NFL Players Chief: “That’s probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
The NFL Players Association executive director is not angling for a lockout. He just seems resigned to one...
DeMaurice Smith is living up to his reputation as the anti-Gene Upshaw and which could result in his constituents having a lot more freedom... to do other things besides playing football in 2011.
Speaking to Mike Florio on the Dan Patrick radio show, Smith came prepared to sling arrows:
"It's clear to me that the National Football League over the last 2 years has done nothing but prepare for this lockout."
"They remain firm on a 1 billion dollar give back and the only thing that we have heard from them since April, in a constructive way, is we want to have the players play two extra regular season games."
As for a theory that the Union would welcome a lockout in the hopes that Congress would step in and exert enough force on the issue that the NFLPA would end up getting more in a resulting deal than they ever could on their own at the bargaining table? Let's just say that's not a strategy that Smith is publicly embracing.
"That's probably the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I've got 19 hundred players who rely on football for their livelihood. If you add another 2 thousand wives and children who are relying on the National Football League for their health care and you start with the premise that the average player plays 3.6 years, only an idiot would say that you would want to force someone's hand to give up one third of their potential career, throw thousands of people out of health care and eliminate the earning livelihood of 19 hundred men."
I'd be bracing for replacement players in 2011 which, on the bright side, would make for the most entertaining fantasy draft in the modern era.
You'll also like: