Talks of NFL Lockout Coming to an End Are Premature

Ugh.

Just when football fans around the world were led to believe that the end of the lockout was upon us, especially after the owners voted unanimously to accept this newly bargained agreement—with the lone abstention of Raiders owner Al Davis, who it could be argued has been absent for years—word comes that the players will not vote on the deal tonight.

You might be thinking "What's the big deal? So we have to wait one more day for the players to vote yes—what's one more day?"

Of course, things are never that simple. Numerous sources, including Gregg Rosenthal of PFT, say that an email sent by the lawyers on the players' side of the bargaining table to player representatives is raising major issues about how this deal was not only accepted by the owners, but how it is being presented to the players.

Sans a copy of the email itself, here are two major red flags Rosenthal highlights from the damning document:

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“[The settlement] gives the players only three days—Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of next week—to try to bargain any changes to the old CBA.  Any such changes would have to be agreed to by the owners in order to be incorporated into the Agreement, which would then become final on Saturday, July 30.  If the NFL does not agree to the players’ proposed changes, the old CBA terms on benefits, discipline, safety, etc. will remain unchanged for another ten years,”

“In addition to depriving the players of the time needed to consider forming a union and making needed changes to the old Agreement, this proposed procedure would in my view also violate federal labor laws.  Those laws prohibit employers from coercing their employees into forming a union, and could result in any Agreement reached through the procedure being declared null and void.”

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On one hand, I can understand what the lawyers are saying—basically that the owners cannot back the players into a corner as they are trying to do.

On the other hand, if we are being honest, the whole "de-certification" of the NFLPA in the first place was a gigantic sham, done only for legal reasons. The group has been, throughout the process, behaving as a union, and to claim they need ample time to decide whether or not to form a union is laughable.

But nobody's laughing, because at the end of the day, both sides should be ashamed of themselves.

The basic premise of the labor strife remains the same—a group of billionaires and a group of millionaires cannot agree how to divide billions of dollars.

Dollars that largely come from the pockets of fans.

You know, the people they supposedly play the game for? People like the the New York Giants fans that are extorted for money with ridiculous personal seat license agreements—you pay an exorbitant fee to have the right to pay another exorbitant fee for tickets, the biggest middle finger a team can give to it's fans.

Neither the owners or the players give a damn about the fans or the game they claim to love.

As for that bird that the Giants flipped to their faithful?

It's about time all football fans gave a bigger one right back to all parties involved in this latest farce.