I think this is all so clear, the owners over-reached and got caught with their pants down legally.

Very good examples by you there.

So you gave up beating your head against brick walls for Lent? I’m not Catholic, but I thought the idea was to sacrifice a pleasant activity

@dkeyser …

BTW, I do not think professional athletes are better than you or anyone else and that’s not what moochzilla is saying either. But just as diamonds are more valuable on the market than amethyst, and people with degrees command higher salaries than people with diplomas, elite athletes earn what they do because they have unique skills that the market for which the market is willing to pay top dollar. They earn based on the revenue they generate. It’s about market value, not human value.

Honey, if you think George Clooney is auditioning for roles, you are out of your mind–and you’re making Moochzilla’s point. George Clooney is an Academy Award winner who makes millions per picture and usually has a producer’s credit. He hasn’t auditioned for a role in years. The roles come to him. And elite athletes have the same status.

College, the Combine, pro days … then camp and preseason are their audition. Once they’ve proved themselves, the teams come to them.

Do you not realize how absurd you sound? Players couldn’t walk in one day and say, “I want $150 million and make owners give it to them. Owners have bid their salaries into orbit by competing with one another in an effort to field the best team by acquiring the best talent. The better you are, the more you’re worth, and the more an owner will pay to get you. When the league imposed salary caps, owners like Jerry Jones and Paul Allen who had tremendous liquid assets, skirted the cap by doling out millions in cash bonuses to get players away from owners like Dan Rooney who didn’t have that kind of cash available to play with.

These are savvy businessmen worth billions of dollars. They aren’t going to invest in these teams and pay that kind of money for players (their business assets) unless it means the rewards are HUGE. All that poor-mouthing about them losing money? Not true.

This isn’t rocket science … unless you deliberately choose to be dense in order to support a position that has no factual foundation. If you want to be ignorant, that’s up to you. Don’t expect the rest of us to feed your fantasies.

Who said they were? Don’t let your jealousy show so much.

“Yes they have certain things they can do better than others, but they sure as hell are no better than their fans. There are things i can do better than they can do.”

Yeah, but what you can do makes a company a minimum amount of money. After medical you probably lose it money. And you can be replaced in 10 seconds by a software program or college kid.

Pro athletes have unique skills that make people a ton of money. And they aren’t easily replaced.

That’s capitalism. Don’t hate so much, Lenin.

Pro athletes are no better than anybody else. Yes they have certain things they can do better than others, but they sure as hell are no better than their fans. There are things i can do better than they can do.

And Deb you are right about George Clooney not filling out an application, but i bet he has an audition

They equate every other job out there with theirs. They are just jealous and bitter, and think everyone needs to make exactly what they do at their Wal-Mart job.

Somehow that socialist principle is big in the Red State heartland.

They think they can get scab teams out there and NBC will still pay the same rate and ratings won’t drop. The are operating 100% on emotion. And they think the real world is just like “Madden” on easy level with cheat codes.

You. Still. Don’t. Get. It.

When publishers sign authors to book contracts, they don’t have them fill out employment applications. When George Clooney signs a film contract, he doesn’t fill out an employment application. Professional athletes are not employees like the guys down at the factory

Yes, before pros became vets they were college players who grew into their roles. But teams introduce one or two rookies a year–the best of the best–who are surrounded by veterans working as a cohesive team. If you field team of 53 college players, you have … a college team.

Oops … wait a minute … teams playing at a college level are comprised of the best available college players that have worked two to four years with the same playbook and coaching staff.

You are talking about bringing in 53 college players who have never worked together before, who’ve never played in your system.

How many players are invited to the Combine? A maximum of 335. You’ll need 1700 to man the 32 NFL teams.

Soooo … you’re going to find 1700 college players, divide them into 32 groups of 53, deposit them in the NFL cities, hand them a playbook, put the coaches to work, and expect to see NFL-caliber football … sometime in the next five to 10 years.

Uh-huh. Good luck with that, Einstein.

Just because you wish it was legal doesn’t make something legal.

Hmmm…let’s see…if I were an owner and one of my EMPLOYEES called me names and then sought further employment what would I do? Geez, that is tough to decide.

