NFL EMPLOYEES’ BUYOUT DEADLINE IS MONDAY

The deadline looms Monday for NFL employees at the league office, NFL Network and NFL Films to decide whether to accept a voluntary buyout package, sources told the Philadelphia Daily News. Of course, if the league doesn’t get 150 volunteers for the buyout at the three operations based in New York, Los Angeles and Mt. Laurel, N.J., respectively, then layoffs will commence. Daily News writer Paul Domowitch writes that the NFL is using the depressed economy as an excuse for parting ways with a portion of its work force even though the league is “making lots and lots and lots of money” He labeled the severance package for layoffs as “an embarrassment.” The NFL is reportedly offering one week of salary for every year of NFL employment in addition to 50 percent of a season performance bonus, a figure which apparently doesn’t amount to a lot of bucks. The league laid off nearly 10 percent of NFL Films’ employees last March, and they are bracing to be hit hard again. The NFL is reportedly attempting to phase out NFL Films, which has chronicled the league’s history for 45 years. The article notes that the league has even included NFL Films president and co-founder Steve Sabol on the list of employees eligible for the buyout. “The company has been instrumental in making the NFL the immensely popular -- and profitable -- product it is today,” Domowitch writes. “Steve has been more important to this league than Paul Tagliabue ever was and Roger Goodell ever will be.” While the NFL is undoubtedly not immune to the tough economic conditions we’re all dealing with, it does make a ton of money from its lucrative television contracts and is somehow able to afford paying huge guaranteed salaries to out-of-work coaches and General Managers who have been fired.