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.
Jon Kitna has played pretty well since taking over for Tony Romo, and this week he has a nice matchup with the Redskins, who have struggled mightily against the pass this season…Josh Freeman should continue to put up solid fantasy lines the rest of the way. This week he has the Lions, who did play well against Aaron Rodgers for a half last week. Still, this is a secondary that has given up 20+ to Jon Kitna, Donovan McNabb and Mark Sanchez in the last eight weeks, so Freeman should finish with good stats…Jason Campbell is probably available on your waiver wire (or was earlier in the week) and has a terrific matchup with a reeling Broncos defense that has given up 1.8 pass TDs per game this season.