If money hungry agents approached me with a rabid pro-union player….the same union that demonized me (owner)…..would I hire him? What to do? Geez, that is a tough call……

Don’t worry about it……we will get back to you…..

ROLMFAO!!!
That is exactly to a t what I want to see. The league has it all wrong they should openly embrace the players attorneys ideas, and go ahead give them a league with no rules. So they can pay them squat. A league where the top 20 make 80% of the money. Let them eat cake. See how they and the fans react when a total of 10 teams have all the talent. See what happens when teams like Green Bay, Buffalo, Chicago, Cinci, Cleveland, San Diego, Carolina, Jacksonville, Houston, Indianapolis, and Tennessee become farm league teams, while rich teams like Dallas, Washington, Seattle (hello richest owner in all sports), Giants, Jets, Miami, San Fransico, Philly, and Atlanta take all the talent. Lets see peoples faces when the Cowboys, Seahawks, and Washington compete to see who gets the talents of Peyton Manning while the Colts disappear into the abyss, lets see the fans of Green Bay fresh off a SB watch their team be slowly picked apart one by one. Lets see the faces of franchises move to the big teams, and watch the same 12 teams go to the playoffs year in year out. Then I think in a total of three years maybe less the players will revolt not against the NFL but against each other, they will reform the union under new management and finally give the owners exactly what they want. The old saying goes, careful what you wish for you just might get it.

Sounds like the “put them Negroes in their proper place” party line I grew up reading in the newspaper in South Carolina.

And people wonder why the players get bitchy and refer to their rights as slave-like.

Money isn’t the issue, pay a slave all you want and it’s still a slave.

Slavery is about rights, and many posters here feel the players should have none.

I’m not here to argue, but just stop and think- do you want a player stuck with a team, stuck with a specific salary, and stuck with no voice to protest? His freedom is less valuable than your pro-NFL mantra?

THINK, man.

Quoted for truth.

If you owned a team, are you certain that’s the game you’d want to play?
—————————
Wouldn’t it be the other way around? You know, the “innocent until proven guilty” thing that places the burden of proof on the accuser rather than the defendant

No.

An anti-trust court is a civil court, not a criminal court. A preponderance of evidence is all that would be needed, and it would take seven out of the twelve jurors as opposed to all twelve.

It’s like a sports version of Penthouse Letters here with all of the pro-owner fantasies.

And the response would be: No. Since you’re clearly missing quite a few brain cells, it obviously hasn’t occurred to you that it’s a two-way street. Without the players, no games. Replacement players don’t provide the same level of play, ratings drop, TV networks who paid billions for TV rights get upset. Owners start losing money.

Just because you suck up to your bosses because they could replace you with a computer program or a temp from Workers R Us doesn’t mean it’s that way for people who actually have marketable talent.

Jealousy is funny.

If the agents claim collusion tell them to go sh#t in their hat.

They sure could. Then they’d have to convince a judge or jury in an anti-trust suit that it’s just a coincidence all 32 teams had zero interest in any of the free agents.

If you owned a team, are you certain that’s the game you’d want to play?

And this folks, is what we as NFL fans now have to look forward to. If this doesn’t tell you the whole players union thing has gone to far, you’ll never figure it out.

Every time one of this over the hill has beens or never were’s can’t find a team to pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars, or maybe millions of dollars, any given team, or probably the entire league is going to get dragged into court and be forced to defend themselves against anti-trust laws.

The owners should suspend all operations and cancel the upcoming draft and season. They need to take a stand now before it is too late.

Put the players in their proper place just as the NHL did to their players. Its the only way to save the game.

32 separate businesses can not collectively shut out a specific group of people. Are some of you actually reading any stories on these cases? Your suggestions are exactly what got the league into this mess. A group effort to shut the players out with no stay on Judge Nelson’s ruling would be collusion. Collusion is illegal in this case.

The owners need to set their egos aside and negotiate. There was nothing wrong with the current deal. They were making money. And the players were fine. And all indications were that profits were about to double under new agreements with the networks. And remember they still owe the players over two billion dollars. You would think they would be in more of a negotiating mood to make that go away.

If they did what you suggest there would be no league in 3 years.

But the New USFL sure would be great!

How not to run a business, by smacklayer!