With the NFLPA maintaining a strict no comment policy, NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith paused while leaving the offices of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to give a comment.
“For all of our fans who dig our game, we appreciate your patience as we work through this,” Smith said, invoking one of his favorite words (and, yes, we can dig it). “We’re gonna keep working. We want to play football.”
A statement from George Cohen, director of the FMCS is expected. When we see it, we’ll post it, and we’ll try to interpret it.
Meanwhile, reports are meshing with our interpretation of the meaning of the 24-hour extension. The goal isn’t to get a deal done, but to strike a deal on a longer extension. With the parties running out of time to get David Doty’s John Henry on a deal to extend the deal, they had to find a way to buy time.