Colts, Texans will mimic Vikings, Saints with solidarity display

Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on September 11, 2010, 11:14 PM EDT

When the Vikings and the Saints walked onto the field after the National Anthem on Thursday night and held a finger into the air, they hoped that other teams would engage in the same showing of union solidarity.

Mark Berman of FOX 26 in Houston reports that players in Sunday’s Colts-Texans game will do just that.

We predict that every team in every game will follow suit.  And we feel much better about that prediction than most of our game picks.

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60 responses to “Colts, Texans will mimic Vikings, Saints with solidarity display”

  5. Indeed
    Let’s all listen to millionaires whine while people are losing their homes and unable to put food on their tables.

  9. Yeah unions!!! Destroy the country,the car industry, the aerospace industry,the construction industry, especially the public schools and now the NFL. The Most corruption filled movement of our lifetimes. Put your index finger up and I put my middle finger on the remote to change it to UFL. All those bitches will be there in 2011 anyway.

  11. This is such an FU to the fans.
    Hey Brees and the rest of you. We have zero sympathy for you. None. You already make absurd amounts of money to play a fricken game. You have a charmed life. The owners already know your stance and the fans don’t care what you are whining about. So why do this?? Negotiate in private.
    We’re all struggling in this economy right now. We don’t need to know that all you players are united on making even more millions.
    I paid a lot of money for my opening day tickets, and I will boo your asses if you hold up that finger before the game.

  13. If the players are so keen on getting a deal done maybe they should do something really crazy, have the union make a counter proposal. Last I read the League has made an offer with nothing coming from the union.

  16. Million dollars here……million there…….
    All these people make far more in a year than many will see in a lifetime.
    There is not a single player….Not Payton, not Favre, not Brady…..no one that is worth the kind of money they are being paid……
    If ALL teams would stop paying such stupid sky high salaries to veterans and rookies, ticket prices would obviously come down, there wouldn’t be as many blackouts and families could go enjoy the game at the stadium.
    Is that just too much common sense for owners to figure the fk out?

  18. have fun being locked out next year and RUINING the momentum of the #1 sport in the country!!!!! In a down economy the last thing anybody wants to see is millionaires having a pissing contest with billionaires.

  19. Smart Move… negotiate in private, show soloidarity in public.
    Was on a picket line @Boeing in 1988. Even Management wanted us to to be united.

  20. this has to be one of the stupidest things i’ve seen. These players are very greedy. They need to go to haiti or something to see that there are people in need. What are they going to do with another million, buy a rolex.

  21. This is actually real bad news. The players are showing fingers like it as act of defiance, but if they never play a single down next year, the owners will still make money based on the TV contract.
    I side with the owners.
    The owners have given every player on their team the opportunity to become VERY wealthy because of the business they worked hard to build.
    What came first was the owner, not the player.

  22. Are you sure Mike ? According to Mike Wise and his twitter says that only half the teams are going to do it .

  23. These players are just looking like effin fools. Nobody considers them a real union and they need to stop trying to pretend they are put upon. The lowest salary in the NFL is about 350 thousand a year. The lowest salary of real working people is 15 thousand. It takes a normal person at minimum salary about 23 YEARS to make what the lowest paid NFL player makes between Sept and January. This display disgust me and the fans should really start booing it. These gutless punks have no clue what real work it about.

  26. Heres the “I told you so” post that I predicted in the first story of this posting when the Saints and Vikings did it.
    So I guess now I can say, I told you so.

  27. Agreed. Both sides are spending way too much time on PR and preparing their moves and positions for a work stoppage. Come on guys put that effort into working out a fair deal to split the millions on the table fairly. Can’t be that hard. Especially if you put yourselves in the shoes of your fans who are the real ones struggling through this economy and “trying to put food on the table.”

  29. Why?
    Do they have to rub our noses in it?
    I dint give a damn about your labor issues….looking at some of the contracts bieng thrown around, I’d say you HAVE no issues.
    Unless the players association is going to do something for the players of the past, STFU!
    The worst part? I have no confidence at all that the networks have the balls to cut away and not show this “frat brother handshake”.
    They never show the anthem anyway, but just watch, its gonna be shoved in our faces.

