The Official Nfl Cba/lockout Thread

Canton Mike

I am a Fan, therefore, regardless who is/isn't at fault, who is greedy, who is a socialist, liberal, etc.....

I WANT NFL FOOTBALL IN 2011!!!!

THERE, I said it!

To the involved parties...."Git 'er done boys!"

Mike

hoorta

c-dawg said:

Thanks for confirming that you are a lunatic.

"Socialist share the wealth"? WHO bailed out the corporations? The taxpayers. There is some redistribution of wealth for you, idiot. They are taking our wealth and you are defending them. CORPORATE WELFARE! Get a clue!

Also, are you aware that 60% of the top 100 earning corporations in America PAY NO TAXES. Personal responsibility and lower taxes? You make me f*cking laugh.

You are also a fool not to realize it was Bush who ran up the deficit. WHERE were you pricks then? Sucking on Bush's balls you lame sh*t. Now you dare complain like you even understand what a budget or deficit are.

Wealth? All you have is a wealth of ignorance and shameful behavior.

Come on guys take it to political discussion, it isn't football. I'll put my .02 in and shut up. I'll have to a certain extent side with Mr Vozel. If you grew up in Cleveland, ever wonder where all those steel mills went? And why? When I worked down in the flats in the early 70s my mom's cousin was making as much as a crane operator @ Republic Steel as our plant manager was raking in. I was playing team tennis, and one of my teammates (a teacher BTW) had nice time summer employment gig sweeping floors @ J&L for double what I was making as a year of college lab tech. The Steel industry was paying so much in salary they couldn't afford to update decades old equipment, and the Japanese blew them out of the water with higher efficiency mills. Garment workers union? Gone to Sri Lanka or Indonesia sorry to say.

And if you wonder why everything is Made in China I'd suggest you take a look at THIS. Uncle Sam ain't the solution- he's the problem, we have regulations on top of regulations that the Chinese don't have to deal with.

Speaking of teachers- making about $50,000 a year getting three months off every summer, plus every Holiday, and every day (at least in Dayton) when there's 2" of snow when I have to haul my ass into work regardless (health care) is a pretty sweet gig in my book. In the past unions were able to extort wages & benefits that had no relation to the value of the product being produced, and to a certain extent that's still the case.

If you want to blame big bad business or big bad Bush, (who was neither compassionate or conservative) OK by me. Personally I would just as soon have seen GM fail- someone would have come in to pick up the pieces. And I do own stock in a few companies, and without fail every year someone puts a flyer on the annual agenda to limit executive salaries, and every year, it gets voted down, mainly because the executives who run the company have more shares than anyone else combined- you think they're going to take a pay cut?

kvozel

c-dawg said:

Thanks for confirming that you are a lunatic.

"Socialist share the wealth"? WHO bailed out the corporations? The taxpayers. There is some redistribution of wealth for you, idiot. They are taking our wealth and you are defending them. CORPORATE WELFARE! Get a clue!

Also, are you aware that 60% of the top 100 earning corporations in America PAY NO TAXES. Personal responsibility and lower taxes? You make me f*cking laugh.

You are also a fool not to realize it was Bush who ran up the deficit. WHERE were you pricks then? Sucking on Bush's balls you lame sh*t. Now you dare complain like you even understand what a budget or deficit are.

Wealth? All you have is a wealth of ignorance and shameful behavior.

Need I say more? I rest my case.

Bob806

Hoorta- the thread is about the lockout, so I just chimed in with my opinion. I'm not going to get into a lenghty argument over unions, get political, etc. on here. You're right, we come here to talk Browns stuff.

I'm done opining on this. I'm not an expert at much, but I do know lots about contract/labor talks.

I just want a 2011 season & beyond.

SJ_Browns

i'm watching nfl live and adam schefter is reporting that the nflpa has made a call out to the top 17 players not to show up to the draft.

SJ_Browns

adam schefter said (in this order) san francisco, tennessee, carolina, philly (kolb) and washington (mcnabb) are the teams that will be hurt the most by the lockout. herm edwards and mark schlereth(sp?) said cincy (palmer situation) should be on that list to.

? c-dawg

@kvozel said:

Need I say more? I rest my case.

Actually, you just conceded. Thinkin' hurts don't it?

Don't you realize the price people had to pay to get these benefits?

You act like all the union injustices since could somehow be equal to all the deaths and abuse that came before unions. You are sad and wrong and a tool of the folks who really have wealth. Here's a clue, you wouldn't be posting here if you had real $.

OK Mods, I am done with this.

Canton Mike

@sj_browns said:

i'm watching nfl live and adam schefter is reporting that the nflpa has made a call out to the top 17 players not to show up to the draft.

Meaning the top 17 draft eligible Collegiate players? That would be telling each of those kids to scrap what is probably the biggest day of their life to date. That's unbelievable, but IF true, I hope those kids tell 'em to GO TO HELL!

