Category Archives: NFL

2011 Labor Dispute, Brian Schaefering, NFL, NFL Lockout, Rick Reilly

Where Is The Love?

Text from a friend last night:
“Dude, did you hear the lockout’s over! Sounds like football is back and so is our fantasy extravaganza!!!”
I still have not responded to the text.

Not because I am mad at my friend. (I actually did reply, I just changed the subject without acknowledging the lockout comment.)

Not because I am suddenly adverse to our fantasy football draft day. On the contrary, I’m always game for a 16-hour day of golf, fantasy draft, pizza, poker and whatever else we come up with.
It’s because, well, frankly, I just don’t care.
Something has either changed in me over the past 45 days since the lockout started, or I have been reading too many articles on our downtrodden economy.
Whatever the case may be, I’m downright furious this is such a big story.
I love football. I love the NFL. I love fall Sundays spent watching games and tracking fantasy stats. I love wearing my Chicago Bears hat like Clark Griswold when I put up my Christmas lights in December. I love playfully bantering with my wife’s family in Wisconsin about the Green Bay Packers, the Bears archrivals.
You know what I don’t love?
Billionaires and millionaires arguing over money for an extended period of time. They are the ones really engaged in a fantasy.
I don’t love media types like Rick Reilly, who makes a high six figures himself, writing about the poor players who made $680,000 last season and might have to get a “real” job supporting their family.
I don’t love the Reilly used Brian Schaefering of the Cleveland Browns as his example of someone we should feel sorry for. 
Schaefering made $200,000 after taxes last season from his $395,000 salary. He says his family is cutting back – watching their cable and cell phone bills, cutting out weekly date nights.
For dates, Schaefering says, “Now, it’s put the kids to bed and slap in a DVD.”
I don’t love how naive, egotistical and self-centered that actually sounds.
My wife and I do that all the time. $200,000 would be like hitting the lottery for us. We’ve watched cell phone bills and cable bills, grocery bills, and every other kind of bill for every year of our marriage. We’ve been crafty and creative at Christmas and haven’t bought a gift for each other in years.
There have been months we wondered if we would make it.
“If this goes into the season, my wife might start panicking a little,” Schaefering said.
Don’t worry, Brian. After six months of keeping your proverbial head above water, you stop panicking and just start doggy-paddling.
It’s called life. We just try to survive and advance to the next day.
At least, it’s life like 85 percent of America knows it.
Then there are those who don’t even have bills to worry about. Because they are homeless or jobless.
I don’t love the revelry that the owners and players treat this whole spectacle with.
“We can’t work out at the team facility! We can’t sign players to eight figure salaries!”
Meanwhile, the US dollar is falling like a brick from the sky. New estimates show that in 2016, China will surpass America in economic leadership. Gas is hovering near $4 a gallon, higher in some places.
Inflation keeps rising, but salaries for most normal jobs don’t. Unemployment hovers at 9.2 percent of the work force, a figure that has not been that high in nearly 30 years.
We do not really make anything in America anymore.  
I suppose that is not entirely true. We make reality shows and manufacture drama.
Mainly, we just consume. We’re obese and in poor health and then wonder why our medical bills are so high.
I don’t love billionaire owners arguing over more billions with millionaire players and I don’t love billionaire owners who scratch and claw for more money after fleecing cities for years by getting taxpayers to foot the bill for stadiums and arenas.
I don’t love the players pretending that this is the only possible profession in life and they are desperate.
I don’t love players who bemoan their medical care in a violent sport that leaves people seriously debilitated and that statistics show will shorten their lives.
Good sir, you chose to play this sport and are paid a lot of money to do so – even the Brian Schaefering’s of the NFL make more in one year than the President of the United States. Who has the tougher job? Deal with the consequences or get out of the line of work.
Miners and steel mill workers deal with some pretty serious stuff, too. They get probably a tenth of a percentage of the health care benefits an NFL player does. NFL players get treatment on their back, legs, arms, ankles, knees and hamstrings. My father has stood on concrete in a factory for 42 years. There’s no trainer ready with a heat pack at the end of the day.
Pensions are not high enough? Tell that to people who work at an auto factory for 35 years only to see it close and their told they have no pension anymore because it was paid out to some conniving CEO who won’t see any prison time but who was paid a 35 million dollars to go away and stop screwing up by lying and cheating.
I don’t love how our entertainment and sports are masquerading themselves as regular people with regular problems.
You are not us.
We do not understand you because you cannot possibly understand us.
You don’t love us. You just want to argue with yourselves about how to split up our money.
Our money is the money paid to companies when we buy their products at the grocery store, that in turn goes from those companies into advertisements during the long commercial breaks during your games encouraging us to buy more of their products.
Our money is the money paid to cable companies and networks to watch your games, which in turn is shelled out in 10-year contracts from those networks and cable companies for the rights to broadcast your games.
Our money is the money paid to go to games, paid to buy $7 hamburgers, $6 nachos and $10 beers at those games and paid to come home with a $100 jersey that was made in China.
Our money is the money that’s in your bank account, in your $10 million home and your $1,000 suits.
So sorry if right now, I don’t love you, NFL.
Sorry if right now, I don’t even care.
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Charlie Sheen, ESPN, Jason Whitlock, Lawrence Taylor, NFL, Pete Rose

