According to a report by NBCSports.com, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has sent a letter to all players encouraging them to return the bargaining table to conclude a new bargaining agreement.

“We want you to understand the offer that we made to the NFLPA,” Goodell wrote. “The proposal was made to avoid a work stoppage. Each passing day puts our game and our shared economics further at risk. We believe the offer presented a strong and fair basis for continuing negotiations, allowing the new league year and free agency to begin, and growing our game in the years to come.”

Goodell then summarizes the key elements of the proposal: maximum salary and benefits per team of $141 million per club in 2011, with maximum salary and benefits per team of $161 million in 2014; free agency for players with four or more accrued season; reduced draft-choice compensation for restricted free agents; extensive changes in offseason workouts; reduction of preseason and regular-season padded practices; increased days off; retention of the 16-game season through 2012 with no change to 18 games without the players’ agreement; expanded injury guarantees, with up to $1 million in the year after an injury occurs; continuing medical coverage for life; immediate increases in pension for pre-1993 players; a new rookie wage scale that would make $300 million per draft class available for veteran pay and player benefits; abd external arbitration of all drug and steroids appeals.

If the players were smart, they would return to the bargaining table because going through the courts will only make the situation messier than it already is. The two sides need to keep the lines of communication open, learn how to compromise, agree to a new deal and go back to gauging the fans for billions of dollars.

That said, Goodell’s words will probably fall on deaf ears. Chargers’ linebacker Kevin Burnett recently called Goodell a “blatant liar” on a San Diego radio station and questioned what the commissioner has done to improve the league. I would imagine that other players share Burnett’s point of view and thus, the NFLPA will stay the course (which means going through the court system instead of heading back to the bargaining table).

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If your league grew 7.5% last year and now you can’t figure out a way to best divvy up $9 billion so that fans can enjoy a season next fall, then you automatically aren’t living the High Life.

As expected, the NFL labor situation has gone from bad to worse as the players have decertified and the owners have locked them out. While there are many factors at play, the root of the bickering is revenue – as in, how to share it. The owners want the players to take a paycut, while the players want to know why when the league’s profits and popularity keep growing.

Meanwhile, the fans continue to suffer this offseason. This is supposed to be a time for free agent news, draft rumors and a renewed sense of hope that your team will compete next year (even though it won’t…sorry, Buffalo fan). Instead, the draft is the only thing fans have to look forward to and the players and owners are doing their best to ruin that now, too. (The NFLPA has instructed top prospects not to attend Radio City Music Hall, so things could get real awkward when Roger Goodell starts announcing names on stage in New York next month.)

The worst part about the situation (besides the fact that there may not be a season next year) is that neither side is getting anywhere. Judge David Doty (who has ruled more in favor of the players than the owners when it comes to previous NFL cases) ruled that the owners couldn’t use the $4 billion from renegotiated TV contracts to fund their lockout, so the players seemingly had the upper hand in talks. Thinking they had friendly Judge Doty in their back pocket if they went to court, the players decided to reject a last-second offer by the owners last Friday and decertify. The only problem is that they didn’t have Judge Doty because a different judge has been assigned to their case. Now it appears the playing field has been leveled again.

The NFL has grown in leaps and bounds because of its fans. Now the league is a victim of its own success because fans are getting more impatient by the day. With no resolution in sight, everyone may have to wait until September to get back to living the High Life.

According to SI.com, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and league general counsel Jeff Pash have cut their salaries to $1 during the lockout. Goodell makes roughly $10 million a year plus bonuses, while Pash earns nearly $5 million.

Goodell also has asked the league’s compensation committee to delay any bonus payments to him until there is a deal with the players’ union.

Also taking cuts will be all league personnel at the New York headquarters, NFL Films in Mount Laurel, N.J., and at NFL Network and NFL.com in Culver City, Calif. For now, salaries for those league employees will be reduced by 12 percent, an amount equal to two weeks’ pay.

If the work stoppage continues into August, salary reductions for management-level employees will range from 25 percent for executive vice presidents to 20 percent for senior VPS and 15 percent for VPs. Directors will take a 10 percent cut and managers will be reduced by 5 percent.

Seeing as how Goodell and Pash make $15 million between them, something tells me they’re not going to be hurting with a $1 salary. But at least they’re men of their word. Goodell told fans that he would cut his salary to $1 for the length of the lockout and here he is on Day 1 slicing his pay.

Then again, who cares about Goodell and Pash’s salaries? Get the freaking new CBA signed so there’s a season next year.

As they continue to work towards signing a new CBA deal, the NFL and NFLPA are in the midst of a media blackout, which basically means that they won’t share any details about how the discussions are going.

In light of this, I’ve decided to compose a mock conversation between a NFL fan (for creative purposes, let’s call him “NFL Fan”), commissioner Roger Goodell and NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Pash using Goodell and Pash’s actual media transcripts from Friday.

Seeing as how they won’t shed any light on what’s actually happening behind closed doors, I figured this would be more entertaining than just posting Goodell and Pash’s highly useless comments.

NFL Fan: Should I cancel my NFL draft party in April, my fantasy football draft in August and my NFL Sunday Ticket subscription? In other words, are we going to have a season next year or what?