Mike

Bob806

c-dawg said:

Actually, you just conceded. Thinkin' hurts don't it?

Don't you realize the price people had to pay to get these benefits?

You act like all the union injustices since could somehow be equal to all the deaths and abuse that came before unions. You are sad and wrong and a tool of the folks who really have wealth. Here's a clue, you wouldn't be posting here if you had real $.

OK Mods, I am done with this.

Good job....over & out for me too.

SJ_Browns

@canton-mike said:

Meaning the top 17 draft eligible Collegiate players?

Mike

yes.

kvozel

c-dawg said:

Actually, you just conceded. Thinkin' hurts don't it?

Don't you realize the price people had to pay to get these benefits?

You act like all the union injustices since could somehow be equal to all the deaths and abuse that came before unions. You are sad and wrong and a tool of the folks who really have wealth. Here's a clue, you wouldn't be posting here if you had real $.

OK Mods, I am done with this.

I'm glad your happy. Maybe one of these days you will actually be able to have an intelligent conversation without personal name calling. Let me know if that ever happens.

choco

hmmm...

great tactic...bullying kids

yup..unions are great and all. i wonder how many thugs will end up on any of those kids doorsteps if they get anywhere close to radio city.

wait.....i thought they weren't a union? lol....what a sham.

The Gipper

@choco said:

hmmm...

great tactic...bullying kids

yup..unions are great and all. i wonder how many thugs will end up on any of those kids doorsteps if they get anywhere close to radio city.

wait.....i thought they weren't a union? lol....what a sham.

The key question will be: which judge will this litigation be placed in front of. For 20 years Judge David Doty up there in Minneapolis has been assigned all matters of labor relations between the NFL and the NFLPA. If the case is again placed on his docket, it is suspected that he will again pretty much take the Union's side in these matters. However, if it is assigned to a different judge, and that judge keeps it and doesn't pass it on to Doty, then things could be different.

Certainly the "Decertification" is a sham. I doubt that anyone except the directors and lawyers for the NFLPA would argue otherwise. But, it is a sham that the courts have allowed to occur in the past.

I am not saying that the owners are any less culpable than the players in this regard, but the fact is, this matter should be resolved through labor negotiations, not through litigation. The union has decided to turn to litigation simply because it has been successful for them in the past.

choco

yeah...i in no way think the owners are squeeky clean here....neither side is. but this is a pretty low blow by the PA to bring these kids into it....

Brownsfan_Althaus

this needs to be figured out asap. i don't think I would make it to 2012 without watching my browns..

SJ_Browns

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=6232940

MARCO ISLAND, Fla. -- Chiefs veteran linebacker Mike Vrabel has an idea for progressing talks between the NFL Players Association and the owners who have locked them out: Cut out the middle men.

Vrabel, speaking to ESPN's George Smith in a roundtable interview during a break at the former union's annual meeting Friday, suggested meetings that don't include commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL's lead labor attorneys would be to everyone's advantage.

"We are willing to negotiate. But we don't want to negotiate with Bob Batterman, Jeff Pash or Roger Goodell," Vrabel said, referring to the NFL's outside labor counsel in Batterman and its executive vice president and lead counsel in Pash. "Our executive committee needs to negotiate with Jerry Jones, Bob Kraft, Jerry Richardson -- their executive committee. People that are willing and can agree to a deal. Jeff Pash can't agree to a deal."

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the league accepts Vrabel's invitation to negotiate but didn't rule out the top executives' participation.

"The NFL's negotiating team -- accompanied by the three owners Mike mentioned, Jerry Jones, Jerry Richardson and Robert Kraft -- is prepared to meet immediately. Just tell us when and where," Aiello said of the Cowboys owner, the Panthers owner and the Patriots owner.

A week after the union decertified and a lockout began shortly thereafter, Vrabel was among several players who continued to ratchet up the rhetoric publicly, targeting the owners group's motives and means in the NFL's labor stalemate.

Pete Kendall, the NFLPA's permanent player representative, told reporters labor negotiations broke down last week because the owners' last proposal would have made salaries a fixed cost and eliminated the players' chance to share in higher-than-projected revenue growth.

"That's a fundamental change as to the way the business has been done with the players -- player percentage always has been tied to revenues," said Kendall, a former 13-year offensive lineman who retired after the 2008 season.

Colts center and player representative Jeff Saturday, speaking to ESPN's Smith along with Vrabel, Saints quarterback Drew Brees, Broncos safety and player rep Brian Dawkins and Ravens player representative Domonique Foxworth, bashed a letter Goodell sent to all NFL players Thursday in which he detailed the owners' version of events that led to last Friday's lockout.