Crime and (Lack of) Punishment

Buried in the sports pages and difficult to find within hours of being posted on the ESPN, Fox Sports and SI websites, there is a story out there that no one wants to address.
Former New York Giants star Lawrence Taylor is now a registered sex offender.
No one, not even Jason Whitlock, seems willing to tackle this nasty news and offer an opinion on Taylor or the seedy underbelly of humanity in which Taylor has long dwelled.
While I am disappointed in the current voices of sports media for not touching this story with a 10-foot pole, I get it. I understand why. Who wants to go there?
The whole situation is disgusting, impure and just plain gross. Just reading Taylor’s comments on the matter leave you in dire need of a shower. You’d need turpentine for your eyes.
But if we don’t discuss this, if it’s not addressed, then we’re doing a great disservice.
Or maybe I just need to get it off my chest.
Life and sports aren’t always happy. Every day is not a video montage of “One Shining Moment.” It’s not always feel good stories.
I get it. During a time of optimism, with baseball on the brink of another season, the beginning of spring and the NCAA Tournament providing smiles and buzzer beaters (as well as a distraction from this silly NFL labor dispute), the last thing we want to talk about is a washed up, former pro athlete who has been given probation for the use of an underage prostitute.
But it must be said: Lawrence Taylor is sick, depraved and should be in jail.
It’s widely known that Taylor used narcotics throughout his career and was suspended several times by the NFL for drug use. It’s also widely know that Taylor really ramped up this activity after his playing career was over, spending thousands of dollars a day on cocaine and basically living in seclusion surrounded by other drug users.
Taylor has admitted to using prostitutes before, mainly between 1994-2001, but last year he was indicted on charges of third degree statutory rape, sexual misconduct and patronizing a 16-year-old prostitute. He recently pled guilty and avoided jail time, receiving six years’ probation.
But he made no apologies.
Taylor told Fox News’ Shepard Smith that he blamed the institution of prostitution for ending up with an underage girl, but never took responsibility for himself.
“I’m not the cause of prostitution,” Taylor said. “And sometimes I make mistakes and I may go out there. And I didn’t pick her up on no playground. She wasn’t hiding behind the school bus or getting off a school bus. This was a working girl that came to my room.”
Just the fact he had to distinguish her as someone who wasn’t getting off a school bus gives me the willies. But a working girl? Yeah, LT, she’s a real 9-5er with deadlines and a briefcase.
Need that turpentine yet?
Whether directly or indirectly, Taylor is one of the causes of prostitution. As long as there are people like Taylor willing to pay for sex, then there will be prostitution.
Taylor said, “I’m not looking for a relationship. Hey, sometimes I look for some company. It’s all clean. I don’t have to worry about your feelings. It’s all clean.”
Actually, Mr. Taylor – it’s anything but clean.
It’s sick and seedy and disgusting.
Regardless of age – 16 or 19 – Taylor has something wrong with him.
This isn’t Charlie Sheen crazy funny, with cute little catch phrases.
It’s just sick and twisted.
The fact that Taylor is indifferent to the whole thing is perhaps most frightening.
“I guess you call it a crime,” he said on Tuesday. “It’s one of those crimes you don’t think about. You never think you’re gonna get busted because everyone does it until you get busted, and then it’s more embarrassing than anything else.”
