NFL Draft 2011: NFLPA Got the Boycott Right, “Mock” Draft Ceremony Wrong

Earlier in the week, the NFLPA urged incoming rookies to boycott the NFL Draft which led to much laughing and finger pointing in their direction. Now they are planning an “alternative” event for players who go through with the boycott.

Fans have been insisting that the players invited to the draft should go, as they have earned that honor and shouldn’t even have the idea of not going suggested to them. However, when talking to USA TODAY’s Jarrett Bell, NFLPA spokesman George Atallah stated very astutely, “The prospective players are locked out. That’s the business reality they face. They can’t negotiate a contract. So it strikes me as odd that they would attend an event organized by a group of people that locked them out.”

Atallah couldn’t be more right. Not only would incoming rookies—including Von Miller, who is mentioned in the pending lawsuit Brady v. NFL—hurt the players’ collective case that the NFL is acting as a monopoly and using that leverage to take advantage of the players, but they would also, in turn, be telling Roger Goodell and the owners of the 32 NFL teams, “we understand that you’re holding us over the barrel, and we’re okay with that.”

However, by going to the NFLPA’s “alternative” draft, the players are also telling the owners that they are willing to go with the flow and are accepting of the fact that the owners control what they as players want.

Now the rookies are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Before, they were stuck between the players basically being "mad" at them for hurting their lawsuit—which they have all but won already—and not attending the single most important event in their life thus far. If they side with the players and boycott the draft, they end up looking stupid—as does the NFLPA—at the sham that will be the Player’s Association’s “Alternative Draft Celebration.”

Before, if they had wanted to show solidarity with the players they hope to be joining on the field, all they had to do was not go to Radio City Music Hall April 28-30. Now, if they decide to boycott—as at least Von Miller is likely to do—how can they possibly turn down the offer from the NFLPA to stand up with their new teammates, in a dimly lit convention hall somewhere probably in upstate New York, and share cheap champagne with veterans from around the league?

Maybe I’m missing something here, but if being at the draft to shake Roger Goodell’s hand on that stage is important to you, the consolation prize of a photo op with the two-to-five teammates who decide to show up doesn’t sound like much of a prize.

I still think the NFLPA, or whoever did it, made the right call when they called for the rookies to consider not attending as a show of solidarity. However, that was more PR on the NFLPA’s part to show the judge in their pending lawsuit that they wholeheartedly believe in the allegations they're bringing against the league.

Anyone who thinks they did it to try and take either the rookies’ or the owners’ fun away doesn’t get the move at all. The lawsuit that has been filed is a fight between two groups of hypocrites who are trying to make it look like they aren’t hypocrites—hence the call for the boycott.

Hopefully, whoever came up with this idea for an “Alternative Draft Celebration” comes to their senses and stops trying to look like the cool parent in a post-divorce custody battle. The NFL and NFLPA have split up for now and are fighting over the rookies as their surrogate children. In the process, both are waving very different steaks in front of the rookies' faces to try to get them on their side.

What no one seems to have noticed yet is that the “steaks” they are trying to “bait” the rookies with are old, rotten pieces of meat—ones that even the hungriest animal wouldn’t eat if you gave it to him.

If they keep this up, all that's going to happen is the rookies are going to get sick of the bickering and not side with either of them. Then their friends—a.k.a. the fans of the NFL and the players who make up the 32 teams—are going to get sick of it too and look for something better.

And believe you me, they’ll find it.