"It's his attempt to, you know, to divide us as a group of men," Saturday said. "You know, anytime you send something out like that after we've been in negotiations for two-years plus, you know, 15-day extension -- all the things we've been through -- you know it's just one of those tactics different people use during the negotiations."

Mediation cut off last Friday, and the union dissolved itself, allowing players to file suit in federal court. Hours later, when the old collective bargaining agreement expired, owners locked out the players.

"The reality is we've been communicating to our men throughout this whole process about what the offers really are, what the numbers really are, things that we have tried to agree upon that have not been agreed upon and as a group of men we knew it wasn't a deal that our membership would accept," Saturday said.

In a speech Friday to players at the NFLPA's annual meeting, NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said he won't be paid during the work stoppage -- the league's first since 1987. Goodell and Pash, the league's lead labor negotiator, already said they would reduce their salaries to a dollar each.

"Our players are locked out," Smith said during a brief session with reporters. "The league made a unilaterial decision to punish the people who made this game great."

Smith said he does not consider Goodell's letter an attempt to engage in good-faith negotiations. The league, he said, could attempt to restart talks by writing, instead, to lawyers representing the players now that the union has dissolved.

"Let's not kid ourselves. Jeff Pash ... knows that class counsel can always engage in discussions with counsel for the National Football League to have discussions relating to a settlement," Smith said. "He knows what letter should have been sent."

Kendall described the league's 11th-hour offer as "kind of the old switcheroo," saying that throughout negotiations the players' chance to share in increased revenues had been a key component of how to divide the NFL's yearly take of more than $9 billion.

Kendall said the discussions until talks stopped last Friday -- the 16th day of federal mediation -- always revolved around the premise that if the rise in league revenues exceeded a certain percentage each year, players would get a cut.

"The most important thing is getting back to playing football again," Brees said. "And that's why we're enjoining a lockout. Like all these guys have said, we, our intention was never to get locked out, we wanted to get a fair deal done. We always had guys there to do that."

Brees addressed the perceived Catch-22 surrounding rookie prospects' decision over whether to attend next month's draft, set for April 28-30.

"Each rookie has -- if they've been invited to New York -- they absolutely have the option of going to New York," Brees said in the interview with ESPN. "I think to our point it was -- how do you feel about walking across the stage and shaking the hand of the commissioner who just locked you out? And as great an experience as it is to get drafted, which it absolutely is, I think the even greater experience is to play your first game, and to have to opportunity to win a championship and right now that's being threatened with this lockout."

While the addition of an immediate 18-game schedule was tabled in the negotiations early last week, the possibility for instituting it in future seasons -- with the players' approval -- was retained.

"Eighteen games does nothing for our health and safety," said Foxworth, the former defensive back and Ravens player rep who retired in 2009. "We're not looking to make any financial gains, we're looking to protect former players and make protections and safety improvements for current players."

But the players told ESPN's Smith it wasn't a deal-breaker.

"No. We'll negotiate on the economics of football," Vrabel said. "We're not negotiating on health and safety. And as far as we're concerned 18 games lies right in the way of our players health and safety."

Pash told the AP this week that the owners' final proposal was for a 10-year CBA. Kendall confirmed that.

"A 10-year, fair deal might be something worth considering," Kendall said. "A 10-year deal where the players don't participate in any of the upside is not a deal that I think is ... something that the players should have taken."

An April 6 hearing date is set for U.S. District Court in Minnesota for a ruling on the players' request for an injunction that would end the lockout.

But a settlement between the owners and players before the hearing is unlikely, an NFLPA source told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter earlier this week. The source said a ruling on the players' injunction request was expected within a week of the hearing.

"We're confident that this injunction is gonna be granted," Foxworth said. "And I think the message to the fans is -- all the fans should just unite and root for this at this point. You don't have a team to root for at this point, you wanna root for your team when the season comes, you need to be outside the courthouse with your face painted cheering for the judge to grant this injunction. Because I think simply put if we are granted this injunction there will be football."

medicineman

At this point I am jusd fed up with both sides. All the money these jerk offs have and they are to stupid to come to a deal that there might not be a season. I would love to see all of them go broke and have a brand new leauge start.

SJ_Browns

http://www.cleveland.com/browns/index.ssf/2011/03/former_cleveland_cornerback_fr.html

Cleveland - The most recent time there was a work stoppage in the NFL was the players' strike in 1987. They walked out to force owners to give them free agency after their contracts ran out.

Ultimately, the players got what they wanted. But to get there, they had to endure the immensely divisive strike, which was broken by the owners' use of replacement "scab" players; four years of partial free agency and other management-friendly rules imposed by owners; decertification of the players union; and finally a huge win in federal court.

By the time a new collective bargaining agreement was reached in 1993, featuring unrestricted free agency for players and a salary cap for owners, many of the players who walked picket lines in 1987 were too old to take advantage of the new system.