A crime you don’t think about? No, it’s a crime we don’t think about because most of us don’t engage in that kind of reprehensible activity.
Taylor’s in some different, alternate reality – probably brought on by years of drug use and an out of control, narcissistic and toxic personality that thinks he’s somehow on another level.
He once said, “For me, crazy as it sounds, there is a real relationship between wild, reckless abandon off the field and being that way on the field.”
No, LT, there’s not a relationship. At all.
Taylor created one in his own mind to justify his actions. People do that all the time, some sort of reasoning mechanism to try and convince themselves their actions are not misguided.
Prostitution is a serious crime. Everyone, contrary to his belief, doesn’t do it. And it should be more than embarrassing, it’s should be shameful.
It should be a harsher sentence that six years’ probation.
Taylor is an empty man with an empty soul. Perhaps he’s always been that way.
After the Giants won the Super Bowl in January of 1987, he said, “Everyone was so excited, but by then I felt deflated. I’d won every award, had my best season, finally won the Super Bowl. I was on top of the world, right? So what could be next? Nothing. The thrill is the chase to get to the top. Every week the excitement builds and builds and builds, and then when you’re finally there and the game is over…nothing.”
For people like Taylor, empty people, there is nothing. No joy, no sense of contentment, even during a peak accomplishment.
And so he has continually chased “The Chase” all his life. He’s filled it with prostitution and drugs, searching for the big build, the thrill of the chase.
What he should feel now is the cold bars of prison shutting on his face.
How can you plead guilty to third degree statutory rape and not be in jail? How is it we honor and even remotely respect people like this? How is this man in the Hall of Fame?
He should be first ballot Hall of Shame.
We mock and despise Pete Rose for betting on baseball, but allow Taylor into his sport’s ultimate honor with open arms?
Taylor talks about feeling empty and clearly tries to fill that void by less than noble or honorable means. Thanks to his actions,  we’re the ones left feeling empty and sad. Empty and sad that this emotionless, shell of a man could make millions of dollars in the NFL, in endorsements and movies to feed his actions and his own hubris while hard working people strive just to make it to the next day.
While innocent people die of starvation, of natural disasters – like the tsunami we just saw destroy a part of the globe – Taylor somehow avoids jail time so he can continue to do his best to erase human decency and morality, all while increasing its depravity.
He’s been found guilty of tax evasion, been arrested numerous times for narcotics and prostitution, and now has agreed to a plea bargain of two misdemeanors: sexual misconduct and underage prostitution.
Misdemeanors? Are you kidding me?
It’s safe to say we might have figured out what Taylor has really been chasing all these years: Prison.
It’s only right we fulfill that desire for him, to fill that need that burns deep in his empty heart.
Taylor’s earned it, right? He’s worked hard to achieve it, so I say we give him the same feeling he had after the Super Bowl – that empty feeling of nothing but hard time alone in a prison cell.
There’s no crime in wanting that for you, is there Mr. Taylor?
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2010 Labor Dispute, Jerry Jones, Jerry Richardson, Major League Baseball 1994 Strike, NFL, Pat Bowlen, Roger Goodell, Scott Fujita