  30. Yep real easy to hold yer finger in the air … when those game check stop coming and the bling goes bye bye maybe it will be a different tune … we shall see …

  33. Wow I posted something on this thread about the unions in anegative way and they pulled my comment. Is Keith oberman on pft socialist party website???

  34. Hell no dedhed – 18 games is BS! Adding 2 more games is ridiculous and increases the chances for injury to star players!
    I don’t get the Media’s logic about pre-season causing more injuries to starters! RUFKM!?
    Starters might play 1 full game over the 4 game pre-season.
    Pre-Season
    Week 1 – Starters may play 1 or 2 series
    Week 2 – Starters may play 1 quarter
    Week 3 – Starters may play 2 1/2 quarters
    Week 4 – Starters don’t play*
    * Unless of course you are a spoiled fat brat with the last name Hanesworth –

  37. Idiots. The current pay scale and it’s inevitable rise each year is totally unsustainable! The finacial structure of the league MUST change or the players will kill the golden goose that laid the egg if the union has it’s way. Freakin’ Obama voters know NOTHING about basic economics!!!

  38. Please. Spare us. We know you are overpaid and the money is extorted from us. Just don’t remind us. I’m a late 40’s middle class MWM, and lately, I’m feeling kind of juvenile for investing time and emotional resources into a group of men I don’t even know that come from all over the country, band together, wear the same colors, and tell me they are MY team, as if they somehow represent ME, but wouldn’t give me the time of day out on the street. Then they have the nerve to say “it’s a business.” Well, I just canceled my NFL Sunday Ticket. Don’t hate. It’s a business y’all.
    My point is the emotional tie to the NFL isn’t what it used to be, and it’s feeling more and more like the NBA every day. Maybe that’s just what happens to guys my age, and I don’t fit the NFL’s “demographics” any more. But I don’t see my 17 year old all league d-end son watching games either. He just isn’t interested unless he is playing.
    It don’t look good…..

  39. Stupid move, obviously they are directing this message to the fans and as far as I can tell the overwhelming majority of fans are on the owners side, we had a poll up on our team message board and it was like 80-20 in favor of the league.

  40. I think one of the sticking points is the dumb 18 game schedule. I saw a fan Q&A session with Roger Goodell, and man, can that guy sneak his priorities into anything.
    “So commish, when you see guys like Brett Favre skipping camp and putting in less work than the younger guys, do you ever feel like camp should be mandatory for everyone? Do you think that anyone should get a privilege over the rest of the team?”
    “Well you see, guys like Brett Favre prove that you don’t need 4 preseason games and weeks of training camp, so we should just get rid of half of the preseason and put real games in their place.”

  41. 1. dedhed says: September 11, 2010 11:26 PM
    dumb move… negotiate in private
    Showing that all members of their union are united behind the same cause, on national television, TO THEIR FANS WHO PAY FOR TICKETS TO SUPPLY THE MONEY IN THEIR PAYCHECKS is stupid?
    Or do you actually mean “keep your business private and give me my football”?
    If the first…dumb post
    If the second…selfish post
    0-2….

  45. ded hed…. are you a fan? Billionaires want to impose their rules on the workers, making the fans suffer? The players have a plan and it involves playing, the owners have a plan and it involves locking the players out. If you think sticking their fingers in the air is “Negotiating in Public” then you must be ok with the Owners showing all us fans the Middle finger behind our backs

  46. They should get union bumper stickers for their Porsches. They’d put some signs on their lawns, but the homeowner associations in those upscale gated communities frown on such things.

  47. Who cares?… Multi millionaires acting as if they are wal-mart employee’s fighting for health care benefits is pointless…..If both the players and the owners are so blinded by greed they don’t realize what a good thing they have going on, then what difference does it make?