Browns cornerback Frank Minnifield was one of them. Minnifield joined the Browns in 1984 and retired after his last season with them in 1992. A successful businessman in his hometown of Lexington, Ky., Minnifield views the current work stoppage with interest. His son, Chase, a starting cornerback at the University of Virginia, will be a draftable player in 2012.

"It's a shame," Frank Minnifield said of the labor dispute. "It happens probably to every generation. I guess it's just part of the evil that's associated with the NFL. You know, money is the root of all evil."

This time, the owners have precipitated the stoppage. They've locked out players and want a deal that is less favorable to the players.

"The owners have such a huge advantage on the players," Minnifield said. "I'm sure we're all amazed [the players] have been able to negotiate to the position where the owners feel they're at a disadvantage. But I don't believe the owners are going to lose that much money."

Minnifield, naturally, sides with the players in this newest scuffle. He said they deserve all the money they can make in their short careers.

"There's just too many kids who get hurt to the point where their life is affected the rest of their lives," he said. "I saw a statistic . . . it was mind-blowing, about how many kids in college are maimed because of football. Then you're talking about a person in the owner's box, just taking a financial risk. That's a different risk than a physical risk."

Minnifield is 51. He played two years in the United States Football League and came to the Browns after surgery to fix a busted a knee. The rest of his injuries in his nine-year NFL career, including a lacerated kidney, were treated without surgery.

"I think anybody that was on the football field trying to win has a [health] problem," he said. "I'm not in no hospital, but I know I played 11 years of pro football. I like playing golf. There are many times I have to say, 'I can't play today,' with something hurting. There's many of those days. That goes on with all of us.

"Some of these guys get through it unscathed, without paying a real heavy toll with their health. But I would say the majority, over 50 percent, when they get to my age will be experiencing some problems they don't even realize. And they're going to need all the money they have to make it to 70. It takes a lot of money to make it to 70."

When Minnifield thinks back to the 1987 strike, the memories are not pleasant. The players walked out after the second game. The third game of the season was canceled. By the fourth week, owners had rounded up whole new teams of "replacement players" -- former college or pro players who had gone on to their life's work as truck drivers, teachers and the like.

Stressed for money, the regulars slinked back late in the week after the second "scab" game -- only to be turned away until the replacements were given a third game. Divide and conquer was a successful strategy for the owners.

The strike tore apart the Browns, Minnifield said.

"It got real ugly," he said. "I think those days are still kind of a little messy for all of us because of how we were all divided. I really believe that it really messed up the chemistry of our team from that point on."

Surprisingly, Minnifield did not begrudge the replacement players from taking his job temporarily. Much stronger emotions were spent on the regular players who broke ranks and crossed picket lines. Eight Browns did that for the third replacement game, including team leaders such as Gary Danielson and Ozzie Newsome.

"It was kind of hard dealing with the fact some guys went back, some didn't, and some guys were financially better off because they went back [versus] the guys who stayed together," Minnifield said. "I think that was tough. We didn't talk about it because everybody would get mad. But I think it affected us for the rest of our careers together.

"We didn't want anybody to go back. We wanted to stay together and whatever consequences there were we wanted to face them as a team. If we were going to have to fight harder because we were behind and lost those three games, then so be it. I don't think anybody was going to accept any reason for crossing the line.

"We had a special relationship. Our whole team was special. We'd go over each other's house. We actually liked each other. There aren't too many [teams] that hung out like we did. It was common to go over somebody's house each week and just eat together. Thanksgiving was unbelievable. After that strike, we didn't do it again. Most of that stuff just stopped. There was a whole lot of guys who were upset that didn't talk about it. We went on with our business. But our relationship was never the same."

The Browns were hurt more than most teams by the disruption. Coming off the AFC Championship Game loss to John Elway and "The Drive," 1987 was to be their year. The strike wiped out Game 3 of the '87 schedule. It happened to be Elway's regular-season return to Cleveland.

Had the game been played and the Browns won, they would have finished with a better record than Denver and earned home-field advantage in the '87 season AFC Championship. Instead, they had to play in Denver. Elway again prevailed in the loss remembered by "The Fumble."

"We would have beat Denver in Cleveland because we were a better team," Minnifield said. "They wouldn't have beat us two years in a row. That was our best team. We were all young kids. We were probably as good as football players in '87 as we were in our whole career."

SJ_Browns

this article just backs up my reasons for siding with the players. plus it's nice to get a perspective on this from minny. he went through it before and knows it all too well.

Harry Buffalo

Two new articles on the Plains Dealer today about the lock out.

Audit shows NFL players received 52.9% of revenues, not 70 as league says

Basically is what the title says. Both owners and players were lied too.

NFL files suit to keep lawsuit in place, accuses players of trying to maniuplate the law

The NFL trying to keep the lock out in place if the Players Association's lawsuit gets what it want's and the federal courts rule that the lockout is illegal.