Steve Jordan is not the average parent of an NFL draft prospect. He’s a six-time Pro Bowler who was part of one of the antitrust lawsuits against the NFL in the early 90’s.
That’s why Jordan will feel conflicted on draft day when his son Cameron crosses the stage to shake Commissioner Roger Goodell’s hand.
“I’m really disappointed in terms of what’s going on with the kids and the draft,” Jordan told Yahoo’s Michael Silver. “I understand that it really is a big thing to be drafted, and to have an opportunity to go to New York is a cool thing for some kids. But walking across the stage to shake hands with the commissioner, the guy who’s basically working against you –- it’s pretty ironic.
“You’re going to shake his hand, and he’s going to tell you, ‘Congratulations, welcome to the league, you’re locked out. And by the way, don’t get injured between now and whenever we play again, or you’ll be out of luck.’”
Jordan said that the ownership tactics this time around remind him a lot of what happened twenty years ago. And he’s not too hopeful for the newest round of mediation.
“To show you how much things have degraded, they couldn’t even agree on where to go for mediation. They blew three days deciding on that? Wow,” Jordan said.
(If nothing else, the NFL and NFLPA* have successfully lowered expectations. A federal judge orders them to talk and most people expect it to be fruitless. The bar is pretty low.)
No matter how mediation goes, Cameron Jordan should get his moment in the sun sometime in the first round on April 28. (He went twentieth in our latest mock.) Silver got to sit in with Jordan and Falcons G.M. Thomas Dimitroff during a pre-draft dinner, and the Cal defensive end comes across as a funny dude.
He said watching his former teammate Tyson Alualu get drafted No. 10 overall made a big impression on him.
“It was sort of like a Zoolander moment. ‘Maybe I can do that for a career. I could be really, really, really good-looking,’” Jordan said.
We’ll see what other movie references Cameron has up his sleeve Thursday, when he joins Florio as a guest on PFT Live.