wisconsin's budget. We all know their pension fund which is one of the 4th healthiest funds in the nation is the reason Wisconsin is going under.

Wall Street? Housing bubbles, New stadiums and owners who overpay bad athletes... nah, that can't be the reason for the had times.


Do teams have to spend all their money to put a good team on the field? Is a gun being held to the owners head forcing them to pay 100 million for Haynesworth and Big Ben? Everytime an owner pays a guy this kind of money they are smiling and happy to do it because they say the guy is worth it...

but it's those unions huh?

[Oviedo]

Re: Who to side with

Owners should offer 3 mill for players? The union is ruining the league?

Yeah.. that makes perfect sense, we should all work for minimum wage and let our owners keep all the money.

Those damn unions... they ruin everything. Michigan would be rolling in the money with those awesome designs that put the Japanese to shame the last 20 years. Pittsburgh would be the Steel capital of the world if it wasn't for those damn unions. Surely they could compete with China and other 3rd world industries who pay 25 cents a week.

Those damn unions... they even broke Wisconsin's budget. We all know their pension fund which is one of the 4th healthiest funds in the nation is the reason Wisconsin is going under.

Wall Street? Housing bubbles, New stadiums and owners who overpay bad athletes... nah, that can't be the reason for the had times.


Do teams have to spend all their money to put a good team on the field? Is a gun being held to the owners head forcing them to pay 100 million for Haynesworth and Big Ben? Everytime an owner pays a guy this kind of money they are smiling and happy to do it because they say the guy is worth it...

but it's those unions huh?

I bet a whole lot of displaced and unemployed steelworkers and autoworkers would love to have their jobs back at whatever the owners would pay which would be a decent salary. Unions killed those industries. When did a union ever offer more to get more? It was always give me more for the same or less. That is why they became non competitive.

[feltdizz]

Re: Who to side with

I bet a whole lot of displaced and unemployed steelworkers and autoworkers would love to have their jobs back at whatever the owners would pay which would be a decent salary. Unions killed those industries. When did a union ever offer more to get more? It was always give me more for the same or less. That is why they became non competitive.

I disagree.

Walmart opens a box store and all the small shops in town that were open for decades end up going out of business. Instead of those dollars getting recycled locally they all go to China.

But all the people they employ? True, Walmart employs a ton of people at minimum wage and where do they spend all their money? At the same Walmart...

Now all those small shops that had better service and knew you by name are gone... why? cheap azzz labor and cheap azz prices.

Unions didn't kill Michigan.... Japan killed Michigan.. Gas guzzlers killed Michigan.... the boring designs killed Michigan.

..and the funniest thing is when GM and other car companies were failing the CEO's were given golden parachutes. People cry about the unions and then we see the suits at the top given outrageous bonuses, stocks and 100 million dollar severance packages.

[RuthlessBurgher]

Re: Who to side with

If the players really want to take a stand, start a new league. But that would make them owners and they'd have to fight themselves.

[flippy]

Re: Who to side with

Unions didn't kill Michigan.... Japan killed Michigan.. Gas guzzlers killed Michigan.... the boring designs killed Michigan.

..and the funniest thing is when GM and other car companies were failing the CEO's were given golden parachutes. People cry about the unions and then we see the suits at the top given outrageous bonuses, stocks and 100 million dollar severance packages.

$100/hr to screw a piece of metal onto a car killed Michigan.

Unions create feelings of entitlement and complacency imho.

And that kills everything.

Unions get greedy and they put themselves out of business because they make their employers not only encumbered by higher costs, but they drain innovation and creativity.

If I have a union contract, I don't have to work hard. I'm protected. It's very mafia like. I pay my dues for protection. And then I can skate by.

Every time someone gets something they don't deserve or haven't earned, it hurts the economy and creates a bigger chasm between the haves and the have nots when these businesses fail.

Unions represent unions. They hurt employees and employers. And I predict the last country to unionize it's workforce will be the one with the most economic power in the future. Maybe it'll be Hati or Nicaragua or Niger or some strange place.

Smart businesses will always outsource to find the lowest costs at highest value. Nothing less makes sense.

And the irony is that employees feel unions help them, but they are the very reason their jobs dissappear.

If people only had it in them to work harder and could just be happy with a decent wage, the world would be simpler and better.

Don't spend money if you don't have it.

Don't borrow what you can't pay back.

And don't accept more than you earn.

[steeler_fan_in_t.o.]

Re: Who to side with

Gentlemen, while I would love to discuss the benefits or evils of unions please let us put this into perspective.

The NFLPA has very little in common with the UAW (or any other union) other than the fact that it is a collection of workers under a banner.

So, whether it was the union that killed Michigan or the automakers, lets get back on topic to NFL vs. NFLPA.

[hawaiiansteel]

Re: Who to side with

Peterson’s comments add fuel to labor fire



Adrian Peterson (Hunter Martin/Getty)

By John Holler
VikingUpdate.com
Posted Mar 16, 2011


NFL owners and players are at a stalemate in their labor crisis, and Adrian Peterson’s comments comparing NFL players to slaves only added to perceptions that both sides are unrealistic and full of over-the-top rhetoric.

