As the NFL and the players’ union continue to jockey for the hearts and minds of football fans who don’t care about a fight involving millionaires against billionaires, the two sides apparently believe that currying favor with retired players represents the best way to win the mob.
The latest development comes from a tit-for-tat online exchange. On Saturday, the league posted at NFLLabor.com a letter recently sent to Congresswoman Linda Sanchez by Commissioner Roger Goodell in response to a question ostensibly submitted by a member of the public who saw fit to take a jab at the decision of the union to conduct its annual meetings in Hawaii, just as NFL spokesman Greg Aiello did earlier in the day.
Here’s the key language from the Commissioner: “I have said publicly that there will be no agreement without improvements for retired players. On the contrary, when the union last week informed us that it was willing to make a new deal under certain conditions, there was no mention by them of increased benefits for retirees. The union leadership was willing to make a deal without any improvements for retired players.”
The union has responded with the following statement, posted this evening at its official web site: “Truth becomes a casualty when we see the Comissioner’s statement, having watched the Management Council call our plan to tap a mere 2% of owner profits to better retiree’s pensions ‘disingenuous.’ Neither the NFL nor its NFL Alumni have decided to get into the real game to improve retiree pensions and give players more than five years of health care when they retire if they are lucky enough to play four years. When will the NFL start paying the former players who built this game for the legacy it sells?”
We recall NFLPA Executive Director De Smith stating during the union’s pre-Super Bowl press conference that he’d like the league to carve off a piece of its profits to help retired players. But we think that both sides need to make a contribution to the men who helped make the game what it currently is; the owners’ profits are boosted by the history of the league, and the players’ salaries continue to go up due to the ever-growing popularity of the sport.
It should be an easy process. The fact that they can’t get past the point of trading insults on the Internet tell us that an answer isn’t coming any time soon.
Didn’t they just axe the NFL pension plan for employees, coaches and players? What did they do with all the money?
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the real reason the NFL wants to own the UFL…. because, after the 2010 season, there will be no NFL. Ever. Again. These two sides will never agree. So, enjoy the upcoming season because these folks are set to steal pro football (as we know it) from us fans.
Remember that the USFL was actually pretty decent because they managed to get some NFL quality talent. Do you think the NFL players will really want to sit around not making any money? Once they see that the 2011 lockout is going to extend into 2012 and they take a look at the millions they’re not receiving and the age they’re gaining, suddenly another league that’s actually playing football (and will then have the (investor) strength based on the hopes of the NFL fan base to support bigger salaries) will look mighty attractive. So the NFL is either looking to own the UFL because they see the end is near or because they want to shelve it so there is no other option for the players. I hope the UFL keeps to their 49%, and no more, stance.
I, for one, will watch them because I am about sick of the league and the NFLPA and how they ignore the people who keep their foolish azzes in business. And I feel that way BEFORE a shutout.
Azz holes.
The non-stop coverage here is awesome. I’m glad Mike Florio hates his family.
NFL players sign million $$$ contracts and then spend money on hugh houses for their moms, money given to their 3rd cousin they never met, have numerous cars, expensive jewerly and who know what drugs they use! They need to manage their money like the average Joe!
So WHAT. The NFL OWNERS should be taking care of them DEAL or NOT. It’s total horse crap for the Golden Weasel to try to put this off on the players because it was the owners who screwed those older players, both before and after the union. The owners wouldn’t help them with healthcare, retirement and when they tried to get the workman’s comp system to help them pay for things like hip replacement, they have fought them every step of the way AND because their injuries are pre-existing conditions, the pre-union players didn’t get the luxury of being able to buy coverage, either while they were playing or after retiring. I don’t want to hear one word about how this isn’t the owners’ responsibility because IT IS.
Best idea of all. We, the fans, hire a lawyer, demand the league and union come to an agreement by a certain point or we will lock them out. If we lock them out nobody wins, but they get no more money from us, the ones paying a good majority of these billions.
When it comes down to any type of politics, we are to blame. We continue to support greed and continue to make the rich richer. Until we stick up for ourselves, it will just continue to happen and we will continue to be taken advantage of, especially in our pockets! We work too hard for our money for it to go to the restructuring of countries that spit on the very core being of us, and we work too hard to give sports businesses our money day in and out so that they can threaten to cut us off from what we pay for because they can’t share our money properly? BULLSHIT, lets take a stand for once. Hell, we can hire Florio and pay him a lifetime supply of V05 Hair Gel to be our representation.
The tiny number of posts next to reports about the CBA and related issues shows me how disenfranchised the average fan is with the league. They wouldn’t stand for this rubbish in Australia. Mind you, in Australia season ticket holders are members who vote for a board that runs the club. If the board doesn’t reflect fans wishes they get sacked and replaced by one that will. Make a deal, play ball move on!
Funny stuff. Goodell refers to the union’s offer to just use the 2o09 rules for 2010 as their last proposal and the union refers to stuff from their bargaining for a new CBA.
One thing is clear: It should not be the responsibility of just one side. It’s disingenuous to claim you’re trying to help and blame the other side for not paying for it.
@DB26 – Good stuff. I like it. Will you take it on, Florio?
Funny too – thanks for the Sunday morning laugh. V05 – haha still laughing about that one.
Goddells comment “THERE WILL BE NO AGREEMENT W/O IMPROVEMENTS FOR RETIRED PLAYERS…” really,… FLORIO if you had any aspirations to be a journalist, you’d run that comment by Mike Ditka. What’s stopping THESE OWNERS, out of gratitude & a sense of decency from stepping up, to help these retired players? …On pg. 270 of the book FROM BALTIMORE TO BROADWAY, Joe, the Jets, and the Super Bowl 3 Guarentee,…by Ed Gruver, it states Mike Ditka sent a letter to each of 32 team owners requesting a donation of $100,000 to help the former players…he received 2 responses, one a check for $10,000 the other a check for $5,000. DISGUSTED, Ditka sent both back. “If we can’t help them” Ditka said, “then nobody will”…always happy to enlighten you FLORIO, no thanks is necessary, would not want you & your site to be a tool for Roger Goddell, and his disgusting attempts to use the retired players & their medical & finacial hardships as a ploy to con the public into thinking he cares about the well being of the retired players…the NFLPA deserves a ton of criticism in this regard as well…I think IF Goddell actually gave a SH#T about the Gridiron Greats, he’d have done something by now, instead of trying to use them as a pawn in negotiating a labor deal w/the players…using them, when taking about a labor deal shows what a DOUCHEBAG Goddell is.
i just want to see IF SOMEONE in the media is going to call out Goddell on his disengenious comments, regarding the labor situation… don’t worry FLORIO, i wasn’t referring to you
What I’ve hated the most about Jones wasn’t that he fired Tom Landry but how he aggressively pursued cases against former Cowboys greats and not-so greats, who tried to turn to the worker’s comp system to get relief because the team wouldn’t help them out.
A lot of people are trying to go after the NFLPA to do the right thing BUT let’s face facts: if the OWNERS had done the right thing in the first place, the players wouldn’t need to get involved at all. It’s just plain WRONG to try to lay this on the players as having a responsibility when they had nothing to do with how management screwed these older guys over. You can say it’s the right thing for them (the players) to do until the cows come home but the fact is that it’s MORE of the right thing to do for the owners, who created this mess.
Look, if the owners in all the professional sports had done the right thing from Day One, there wouldn’t be a union but they made their beds and now, they’re bitter about the bed that they’re being forced to lie in. Even now, THEIR solutions are meant to break the players instead of working with them as partners.