Beautiful Losers

As you’ve probably heard, this Sunday could be the last NFL action you’ll see for awhile.
Over the past few months, you’ve heard a lot about 18-game schedules and player safety. But really, truly, it’s about the money. It’s always about the money.
Just like the ugly and embarrassing baseball labor dispute in 1994, it’s not the players that have a problem with their piece of the pie. It’s the owners.
And it’s the commissioner, Roger Goodell, spinning his weave in order to maximize his brand and get the most money out of our collective pockets.
Goodell and a group of owners (Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, Pat Bowlen, Jerry Richardson to name a few) are see the opportunity to make the NFL even more profitable than it already is. They each want their own Scrooge McDuck “Money Bin” and they’ve come too far now to turn back on it.
This group wants a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that “accounts” for the investments they’ve made in new stadiums and other capital expenditures.
They think they got a raw deal when the current CBA, which they opted out of in 2008, expires next month.
They think the players receive too much of the revenue share of their adjusted gross revenues.
They think this is about them.
What’s perplexing is how these clearly successful entrepreneurial figures feel like they are being scammed. Revenue sharing does not address the fact that some teams have or have had favorable stadium deals that call for little or no expenditures from the organization, while others, ironically Jones’ Dallas Cowboys and Bowlen’s Denver Broncos, had to take out massive loans for new or renovated stadiums.
In turn, this upsets owners like Richardson, who owns the Carolina Panthers, because he has to write an eight figure check that subsidizes another team, say the Cincinnati Bengals, who’s owner (Mike Brown) is making a fine penny or two because of low overhead.
To make matters worse, there are owners who intentionally keep revenues and overhead low to maintain their spot in the bottom half of revenue-generators in order to ensure they will receive a subsidy.
All of this leads to this question: and this involves the players how? Sounds like the owners and the league need to figure out some new rules on playing nice and essentially cheating the system.
In regards to the stadium issues, the response to that would be simple. Isn’t that the cost of doing business? Of being an NFL owner? Why does a city, state of its residents have to foot the majority of the bill for a new stadium? The fans use the stadium, but they pay for tickets in order to use the facilities. They’re already paying for the use of the stadium, correct?
Let’s look at it like this: why don’t the owners pay more for player’s health insurance so they are taken care of long after they retire? Don’t the players get their ailments from playing for the NFL and it’s teams?
If you want the people to pay for your work office that aren’t employed by you, how can you use the logic that you won’t pay for healthcare of your former employees who, had they not played football, might otherwise be healthy?
It’s a twisted little game to play when you start bringing money, logic and sport together at the same table.  
They don’t usually make good dinner conversation.
In order to make-up the difference of what this group of owners feel they are losing, they are seeking a proposed 60 percent cut of a smaller revenue pie. 
Under the current CBA, owners get a credit of more than $1 billion for operating and investment expenses off the top of the annual revenue pool – that’s currently around $9 billion – before the remainder of the money is divvied up. 
Now the owners want about $2.4 billion in credits, citing the changing economic times. These additional credits include – and this is straight from the proposal – “professional fees”, practice facility costs and travel.
Um, what company asks for employees to pay for overhead and maintenance?
The players have tried to call the owners’ bluff, repeatedly asking the owners to open their books to prove the financial crisis they face. And the owners have always refused.
In addition, the 18-game schedule is nothing more than a slight of hand. If Goodell gets his way, it’s more revenue for the NFL and stretches the season. The players don’t want it for two reasons: 1) Naturally, they won’t get paid anymore than they already do and 2) Injuries.
Look at the New Orleans Saints, who used something like 235 running backs this season. The Green Bay Packers, NFC Champions, had 15 players put on injured reserve this season. They are currently fighting over whether or not those 15 guys will be in the team picture.
And while clearly the players aren’t inescapable of the blame, the owners seem to be playing some mystifying game called “Vagueness.”
Back in training camp last summer, Goodell made the rounds to all the teams. When he got to Cleveland, current Browns linebacker Scott Fujita, who sits on the player’s union executive board, called him out: “What is it going to take for us to get the deal done?”
Goodell’s response: “I don’t think there’s any sense of urgency right now. I don’t think there’s going to be one for a long time.”
Goodell went on to say that these things have a way of working themselves out.
Except when they don’t.
That baseball strike of 1994 is always remembered bitterly and all history remembers is the “greedy” players. However, the ordeal began because  the owners were unhappy with the deal they had. Baseball player’s union head Donald Fehr severely misread the situation and ordered a preemptive strike by the players with seven weeks left in the season.
All that did was cancel the 1994 World Series (sorry, Expos).
Is that where we are headed? Perhaps there won’t be a Super Bowl in Indianapolis next year at this time. Perhaps there will be no fantasy football, no Sunday afternoon Red Zone, no Madden ’12.
And that’s the real story, as it always is, with labor disputes. While the owners and players, who are already far richer than the NFL’s average fans will be in 10 lifetimes, argue and fuss over credits and billions of dollars and who’s paying for state-of-the-art facilities, the fans will be without the sport they love more than both the owners and players ever could.
Face it: we care more than they do.
We always have.
We always will.
Bob Seger once sang about a “beautiful loser,” someone who want both sides of the coin, security and freedom. That’s what comes to mind when Goodell says if there’s not a new deal done, he’ll cut his own salary to $1. Fear not, he’s been banking $10 million a year since he became commissioner of the NFL in 2006, so I think he’ll survive the work stoppage.
Question is, will the game and its popularity survive?
We’ll all answer that question, collectively, soon enough.
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