There are times where an open microphone and an open mouth find a landing spot for a foot.

Adrian Peterson made national news Tuesday, but it wasn’t for an award he had won or an appearance he was making to benefit a charity. It was the result of unfortunate comments he made to Yahoo! Sports, comparing playing football in the NFL to slavery.

In an interview with Yahoo! Sports, Peterson was asked about the ongoing work stoppage between the NFL and players. It was at that point that Peterson made the unfortunate comparison.

“It’s modern-day slavery, you know?” Peterson said. “People kind of laugh at that, but there are people working at regular jobs who get treated the same way, too. With all the money, the owners are trying to get a different (higher) percentage and bring in more money. I understand that. These are business-minded people. Of course, this is what they are going to want to do. I understand that. It’s how they got to where they are now. But, as players, we have to stand our ground and say, ‘Hey! Without us, there’s no football.’

“There are so many different perspectives from different players and obviously we’re not all on the same page. I don’t know. I don’t really see this going where we’ll be without football for a long time. There’s too much money lost for the owners. Eventually, I feel that we’ll get something done.”

If you took out the first couple of sentences of that quote, Peterson made perfect sense from the player perspective. However, playing the “slavery card” lost the point of everything else he said. For a player who has become one of the faces of the game and is one of the most bankable “brands” in the NFL, the comments were both unfortunate and taken in context.

When most unions butt heads with management, they do so as the tools that make the final product. Auto workers assemble cars, but the car is the product. In professional sports, human beings are the product being sold to the consumer. They come and go and even the best of them are replaced. Joe Montana didn’t finish his career with the 49ers. Brett Favre didn’t finish his career with Green Bay. The ownership of both teams felt they had better options for the good of the company and moved on. But so do the players.

The basis of the arguments between owners and players is unlike any that any professional sport has faced before. The information we are learning about the attitudes of those in charge of the medical well-being of players of decades gone by – and the long-held practice of league-paid medicos to deny disability claims made by former players who paved the road for the success the league has today – is a cross the league has to bear. At this point, it can’t be argued. Too many brains have been autopsied and examined to deny the connection. However, for the current owners, this has become a matter of timing. Current owners are being asked to pay for the sins of the past.

Reparations are owed to players, because, in the world of the NFL, if a player signs a five-year contract for $50 million and suffers a career-ending injury in the first year of the deal, he sees only the signing bonus and first year’s base salary. Unfortunately, playing the “slavery card” doesn’t speak to the problem or the solution.

For Peterson, who is due a base salary of more than $10 million for the six months he will be plying his craft if there is a full season in 2011, the accusation of poverty can’t be made. A more fitting representative of the cause (although still not the “slavery” card) would be a player who was on the practice squad for a couple of years finally earning a roster spot and then tearing his knee. There are thousands of those types of guys whose only NFL claim to fame is bragging in a bar that they played for the Bengals. With his short-sighted comment, Peterson did more damage than good to the cause he is promoting.

The fact of the matter is that both the NFL and the players need each other to succeed. We won’t see “scab” players – the NFL learned the hard way that fans don’t want to see junior varsity football. The vast majority of players will never make the kind of money in other walks of life that they will earn in the NFL and most of them are aware of that.

Even the backup quarterbacks that have become a staple of the ESPN analyst chair took a significant pay cut from their playing days. It’s a rare opportunity to be so athletically gifted that an individual is good enough to play professional sports. It’s hard to quantify the loss of long-term quality of life many players lose to achieve that stardom. It’s still an issue that is in the genesis state of reliable, long-term data. Playing in the NFL is a risk that comes with a reward.

The impression many of us who cover football have received is that there is greed on both sides and fans aren’t unanimously in either camp’s side. Never has a sporting pie been so big ($9 billion annually) that two sides have been able to gorge at the table so heavily. The NFL has surpassed all the other major sports in terms of fan popularity and marketability. A regular-season prime-time football matchup can go head to head with a postseason baseball game and win in the ratings. This is an argument between millionaires and billionaires that the average football fan really can’t identify with a side. There is a level of contempt against both sides, which has only added fuel to the fire with Peterson’s “slavery” remark.

Those who have dealt with A.D. on a regular basis know that his comments weren’t made under a deeply-held conviction against the owners. He’s a combatant in the middle of a huge battle and made an unfortunate and presumably regrettable statement. Peterson is a genuinely nice guy and his “brand” has been damaged by the backlash of the remark he made. It’s a hard line the players are trying to show the league, but invoking slavery is not the tactic to open the door of communication.

WEDNESDAY NOTES

Packers running back Ryan Grant was one of the first players to publicly denounce the Peterson comment, noting that there is actual slavery in the world and making the comparison is off-base. Fellow NFLer Heath Evans also took issue with A.D.’s comment, saying players are blessed to even a strap on a helmet in the NFL.

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