The NFL released a statement Thursday afternoon on the state of labor negotiations that tried to have the best of both worlds.
It tried to take the high road. Essentially the purpose for the statement was to say the NFL won’t negotiate in public. But the league couldn’t resist calling the reports coming out of Wednesday’s session with the NFLPA “inaccurate.” That’s basically negotiating in public.
Here’s the full statement:
“Despite the inaccurate characterizations of yesterday’s meeting, out of respect to the collective bargaining process and our negotiating partner, we are going to continue to conduct negotiations with the union in private and not engage in a point-counterpoint on the specifics of either side’s proposals or the meeting process.
“Instead, we will work as hard as possible to reach a fair agreement by March 4. We are fully focused on that goal.”
The statement recognizes that the guts of the negotiation should be kept private. In the age of Twitter, 24-hour sports coverage, and PFT (sorry), that’s going to be more difficult than ever before.