Former NFL quarterback Fran Tarkenton, who last surfaced as a persistent (and ultimately vindicated) critic of Brett Favre, has found a new cause — the work stoppage.
And Fran, in our view, nails it.
Speaking with Dino Costa of Sirius Mad Dog Radio, Tarkenton said that, if he were the go-between in the fight between the league and the players, “We’d get it done in about two minutes.”
“I’m really emotional about this,” Tarkenton said. “With everything going on in the world, we’ve got the tragedy in Japan and what’s happening in all the Middle East when all these people are wanting freedom, and it’s a wonderful thing. And here we have the most successful sports franchise in the world, the National Football League, we don’t want to give this up. And we understand in professional football, teams win, individuals don’t. And it’s time for these owners and time for these players to sit down together, get the lawyers out of the [room], lawyers don’t help things. Lawyers muck up things. Lawyers cause problems, lawyers in divorce suits, they don’t help the people get back together. And we need to get real people, get the lawyers out of the negotiating room, stop the lawsuits, and let’s get real people, owners and players, who are partners in all this, let’s let them get together and get this thing solved now rather than later.”
So who’s side is Fran on? “I don’t take the owners’ side. I don’t take the players’ side. I take the fans’ side,” Tarkenton said. “This is not a typical labor situation. The players are not impoverished. The players are making the most money of any generation ever. They’re the greatest players we’ve ever had. Every generation has gotten better and this generation has gotten better. The owners, certainly, these are billionaire owners. And they’ve got great egos. There’s a big pot of money here. There’s plenty of money here. Everybody is doing well. Let’s don’t jeopardize what we have. Let’s think of how we can get this together. They’re not that far apart.”
Despite all the huffing and the puffing, we tend to agree that the two sides are closer than they appear to be. And they should be talking. And we fully support replacing George Cohen with Fran Tarkenton.