Roger Goodell: We are in a media blackout. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to dodge your question. With respect to the process, to George Cohen, to the NFLPA, I think we want to continue to respect that. But we’ve continued to work hard. I think the fact that we are continuing this dialogue is a positive sign.

NFL Fan: You know what else would be a positive sign? If you guys stopped making fans grab their ankles waiting for you to reach an agreement. That would be a pretty positive sign, wouldn’t you say, Jeff? Do you think fans should be optimistic just because you guys have agreed to another extension?

Jeff Pash: I think this is better than the alternative. Should they be optimistic? They know we’re talking. They know we’re working hard. I think that should be a positive.

NFL Fan: Actually, we don’t know that you’re talking or working hard because you a-holes don’t say anything of substance when you do talk to the media. For all we know, your “meetings” consist of smoking cigars, playing Texas Hold’em and watching re-runs of Knight Rider while laughing at how the fans are clinging onto hope that an agreement will be reached soon.

Roger Goodell: We are going to continue to work as hard as we can. I promise.

Read the rest of this entry »

Call me pessimistic but Roger Goodell’s belief that a new labor agreement could be in place by the Super Bowl seems overly optimistic. Especially when he says things like, “if we all commit to [working on the deal] and work hard at it.”

Nothing has changed over the past couple of months when it comes to settling differences between the owners and players. The owners still want the players to take a pay cut and add games to the regular season, but the NFLPA is in favor of neither. The players want to know why the owners aren’t making any money while the popularity of the league continues to grow, which is certainty understandable.

While appearing on Wednesday’s edition of The Herd with Colin Cowherd, NFLPA president Kevin Mawae echoed those feelings.

“Every week and every year we hear that the ratings are up, more tickets are sold this year than ever before, more advertising is being sold now than ever before, all that does is generate revenue and we have to listen to the owners tell us that we’re not making money. That’s a hard thing to understand when you won’t show us where you’re losing money because you’re afraid to show us your books.”

While fans would love to see Goodell’s projection that a new deal could be wrapped up by the Super Bowl, even he is being realistic about the situation.

“It takes productive dialogue, which means we’ve got to get to that place where we’re making significant progress in getting an agreement,” he said. “It’s not just about meetings and dialogues. It’s about getting real, significant progress on the key issues.”

I’ve held the belief that the NFLPA and owners won’t leave millions of dollars on the table by not getting a new deal worked out. While I still believe that, it would also be naïve to think that greed doesn’t exists. Both sides want to make as much money as possible and a 2011 lockout is still a real possibility.

So instead of talking about it, let’s hope both sides will actually get something done after the holidays so we can have football next fall.

While I think it’s a fruitless endeavor, you have to admire the way Texans’ owner Bob McNair has decided to go to bat for linebacker Brian Cushing.

McNair is lobbying the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell to reduce Cushing’s four-game suspension, which the linebacker received for violating the league’s steroid policy. McNair has said that he will present new evidence to Goodell today that he hopes will prove that Cushing has done nothing wrong.

From USA Today:

“We’re supportive of the league program and we’re not questioning that he did test positive for HCG,” McNair said. “We’re not questioning that at all.

“We’re concerned about the athlete and want to make sure that there’s nothing wrong with him and if this was something that was a natural occurrence, we then want to know about it because it could happen again.”

Now, who knows what McNair’s agenda is. After winning the 2009 Defensive Rookie of the Year Award last season, it’s obvious that Cushing is vital to Houston’s success. Would McNair be going out on a limb for all his players or is he just doing this because Cushing is one of his key defenders?

Only McNair can answer that question, but the fact that he’s sticking his neck out at all deserves some praise. The owners are about to embark on a nasty battle with the player’s union regarding a new CBA deal, yet here’s McNair going to bat for one of his own. It’s admirable, even if Goodell upholds Cushing’s suspension.

Again, I think McNair is going to come up empty and it stands to reason that he’s a little naive too (especially when you consider that Cushing has been linked to steroids since he was in high school). Plus, what the hell is Overtrained Athlete Syndrome (the condition Cushing claims led to the positive drug test).

But what’s the worse that can happen? Goodell doesn’t think the new evidence is worthy enough to reduce Cushing’s suspension? So what – the Texans have already been preparing to be without Cushing for the first four games anyway. It’s not like anything changes if McNair fails.

But if he succeeds, then not only does Cushing get his suspension reduced but maybe the league will look to address holes in its testing program.

Roger Goodell is apparently getting soft in his old(er) age.

Like Titans’ quarterback Vince Young, it appears as though Cedric Benson will escape punishment stemming from an incident that occurred at an Austin bar late last month in which witnesses claim he punched an employee. According to Adam Schefter via his Twitter page, Goodell will not suspend the Bengals’ running back.

It’ll be interesting to see whether or not the Bengals sign Benson to a contract extension now that he’s in the clear. He was angling for a new deal before the news about his bar altercation broke, so maybe the team will feel more confident giving him an extension. That said, nobody could blame Cincy if it wanted to waited until Benson stayed out of trouble the rest of the year.

As expected, Young wasn’t suspended either after he punched a man in the face at a strip club last month. It was the first time Young had gotten into any off-field trouble, so it was expected that Goodell would go easy on him being a first-time offender. The reports out of Tennessee have been mostly positive about VY this summer, so it appears as though the strip club incident was only a small roadblock for the 27-year-old QB.