  48. I can see it now, the players paying other people to picket outside the stadium and practice facilities. These guys have no reason in the world to be unhappy other than the select stupid few that don’t trust banks and hide their millions under their mattresses.
    A bunch of pampered millionaires showing solidarity doesn’t exactly warm ones heart. Maybe the fans should form a union… and then go on strike by refusing to go to games and pay these guys’ ridiculous salaries.
    Most fans are behind the owners, but they are giving it to us too, let’s go on strike.

  49. I’ll tell you where they can stick their finger.
    I’m with the owners on this one all the way.

  50. What dumb “fans”. If you’re so upset by the players showing solidarity, stop watching the games. Good luck with that.

  51. @ WhichEverComesFirst
    Your reply to dedhed was dumber. His point was that fans don’t want to see that shit. It means nothing to us (fans). Conduct your business in private. “Showing solidarity” as they did MEANS NOTHING TO THE FANS!
    @ calraider
    Read wintermoonrising’s post. He is right. If the current plan stays in place, the league will not be able to sustain it. If the salary cap increases every year, how do the owners pay for it? This is why they are looking at a rookie wage scale. They can’t sustain giving unproven players $50 million guaranteed. Season ticket purchases were DOWN this year around the league. Why? Since the salaries are increasing, so too do the ticket prices. For the owners to keep their own profit margin, they must raise ticket prices. So it is really the players who are pricing certain fans out of the market.
    If not for the men who created the league and OWN the teams, the players would have no NFL. The owners should make their money. Why should their profit margins decrease while player salaries increase? It’s their money on the line.

  52. I don’t have any sympathy for the players or the owners. The fat cat owners and well-paid players all share the blame. Each side is reluctant to part with a single dime and neither side seems willing to compromise. Especially in this economic climate…don’t cry about your millions of dollars. I don’t want to hear it. Take care of your negotiations on your own time…game day is for your fans–shelling out their hard earned $$ to watch you play.

  53. F— them. I love the NFL. I love watching football. But this “show of solidarity” thing is really, really annoying.
    Just like I don’t want to hear about a rock star’s politics at a concert, I don’t want to see shows of solidarity or any other political message at a football game. I want to watch the damn game.
    This is a stupid PR move by the players. Given these economic times and how many people have lost their jobs, you would think the players union would be more savvy than that. I don’t see them earning any points with the public. If anything, this will hurt their case.

  55. famucancer – The logic you use is that of a first grader. Must be that union brainwashing; what local you in?

  57. The owners can show their solidarity by raising a different finger towards the players. The king’s ransom contracts can’t continue, especially while revenue is dropping. It’s simple math and a simple forecast. If player salaries continue to rise and profits continue to fall, there will eventually be no profits and ultimately no NFL. It is not like the owners want to pay these guys minimum wage, they simply want to stem the tide and make employee compensation manageable in the future. The players will still be rich. If they can’t see that, go find suitable employment in the CFL, AFL, UFL. There are millions of guys that would play for a tiny fraction of what these guys get. The “scabs” won’t be as good initially but they will eventually become stars. If the players are not careful, they will kill the cash cow they have been exploiting and will be on the outside looking in at ather dudes doing the jobs the feel they are entitled to.

  59. Nosredna says:
    If ALL teams would stop paying such stupid sky high salaries to veterans and rookies, ticket prices would obviously come down, there wouldn’t be as many blackouts and families could go enjoy the game at the stadium.
    If you believe ticket prices will ever come down, or that is the owners goal, you are quite delusional and gullible.
    I’m not for either side, I’m for uninterrupted football

  60. The biggest problem is the outrageous rookie salaries and signing bonuses. This absolutely needs to be corrected or there will be no NFL several years from now. There needs to be a rookie salary cap structure and the owners won’t accept anything less. Four preseason games are two too many, they are unwatchable. I feel bad for fans that pay full price and have to watch garbage. This sign of solidarity is just rubbing it in the fans face and most fans, judging from what I’m reading, are not on the players’ side. It looks like fans will be paying full price to watch scabs play. That’s still better than this preseason crap. It happened before and it will happen again!

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